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Hindsight is 20/20 This is a public company after all. In this market, you don’t become a “Top-Tier Cybersecurity Company At A Premium Valuation” with amazing

by xyst 2y ago

Hindsight is 20/20 This is a public company after all. In this market, you don’t become a “Top-Tier Cybersecurity Company At A Premium Valuation” with amazing engineering practices. Priority is sales, increasing ARR, and shareholders.

fsloth 2y ago
This is the market. Good engineering practices don’t hurt but they are not mandatory. If Boeing can wing it so can everybody.
- StressedDev 2y ago
  Boeing has been losing market share to AirBus for decades. That is what happens when you cannot fix your problems, sell a safe product, keep costs in line, etc.
  - bsaul 2y ago
    i wonder how far from the edge a company driven by business people can go before they start to put the focus back on good engineering. Probably much too late in general. Business bonus are yearly, and good/bad engineering practices take years to really make a difference.
- moomin 2y ago
  The question then becomes: if the market is producing near-monopolies of stuff that is barely fit for purpose, how do we fix the market?
StressedDev 2y ago
Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company. All companies have to constantly work to maintain and grow their customer base. Customers will eventually figure out if a company is selling snake oil, or a shoddy product. Also, the tech industry is extremely competitive. Leaders frequently become laggards or go out of business. Here are some companies who failed or shrank because their products could not complete: IBM, Digital Equipment, Sun, Borland, Yahoo, Control Data, Lotus (later IBM), Evernote, etc. Note all of these companies were at some point at the top of their industry. They aren't anymore.
- worik 2y ago
  > Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company. Eventually By then the principles are all very rich, and no longer care. Do you think Bill Gates sleeps well?
  - s4Brains 2y ago
    People stop caring when they see their friends getting laid off while the CEO and head of HR get big bonuses. That what happens at most big companies with subpar executives these days.
- geodel 2y ago
  Keyword is eventually. By then C-level would've been retired. Others in top management would've changed multiple jobs. IMO point is not where are these past top companies now but where are top people in those companies now. I believe they end up being in very comfortable situation no matter which place. Exceptions of course would be criminal prosecution, financial frauds etc.
  - feoren 2y ago
    Bingo! It's the Principal Agent Problem. People focus too much on why companies do X and companies do Y, it's bad in the long term. The long term doesn't exist. No decision maker at these public companies gives a rat's ass about "the long term", because their goal is to parasitize from the company and fly off to another host before the damage they did becomes apparent. And they are very good at it: it's literally all they do. It's their entire profession.
- jjav 2y ago
  > Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company. Eventually is a long time. Unfortunately for all of us ("us" being not just software engineers, but everyone impacted by this and similar lack of proper engineering outcomes) it is a proven path to wealth and success to ignore engineering a good product. Build something adequate on the surface and sell it like crazy. Yeah, eventually enough disasters might kill the company. Countless billions of dollars will have been made and everyone responsible just moves on to the next one. Rinse & repeat.
MBCook 2y ago
That’s too much of an excuse. This isn’t hindsight. It’s “don’t blow up 101” level stuff they messed up. It’s not that this got past their basic checks, they don’t appear to have had them. So let’s ask a different question: The file parser in their kernel extension clearly never expected to run into an invalid file, and had no protections to prevent it from doing the wrong thing in the kernel. How much you want to bet that module could be trivially used to do a kernel exploit early in boot if you managed to feed it your “update” file? I bet there’s a good pile of 0-days waiting to be found. And this is security software. This is “we didn’t know we were buying rat poison to put in the bagels” level dumb. Not “hindsight is 20/20”.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Truly an "the emperor has no clothes" moment.

by xyst 2y ago

fsloth 2y ago

This is the market. Good engineering practices don’t hurt but they are not mandatory. If Boeing can wing it so can everybody.

StressedDev 2y ago
Boeing has been losing market share to AirBus for decades. That is what happens when you cannot fix your problems, sell a safe product, keep costs in line, etc.
- bsaul 2y ago
  i wonder how far from the edge a company driven by business people can go before they start to put the focus back on good engineering. Probably much too late in general. Business bonus are yearly, and good/bad engineering practices take years to really make a difference.
moomin 2y ago
The question then becomes: if the market is producing near-monopolies of stuff that is barely fit for purpose, how do we fix the market?

StressedDev 2y ago

Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company. All companies have to constantly work to maintain and grow their customer base. Customers will eventually figure out if a company is selling snake oil, or a shoddy product. Also, the tech industry is extremely competitive. Leaders frequently become laggards or go out of business. Here are some companies who failed or shrank because their products could not complete: IBM, Digital Equipment, Sun, Borland, Yahoo, Control Data, Lotus (later IBM), Evernote, etc. Note all of these companies were at some point at the top of their industry. They aren't anymore.

worik 2y ago
> Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company. Eventually By then the principles are all very rich, and no longer care. Do you think Bill Gates sleeps well?
- s4Brains 2y ago
  People stop caring when they see their friends getting laid off while the CEO and head of HR get big bonuses. That what happens at most big companies with subpar executives these days.
geodel 2y ago
Keyword is eventually. By then C-level would've been retired. Others in top management would've changed multiple jobs. IMO point is not where are these past top companies now but where are top people in those companies now. I believe they end up being in very comfortable situation no matter which place. Exceptions of course would be criminal prosecution, financial frauds etc.
- feoren 2y ago
  Bingo! It's the Principal Agent Problem. People focus too much on why companies do X and companies do Y, it's bad in the long term. The long term doesn't exist. No decision maker at these public companies gives a rat's ass about "the long term", because their goal is to parasitize from the company and fly off to another host before the damage they did becomes apparent. And they are very good at it: it's literally all they do. It's their entire profession.
jjav 2y ago
> Not caring about the actual product will eventually kill a company. Eventually is a long time. Unfortunately for all of us ("us" being not just software engineers, but everyone impacted by this and similar lack of proper engineering outcomes) it is a proven path to wealth and success to ignore engineering a good product. Build something adequate on the surface and sell it like crazy. Yeah, eventually enough disasters might kill the company. Countless billions of dollars will have been made and everyone responsible just moves on to the next one. Rinse & repeat.

MBCook 2y ago

That’s too much of an excuse. This isn’t hindsight. It’s “don’t blow up 101” level stuff they messed up. It’s not that this got past their basic checks, they don’t appear to have had them. So let’s ask a different question: The file parser in their kernel extension clearly never expected to run into an invalid file, and had no protections to prevent it from doing the wrong thing in the kernel. How much you want to bet that module could be trivially used to do a kernel exploit early in boot if you managed to feed it your “update” file? I bet there’s a good pile of 0-days waiting to be found. And this is security software. This is “we didn’t know we were buying rat poison to put in the bagels” level dumb. Not “hindsight is 20/20”.

SoftTalker 2y ago
Truly an "the emperor has no clothes" moment.