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This attitude is why private equity is destroying US companies. The hubris and ignorance of investors routinely gets translated into a cull of workers whose job

This attitude is why private equity is destroying US companies. The hubris and ignorance of investors routinely gets translated into a cull of workers whose jobs they don't understand, leaving behind "lean" organizations that retain only whatever bits are currently most profitable but are less functional, resilient, sustainable, and humane.

FredPret 2y ago
Investors routinely make big mistakes, but they also routinely get wiped out and replaced by someone with a more long-term vision. Think how much money all the day-traders put together make (probably less than zero) versus someone like Warren Buffett (a lot more than zero!), or the many successful owner-operated or founder-owned companies out there.
falcor84 2y ago
I would agree, except for the fact that I read Graeber's Bullshit Jobs and was quite convinced by his research showing that anything between 15-50% of employees across many surveys believe that their role is useless.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  You can believe your role is useless and be wrong. It may be that the processes were grown in a time when the needs were different, and hopefully those needs were for a worse version of today - a kind of bad situation that might just come back around again. A system in which every resource is 100% utilized has no slack or adaptability.
bdcravens 2y ago
Perhaps, but how many Assistant Directors of Tech Conference Swag Acquisition is too many?
hot_gril 2y ago
There was a real industry-wide hiring glut leading up to this. Once the market changed, a lot of companies had more people than they knew what to do with.
- candiodari 2y ago
  Yeah, but the glut was used for something. And that something was management mandated projects. All successful Google projects were bottom-up ideas or acquisitions, with management usually fighting it as much as they can, because that's what management does. Management isn't involved in actual functioning of the company, just in how it's organized. And of course, their main skill always turns out to be "organizing" it to their own advantage. Actual good ideas WILL lead to reorganizing work, and rearranging the management deck chairs. So management always turns out to be radically against those. The engineers at the bottom are not just a necessity, they're THE source of revenue. But guess what happens when you "trim the fat". Management is really good at keeping themselves in a job, and don't care about sacrificing the bottom. Meaning the worst possible outcome, according to these investors, and I'm 100% sure this happened at Google: the proportion of managers goes up when the layoffs happen. MORE organizing, less work.
  - add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
    > Management is really good at keeping themselves in a job, and don't care about sacrificing the bottom. Engineers are also good at explaining why their system or feature needs to be three times more complex than it really needs to be. Or why last year's tool or framework needs to be replaced with a new one. As an engineer I've seen this bullshit my whole career.
    - hot_gril 2y ago
      With no incoming work, we SWEs will make ourselves "100% utilized" just rearranging things. We might be sincerely trying to clean up the software, but still, it'll never end until you give us a real task.
      - candiodari 2y ago
        And the alternative is to have managers who do nothing but rearrange the chairs in the company. Which doesn't even achieve good uptime or code cleanup, plus, in the case that your company does find something to do, those engineers CAN do it. The managers can't.
dredmorbius 2y ago
Seeing Like a State / Legibility. James C. Scott. <https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-state/ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-...>

FredPret 2y ago

Investors routinely make big mistakes, but they also routinely get wiped out and replaced by someone with a more long-term vision. Think how much money all the day-traders put together make (probably less than zero) versus someone like Warren Buffett (a lot more than zero!), or the many successful owner-operated or founder-owned companies out there.

falcor84 2y ago

I would agree, except for the fact that I read Graeber's Bullshit Jobs and was quite convinced by his research showing that anything between 15-50% of employees across many surveys believe that their role is useless.

jvanderbot 2y ago
You can believe your role is useless and be wrong. It may be that the processes were grown in a time when the needs were different, and hopefully those needs were for a worse version of today - a kind of bad situation that might just come back around again. A system in which every resource is 100% utilized has no slack or adaptability.

bdcravens 2y ago

Perhaps, but how many Assistant Directors of Tech Conference Swag Acquisition is too many?

hot_gril 2y ago

There was a real industry-wide hiring glut leading up to this. Once the market changed, a lot of companies had more people than they knew what to do with.

candiodari 2y ago
Yeah, but the glut was used for something. And that something was management mandated projects. All successful Google projects were bottom-up ideas or acquisitions, with management usually fighting it as much as they can, because that's what management does. Management isn't involved in actual functioning of the company, just in how it's organized. And of course, their main skill always turns out to be "organizing" it to their own advantage. Actual good ideas WILL lead to reorganizing work, and rearranging the management deck chairs. So management always turns out to be radically against those. The engineers at the bottom are not just a necessity, they're THE source of revenue. But guess what happens when you "trim the fat". Management is really good at keeping themselves in a job, and don't care about sacrificing the bottom. Meaning the worst possible outcome, according to these investors, and I'm 100% sure this happened at Google: the proportion of managers goes up when the layoffs happen. MORE organizing, less work.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  > Management is really good at keeping themselves in a job, and don't care about sacrificing the bottom. Engineers are also good at explaining why their system or feature needs to be three times more complex than it really needs to be. Or why last year's tool or framework needs to be replaced with a new one. As an engineer I've seen this bullshit my whole career.
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    With no incoming work, we SWEs will make ourselves "100% utilized" just rearranging things. We might be sincerely trying to clean up the software, but still, it'll never end until you give us a real task.
    - candiodari 2y ago
      And the alternative is to have managers who do nothing but rearrange the chairs in the company. Which doesn't even achieve good uptime or code cleanup, plus, in the case that your company does find something to do, those engineers CAN do it. The managers can't.

dredmorbius 2y ago

Seeing Like a State / Legibility. James C. Scott. <https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-state/ https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300078152/seeing-like-a-...>