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There are many very good reasons why the top 100 most valuable people would not be the department heads. Cracked engineers, designers, growth people, AEs... th

There are many very good reasons why the top 100 most valuable people would not be the department heads. Cracked engineers, designers, growth people, AEs... the best ICs shouldn't necessarily be in management positions. Yet, the CEO should neither be air-gapped from those people nor managing their work/career on a day to day basis.

boredtofears 2y ago
I don't think there's any reason to believe IC's who follow the "cracked engineer" manifesto would be in the top percentile. It's basically a guideline to make people more manageable and has little to do with engineering talent.
- CityOfThrowaway 2y ago
  I have no idea what you're talking about. Cracked is just slang for insanely talented, ergo...
  - boredtofears 2y ago
    I've only heard the term in reference to https://posthog.com/founders/cracked-manifesto https://posthog.com/founders/cracked-manifesto
    - taormina 2y ago
      Which is the same thing. You've also heard them called rockstars or x10 before. They are referring to the same folks, but calling them "easy to manage" is a hilarious statement.
      - boredtofears 2y ago
        Characteristics like "Stay optimistic at all times", "Make people feel excited and energized", and "Behave in a completely authentic way" are not really things I associated with rockstar/10x engineers (which is also a complete BS label for different reasons).
  - nberkman 2y ago
    "Crack", not "cracked". "Crack": adj., first-rate; excellent: a crack shot. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/crack https://www.dictionary.com/browse/crack "Cracked": no such meaning https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cracked https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cracked
    - ywain 2y ago
      Urban Dictionary might be a better place for recent internet slang: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cracked https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cracked
      - nberkman 2y ago
        Fair enough, I should know to check Urban Dictionary first. Thanks.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mellosouls 2y ago
      "cracked" is a common term (eg) on social media and other informal use and is used meaning the same as "crack" above (edit) see the urban dictionary definition in the sibling comment.
hluska 2y ago
I like this comment because I think it does a good job of demonstrating four kinds of important people. You have people who are most important to a: - a project. - a problem. - the organization. And I think we can divide organization into internal and external. When you divide like that, you’ll usually end up with four very different lists with some overlap at an upper management level. None of the four areas are more important than others. If your software problem has a month long outage, that’s a huge problem. But that’s different from if you only have two months of runway left or if nobody has cleaned your office in a month. And since the problems are different, the people involved should be different too. Then you’ll end up with a lot of different hierarchies of most important people depending on what lens you’re looking through.
BenFranklin100 2y ago
The top 100 people also include low level employees who know the day-to-day reality and won’t bullshit you the way mid-level managers will. And no: all the people who are going to respond to this and say the problem is to hire good, honest, no BS managers, good luck with that. It’s like saying the way to make money in the stock market is to buy low and sell high.
eapressoandcats 2y ago
It’s less a question of if they should be managers and more whether there should be formal title recognition. Many companies have “distinguished engineer” positions or similar, and those people are often involved in high level conversations. In Jobs’ case, his personality was probably strong enough that didn’t matter but broadly it can be helpful to officially say, “this person is important even though they don’t manage anyone”. It helps with fairness so that people don’t have to seek out the “secret” ways of being important, and it can accelerate decision making in the absence of someone like Steve Jobs

boredtofears 2y ago

I don't think there's any reason to believe IC's who follow the "cracked engineer" manifesto would be in the top percentile. It's basically a guideline to make people more manageable and has little to do with engineering talent.

CityOfThrowaway 2y ago
I have no idea what you're talking about. Cracked is just slang for insanely talented, ergo...
- boredtofears 2y ago
  I've only heard the term in reference to https://posthog.com/founders/cracked-manifesto https://posthog.com/founders/cracked-manifesto
  - taormina 2y ago
    Which is the same thing. You've also heard them called rockstars or x10 before. They are referring to the same folks, but calling them "easy to manage" is a hilarious statement.
    - boredtofears 2y ago
      Characteristics like "Stay optimistic at all times", "Make people feel excited and energized", and "Behave in a completely authentic way" are not really things I associated with rockstar/10x engineers (which is also a complete BS label for different reasons).
- nberkman 2y ago
  "Crack", not "cracked". "Crack": adj., first-rate; excellent: a crack shot. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/crack https://www.dictionary.com/browse/crack "Cracked": no such meaning https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cracked https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cracked
  - ywain 2y ago
    Urban Dictionary might be a better place for recent internet slang: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cracked https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cracked
    - nberkman 2y ago
      Fair enough, I should know to check Urban Dictionary first. Thanks.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mellosouls 2y ago
    "cracked" is a common term (eg) on social media and other informal use and is used meaning the same as "crack" above (edit) see the urban dictionary definition in the sibling comment.

hluska 2y ago

I like this comment because I think it does a good job of demonstrating four kinds of important people. You have people who are most important to a: - a project. - a problem. - the organization. And I think we can divide organization into internal and external. When you divide like that, you’ll usually end up with four very different lists with some overlap at an upper management level. None of the four areas are more important than others. If your software problem has a month long outage, that’s a huge problem. But that’s different from if you only have two months of runway left or if nobody has cleaned your office in a month. And since the problems are different, the people involved should be different too. Then you’ll end up with a lot of different hierarchies of most important people depending on what lens you’re looking through.

BenFranklin100 2y ago

The top 100 people also include low level employees who know the day-to-day reality and won’t bullshit you the way mid-level managers will. And no: all the people who are going to respond to this and say the problem is to hire good, honest, no BS managers, good luck with that. It’s like saying the way to make money in the stock market is to buy low and sell high.

eapressoandcats 2y ago

It’s less a question of if they should be managers and more whether there should be formal title recognition. Many companies have “distinguished engineer” positions or similar, and those people are often involved in high level conversations. In Jobs’ case, his personality was probably strong enough that didn’t matter but broadly it can be helpful to officially say, “this person is important even though they don’t manage anyone”. It helps with fairness so that people don’t have to seek out the “secret” ways of being important, and it can accelerate decision making in the absence of someone like Steve Jobs