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Oh I thought this was going to be along the lines of Michael Dell's assertion. He said ever time Dell doubled in size, he needed to revisit all the processes. A

Oh I thought this was going to be along the lines of Michael Dell's assertion. He said ever time Dell doubled in size, he needed to revisit all the processes. Automate things that used to be manageable by hand. Customize processes that used to be one-size-fits-all. Because a bigger company has different optimal solution points for nearly everything. (Which could be taken to heart by people insisting that government should go back to some imagined simpler past. Those old processes are obsolete; there's no going back. But that's another tale.)

haolez 2y ago
I'm curious in cases like this if it's worth growing so much as a single company. It feels more efficient, in my mind, if the company splits up in smaller pieces everytime that demand grows and products change. It's just a feeling.
- eep_social 2y ago
  I don’t have a link but go read about Gore, Inc (of gore-tex fame) which did/does something along these lines.
XorNot 2y ago
It's relevant that more people in software tend not to understand this either, despite our entire profession being rife with these sorts of problems. The non-linear scaling of sorting algorithms is a classic one, and even the different optimization points is baked into the "optimal" solution - i.e. quicksort when your number of elements is below a threshold is better replaced with an insertion-sort, and indeed this is what most implementations do. Which is an algorithmic example of solution overhead dwarfing problem size (and yet if you're above that threshold, the more complex solution will always win).
hobobaggins 2y ago
> Which could be taken to heart by people insisting that government should go back to some imagined simpler past. Those old processes are obsolete; there's no going back. But that's another tale. It isn't imagined, and there's no reason government ever needed to turn into a giant, bloated bureaucracy that's more interested in sustaining its own existence and growing ever-larger. In the United States, for example, the federal government alone is the largest employer in the entire world. Yes, bigger than the governments of countries that have three times as many people. Loved the rest of your comment though :)
- JoeAltmaier 2y ago
  A giant country needs more governing. Dreaming about 'going back' is fantasy. Sure there's plenty of things to improve. Just don't break everything before fixing it; people's lives depend on it.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > a giant, bloated bureaucracy [...] In the United States, for example, the federal government alone is the largest employer in the entire world. That's misleading: You are asserting "lots of pencil-pushing bureaucrats", but the numbers you're touting instead rest upon "lots of gun-holding soldiers." Depending on how you crunch the numbers, India or China may have taken the #1 spot by now.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    P.S.: In contrast, consider the OECD stats for "Employment in general government as a percentage of total employment" [0], where the USA ranked somewhere like *squints* ~22nd in 2019, below the OECD average. [0] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75f92d89-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/75f92d89-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75f92d89-en/index.html?i... , graph 3.1
- zamadatix 2y ago
  The supermajority of employees of the federal government are from military/defense growth explosion sustained since WWII. The US is also not top of the list these days, India's department of defense has taken the crown. I.e. being a top employer is and has been mostly due to having a massive military, not bureaucratic growth, even outside the US. It's also worth noting federal employment numbers peaked 30 years ago, when there were 25% less people living in the country, so it's by no means been continuously growing ever larger. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-f...
  - brianleb 2y ago
    A super majority is a specified proportion that is in excess of a simple majority (e.g., where a simple majority would be 51%, a super majority might be defined as 60%). Per your link (which is admittedly interesting), military/defense only accounts for about for 770k of 2.2M full time federal employees. That is not a super majority, that is a plurality (the single largest group but not a majority).
dec0dedab0de 2y ago
Which could be taken to heart by people insisting that government should go back to some imagined simpler past. Those old processes are obsolete; there's no going back. But that's another tale. We definitely could create smaller governments to slow the consolidation of power. Splitting the more populous states in half or whatever, and treating the remaining states more like the EU treats it’s states would be a huge step in the right direction. but as you said it’s another tale.
- o11c 2y ago
  Why would adding more moving parts help? Standardization is a good thing, and America is very bad at it if you ever try to do anything that crosses state borders.
  - uoaei 2y ago
    Because "machine" is a poor analog for government activities.
  - dec0dedab0de 2y ago
    The goal is not efficiency, the goal is to minimize the amount of damage that can be done by a single person or group with evil intentions.
diego_sandoval 2y ago
On that vein, we could also say that if Elon Musk was capable of firing 80% of Twitter and keep the company performing the same functions, maybe the same could be done to governments.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  Twitter today could hardly be described as performing the same functions as pre-Elon. The fact that the entire thread is not readable without an outside app or an account is but one of many things that has changed.
  - diego_sandoval 2y ago
    Half of the time, I wasn't able to read threads (or even the linked tweet) without an account even before Musk's acquisition.

haolez 2y ago

I'm curious in cases like this if it's worth growing so much as a single company. It feels more efficient, in my mind, if the company splits up in smaller pieces everytime that demand grows and products change. It's just a feeling.

eep_social 2y ago
I don’t have a link but go read about Gore, Inc (of gore-tex fame) which did/does something along these lines.

XorNot 2y ago

It's relevant that more people in software tend not to understand this either, despite our entire profession being rife with these sorts of problems. The non-linear scaling of sorting algorithms is a classic one, and even the different optimization points is baked into the "optimal" solution - i.e. quicksort when your number of elements is below a threshold is better replaced with an insertion-sort, and indeed this is what most implementations do. Which is an algorithmic example of solution overhead dwarfing problem size (and yet if you're above that threshold, the more complex solution will always win).

hobobaggins 2y ago

> Which could be taken to heart by people insisting that government should go back to some imagined simpler past. Those old processes are obsolete; there's no going back. But that's another tale. It isn't imagined, and there's no reason government ever needed to turn into a giant, bloated bureaucracy that's more interested in sustaining its own existence and growing ever-larger. In the United States, for example, the federal government alone is the largest employer in the entire world. Yes, bigger than the governments of countries that have three times as many people. Loved the rest of your comment though :)

JoeAltmaier 2y ago
A giant country needs more governing. Dreaming about 'going back' is fantasy. Sure there's plenty of things to improve. Just don't break everything before fixing it; people's lives depend on it.
Terr_ 2y ago
> a giant, bloated bureaucracy [...] In the United States, for example, the federal government alone is the largest employer in the entire world. That's misleading: You are asserting "lots of pencil-pushing bureaucrats", but the numbers you're touting instead rest upon "lots of gun-holding soldiers." Depending on how you crunch the numbers, India or China may have taken the #1 spot by now.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  P.S.: In contrast, consider the OECD stats for "Employment in general government as a percentage of total employment" [0], where the USA ranked somewhere like *squints* ~22nd in 2019, below the OECD average. [0] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75f92d89-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/75f92d89-en https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/75f92d89-en/index.html?i... , graph 3.1
zamadatix 2y ago
The supermajority of employees of the federal government are from military/defense growth explosion sustained since WWII. The US is also not top of the list these days, India's department of defense has taken the crown. I.e. being a top employer is and has been mostly due to having a massive military, not bureaucratic growth, even outside the US. It's also worth noting federal employment numbers peaked 30 years ago, when there were 25% less people living in the country, so it's by no means been continuously growing ever larger. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-federal-government/ https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-work-for-the-f...
- brianleb 2y ago
  A super majority is a specified proportion that is in excess of a simple majority (e.g., where a simple majority would be 51%, a super majority might be defined as 60%). Per your link (which is admittedly interesting), military/defense only accounts for about for 770k of 2.2M full time federal employees. That is not a super majority, that is a plurality (the single largest group but not a majority).

dec0dedab0de 2y ago

Which could be taken to heart by people insisting that government should go back to some imagined simpler past. Those old processes are obsolete; there's no going back. But that's another tale. We definitely could create smaller governments to slow the consolidation of power. Splitting the more populous states in half or whatever, and treating the remaining states more like the EU treats it’s states would be a huge step in the right direction. but as you said it’s another tale.

o11c 2y ago
Why would adding more moving parts help? Standardization is a good thing, and America is very bad at it if you ever try to do anything that crosses state borders.
- uoaei 2y ago
  Because "machine" is a poor analog for government activities.
- dec0dedab0de 2y ago
  The goal is not efficiency, the goal is to minimize the amount of damage that can be done by a single person or group with evil intentions.

diego_sandoval 2y ago

On that vein, we could also say that if Elon Musk was capable of firing 80% of Twitter and keep the company performing the same functions, maybe the same could be done to governments.

dghlsakjg 2y ago
Twitter today could hardly be described as performing the same functions as pre-Elon. The fact that the entire thread is not readable without an outside app or an account is but one of many things that has changed.
- diego_sandoval 2y ago
  Half of the time, I wasn't able to read threads (or even the linked tweet) without an account even before Musk's acquisition.