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Sales is part of the capitalism layer that sits atop the actual work. Same as CEOs and finance. None of them do useful work, only decide what useful work gets d
by inigyou 3mo ago
Sales is part of the capitalism layer that sits atop the actual work. Same as CEOs and finance. None of them do useful work, only decide what useful work gets done. In communism you couldn't sell software without a Party representative - that doesn't mean he's useful.
- bumby 3mo agoA less cynical take is that sales connects the people who need a problem solved to the people who can solve it.
- bluefirebrand 3mo agoModern sales pipelines don't behave this way in my experience. A very common approach to sales nowadays is to invent a problem that someone does not have and then try to sell them your tool that fixes the problem Or they try to map the problem you have to the problem they solve, even if they are actually quite different problems The biggest problem that sales is trying to solve is that you aren't buying anything from them
- bumby 3mo agoYeah, I see this. I think in that case, both the sales and development team are deadweight (ie self licking ice cream cones)
- inigyou 3mo agoI think the development team's work in this scenario is more akin to basic research. There is still some chance they may discover something unexpected.
- bumby 3mo agoIt’s not basic research in the vast, vast majority of business cases you’re describing. They aren’t Bell Labs doing novel work, they’re usually doing busy work on mundane apps. I’m not going to move our understanding of financial physics forward playing around with a social media or CRUD app. Hell, most work isn’t even testing a hypothesis other than “I hope this change doesn’t break shit” It comes across as “everyone else’s work is trivial and low value but my, MY, work is difficult and important”. We shouldn’t be so precious.
- inigyou 3mo agosqlite came out of a CRUD app developer being unsatisfied with his database options
- bumby 3mo agoI took “basic research” to mean “fundamental research”. Sqlite is not fundamental research. It’s an exception that proves the rule. It was literally designed for a solving a specific problem. Somewhat ironically, it also comes from the industry that originated the term “self-licking ice cream cone”. An occasional useful offshoot doesn’t justify massive amounts of otherwise less useful busywork
- inigyou 3mo agoBasic research is research done without an obvious application. In the same way, development can be done without an obvious application. All those mathematicians studying prime numbers in the 1600s-1800s came in useful later when we invented good cryptography.
- bumby 3mo agoRight. As you said, sqlite was developed to fill a specific need, therefore it’s applied research and not basic research. (I wouldn’t even consider it research, but more development, but I’m trying to be generous to the discussion)
- manoDev 3mo agoSales connects the pocket of the people who need a problem solved to the pocket of the people who invested on the company that promises to solve it.
- inigyou 3mo agoWho convinces the pockets of the rich people that they have a problem to solve? Is that marketing?
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]