4 ms·

Elon Musk spells danger for Accenture, McKinsey and their rivals

47 points by matthewsinclair 2y ago

alonohana628 2y ago
I really see no problem in posing a danger for consulting companies.
- throwaway894345 2y ago
  It’s unlikely. Every time the US cuts it’s federal bureaucracy, it overwhelmingly cuts experts which means the US has to hire consultants and contractors en masse and no longer has experts who can even tell if the services the US government is paying for are reasonably priced or even work properly at all.
  - TomK32 2y ago
    Just think of Yosemite National Park firing their only(?) locksmith. It sounds like the most boring job but such a big park and many buildings. As soon as someone locks themselves into or out off something it becomes highly lucrative for a contractor to do this task. Replacing broken locks or cutting new keys won't get cheaper. It will be the same on many other levels. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/19/national-parks-firings-employees-chaos/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/1... https://www.instagram.com/natevince/p/DGLxMKbyKwq/ https://www.instagram.com/natevince/p/DGLxMKbyKwq/
    - throwaway894345 2y ago
      I think that’s true on the very low end, but also on the high end. If the US government didn’t purge most of its software experts in the 90s on the basis that the US would be buying, not building, most of its software then maybe the Obamacare rollout wouldn’t have been bungled so badly. A competent senior software engineer in the room might have been able to prevent a horrible contractor from being hired in the first place, and they might have been able to tell the bureaucrats that they need to relax some of their impossible or impractical requirements.
      - 1986 2y ago
        Which was basically the point of the USDS, which has now been gutted of its original purpose and turned into DOGE
        throwaway894345 2y ago
        Yes, USDS was responding to a need for tech professionals inside the government _after_ the (IIRC) 1990s purge. But the scope is even bigger than just digital services (it's just the domain I'm most familiar with)--the same applies to domain experts (e.g., accountants and tax lawyers to oversee the digital services built for the IRS, aerospace engineers to oversee the systems built by the DOD, etc). "Small government" isn't an unreasonable goal, but when you stupidly hack away at existing government, you end up writing blank checks to contractors and consultants ("welfare for consultants" doesn't even do it justice). Trump supporting Americans are about to find out why expertise is a real, valuable thing, although I'm skeptical that they will connect the dots between their policy and its outcomes.
      - pimlottc 2y ago
        > If the US government didn’t purge most of its software experts in the 90s on the basis that the US would be buying, not building I hadn’t heard about this before, would love to learn more. Got any good links?
        alephnerd 2y ago
        In the 90s, the Clinton Admin pushed a government efficiency program similar to DOGE (except much more organized). Around 250k federal employees were laid off. It destroyed a significant portion of local economies (as several military base towns/cities like Rantoul IL, Lynn MA, and Pittsburg CA saw their economies collapse) and caused our defense industries (Aerospace, Shipbuilding, etc) to be forced to consolidate and ossify. IMO, we need to re-look Clinton's legacy and see how much of a negative impact his policies had over the long term, just like we are now doing so for Reagan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinventing_Government https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Rei...
  - watwut 2y ago
    These consultancies don't have experts as you mean it and don't provide then. They have very good talkers and management can offload unpopular decisions on them. But, they don't have expertise, just confidence. They generally leave companies in worst shape as they were originally. The actual experts are then hired from elsewhere.
    - throwaway894345 2y ago
      I think you might be misunderstanding my comment. I was arguing that the government has variously employed experts, and when they've been fired under the pretense of "smaller, more efficient government" then we end up hiring contractors and consultants who can take advantage of a stupider government and charge astronomical rates for broken systems. I'm NOT making a claim about the expertise of these consultancies. Stupidly hacking away at government results in costlier, lower-quality governance (which suits the billionaire class that is less dependent on governance and directly benefits from a lack of oversight, at least in the short term).
    - lifesucks1 2y ago
      I have seen so many millions of dollars thrown away by the government on projects where nothing was delivered. All the consultancies made out like bandits. Over time it's better for government to be very small and not get involved in too many things. They cannot execute and everything gets bastardized over time.
      - watwut 2y ago
        I have seen the same in private corporations. Consultancies made made out like bandits, the company was left more dysfunctional then before. Goverment is bad is act of faith on the conservatives. They intentionally sabotage it and then claim it can not deliver. You just literally described how small goverment claim was used as a vehicle for corruption.
watwut 2y ago
Hopefully they will all come out weaker from mutual fight.
viraptor 2y ago
https://archive.is/gPqAz https://archive.is/gPqAz
fransje26 2y ago
Don't threaten me with a good time..
Pingk 2y ago
Consulting companies destroy valuable institutional knowledge and make the government less effective, so I'm onboard in theory. The flipside of removing them is you now need to hire experts/specialists to do the work properly, not fire them... https://youtu.be/ycVBoWsGLJs https://youtu.be/ycVBoWsGLJs
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > Consulting companies destroy valuable institutional knowledge and make the government less effective Can you explain? Because the entire idea is that they bring knowledge to the institution that hires them, and proposes/implements processes to make government more effective. If a department needs full-time experts in an area for decades, they generally hire them. But very often, a department needs to make a complicated decision in an area that is not its core competency, and after the decision is made and implemented it doesn't need those experts anymore. Their job is done. That's where consulting shines.
  - TomK32 2y ago
    You can buy knowledge in all sorts of form, from books to consultation hours, but the most efficient when applying this knowledge to a task is still a human being. A consulting company might not even guarantee you that the same person will be sent to you for the whole time of the project.
  - lumost 2y ago
    Institutions can become caught in a trap of paying high prices for consultants and low/no prices for internal experts. Obviously, consultants are incentivized to cultivate this codependency. In many cases, the institution would be better served by building expert capabilities in the domains they care about rather than using consultants.
  - drpossum 2y ago
    That is the idea and that is not what happens. Management consulting companies like this are the literal analog of pharmacy companies not wanting to cure anything because then you lose business. If you spend more than a few days working with them you realize that they promote people who find and make long-term revenue streams, not anyone who solves or actually helps anything. The actual people who do work are generally clueless recent grads on their first job, are trained to produce just enough to pass what is being sold, and they leave (or move up to selling) when they understand the game they have been playing.
jordanb 2y ago
The danger for consulting companies is that Elon is using their strategies with even more arrogance, even younger and poorly-qualified consultants, even less understanding of the what they're wrecking, and even more contrived metrics to make decisions. DOGE is the accelerationist end-state of the consultant economy.
- codingbot3000 2y ago
  Not sure if you are right, but it really made me laugh.
- fransje26 2y ago
  And up and up they fly, as fireworks in the sky, screeching ever higher, towards their inevitable bang, a great ball of fire, a last flash of yang, before relentless gravity, indifferent to hubris, brutally ends this crisis, and restores back harmony.
- janice1999 2y ago
  Elon will also make more money personally than even Accenture senior managers could have ever dreamed of. He's also achieved 100% regulatory capture by simply being in a position to fire any regulators investigating his businesses. Quite an achievement.
pjc50 2y ago
McKinsey were major contributors to the opiate epidemic. They should have been banned from any US government business already. https://www.mckinsey.com/de/news/presse/settlement-funds https://www.mckinsey.com/de/news/presse/settlement-funds
ryandvm 2y ago
Broken clock does what?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
black_13 2y ago
[dead]
djmips 2y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't able to jockey into a position that sees their continued success. That's what they are good at right?
gherkinnn 2y ago
Pay wall but headline has me in high spirits. Good riddance, Elon remains a fart face but anything that hurts the blight that is these consultancies is welcome.
akagusu 2y ago
I keep asking myself when HN will stop censoring everything about Musk
bryanrasmussen 2y ago
OK, why is this flagged?!? It's from the Economist for god's sake, I can't help but feel the reason why it got flagged was because it was critical of Musk?

alonohana628 2y ago

I really see no problem in posing a danger for consulting companies.

throwaway894345 2y ago
It’s unlikely. Every time the US cuts it’s federal bureaucracy, it overwhelmingly cuts experts which means the US has to hire consultants and contractors en masse and no longer has experts who can even tell if the services the US government is paying for are reasonably priced or even work properly at all.
- TomK32 2y ago
  Just think of Yosemite National Park firing their only(?) locksmith. It sounds like the most boring job but such a big park and many buildings. As soon as someone locks themselves into or out off something it becomes highly lucrative for a contractor to do this task. Replacing broken locks or cutting new keys won't get cheaper. It will be the same on many other levels. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/19/national-parks-firings-employees-chaos/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/02/1... https://www.instagram.com/natevince/p/DGLxMKbyKwq/ https://www.instagram.com/natevince/p/DGLxMKbyKwq/
  - throwaway894345 2y ago
    I think that’s true on the very low end, but also on the high end. If the US government didn’t purge most of its software experts in the 90s on the basis that the US would be buying, not building, most of its software then maybe the Obamacare rollout wouldn’t have been bungled so badly. A competent senior software engineer in the room might have been able to prevent a horrible contractor from being hired in the first place, and they might have been able to tell the bureaucrats that they need to relax some of their impossible or impractical requirements.
    - 1986 2y ago
      Which was basically the point of the USDS, which has now been gutted of its original purpose and turned into DOGE
      - throwaway894345 2y ago
        Yes, USDS was responding to a need for tech professionals inside the government _after_ the (IIRC) 1990s purge. But the scope is even bigger than just digital services (it's just the domain I'm most familiar with)--the same applies to domain experts (e.g., accountants and tax lawyers to oversee the digital services built for the IRS, aerospace engineers to oversee the systems built by the DOD, etc). "Small government" isn't an unreasonable goal, but when you stupidly hack away at existing government, you end up writing blank checks to contractors and consultants ("welfare for consultants" doesn't even do it justice). Trump supporting Americans are about to find out why expertise is a real, valuable thing, although I'm skeptical that they will connect the dots between their policy and its outcomes.
    - pimlottc 2y ago
      > If the US government didn’t purge most of its software experts in the 90s on the basis that the US would be buying, not building I hadn’t heard about this before, would love to learn more. Got any good links?
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        In the 90s, the Clinton Admin pushed a government efficiency program similar to DOGE (except much more organized). Around 250k federal employees were laid off. It destroyed a significant portion of local economies (as several military base towns/cities like Rantoul IL, Lynn MA, and Pittsburg CA saw their economies collapse) and caused our defense industries (Aerospace, Shipbuilding, etc) to be forced to consolidate and ossify. IMO, we need to re-look Clinton's legacy and see how much of a negative impact his policies had over the long term, just like we are now doing so for Reagan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinventing_Government https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Rei...
- watwut 2y ago
  These consultancies don't have experts as you mean it and don't provide then. They have very good talkers and management can offload unpopular decisions on them. But, they don't have expertise, just confidence. They generally leave companies in worst shape as they were originally. The actual experts are then hired from elsewhere.
  - throwaway894345 2y ago
    I think you might be misunderstanding my comment. I was arguing that the government has variously employed experts, and when they've been fired under the pretense of "smaller, more efficient government" then we end up hiring contractors and consultants who can take advantage of a stupider government and charge astronomical rates for broken systems. I'm NOT making a claim about the expertise of these consultancies. Stupidly hacking away at government results in costlier, lower-quality governance (which suits the billionaire class that is less dependent on governance and directly benefits from a lack of oversight, at least in the short term).
  - lifesucks1 2y ago
    I have seen so many millions of dollars thrown away by the government on projects where nothing was delivered. All the consultancies made out like bandits. Over time it's better for government to be very small and not get involved in too many things. They cannot execute and everything gets bastardized over time.
    - watwut 2y ago
      I have seen the same in private corporations. Consultancies made made out like bandits, the company was left more dysfunctional then before. Goverment is bad is act of faith on the conservatives. They intentionally sabotage it and then claim it can not deliver. You just literally described how small goverment claim was used as a vehicle for corruption.

watwut 2y ago

Hopefully they will all come out weaker from mutual fight.

viraptor 2y ago

https://archive.is/gPqAz https://archive.is/gPqAz

fransje26 2y ago

Don't threaten me with a good time..

Pingk 2y ago

Consulting companies destroy valuable institutional knowledge and make the government less effective, so I'm onboard in theory. The flipside of removing them is you now need to hire experts/specialists to do the work properly, not fire them... https://youtu.be/ycVBoWsGLJs https://youtu.be/ycVBoWsGLJs

crazygringo 2y ago
> Consulting companies destroy valuable institutional knowledge and make the government less effective Can you explain? Because the entire idea is that they bring knowledge to the institution that hires them, and proposes/implements processes to make government more effective. If a department needs full-time experts in an area for decades, they generally hire them. But very often, a department needs to make a complicated decision in an area that is not its core competency, and after the decision is made and implemented it doesn't need those experts anymore. Their job is done. That's where consulting shines.
- TomK32 2y ago
  You can buy knowledge in all sorts of form, from books to consultation hours, but the most efficient when applying this knowledge to a task is still a human being. A consulting company might not even guarantee you that the same person will be sent to you for the whole time of the project.
- lumost 2y ago
  Institutions can become caught in a trap of paying high prices for consultants and low/no prices for internal experts. Obviously, consultants are incentivized to cultivate this codependency. In many cases, the institution would be better served by building expert capabilities in the domains they care about rather than using consultants.
- drpossum 2y ago
  That is the idea and that is not what happens. Management consulting companies like this are the literal analog of pharmacy companies not wanting to cure anything because then you lose business. If you spend more than a few days working with them you realize that they promote people who find and make long-term revenue streams, not anyone who solves or actually helps anything. The actual people who do work are generally clueless recent grads on their first job, are trained to produce just enough to pass what is being sold, and they leave (or move up to selling) when they understand the game they have been playing.

jordanb 2y ago

The danger for consulting companies is that Elon is using their strategies with even more arrogance, even younger and poorly-qualified consultants, even less understanding of the what they're wrecking, and even more contrived metrics to make decisions. DOGE is the accelerationist end-state of the consultant economy.

codingbot3000 2y ago
Not sure if you are right, but it really made me laugh.
fransje26 2y ago
And up and up they fly, as fireworks in the sky, screeching ever higher, towards their inevitable bang, a great ball of fire, a last flash of yang, before relentless gravity, indifferent to hubris, brutally ends this crisis, and restores back harmony.
janice1999 2y ago
Elon will also make more money personally than even Accenture senior managers could have ever dreamed of. He's also achieved 100% regulatory capture by simply being in a position to fire any regulators investigating his businesses. Quite an achievement.

pjc50 2y ago

McKinsey were major contributors to the opiate epidemic. They should have been banned from any US government business already. https://www.mckinsey.com/de/news/presse/settlement-funds https://www.mckinsey.com/de/news/presse/settlement-funds

ryandvm 2y ago

Broken clock does what?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

black_13 2y ago

[dead]

djmips 2y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't able to jockey into a position that sees their continued success. That's what they are good at right?

gherkinnn 2y ago

Pay wall but headline has me in high spirits. Good riddance, Elon remains a fart face but anything that hurts the blight that is these consultancies is welcome.

akagusu 2y ago

I keep asking myself when HN will stop censoring everything about Musk

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

OK, why is this flagged?!? It's from the Economist for god's sake, I can't help but feel the reason why it got flagged was because it was critical of Musk?