10 ms·

It's easy to blame one guy, but I'm sure his task was next to impossible. It's not just some independent website where you have full control of your creation.

by ye 13y ago

It's easy to blame one guy, but I'm sure his task was next to impossible. It's not just some independent website where you have full control of your creation. It had to interact with a dozen of other systems, and I'm sure a bunch of APIs were created just for that, and I'm sure bugs in just some of them could render the whole system nonfunctioning. And yes, maybe it is this guy's fault. We don't really know.

waps 13y ago
It's even easier when you read the guy's biography : http://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Leadership/ois/index.html http://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Leadership/ois/index.html This guy is a typical management idiot. He has no qualifications except "leading" (not specified any further, of course), and making decisions about other people's money. While it's hard finding disastrous decisions in his CV, I'm not seeing anything that suggests he did more than show up. As for leading, he has zero qualifications in either healthcare or IT. I see this at a lot of companies, and someone really should explain it here, where I can ask the question anonymously : how the fuck do these guys get their positions ? Suppose I came in for a job interview about programming cars. First thing I say is that I have zero knowledge about either programming or cars. But I've got "executive awards" and I managed a few people in a completely unremarkable company in a project no-one's ever heard of, or ever will hear off, they were that important. Would you hire me ? I hope not. Why the fuck did this guy get hired ? I can't even fault the guy himself. Of course he's not the right person to lead anything, but he's responding to incentives put in place by the US government, and by companies more generally. Given what he gets paid, of course he's doing whatever his superiors want him to do, without question, and without taking reality into account. Of course he's extremely motivated to lie to everybody to keep that job for just a few more months. The guy who hired him to make responsible decisions about IT, or healthcare, that's the guy that needs firing. Really, I'd love to understand. What, assuming it isn't flat-out corruption or nepotism, motivates someone to hire people like this into important positions they flat-out know nothing about ?
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Resource allocation and telling people what to do is a skill in itself (which of course requires a lot of attentive listening if it is to be done well). It's easy to dismiss managers as idiots, but that's not much better than dismissing individual tech people as short-sighted folks who can't see the big picture.
  - waps 13y ago
    So what you're saying is that without domain knowledge you can make an accurate allocation decision ? I don't believe that. Can you demonstrate ? I'm making a device, it doesn't matter which kind, rocket or car, or what it does. Why don't you give me a plan to allocate production of this device. Of course, it has to apply to all possible devices, rockets, boats, cars (fisher-price and the regular kind), ... Since you say this decision can be made intelligently without domain knowledge, there must be a general solution. As an AI aficionado, I am EXTREMELY interested in this solution and I can personally guarantee this to you : If you have even a basic (but non-trivial) beginning of a plan that actually works, I'll make sure you get the Fields medal at least 5 times, or 1000 billion dollars, because a discovery of that magnitude absolutely merits such a reward, and the money would be easy pickings with such an algorithm. Hell it'd be rather easy to become the leader of a robot empire that easily defeats the US and every other nation on earth if you have such a solution. But frankly I expect that you're bullshitting. Out of the dozens of lunatic proposals I've received from various sources, from students to foul-smelling people I'd never seen before (or again), they at least mentioned the method they claimed would work. None were even remotely workable. You just claim that "some people have learned it". I disagree in the strongest possible manner. Please, please convince me wrong. If it can be learned, it can be taught : so teach us, right here in this thread if it does indeed exist. I claim these people who have learned "allocation" have not learned a thing. If they did, capitalism (a learning algorithm itself) could never possibly win against communism or dictatorships (because one of them would have had a leader that got allocation right). Instead, manager success is attributable, exclusively, to either the skills of the people they "allocated" and got things done (usually by undoing at least some allocation decisions), some external factor (it is no great feat for a microsoft product manager to build a program used by 500 million people due to monopoly), or shear dumb luck. Oh right, there's also bribery and nepotism to account for management positions (as opposed to success). This sort of arguments makes the ideas behind software development methodologies make much more sense. Especially scrum, but agile before it and others seem to be highly focused on taking allocation decisions out of the hands of people with this "allocation" "skillset", like managers and project managers and the like, and into engineer's hands by moving them into systems the engineers control. I would also like to add that, in the business article/book way of saying things, "most" successful companies, from Ford, over Microsoft to Google, became successful and grew when "allocation" of resources was effectively not done at all in these companies. Especially human resources that brought these companies their big wins were often going against management decisions (or management was giving them 20% time. Except of course, they spent a lot more than 20% on it).
- ceejayoz 13y ago
  Someone at CIO level for a government agency or large corporation isn't going to be expected to have technical qualifications. They're going to be expected to manage the folks who do, which means a history of managing large teams and degrees more like an MBA than a Masters in CS. > Suppose I came in for a job interview about programming cars. You're not interviewing for an executive-level position, then.
- jrochkind1 13y ago
  Here's my theory. There's domain skills, the actual skills and knowledge about programming or cars or whatever your business does. Then there's skills at getting ahead itself. Politics. Skills at making the right people happy so you get a promotion. You need the 'getting ahead' skills to get to top levels in a large organization, right? We know that domain skills alone aren't going to cut it, if you're not good at the office politics, you are never going to be a department head or CIO -- in a large corporation or government or a university or large nonprofit: in any large organization. Well, there's only so much room for so many skills. To actually get to the top levels of a large organization you need to be so good at the political part, that there's no time or room left in your psyche for any actual domain skills at all. Or, really, any skills at all except for skills at making people higher up than you think you are good.
  - fein 13y ago
    > You need the 'getting ahead' skills to get to top levels in a large organization, right? The problem isn't attaining these skills; it's using them. Sure, I can use people as a means to an end in all sorts of colorful fashions to climb the ladder, but could I go home and sleep at night? I've made that decision, and it's a firm "No." Climbing the corporate ladder doesn't seem to be so difficult, as long as you can rationalize the soul selling required to do so. Perhaps my point of view will change later in life, but right now one of the most important ideologies I maintain is that I should only be evaluated based on work I can directly represent, not credit derived from others.
- crusso 13y ago
  What, assuming it isn't flat-out corruption or nepotism, motivates someone to hire people like this into important positions they flat-out know nothing about The people doing the hiring aren't experts at much of anything besides being bureaucrats or above them, elected officials. They aren't the best of the best in the healthcare or IT fields because of some kind of competition or consistent vetting process. The really funny thing is that the only reason anyone notices the staggering magnitude of the incompetence is because it's a web site that obviously doesn't work. Meanwhile behind the scenes are all kinds of protocols that don't really work to implement a healthcare system that is extremely poorly designed and will likely be poorly implemented. Unfortunately when the rest of it doesn't work, voters will operate in ignorance while politicians blame each other for the failures and inevitably more and more money will be thrown at the problem so that someone can try to look good and get re-elected.
JPKab 13y ago
But, but, his credentials on LinkedIn for running a huge IT project are impeccable! He once was a program manager of satellite stuff in the 1980s!! He even got a degree in Business and Finance from Loyola. Clearly the man could have started Google. 1984 to 1988: "Held several increasingly responsible project/program management positions for implementing large satellite telecommunications projects for Fortune 500 companies. Responsibilities included program and project administration,logistics management, financial management, and quality assurance for GTE Spacenet projects." 1988-1999: "Held a variety of increasing responsible IT policy positions. Established the Office of Electronic Commerce which had governmentwide responsibilities for developing policies, coordinating initiatives, and monitoring Federal electronic commerce. Also co-chaired with DoD the Federal Electronic Commerce Program Office. " 1999-2005: "As the Deputy AC, oversaw the development and implementation of all public (beneficiary) Internet applications (from a business and operations perspective) including the website business planning and development, identity management solutions, and analysis of website and on-line application use trends" Wow. A real Nikola fucking Tesla this guy is. This is the kind of shit that turns people into Republicans. There is literally nothing in this guy's resume that would suggest he should be a CIO handling a $2 billion budget.
- x0054 13y ago
  This reminds me. I once did work for this guy in Chicago. This guy was responsible for leading a team that converted all government computers in the city from Windows NT to 2000. The man does not know how to program, create websites, remove viruses, configure routers, build computers, or configure networks. I would not trust him with Ikea furniture! He was also a terrible manager, never knew what he wanted to see, mainly because he simply did not know what was possible. And yet, the city paid him a ton of money to do IT. In case you are wondering, the transition project took 5 times longer then budgeted for, surprise, surprise...
- ssafejava 13y ago
  It gets worse - the UI team lead had an associate's degree in Art & Web Design from a community college, and a bachelor's in Zoology. [1] Normally, I would say credentials generally don't matter - but combined with the code quality, the argument writes itself. I started looking him up after seeing this mention (and the awful code below). [2] 1. http://www.linkedin.com/in/mkayan http://www.linkedin.com/in/mkayan 2. https://github.com/STRML/Healthcare.gov-Marketplace/blob/master/app/js/ee/dateUtil.js#L3 https://github.com/STRML/Healthcare.gov-Marketplace/blob/mas...
asmithmd1 13y ago
He is the highest ranking white male so he had to be the one to go.
- robomartin 13y ago
  A despicable and disgusting comment the likes of which I don't think I've ever seem on HN. PLEASE DELETE IT.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    You could always just, you know, downvote it. Or flag it. The way the system is supposed to work.
yeukhon 13y ago
And now employers would have to think twice before hiring him.

by ye 13y ago

waps 13y ago

It's even easier when you read the guy's biography : http://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Leadership/ois/index.html http://www.cms.gov/About-CMS/Leadership/ois/index.html This guy is a typical management idiot. He has no qualifications except "leading" (not specified any further, of course), and making decisions about other people's money. While it's hard finding disastrous decisions in his CV, I'm not seeing anything that suggests he did more than show up. As for leading, he has zero qualifications in either healthcare or IT. I see this at a lot of companies, and someone really should explain it here, where I can ask the question anonymously : how the fuck do these guys get their positions ? Suppose I came in for a job interview about programming cars. First thing I say is that I have zero knowledge about either programming or cars. But I've got "executive awards" and I managed a few people in a completely unremarkable company in a project no-one's ever heard of, or ever will hear off, they were that important. Would you hire me ? I hope not. Why the fuck did this guy get hired ? I can't even fault the guy himself. Of course he's not the right person to lead anything, but he's responding to incentives put in place by the US government, and by companies more generally. Given what he gets paid, of course he's doing whatever his superiors want him to do, without question, and without taking reality into account. Of course he's extremely motivated to lie to everybody to keep that job for just a few more months. The guy who hired him to make responsible decisions about IT, or healthcare, that's the guy that needs firing. Really, I'd love to understand. What, assuming it isn't flat-out corruption or nepotism, motivates someone to hire people like this into important positions they flat-out know nothing about ?

anigbrowl 13y ago
Resource allocation and telling people what to do is a skill in itself (which of course requires a lot of attentive listening if it is to be done well). It's easy to dismiss managers as idiots, but that's not much better than dismissing individual tech people as short-sighted folks who can't see the big picture.
- waps 13y ago
  So what you're saying is that without domain knowledge you can make an accurate allocation decision ? I don't believe that. Can you demonstrate ? I'm making a device, it doesn't matter which kind, rocket or car, or what it does. Why don't you give me a plan to allocate production of this device. Of course, it has to apply to all possible devices, rockets, boats, cars (fisher-price and the regular kind), ... Since you say this decision can be made intelligently without domain knowledge, there must be a general solution. As an AI aficionado, I am EXTREMELY interested in this solution and I can personally guarantee this to you : If you have even a basic (but non-trivial) beginning of a plan that actually works, I'll make sure you get the Fields medal at least 5 times, or 1000 billion dollars, because a discovery of that magnitude absolutely merits such a reward, and the money would be easy pickings with such an algorithm. Hell it'd be rather easy to become the leader of a robot empire that easily defeats the US and every other nation on earth if you have such a solution. But frankly I expect that you're bullshitting. Out of the dozens of lunatic proposals I've received from various sources, from students to foul-smelling people I'd never seen before (or again), they at least mentioned the method they claimed would work. None were even remotely workable. You just claim that "some people have learned it". I disagree in the strongest possible manner. Please, please convince me wrong. If it can be learned, it can be taught : so teach us, right here in this thread if it does indeed exist. I claim these people who have learned "allocation" have not learned a thing. If they did, capitalism (a learning algorithm itself) could never possibly win against communism or dictatorships (because one of them would have had a leader that got allocation right). Instead, manager success is attributable, exclusively, to either the skills of the people they "allocated" and got things done (usually by undoing at least some allocation decisions), some external factor (it is no great feat for a microsoft product manager to build a program used by 500 million people due to monopoly), or shear dumb luck. Oh right, there's also bribery and nepotism to account for management positions (as opposed to success). This sort of arguments makes the ideas behind software development methodologies make much more sense. Especially scrum, but agile before it and others seem to be highly focused on taking allocation decisions out of the hands of people with this "allocation" "skillset", like managers and project managers and the like, and into engineer's hands by moving them into systems the engineers control. I would also like to add that, in the business article/book way of saying things, "most" successful companies, from Ford, over Microsoft to Google, became successful and grew when "allocation" of resources was effectively not done at all in these companies. Especially human resources that brought these companies their big wins were often going against management decisions (or management was giving them 20% time. Except of course, they spent a lot more than 20% on it).
ceejayoz 13y ago
Someone at CIO level for a government agency or large corporation isn't going to be expected to have technical qualifications. They're going to be expected to manage the folks who do, which means a history of managing large teams and degrees more like an MBA than a Masters in CS. > Suppose I came in for a job interview about programming cars. You're not interviewing for an executive-level position, then.
jrochkind1 13y ago
Here's my theory. There's domain skills, the actual skills and knowledge about programming or cars or whatever your business does. Then there's skills at getting ahead itself. Politics. Skills at making the right people happy so you get a promotion. You need the 'getting ahead' skills to get to top levels in a large organization, right? We know that domain skills alone aren't going to cut it, if you're not good at the office politics, you are never going to be a department head or CIO -- in a large corporation or government or a university or large nonprofit: in any large organization. Well, there's only so much room for so many skills. To actually get to the top levels of a large organization you need to be so good at the political part, that there's no time or room left in your psyche for any actual domain skills at all. Or, really, any skills at all except for skills at making people higher up than you think you are good.
- fein 13y ago
  > You need the 'getting ahead' skills to get to top levels in a large organization, right? The problem isn't attaining these skills; it's using them. Sure, I can use people as a means to an end in all sorts of colorful fashions to climb the ladder, but could I go home and sleep at night? I've made that decision, and it's a firm "No." Climbing the corporate ladder doesn't seem to be so difficult, as long as you can rationalize the soul selling required to do so. Perhaps my point of view will change later in life, but right now one of the most important ideologies I maintain is that I should only be evaluated based on work I can directly represent, not credit derived from others.
crusso 13y ago
What, assuming it isn't flat-out corruption or nepotism, motivates someone to hire people like this into important positions they flat-out know nothing about The people doing the hiring aren't experts at much of anything besides being bureaucrats or above them, elected officials. They aren't the best of the best in the healthcare or IT fields because of some kind of competition or consistent vetting process. The really funny thing is that the only reason anyone notices the staggering magnitude of the incompetence is because it's a web site that obviously doesn't work. Meanwhile behind the scenes are all kinds of protocols that don't really work to implement a healthcare system that is extremely poorly designed and will likely be poorly implemented. Unfortunately when the rest of it doesn't work, voters will operate in ignorance while politicians blame each other for the failures and inevitably more and more money will be thrown at the problem so that someone can try to look good and get re-elected.

JPKab 13y ago

But, but, his credentials on LinkedIn for running a huge IT project are impeccable! He once was a program manager of satellite stuff in the 1980s!! He even got a degree in Business and Finance from Loyola. Clearly the man could have started Google. 1984 to 1988: "Held several increasingly responsible project/program management positions for implementing large satellite telecommunications projects for Fortune 500 companies. Responsibilities included program and project administration,logistics management, financial management, and quality assurance for GTE Spacenet projects." 1988-1999: "Held a variety of increasing responsible IT policy positions. Established the Office of Electronic Commerce which had governmentwide responsibilities for developing policies, coordinating initiatives, and monitoring Federal electronic commerce. Also co-chaired with DoD the Federal Electronic Commerce Program Office. " 1999-2005: "As the Deputy AC, oversaw the development and implementation of all public (beneficiary) Internet applications (from a business and operations perspective) including the website business planning and development, identity management solutions, and analysis of website and on-line application use trends" Wow. A real Nikola fucking Tesla this guy is. This is the kind of shit that turns people into Republicans. There is literally nothing in this guy's resume that would suggest he should be a CIO handling a $2 billion budget.

x0054 13y ago
This reminds me. I once did work for this guy in Chicago. This guy was responsible for leading a team that converted all government computers in the city from Windows NT to 2000. The man does not know how to program, create websites, remove viruses, configure routers, build computers, or configure networks. I would not trust him with Ikea furniture! He was also a terrible manager, never knew what he wanted to see, mainly because he simply did not know what was possible. And yet, the city paid him a ton of money to do IT. In case you are wondering, the transition project took 5 times longer then budgeted for, surprise, surprise...
ssafejava 13y ago
It gets worse - the UI team lead had an associate's degree in Art & Web Design from a community college, and a bachelor's in Zoology. [1] Normally, I would say credentials generally don't matter - but combined with the code quality, the argument writes itself. I started looking him up after seeing this mention (and the awful code below). [2] 1. http://www.linkedin.com/in/mkayan http://www.linkedin.com/in/mkayan 2. https://github.com/STRML/Healthcare.gov-Marketplace/blob/master/app/js/ee/dateUtil.js#L3 https://github.com/STRML/Healthcare.gov-Marketplace/blob/mas...

asmithmd1 13y ago

He is the highest ranking white male so he had to be the one to go.

robomartin 13y ago
A despicable and disgusting comment the likes of which I don't think I've ever seem on HN. PLEASE DELETE IT.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  You could always just, you know, downvote it. Or flag it. The way the system is supposed to work.

yeukhon 13y ago

And now employers would have to think twice before hiring him.