5 ms·

If you've read more of Derek's (excellent) posts, you'll know that his complete hands-off style led to the company almost collapsing. I would like to see these

by j_baker 14y ago

If you've read more of Derek's (excellent) posts, you'll know that his complete hands-off style led to the company almost collapsing. I would like to see these posts. Could you link them?

rahoulb 14y ago
http://sivers.org/trust-but-verify http://sivers.org/trust-but-verify In his book there's also a story about how, when asked which profit share scheme the company should use, he said "you decide" - 6 months later his accountant rang and said all the profits were being shared amongst the employees - so scrapped the scheme and never spoke to them again. I can't find the post on his site though.
- lusr 14y ago
  Interesting. While I really enjoyed the post, something that stuck out for me was: what if they don't apply your philosophy as you expect? Isn't this how great companies fall down, when the founder's philosophy is lost and replaced by internal politics? Some how you should be able to review the decisions being made without having to waste even more time doing the review.
  - rahoulb 14y ago
    I think there's a fundamental difference between being a "manager" and being a "doer". If you're a "doer" (for example, a developer) your to-do list for today is likely to have three or four items on it - each a couple of hours in length - and context switches (interruptions, changing task) are expensive (half an hour or so). If you're a manager, your to-do list is actually about a hundred items long - but each item only takes a few minutes to complete (also meaning that it's probably not written down and it's hard to enumerate what you actually did today). And most importantly - context switches are cheap. So reviewing someone else's work is actually only a ten minute job (it doesn't need to be detailed - just check to see if it fits with your philosophy). But for a developer that's ten minutes plus an hour of context switching - making it very expensive. For a manager that's ten minutes, plus a minute of context switching - making it cheap.

by j_baker 14y ago

If you've read more of Derek's (excellent) posts, you'll know that his complete hands-off style led to the company almost collapsing. I would like to see these posts. Could you link them?

rahoulb 14y ago

http://sivers.org/trust-but-verify http://sivers.org/trust-but-verify In his book there's also a story about how, when asked which profit share scheme the company should use, he said "you decide" - 6 months later his accountant rang and said all the profits were being shared amongst the employees - so scrapped the scheme and never spoke to them again. I can't find the post on his site though.

lusr 14y ago
Interesting. While I really enjoyed the post, something that stuck out for me was: what if they don't apply your philosophy as you expect? Isn't this how great companies fall down, when the founder's philosophy is lost and replaced by internal politics? Some how you should be able to review the decisions being made without having to waste even more time doing the review.
- rahoulb 14y ago
  I think there's a fundamental difference between being a "manager" and being a "doer". If you're a "doer" (for example, a developer) your to-do list for today is likely to have three or four items on it - each a couple of hours in length - and context switches (interruptions, changing task) are expensive (half an hour or so). If you're a manager, your to-do list is actually about a hundred items long - but each item only takes a few minutes to complete (also meaning that it's probably not written down and it's hard to enumerate what you actually did today). And most importantly - context switches are cheap. So reviewing someone else's work is actually only a ten minute job (it doesn't need to be detailed - just check to see if it fits with your philosophy). But for a developer that's ten minutes plus an hour of context switching - making it very expensive. For a manager that's ten minutes, plus a minute of context switching - making it cheap.