> People fight for headcount not just to grow their empire, but because there is so much work to do, and they (as managers) are accountable for getting that wor

> People fight for headcount not just to grow their empire, but because there is so much work to do, and they (as managers) are accountable for getting that work done. How does this square with a company like Google that is famous for having multiple teams competing with each other on the same product categories, ie the disaster that is their chat platform? Sure, there's work to do - because they're creating frivolous work intentionally. It's nothing but empire building. And the end result is a worse product! I get that my topic is a bit of a tangent because you're talking mostly about IC productivity and the gist of my comment is on managerial incompetence. But ultimately my point is people are doing meaningless work and the system is designed for it. I've never worked somewhere that valued productivity over politics when it came time to promote people.