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The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

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Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#71

Post by rictic »

jamesbressi wrote: post #59

I'm so sorry for pointing this out, I loved the article, but was surprised that no one else raised issue with: "Like downloading MP3s, it was a victimless crime." After all these years we know better than to say this carelessly. Is stealing code from a hardworking programmer a victimless crime?

I thought this example was well chosen. Downloading mp3s is a familiar thing that's very easy to do, but may not be ethically defensible in the final analysis.

If you want to have a discussion about copyright though, you're poisoning the well by calling infringement stealing.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#72

Post by edster »

GFischer wrote: post #58
abalashov wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it's hard to believe that peace of mind is worth paying 5 kids graduated 6 weeks ago in Political Science from Stanford to come give Powerpoints on meaningless, vapid crapola billed to you each at $300/hr, even where such figures don't make much of a blip on the bottom line.

They don't want anyone that has a clue and might therefore threaten them! (sadly seen this in my work) Edit: many of the other cynical explanations further down in the thread are quite valid too (scapegoat theory et al)

I've worked at so many of the largest companies as an employee, contractor and even overpaid consultant and this is completely true. These companies are completely mired in their own structure that there is nothing they can do to get out.

Everyone is protecting their turf and their headcount that you almost have to have "Bob and Bob" come into, even though they don't know anything themselves.

When I was working for a professional organization as a consultant, sometimes I would go into gigs where I literally knew nothing about the product that I was supposedly an expert on. I remember specifically one case where I spent a frantic weekend learning about a tech that I was supposed to help this company plan a rollout for because I was the expert. The worst part was these employees had been preparing for this rollout for weeks, so they already had a good grasp of the core and I was still trying to learn all of the acronyms.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#73

Post by jmcannon »

eplanit wrote: post #69

I guess Welcome the Real World, is the best response I can give. So sorry that the real world is so non-idealistic and disappointing to you, and that your wonderful skills and knowledge aren't being prized and utilized. In other words, you're experiencing the reality shock _everybody_ experiences when engaging with, and learning about, the corporate world. It seems you'd be happier in Academia, a research institute,…

Fine, but even then he does a wonderful and passionate job articulating that 'universal' reality shock.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#74

Post by roundsquare »

carbocation wrote: post #3

He invokes Excel as an analytical engine several times in this story. I am trying to figure out if he actually considers it to be a powerful statistical engine, or if he is merely using it synecdochically for the benefit of non-technical readers, in order to represent statistical software more generally.

Its fairly common for programmers to dislike excel (at least in my experience). However, it provides a lot of benefits:

1) Its actually pretty powerful. Since the cells update in real time it provides a nice way to do "what if" analysis pretty quickly.

2) The solver is pretty good.

3) Most people in business can read excel so it provides a good common ground.

4) Since all the intermediate steps in a calculation are in a cell somewhere, its pretty easy to trace through logic.

I certainly wouldn't use excel to handle huge amounts of data, but its a good tool as long as your computational requirements aren't that big.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#75

Post by roundsquare »

ahk wrote: post #48
dantheman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are completely incorrect, the free market is a moral system because it does not rely on coercion or force to compel others to interact. All interactions in a free market system are voluntary and beneficial to all participants in the transaction. No other economic system can make those claims.

It can be beneficial to all "participants" but disastrous to society as a whole, can it not? Look at the current rage against free market instruments like CDOs and other complex unregulated derivatives. Are you really claiming we dont need "coercion or force" from regulators like the SEC or FTC?

Wow... taking @dantheman's statements a bit too literally maybe? There are very, very few free market proponents who would be in favor a pure free market. Just about everyone agrees that some degree of regulation is necessary (or else paying for a murder would be a proper free market transaction).

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#76

Post by PG-13 »

gvb wrote: post #43
microcentury wrote: post #39

"At my salary level, and with my expected advancement path, I could comfortably retire in my thirties." I've heard this or statements like it in quite a few articles over the years, but I've never actually met a retired thirties business consultant. Do they exist and am I just missing them? The only ones I know are well into their thirties, working 70+ hours a week, and looking forward to making even larger boatloads…

They think they will retire in their thirties, but they never have enough. "At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch 22 over its whole history. Heller responds, "Yes, but I have something he will never have... Enough." http://ww…

LOL. There's a huge difference between a hedge fund manager and a management consultant. Perhaps the billionaire will never think he has enough, but the consultant will actually, in legitimate and reasonable terms, not have enough. They really don't make much money for the hours they put in. Factoring travel, they work as much as an investment banker and essentially earn what a banker would earn without his bonus.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#77

Post by WarDekar »

rdtsc wrote: post #42
tokenadult wrote: post #26

"I wasn’t sure at the time, but having had enough free time of late to ponder such questions, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that having a father who can pay for a top-notch education outweighs the disadvantage of being raised by a hypocrite. Sticking with the job for the sake of a paycheck passes the children test." I wonder how many children get sent to college by dads like that.

> I wonder how many children get sent to college by dads like that. Given the amazing human capacity to rationalize everything, I would guess -- a lot.

I would guess a lot, too- because human beings are by nature hypocrites.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#78

Post by jrockway »

microcentury wrote: post #39

"At my salary level, and with my expected advancement path, I could comfortably retire in my thirties." I've heard this or statements like it in quite a few articles over the years, but I've never actually met a retired thirties business consultant. Do they exist and am I just missing them? The only ones I know are well into their thirties, working 70+ hours a week, and looking forward to making even larger boatloads…

Depends. If you are making $300,000 a year and live like you are making $15,000 a year (and save the rest), then you can retire at 30.

Most people aren't willing to be this frugal, however. It seems some people making this much even have trouble "making ends meet", because they buy so much crap that they can't afford. Ah, consumerism.

(In the interest of fairness, I am almost as bad -- I love buying stuff. I just stop when I don't have any more money... and I might even be able to retire before I'm 90 :)

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#79

Post by ramchip »

_delirium wrote: post #4
carbocation wrote: post #3

He invokes Excel as an analytical engine several times in this story. I am trying to figure out if he actually considers it to be a powerful statistical engine, or if he is merely using it synecdochically for the benefit of non-technical readers, in order to represent statistical software more generally.

It actually is the de-facto-standard modeling engine in a lot of areas, even some scientific areas, but mainly economics/finance. There are some pretty nuttily complex simulations written entirely in Excel, with the visualization part of the simulation done by popping up a chart--- you can even make it animated by popping up a new chart at a certain time interval. There's even a market in commercial spreadsheets, whi…

You can now do stuff like that in a lot of languages, but it's relatively recent

Saying "Lisp had it X years ago" sounds perhaps a little weenish, but... that sounds a lot like the Cells library, and the even older Garnet KR. Granted, they're quite a lot less accessible than spreadsheet programs.

FRP seems to be modern take on it. It's being very actively researched in the Haskell community.

Re: The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell

#80

Post by holdenc »

abalashov wrote: post #50
holdenc wrote: post #46

This story is written with a wonderful naivete. Consultants like BCG exist only to lend credentials and competent temporary labor. The companies who hire these consultants are looking for affirmation and peace of mind -- most of them too mired in bureaucracy or incompetence to draw even the most basic conclusions by themselves.

Still, it's hard to believe that peace of mind is worth paying 5 kids graduated 6 weeks ago in Political Science from Stanford to come give Powerpoints on meaningless, vapid crapola billed to you each at $300/hr, even where such figures don't make much of a blip on the bottom line.

It does seem strange, but here are some reasons why this happens:

- When you hire BCG or McKenzie to (for example) value a business segment or recommend an acquisition, their feedback can be touted as expert and unbiased.

- BCG will do whatever it takes to deliver what's asked, even if it's a banal Power Point. So the person who decided to hire them is taking a minimal risk by doing so.

- In many cases it's a chance for the client company to get insights on how competitors have solved similar problems. Albeit in the story everyone's right out of school, I've seen cases where a pharma company will hire a group from a place like BCG because they've also worked for a competitor.

- Lastly, it's a chance to work with some talented folks who might make good permanent hires at the client company.

Bottom line, is that this type of consulting is usually a huge waste of money. But it's also one of the only ways huge companies can get a group of talented degree-toting individuals to work on important temporary projects with the assurance that company will get exactly what it wants.

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