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Every time I can remember that the finance people have become more important to a company, it has led to the disappearance of the internal culture geared toward

Every time I can remember that the finance people have become more important to a company, it has led to the disappearance of the internal culture geared towards excellence that got a company to that point in the first place.

Cthulhu_ 8mo ago
That's what they're afraid of, and that's one of the reasons why they're doing the big management reorganization - too many managers leads to lots of overhead instead of excellence.
repelsteeltje 8mo ago
I guess it's simply the externalities issue. Finance people optimize finance, which among other things results in improved efficiency. But despite best intentions to map out all incentives that matter, it always fails to consider some aspects. Focusing on short-term profits, ignoring privacy, security or pollution because it's free, lobbying for favourable legislation that hampers competitors, etc. These are things that don't show in a spreadsheet unless you're explicitly incentivized to look at them. But that's never the case because the number of KPIs is always finite while there are infinitely many aspects that could potentially be subverted.
- Gud 8mo ago
  Why does "optimizing finance" improve the efficiency in an engineering company? Seems to me like "optimizing finance" could be absolutely detrimental for the bottom line.
  - repelsteeltje 8mo ago
    I guess I meant to say: "finance people optimize the company 's financials"
stingraycharles 8mo ago
It’s largely true. I believe Steve Jobs had some talk about this phenomenon; basically, at some point, the scale of an organization means the product people make less of an impact than the sales / finance people, and they slowly take over. Then over the span of a few decades, what’s left is a shallow organization without real innovation. Intel and Boeing are good examples of this.
- askvictor 8mo ago
  And, indeed, Apple.
hayvan 8mo ago
Indeed, finance people becomeing important is how you get 737-MAX disasters.

Cthulhu_ 8mo ago

That's what they're afraid of, and that's one of the reasons why they're doing the big management reorganization - too many managers leads to lots of overhead instead of excellence.

repelsteeltje 8mo ago

I guess it's simply the externalities issue. Finance people optimize finance, which among other things results in improved efficiency. But despite best intentions to map out all incentives that matter, it always fails to consider some aspects. Focusing on short-term profits, ignoring privacy, security or pollution because it's free, lobbying for favourable legislation that hampers competitors, etc. These are things that don't show in a spreadsheet unless you're explicitly incentivized to look at them. But that's never the case because the number of KPIs is always finite while there are infinitely many aspects that could potentially be subverted.

Gud 8mo ago
Why does "optimizing finance" improve the efficiency in an engineering company? Seems to me like "optimizing finance" could be absolutely detrimental for the bottom line.
- repelsteeltje 8mo ago
  I guess I meant to say: "finance people optimize the company 's financials"

stingraycharles 8mo ago

It’s largely true. I believe Steve Jobs had some talk about this phenomenon; basically, at some point, the scale of an organization means the product people make less of an impact than the sales / finance people, and they slowly take over. Then over the span of a few decades, what’s left is a shallow organization without real innovation. Intel and Boeing are good examples of this.

askvictor 8mo ago
And, indeed, Apple.

hayvan 8mo ago

Indeed, finance people becomeing important is how you get 737-MAX disasters.