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They do care about those things. But it turns out that stock price and profits often turn on “bigger” things than productivity. Google didn’t win search becau
by kenjackson 1y ago
They do care about those things. But it turns out that stock price and profits often turn on “bigger” things than productivity. Google didn’t win search because they were productive. Nor did Tesla win EVs due to it (and they won’t lose EVs due to the lack of it).
There are some spaces where productivity does matter. My uncle runs a painting company. It’s all about productivity, costs, and customer acquisition. HeAl’s not waiting on new markets or innovation to fundamentally change how he makes money (although tech has improved productivity). He’s made it for the same way for the past 30 years.
- whatshisface 1y agoIf there's an action that would lower the price per share by 10% but raise an individual's stock based compensation by 12%, every executive in the world would take it.
- SoftTalker 1y agoGoogle and Tesla both won by being vastly better than the competition. After they won, perhaps their motiviations changed.
- snapcaster 1y agoBut they didn't win by being marginally more productive than competitors
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoTesla was iterating and innovating way faster on the SW and HW front with less R&D resources, than the stablished German or Japanese players. By that metric, they were significantly more productive. Stock market is a gambling game that has little to do with actual productivity, it's about convincing other fools to pay more for the stock than you did so that you can make a profit and leave them holding the bag.
- marcosdumay 1y agoLet's not pretend that the productivity gains from the stuff on the article are marginal.
- lapcat 1y ago> They do care about those things. The article author argues that companies enforce policies that are manifestly unproductive. Do you have a counterargument, or evidence that they do care?
- zdragnar 1y agoThe article incorrectly conflates "cares about productivity" with "cares exclusively about productivity". SWE salaries are a massive cost. Improving productivity is one way of offsetting that cost. The examples provided for "don't care about productivity" are things like open office plans- where a certain amount of productivity is sacrificed while offsetting a different cost (building space). Yes, it is fair to say that managers and executives do not care about productivity to the exclusion of all else. It's something of a pointless statement, though, as I don't think anyone actually thinks that.
- lapcat 1y ago> The article incorrectly conflates "cares about productivity" with "cares exclusively about productivity". No, I don't believe it does. The argument is actually that they "care about control over labour and stock prices" above all else, including productivity. > The examples provided for "don't care about productivity" are things like open office plans- where a certain amount of productivity is sacrificed while offsetting a different cost (building space). From the article: "Home offices also lower office real estate costs, so you’d think executives would love it, but they also makes employee surveillance harder."
- groby_b 1y agoWFH also made it massively easier for people to slack off/pretend to do multiple jobs. And life was disproportionately more difficult for more junior folks. WFH was far from an unalloyed good that only got abandoned "because it made surveillance harder". Would it be possible to salvage WFH? Maybe. At a bare minimum, it'd require rapidly firing the abusers. And spending a lot more on helping juniors grow.
- 1y ago