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Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

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Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#41

Post by quanticle »

nickpinkston wrote: post #6

There's a lot of great points in the article, though I'm unsure how Silicon Valley's early/mature companies stack against average ones. Take for instance: - Are managers at a pizza shop / drywall contractor / design studio better than the average startup? - Are managers at IBM / GE / JPM better than ones at Facebook / Apple / Google? At first blush, I'd think that we're actually better correcting for firm age, but I'…

If anything, I would argue that management in Silicon Valley is better than average. A Silicon Valley manager knows that if they mistreat their underlings too much, those underlings will quit and go somewhere else. A manager, at say, a manufacturing plant in a Rust Belt city faces no such restrictions. If they fire a worker, that worker has nowhere else to go, and as a result, the line workers in those locations and industries put up and shut up.

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#42

Post by jevanish »

at_a_remove wrote: post #17
angryasian wrote: post #16

In engineering Hiring good managers is not what they optimize for. Yes Engineering management should still have a high level of understanding of engineering principals within that domain, but management also because a people skill. Out of all my interviews, people skills and EQ are very often overlooked.

EQ has already been co-opted as a term and rendered essentially meaningless. One job, there was a craze for it, starting at the top, so naturally we all eventually had to go to this wretched little one day course on it. I kid you not, everything was about either "fear" or "love." If that sounds familiar, if it sounds like Donnie Darko , you would be right ... almost everything we were "taught" in this emotional intel…

Yeah, HR cannot help you be a better manager, especially considering many of the worst managers and experiences people have at their companies involve HR.

Those training sessions are also terrible. Even if they did have good content (instead of rah-rah and feel good BS), you can only remember so much at once, which even has a name for it: the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve https://peakmemory.me/2013/06/29/hermann-ebbinghaus-and-the-...

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#43

Post by dx87 »

question000 wrote: post #32

I'm a developer and I admit the truth is that managers are bad only because developers are worse. Turnover in tech is extremely high and it's not because devs are constantly being mismanaged, it's because they are egotistical and capable of working independently and often just do without any real penalty. "Oh you fired me, well 9 times out of 10 I'll just be earning more money across the street, good luck recruiting…

I work at a tech company on the east coast, and the managers I've talked to don't like managing west coast dev teams for all the reasons you mentioned. They said they'll refuse to show up to meetings, won't answer phone calls/emails/slack, don't document anything, etc., because they think they're code artisans and won't do anything that they think is below them.

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#44

Post by cblconfederate »

question000 wrote: post #32

I'm a developer and I admit the truth is that managers are bad only because developers are worse. Turnover in tech is extremely high and it's not because devs are constantly being mismanaged, it's because they are egotistical and capable of working independently and often just do without any real penalty. "Oh you fired me, well 9 times out of 10 I'll just be earning more money across the street, good luck recruiting…

Why is that bad?

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#45

Post by quanticle »

jevanish wrote: post #27
nickpinkston wrote: post #6

There's a lot of great points in the article, though I'm unsure how Silicon Valley's early/mature companies stack against average ones. Take for instance: - Are managers at a pizza shop / drywall contractor / design studio better than the average startup? - Are managers at IBM / GE / JPM better than ones at Facebook / Apple / Google? At first blush, I'd think that we're actually better correcting for firm age, but I'…

The reason the Valley is different is because if you have 35% turnover at most companies, you're out of business. In Silicon Valley, you can hide it behind more recruiters and funding. I've talked to multiple companies with first hand accounts of that level of turnover, which is rare in other industries because they'd go out of business losing that many people.

>The reason the Valley is different is because if you have 35% turnover at most companies, you're out of business

Really depends on the business. Walmart and Amazon have considerably greater than 35% turnover. Yes, 35% turnover is fatal if you're trying to do specialized, high-skill work. However, most businesses are not doing specialized, high-skill work. They're doing the routine work of delivering the goods and services that people need every day to live their lives. 35% turnover in that situation is arguably an advantage because it prevents bonds from forming between employees. It's a lot harder to organize and form a union to demand rights when you don't even know if that person you're talking to is going to still be there a month from now.

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#46

Post by quanticle »

jevanish wrote: post #28
uberman wrote: post #5

Does it really have comparatively bad managers? Are a lack of diversity and prevalence of harassment more common in Silicon Valley than say big pharma, big banking, big investing, or big entertainment? I am speculating the answer is "no".

Certainly finance has its own terrible reputation and problems, but that does not absolve Silicon Valley / Tech companies from doing better. They absolutely have the knowledge, funding, resources to do better.

But that's not the question. The question isn't whether Silicon Valley can do better. The answer to that is trivially yes. We can all do better.

The question is, is the quality of management in Silicon Valley worse than it is in other industries and other locations. I would argue no. I would argue that the quality of management in Silicon Valley is at worst average, and is likely above average. In Silicon Valley, workers have far more bargaining power than they have in other areas of the country, and, as a result, if the management is truly awful, they'll simply leave.

That's not true elsewhere. If you're working for say, Epic Systems in Madison, Wisconsin, and you have a bad manager, what are your options? Sure, you can quit... and go work for who else, exactly? The employee's next-best opportunity isn't nearly as valuable, so management can get away with being less competent.

This isn't a theoretical consideration, either. I've moved from the West Coast to the Midwest, for family and cost of living reasons, and one of the things I've noticed is that the management here just really isn't as good, especially with regards to software projects, as it is on the West Coast. Partially that's down to the companies here being less software oriented than they are on the West Coast. But I would also argue that a significant part of it is that the management here is simply less competent.

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#47

Post by TuringNYC »

question000 wrote: post #32

I'm a developer and I admit the truth is that managers are bad only because developers are worse. Turnover in tech is extremely high and it's not because devs are constantly being mismanaged, it's because they are egotistical and capable of working independently and often just do without any real penalty. "Oh you fired me, well 9 times out of 10 I'll just be earning more money across the street, good luck recruiting…

>> Turnover in tech is extremely high and it's not because devs are constantly being mismanaged, it's because they are egotistical and capable of working independently and often just do without any real penalty. "Oh you fired me, well 9 times out of 10 I'll just be earning more money across the street, good luck recruiting anyone with a bad Glassdoor review!" What incentives does the manager have to get invested with the devs in this situation when employees good and bad can just leave easily.

Let me provide a flip side to this from the dev's perspective: Salaries stagnate for developers in the same company as valuable options in il-liquid private stock serve as golden handcuffs. Companies abuse this position by further underpaying developers as compared to the market. If they can "make more money across the street" that is proof of the situation. Dont you expect developers to have some resentment to this situation?

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#48

Post by lkbm »

question000 wrote: post #32

I'm a developer and I admit the truth is that managers are bad only because developers are worse. Turnover in tech is extremely high and it's not because devs are constantly being mismanaged, it's because they are egotistical and capable of working independently and often just do without any real penalty. "Oh you fired me, well 9 times out of 10 I'll just be earning more money across the street, good luck recruiting…

> Anyone who's worked in tach a while has seen cases where a dev has just flat out refused to do something a manager has asked them to do. Why? Ego is the only reason when you get paid either way.

I don't think I've seen that yet, but if it came up with any of my coworkers, it would be because of ethical concerns. "Hide the cancel button", "Remove the unsubscribe link", etc.

Are you talking about people saying things like "I'm a senior engineer. Get the newbie to do that task"? I can't imagine that flying for a second where I work. You can try making the case that it's a poor use of your time, but flat-out refusing to do something out of ego would be the reddest of red flags.

(fwiw, I'm in Austin, not SV.)

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#49

Post by question000 »

dx87 wrote: post #43
question000 wrote: post #32

I'm a developer and I admit the truth is that managers are bad only because developers are worse. Turnover in tech is extremely high and it's not because devs are constantly being mismanaged, it's because they are egotistical and capable of working independently and often just do without any real penalty. "Oh you fired me, well 9 times out of 10 I'll just be earning more money across the street, good luck recruiting…

I work at a tech company on the east coast, and the managers I've talked to don't like managing west coast dev teams for all the reasons you mentioned. They said they'll refuse to show up to meetings, won't answer phone calls/emails/slack, don't document anything, etc., because they think they're code artisans and won't do anything that they think is below them.

Yeah, there's really a lot going on cultural in this phenomenon of the egotistical coder.

I'd break it down into these following factors:

1) youth, young people don't really care about burning bridges their life has pretty much always been on an upswing and they feel "set for life." There peers are bartenders, but they are making more money then their parents year one.

2) male dominated, I don't want to engage in stereotypes here but it just seems this is a factor.

3) education system, typically it has pushed people towards research and novelty. When I told my professor I wanted to get into web development he said "pfft that's just plumbing" definitely plays into factor two, the typical egotistical dev feels emasculated writing and email template. Not a good vibe for a manager.

Re: Why Silicon Valley has so many Bad Managers

#50

Post by question000 »

lkbm wrote: post #48
question000 wrote: post #32

I'm a developer and I admit the truth is that managers are bad only because developers are worse. Turnover in tech is extremely high and it's not because devs are constantly being mismanaged, it's because they are egotistical and capable of working independently and often just do without any real penalty. "Oh you fired me, well 9 times out of 10 I'll just be earning more money across the street, good luck recruiting…

> Anyone who's worked in tach a while has seen cases where a dev has just flat out refused to do something a manager has asked them to do. Why? Ego is the only reason when you get paid either way. I don't think I've seen that yet, but if it came up with any of my coworkers, it would be because of ethical concerns. "Hide the cancel button", "Remove the unsubscribe link", etc. Are you talking about people saying things…

Yeah I've seen situations where basically a dev wants to take project in a direction and the manager repeatedly shoots it down until they quit or are fired. They will just argue that the manager is micro-managing and making technical decisions, but in reality it's just matter of how the business must operate and the dev is actually stepping on the managers toes.

Devs will also just argue that doing some UI related changes are pointless even though managers have requested them repeatedly and clearly prioritize them. I've seen all forms of recalcitrance.

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