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GM is a great example, Intel as well, that its rarely the engineers fault. You can have great talent but if management is dead set on bad decisions over & over

GM is a great example, Intel as well, that its rarely the engineers fault. You can have great talent but if management is dead set on bad decisions over & over, theres nothing to be done. And the decision to overhire/overfire, set bad strategy, etc all resides in the C-Suite who rarely fire each other or themselves when it all goes wrong. It's only the employees that suffer for every mis-step.

kgwgk 2y ago
> It's only the employees that suffer for every mis-step. They benefit for the overhiring mis-step.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Not necessarily. If you give up a good job to join a firm that has over-hired, its only obvious in retrospect that you took a bad risk.
  - _benj 2y ago
    This hits home. I wish there was a way to gauge “retrospect” before actually suffering from it. I’m now usually quite weary of “we’ve had to get yet another loan of 60 mil, after 6 years in business because we don’t know how to make a profitable business” also known as a series C or whatever.
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      These are great because often the founder managed to take money out at one round of funding or another and is insulated from downside.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - billy99k 2y ago
      I don't work full-time for startups, because of this. I was contracting for a startup last summer for about 6 months. They paid really well, but after researching the company, they were on their 3rd round of funding. The estimated yearly profits were a sliver of this, meaning they were burning through VC money hoping for an acquisition or somehow massively increasing profits. The product was also in a very crowded space with lots of competitors. They had 3 other contractors working on the same functionality and they were all let go within a couple of weeks, because I could get it done 2X faster and without many integration issues. I would have gladly kept working as a contractor, but when I refused a full-time work offer, they cut all contact off with me. I would talk to the FTE frequently and they were always overworked and on multiple teams.

kgwgk 2y ago

> It's only the employees that suffer for every mis-step. They benefit for the overhiring mis-step.

steveBK123 2y ago
Not necessarily. If you give up a good job to join a firm that has over-hired, its only obvious in retrospect that you took a bad risk.
- _benj 2y ago
  This hits home. I wish there was a way to gauge “retrospect” before actually suffering from it. I’m now usually quite weary of “we’ve had to get yet another loan of 60 mil, after 6 years in business because we don’t know how to make a profitable business” also known as a series C or whatever.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    These are great because often the founder managed to take money out at one round of funding or another and is insulated from downside.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - billy99k 2y ago
    I don't work full-time for startups, because of this. I was contracting for a startup last summer for about 6 months. They paid really well, but after researching the company, they were on their 3rd round of funding. The estimated yearly profits were a sliver of this, meaning they were burning through VC money hoping for an acquisition or somehow massively increasing profits. The product was also in a very crowded space with lots of competitors. They had 3 other contractors working on the same functionality and they were all let go within a couple of weeks, because I could get it done 2X faster and without many integration issues. I would have gladly kept working as a contractor, but when I refused a full-time work offer, they cut all contact off with me. I would talk to the FTE frequently and they were always overworked and on multiple teams.