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Why does it seem like there is so much "fad-like appeal" even in the rungs of upper management at large companies. You see it now with AI. Diverting of resour

Why does it seem like there is so much "fad-like appeal" even in the rungs of upper management at large companies. You see it now with AI. Diverting of resources away from projects that, only a few years ago, were yielding good results and could benefit from a refresh now. As recently as 2022, Amazon was giving away very nice AWS promotional credits for skills, and there are some very good ones. You see it with Google's new buildings. Stopping construction after a bad quarter?

hibernator149 3y ago
Upper management are just average people with better networking and less empathy. They fall for fads and FOMO just like everyone else.
- candiodari 3y ago
  Generously you could say they're reacting to the "real danger". The danger to them personally is that someone else does better at a currently fancy project and appears more capable than them to others.
- silviot 3y ago
  > Upper management are just average people with better networking and less empathy Very concise and to the point. I might print and hang this!
- jajko 3y ago
  Average is downplaying their IQ IMHO, but I agree with the rest. And at the end, same result in both cases.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    I dont know why your up-playing their IQ. there may not be a ton of forrest gump tier dummies, but they're often profoundly average people. I've done consulting at F500 companies and was consistently not-impressed by director levels and above, dudes in tech for 30 years and didn't have an understanding of what "production" meant. Outsourcing literally their basic day to day job responsibilities to Accenture and McKinsey to the point where pretty much anyone reading HN could have been in their role. A lot was "flash" -- looking good, speaking grandly, and sticking to broad approaches that they could assign to a technical senior manager or contributor. And a lot of the time, to be honest, that worked: sometimes you just gotta motivate people with big gestures. But once it became time to actually get outside of the box and generate new ideas they were stuffed shirts.
    - Workaccount2 3y ago
      I'd suggest working in the pits of blue collar work for a few years before deciding on what "average intelligence" is.
modeless 3y ago
Alexa never yielded good results. It was a bad business and a bad product. Just like every other voice assistant. Meanwhile, AI is the only thing that could possibly make a voice assistant product decent. But it will require a complete change in approach and these "skills" made the old way will be irrelevant.
- smileysteve 3y ago
  And it will still be a bad "product" because ai + voice will be more expensive than ads can support and less useful than most consumers will pay

hibernator149 3y ago

Upper management are just average people with better networking and less empathy. They fall for fads and FOMO just like everyone else.

candiodari 3y ago
Generously you could say they're reacting to the "real danger". The danger to them personally is that someone else does better at a currently fancy project and appears more capable than them to others.
silviot 3y ago
> Upper management are just average people with better networking and less empathy Very concise and to the point. I might print and hang this!
jajko 3y ago
Average is downplaying their IQ IMHO, but I agree with the rest. And at the end, same result in both cases.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  I dont know why your up-playing their IQ. there may not be a ton of forrest gump tier dummies, but they're often profoundly average people. I've done consulting at F500 companies and was consistently not-impressed by director levels and above, dudes in tech for 30 years and didn't have an understanding of what "production" meant. Outsourcing literally their basic day to day job responsibilities to Accenture and McKinsey to the point where pretty much anyone reading HN could have been in their role. A lot was "flash" -- looking good, speaking grandly, and sticking to broad approaches that they could assign to a technical senior manager or contributor. And a lot of the time, to be honest, that worked: sometimes you just gotta motivate people with big gestures. But once it became time to actually get outside of the box and generate new ideas they were stuffed shirts.
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    I'd suggest working in the pits of blue collar work for a few years before deciding on what "average intelligence" is.

modeless 3y ago

Alexa never yielded good results. It was a bad business and a bad product. Just like every other voice assistant. Meanwhile, AI is the only thing that could possibly make a voice assistant product decent. But it will require a complete change in approach and these "skills" made the old way will be irrelevant.

smileysteve 3y ago
And it will still be a bad "product" because ai + voice will be more expensive than ads can support and less useful than most consumers will pay