4 ms·

These are probably the same people who are "surprised" when 100 offshore agency dredgings don't magically do the app 10x faster than 10 expensive onshore worker

These are probably the same people who are "surprised" when 100 offshore agency dredgings don't magically do the app 10x faster than 10 expensive onshore workers. To be fair, the PowerPoint they were shown at that AI Synergies retreat probably was very slick.

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
It's almost like the people in charge of these businesses have no goddamn clue what they're actually selling, how it works or why it's good (or isn't). It's almost like, and stay with me here, but it's almost like the vast majority of tech companies are now run by business graduates who do not understand tech AT ALL, have never written a single line of code in their lives, and only know how to optimize businesses by cutting costs and making the products worse until users revolt.
- ethbr1 1y ago
  It's almost like that's a consequence of not enforcing anti-trust vigorously enough, allowing capital to accrete in Big Tech, and creating extremely large tech companies whose primary innovation comes from acquiring rather than building. The reason a competitive ecosystem of tech companies is effective has less to do with market hand magic and more to do with big companies being dumb and conservative, largely as a consequence of their leader selection criteria. Microsoft missing web and mobile. Intel missing mobile and GPU. Google missing productizing AI.
- franktankbank 1y ago
  Cough cough kickbacks
SpaceManNabs 1y ago
I have tried to digest why this is done. It is not because they believe they are 10x faster. It is because they think it will 10x their chances of getting a really good engineer for 1/10th as cheap. At least that is my theory. maybe i am wrong. i try to be charitable.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  Do you think you could do a better job than a CEO of public company [x] from a technical standpoint - in other words, omitting the connections and public-facing charisma that they typically bring as part of the package? I genuinely do, but kind of paradoxically also suspect I'm wrong. It's simply that it's something so far outside my domain that I just can't really appreciate their skills honed over many years of practice and training, because all I get to externally see are their often ridiculous limitations, failures, and myopia. I imagine this is, in many ways, how people who have no understanding of e.g. software, let alone software development, see software engineers. I don't think it's uncharitable, it's just human nature. Imagine if we were the ones hiring CEOs. 'That guys a total asshat, and we can get ten guys in India - hard working, smart guys, standouts in 1.4 billion people - for the same price.' Go go go.
  - dariusj18 1y ago
    I think there is confusion because coding is easy, software engineering is hard.
    - motbus3 1y ago
      Coding was never the hardest problem. And it is hard to say why people are taking so long to realise it
      - HankStallone 1y ago
        People who don't know how to code know they don't know how. They can look over your shoulder and see that it looks like gibberish, and they also have no interest in understanding it even if they could. On the other hand, designing the software or engineering a solution to the problem seems like something they could do, as far as they know, because it's not something concrete that they can look at and see is beyond their abilities.
- jajko 1y ago
  No engineer is smart and overall capable enough to be called a 10x one and yet doesn't realize their price in western value. And we still talk about corporate cogs, the truly brilliant simply start their own gigs
tmaly 1y ago
that meme with the oversized pants and penny loafers comes to mind.
charlieyu1 1y ago
I just don't understand why offshore agenies are so prevalent. Surely hiring directly would be cheaper and gives your more control when you are hiring >1000 workers
- ike2792 1y ago
  About 10 years ago I worked for Fortune 500 company that had outsourced a bunch of its technical work to offshore contractors. New CEO and CTO came in and got rid of all the contractors, replacing them with talented US-based hires. Cut the size of our tech organization down from something like 12,000 (including contractors) to maybe 3,000. Our tech generally worked a lot better after that also.

ToucanLoucan 1y ago

It's almost like the people in charge of these businesses have no goddamn clue what they're actually selling, how it works or why it's good (or isn't). It's almost like, and stay with me here, but it's almost like the vast majority of tech companies are now run by business graduates who do not understand tech AT ALL, have never written a single line of code in their lives, and only know how to optimize businesses by cutting costs and making the products worse until users revolt.

ethbr1 1y ago
It's almost like that's a consequence of not enforcing anti-trust vigorously enough, allowing capital to accrete in Big Tech, and creating extremely large tech companies whose primary innovation comes from acquiring rather than building. The reason a competitive ecosystem of tech companies is effective has less to do with market hand magic and more to do with big companies being dumb and conservative, largely as a consequence of their leader selection criteria. Microsoft missing web and mobile. Intel missing mobile and GPU. Google missing productizing AI.
franktankbank 1y ago
Cough cough kickbacks

SpaceManNabs 1y ago

I have tried to digest why this is done. It is not because they believe they are 10x faster. It is because they think it will 10x their chances of getting a really good engineer for 1/10th as cheap. At least that is my theory. maybe i am wrong. i try to be charitable.

somenameforme 1y ago
Do you think you could do a better job than a CEO of public company [x] from a technical standpoint - in other words, omitting the connections and public-facing charisma that they typically bring as part of the package? I genuinely do, but kind of paradoxically also suspect I'm wrong. It's simply that it's something so far outside my domain that I just can't really appreciate their skills honed over many years of practice and training, because all I get to externally see are their often ridiculous limitations, failures, and myopia. I imagine this is, in many ways, how people who have no understanding of e.g. software, let alone software development, see software engineers. I don't think it's uncharitable, it's just human nature. Imagine if we were the ones hiring CEOs. 'That guys a total asshat, and we can get ten guys in India - hard working, smart guys, standouts in 1.4 billion people - for the same price.' Go go go.
- dariusj18 1y ago
  I think there is confusion because coding is easy, software engineering is hard.
  - motbus3 1y ago
    Coding was never the hardest problem. And it is hard to say why people are taking so long to realise it
    - HankStallone 1y ago
      People who don't know how to code know they don't know how. They can look over your shoulder and see that it looks like gibberish, and they also have no interest in understanding it even if they could. On the other hand, designing the software or engineering a solution to the problem seems like something they could do, as far as they know, because it's not something concrete that they can look at and see is beyond their abilities.
jajko 1y ago
No engineer is smart and overall capable enough to be called a 10x one and yet doesn't realize their price in western value. And we still talk about corporate cogs, the truly brilliant simply start their own gigs

tmaly 1y ago

that meme with the oversized pants and penny loafers comes to mind.

charlieyu1 1y ago

I just don't understand why offshore agenies are so prevalent. Surely hiring directly would be cheaper and gives your more control when you are hiring >1000 workers

ike2792 1y ago
About 10 years ago I worked for Fortune 500 company that had outsourced a bunch of its technical work to offshore contractors. New CEO and CTO came in and got rid of all the contractors, replacing them with talented US-based hires. Cut the size of our tech organization down from something like 12,000 (including contractors) to maybe 3,000. Our tech generally worked a lot better after that also.