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Revolutionaries at the Workplace

damnoptimist.substack.com

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Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#31

Post by AlbertCory »

unbanned wrote: post #28
AlbertCory wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you really understand the power of simple metrics. Making an assumption (perhaps invalid) based on your submissions and comments, you seem to be in a line of work whose sales pitch is "Things are complex. You need to hire us to explain it all to you." Or maybe you've worked on games; it's hard to tell. Since you've alluded to your experiences: I've picked a startup based only on their business descripti…

Very good Albert, yet here you are posting on HN like everybody else.

Fair, but he did go on and on about all the things he's seen.

Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#32

Post by delusional »

AlbertCory wrote: post #24
groby_b wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is, pardon the directness, bad pop psychology. If A players could recognize another one, our industry's hiring wouldn't be so incredibly broken. The idea that there are clear layers of engineering skill is... just plain wrong, and that's obvious to anyone who's worked on more than a few teams. It's a spectrum, and more, it's multidimensional. So is the idea that somehow people not in the top layer automatically…

I don't think you really understand the power of simple metrics. Making an assumption (perhaps invalid) based on your submissions and comments, you seem to be in a line of work whose sales pitch is "Things are complex. You need to hire us to explain it all to you." Or maybe you've worked on games; it's hard to tell. Since you've alluded to your experiences: I've picked a startup based only on their business descripti…

Ahh, so you consider yourself an "A" player. Ever wonder why your personal philosophy places you at the top and everyone else below?

Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#33

Post by notpachet »

travisgriggs wrote: post #17

Mixed feelings; maybe just feeling a bit defensive as I fear I’ve been playing the role of revolutionary in my current work and don’t care for some of the negative descriptions which unnervingly ring pretty true. Mid article though, it says > That’s because organizations tend to become more bureaucratic, political and consensus-driven as they grow. Is this somehow ever a good thing? Largely, all of those things just…

> organizations tend to become more bureaucratic, political and consensus-driven as they grow

Hot take: a big part of the utility of these "mature" companies in society is to serve as a kind of glorified daycare for adults. The people they employ can feel like they're contributing something to society, and legitimately earning the money they're bringing home, even if a bird's eye view would reveal that they're just treading water and not really producing any net benefit. This allows the employees to feel better about themselves than they would if the government just handed them a UBI paycheck and sent them back to playing videogames all day.

I've seen a lot of turmoil between people who are legitimately trying to make the world a better place through their work (spoiler: it wasn't always me), and coworkers that prefer to just operate in daycare mode.

Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#34

Post by feteru »

AlbertCory wrote: post #30
jolux wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've picked a startup based only on their business description, where I didn't know a single person, and it IPO'ed in about 18 months. Anybody can do that once. If you could do it a hundred times in a row, or develop a science of picking startups, I might be more inclined to believe you.

If anybody could do that once, they'd all have done it already, and most of them wouldn't be posting on HN anymore.

Anybody can do it once, not everybody can do it once. It's just luck of the draw, most won't be able to, but they could.

Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#36

Post by dominotw »

Hokusai wrote: post #8

This is just pseudoscience. No studies, no test, just a guy opinion. Stop clarifying people this way. It's not useful, it's not insightfully. I have seen coworkers fighting for one thing but not another. One fights against bad work ethics, another for good tech and another one for their own right too be with his family. People is complex, everything comes in gradients and that changes as people grows and they learn a…

> is just pseudoscience. No studies, no test

> look for some real course in psychology and learn from there.

Isn't psychology famously pseudoscience as well, given almost all of their studies are irreproducible.

Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#37

Post by adolph »

AlbertCory wrote: post #18

I like this article, but there's another way of classifying that I also like: letter grades (remember those from school?) which uses hiring psychology a little more. In a successful startup, whom you hire makes or breaks you. 'A' players hire 'A' players. 'B' players hire 'C' players. Independent of Revolutionary vs. Evolutionary, we have pure intelligence, education, and animal cunning. An 'A' player has all those,…

How'd the the "'B' player" get a job in the first place? Does an "'A' player" have a half life at which they degrade to "'B' player?" Is the letterness of any basket of skills and traits context dependent so that an "'A' player" used car salesperson is a "'C' player" philosopher but the "'A player" philosopher recognize that person as a fellow "'A' player" but can't understand their lack of wisdom-love?

Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#38

Post by Kranar »

Hokusai wrote: post #8

This is just pseudoscience. No studies, no test, just a guy opinion. Stop clarifying people this way. It's not useful, it's not insightfully. I have seen coworkers fighting for one thing but not another. One fights against bad work ethics, another for good tech and another one for their own right too be with his family. People is complex, everything comes in gradients and that changes as people grows and they learn a…

You can't just call something you disagree with pseudoscience. Pseudoscience is when an argument is presented in a way that directly suggests it's a scientific finding, or suggests that it follows the scientific method, but does so only superficially.

No part of this article is intended to mislead you into thinking it's scientific or technical in nature. It is one person's opinion and they are sharing it and there's nothing wrong with that. You can disagree, agree, share your own insights, but calling it pseudoscience is uncalled for.

>If you are interested look for some real course in psychology and learn from there.

There is very little that one can learn from psychology (with respect to this topic) as psychology lacks a great deal of consensus on this and most other subjects, as well as an inability to reproduce a substantial portion of research. Take two different psychology courses related to what the author is discussing and you'll come away with two very different understandings.

Finally I would like to distinguish psychology from psychiatry, as the two are often lumped together, unfairly so.

Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#39

Post by exBarrelSpoiler »

AlbertCory wrote: post #24
groby_b wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is, pardon the directness, bad pop psychology. If A players could recognize another one, our industry's hiring wouldn't be so incredibly broken. The idea that there are clear layers of engineering skill is... just plain wrong, and that's obvious to anyone who's worked on more than a few teams. It's a spectrum, and more, it's multidimensional. So is the idea that somehow people not in the top layer automatically…

I don't think you really understand the power of simple metrics. Making an assumption (perhaps invalid) based on your submissions and comments, you seem to be in a line of work whose sales pitch is "Things are complex. You need to hire us to explain it all to you." Or maybe you've worked on games; it's hard to tell. Since you've alluded to your experiences: I've picked a startup based only on their business descripti…

Trying to read the entrails into another poster's personality in response to a not very inflammatory comment is just plain gross. A pity, I was interested in reading Inventing the Future, but this sort of classless rude behavior has changed my mind.

Re: Revolutionaries at the Workplace

#40

Post by LaffertyDev »

travisgriggs wrote: post #17

Mixed feelings; maybe just feeling a bit defensive as I fear I’ve been playing the role of revolutionary in my current work and don’t care for some of the negative descriptions which unnervingly ring pretty true. Mid article though, it says > That’s because organizations tend to become more bureaucratic, political and consensus-driven as they grow. Is this somehow ever a good thing? Largely, all of those things just…

If you're interested in more discussions along this road, then Bahcall's `Loonshots` is a good read. Lots of anecdotes, little science, great stories. Overall I found it fascinating. I found myself nodding along to most of the goodread's reviews, if you find yourself on the fence.

On-topic, I think its a natural evolution for organizations to stagnate and calcify unless there is a fundamental recreation. Lots of things could be cherry-picked here for anecdata (Roman Republic, Roman Empire, General Electric, )

I don't think that's bad. You wouldn't want an innovative person being your line cook at a restaurant -- you want the innovative person to be the chef. We also don't want the laws governing the countries we live in to violently change. Systemic, evolutionary, progress is good.

The challenge is figuring out a balance and what to do to prevent the organization from calcifying (becoming product lines on life support), prevent it from throwing away what makes the organization good (chasing the next big thing), and continue to let the organization innovate and thrive (stay relevant) without being eaten.

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