4 ms·

> sending the org into a reactive frenzy I don’t see an actual “reactive frenzy” here. I see that Gates started a conversation with the execs he believes are

by dpark 1mo ago

> sending the org into a reactive frenzy I don’t see an actual “reactive frenzy” here. I see that Gates started a conversation with the execs he believes are responsible for fixing this mess. And again, these are execs being paid millions. They do not need to be coddled. You are acting as if Gates sent this to a bunch of junior engineers. > ‘taking responsibility' is not 'vacuous corporate speak' - that's a terribly cynical view. It's literally the case - the leader takes respnosbility because they failed to set the conditions for the good outcome. It’s absolutely vacuous to say 'I take responsibility for this' when you are telling a group of people they need to fix their shit. Any CVP/EVP who fails at a job and then hears someone above them take responsibility for the failure knows they are about to be out of a job. > The email implies that some underling is to blame which is bad framing. If by underling you mean “highly paid executives” then sure. At some point people have to take responsibility for their jobs. This wasn’t a failure of some individual engineers. It was a collective failure of a group of executives to deliver a good experience. > "hinting and the possible source of flaws, where in the process those things should have been caught.." - that's literally his job It’s literally not. That’s not what CEOs of large corporations do and Gates wasn’t even CEO at this time. He was in an advisory role. His job was literally to give feedback.

throw310822 1mo ago
> I see that Gates started a conversation with the execs he believes are responsible for fixing this mess. I think the point here might be that what created this mess in the first place is the structure of the organisation, not the execs that are temporarily embodying it. It's actually quite clear from the follow-ups, there is nobody who can claim responsibility even for the website, never mind any vision or philosophy spanning multiple media and products. Maybe Gates simply wasn't in the position of doing anything else at that time, or maybe his rant was a clever way to expose this exact problem. But it's pretty obvious that "will someone fix the website" doesn't sound like someone analysing and addressing the root cause of the issue. (However, it's also perfectly possible that this email is just a small part of a bigger conversation at different levels- inform the responsible and patch the immediate issue while more high level analysis and planning takes place elsewhere, informally).
- dpark 1mo ago
  I think the real point is that this is a random email that Gates sent to some execs sharing a bad experience with the product, and some people on HN are trying to take it as a much deeper thing than it really is. A leader should be able to send candid communication to other leaders. A culture where execs are unable to communicate candidly to their peers or other high-level leaders is a toxic one. It would be absurd to insist that every communication needs to be candy coated and framed in terms of “I take responsibility, so here’s a path forward, and I’ll handhold everyone through it.”
  - bluegatty 1mo ago
    This is not about candor, it's about framing and respecting what kind of power people have, who is responsible for what. "Hey gang - I know I'm not Dear Leader anymore - and - I don't want to get in the way of your new Dear Leader, but I want to share with you a bad experience I had with this product. A, B, C, D. E .. was really bad. After thinking about it - I think much of this lays at my feet. In the Golden Era of MS we didn't think much about design, or 'Whole Product'. I have to take responsibility for that. But these kinds of outcomes are really bad, and this has to be nipped in the bud now - and in the future. I suggest this probably happened because Product and R&D criss-crossed here, the Release Managers and Product Marketing dropped a lot in between. That there was a ball dropped here must be the responsibility at the VP/Executive level at very least, for not ensuring smooth handoff. Furthermore - that this experience could be so bad means we have to rethink and extend our integration testing all the way to 'end user experience'. Finally, I think you'll need to engender a culture of design right from the start - that's going to take 2-4 years and a different kind of thinking, that is not a fire that can be put out, or a process to be fixed. I'll have to lave that on the lap of the new Dear Leader. Keep up the great work. - BG" That's how to write a 'candid' note.
    - dpark 1mo ago
      That’s not candid. It’s candy. It borderline infantilizing and buries the message under a bunch of saccharine. I can practically see the fake smile plastered across the face of the manager saying this. I would be insulted if my manager sent a message like this to the team. Your version also took away literally all of the concrete detail, turning into a generic “it’s bad” that isn’t an actionable. It sounds like you sent it through an LLM. I would also imagine that there are a lot of other emails flying around that are discussing the general pattern of concern while this is more of a drive-by honest review of a specific experience. This is the kind of blunt feedback that execs do not usually get about their products and probably need more of. This kind of blunt feedback from a respected leader can’t be waived away the way anecdotes from individual customers can.
bluegatty 1mo ago
-----> "It’s absolutely vacuous to say 'I take responsibility for this' when you are telling a group of people they need to fix their shit." Totally false. It's literally the opposite of vacuous to take responsibility for his failure to set up the culture and system wherein this kind of stuff would not happen - while at the same time starting a fire so that the work is done. Allocating responsibility is one of the most important actions. -----> he both 'started a conversation' and ... it's a frenzy. Agreed - it's totally legit that he brought up the issue, and it doesn't have to be perfectly presented ... but that email chain is almost purely reactionary. That is not people seeking root cause. It's not people recognizing underlying systems. It's a reactionary executive gaggle. This is a 'put out the fire' type reactionary stuff. The shocking thing to most people, would be how much of the world is actually run this way. I concede that it's not horrible in and of itself - and sometimes a fire must be lit, but this is a frenzy. Not deliberative. ----> If by underling you mean “highly paid executives” then sure. By 'underling' I mean anyone under him. The executives in this thread are acting like underlings.
- dpark 1mo ago
  You keep talking about “taking responsibility”. Unless the person taking responsibility is also taking action, which you aren’t even proposing, then it’s just words. It’s more sugar coating. “It’s not you, it’s me.” > This is a 'put out the fire' type reactionary stuff. After the fire fighting comes the postmortem where the systemic issues should be discussed. A fire is a great way to spur both short and long term action. > By 'underling' I mean anyone under him. I don’t know how you reconcile “accountability” with the idea that the a leader cannot expect members of the team to deliver. Is Gates the only person who has any accountability expected here?
  - gopher_space 1mo ago
    Do you think personal responsibility travels uphill or downhill? Each of the letters in CEO stand for a word with specific meaning, and when you put them together they tell you where the buck stops. It’s not a job for people who can’t take responsibility for their fuckups.

by dpark 1mo ago

throw310822 1mo ago

> I see that Gates started a conversation with the execs he believes are responsible for fixing this mess. I think the point here might be that what created this mess in the first place is the structure of the organisation, not the execs that are temporarily embodying it. It's actually quite clear from the follow-ups, there is nobody who can claim responsibility even for the website, never mind any vision or philosophy spanning multiple media and products. Maybe Gates simply wasn't in the position of doing anything else at that time, or maybe his rant was a clever way to expose this exact problem. But it's pretty obvious that "will someone fix the website" doesn't sound like someone analysing and addressing the root cause of the issue. (However, it's also perfectly possible that this email is just a small part of a bigger conversation at different levels- inform the responsible and patch the immediate issue while more high level analysis and planning takes place elsewhere, informally).

dpark 1mo ago
I think the real point is that this is a random email that Gates sent to some execs sharing a bad experience with the product, and some people on HN are trying to take it as a much deeper thing than it really is. A leader should be able to send candid communication to other leaders. A culture where execs are unable to communicate candidly to their peers or other high-level leaders is a toxic one. It would be absurd to insist that every communication needs to be candy coated and framed in terms of “I take responsibility, so here’s a path forward, and I’ll handhold everyone through it.”
- bluegatty 1mo ago
  This is not about candor, it's about framing and respecting what kind of power people have, who is responsible for what. "Hey gang - I know I'm not Dear Leader anymore - and - I don't want to get in the way of your new Dear Leader, but I want to share with you a bad experience I had with this product. A, B, C, D. E .. was really bad. After thinking about it - I think much of this lays at my feet. In the Golden Era of MS we didn't think much about design, or 'Whole Product'. I have to take responsibility for that. But these kinds of outcomes are really bad, and this has to be nipped in the bud now - and in the future. I suggest this probably happened because Product and R&D criss-crossed here, the Release Managers and Product Marketing dropped a lot in between. That there was a ball dropped here must be the responsibility at the VP/Executive level at very least, for not ensuring smooth handoff. Furthermore - that this experience could be so bad means we have to rethink and extend our integration testing all the way to 'end user experience'. Finally, I think you'll need to engender a culture of design right from the start - that's going to take 2-4 years and a different kind of thinking, that is not a fire that can be put out, or a process to be fixed. I'll have to lave that on the lap of the new Dear Leader. Keep up the great work. - BG" That's how to write a 'candid' note.
  - dpark 1mo ago
    That’s not candid. It’s candy. It borderline infantilizing and buries the message under a bunch of saccharine. I can practically see the fake smile plastered across the face of the manager saying this. I would be insulted if my manager sent a message like this to the team. Your version also took away literally all of the concrete detail, turning into a generic “it’s bad” that isn’t an actionable. It sounds like you sent it through an LLM. I would also imagine that there are a lot of other emails flying around that are discussing the general pattern of concern while this is more of a drive-by honest review of a specific experience. This is the kind of blunt feedback that execs do not usually get about their products and probably need more of. This kind of blunt feedback from a respected leader can’t be waived away the way anecdotes from individual customers can.

bluegatty 1mo ago

-----> "It’s absolutely vacuous to say 'I take responsibility for this' when you are telling a group of people they need to fix their shit." Totally false. It's literally the opposite of vacuous to take responsibility for his failure to set up the culture and system wherein this kind of stuff would not happen - while at the same time starting a fire so that the work is done. Allocating responsibility is one of the most important actions. -----> he both 'started a conversation' and ... it's a frenzy. Agreed - it's totally legit that he brought up the issue, and it doesn't have to be perfectly presented ... but that email chain is almost purely reactionary. That is not people seeking root cause. It's not people recognizing underlying systems. It's a reactionary executive gaggle. This is a 'put out the fire' type reactionary stuff. The shocking thing to most people, would be how much of the world is actually run this way. I concede that it's not horrible in and of itself - and sometimes a fire must be lit, but this is a frenzy. Not deliberative. ----> If by underling you mean “highly paid executives” then sure. By 'underling' I mean anyone under him. The executives in this thread are acting like underlings.

dpark 1mo ago
You keep talking about “taking responsibility”. Unless the person taking responsibility is also taking action, which you aren’t even proposing, then it’s just words. It’s more sugar coating. “It’s not you, it’s me.” > This is a 'put out the fire' type reactionary stuff. After the fire fighting comes the postmortem where the systemic issues should be discussed. A fire is a great way to spur both short and long term action. > By 'underling' I mean anyone under him. I don’t know how you reconcile “accountability” with the idea that the a leader cannot expect members of the team to deliver. Is Gates the only person who has any accountability expected here?
- gopher_space 1mo ago
  Do you think personal responsibility travels uphill or downhill? Each of the letters in CEO stand for a word with specific meaning, and when you put them together they tell you where the buck stops. It’s not a job for people who can’t take responsibility for their fuckups.