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Automate the CEOs

hamiltonnolan.com

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Re: Automate the CEOs

#101

Post by invalidOrTaken »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #69
candiddevmike wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most corporate structures are feudal. Folks should refer to their VPs as the Duke/Duchess of Engineering.

The modern corporation is literally a dictatorship: "form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations." Companies are *governed* by unimpeachable, unelected, all powerful groups that in practice treat employees like literal slaves (you don't have to be chattel or physically abused to be a slave). However because almost all employment agreeme…

echoing nickelcitymario, would love to hear what you're working on

Re: Automate the CEOs

#102

Post by CrampusDestrus »

candiddevmike wrote: post #47
calvinmorrison wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% of what middle management is what secretaries used to do. If I ever run my own company I will hire a team of secretaries to work with my developers and our productivity will shoot through the roof. No everyone is organized, good at scheduling, following up on things, focusing at work, interpersonal discussions, sending memos, navigating bureaucracy, etc. A great secretary allows you to focus on getting developmen…

Hire some psychologists to replace HR and you'll have people stick around forever.

HR is evil because its goals are evil, not because of the type of people employed there.

If you tell HR that some guy should go, be it a liberal arts major or a psychologist, they're gonna employ any trick they know to nudge the guy out of his job. In fact, the psych might be even more effective

Re: Automate the CEOs

#103

Post by [deleted] »

candiddevmike wrote: post #36
kristopolous wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They replace C-level people often and the relationship isn't what you imply. There's a structural power relationship in play. Monarchs play a fairly unimportant role these days but many countries still have them and compensate them handsomely. CEOs are structurally capitalist monarchs. Sometimes it's even a hereditary position. They even do the corporate equivalent of court and heraldry stuff. They're compensated not…

Most corporate structures are feudal. Folks should refer to their VPs as the Duke/Duchess of Engineering.

[deleted]

Re: Automate the CEOs

#104

Post by [deleted] »

candiddevmike wrote: post #36
kristopolous wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They replace C-level people often and the relationship isn't what you imply. There's a structural power relationship in play. Monarchs play a fairly unimportant role these days but many countries still have them and compensate them handsomely. CEOs are structurally capitalist monarchs. Sometimes it's even a hereditary position. They even do the corporate equivalent of court and heraldry stuff. They're compensated not…

Most corporate structures are feudal. Folks should refer to their VPs as the Duke/Duchess of Engineering.

[deleted]

Re: Automate the CEOs

#105

Post by ceejayoz »

andsoitis wrote: post #90
ceejayoz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at the bios on https://ir.homedepot.com/corporate-governance/board-of-direc... for an example. They're all C-suite folks from other large corporations; Marriott, United Technologies, American Airlines, etc.

What makes it "incestuous"?

A bunch of CEOs sitting on each others' boards have little reason to constrain the growth of CEO compensation, and every reason to give each other golden parachutes.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#106

Post by dboreham »

lordnacho wrote: post #87
calvinmorrison wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% of what middle management is what secretaries used to do. If I ever run my own company I will hire a team of secretaries to work with my developers and our productivity will shoot through the roof. No everyone is organized, good at scheduling, following up on things, focusing at work, interpersonal discussions, sending memos, navigating bureaucracy, etc. A great secretary allows you to focus on getting developmen…

Whatever happened to secretaries anyway? Were they really cost-cut for managers to do by themselves? You're right though, it's a valuable job being the glue of a business. In more than one way, not just work-wise. Social stuff matters too, and was often the domain of the secretaries.

Symptom of "MBAs eating the world". They got fired in the first layoff round, back around 1998.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#107

Post by AndrewKemendo »

starbugs wrote: post #91
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #26

The CEO is the action organ of the board and is intended to be burnable. At any point The board decides that the organization is not providing maximum financial compensation back to the board and shareholders, the CEO will be replaced for someone that will. That’s the role of a CEO and nothing more

This. You need an AI that has a will to survive and is afraid enough of the board so that it will do anything (moral or immoral) to make the company successful. Seems doable.

Not only doable, but most likely right?

If there’s a world in which a group of rich people can pay for a technical system that will rigorously seek profit via managing all the employees, at a rate lower than they would pay a CEO, and with equivalent effectiveness? 100% this will happen.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#108

Post by beedeebeedee »

pydry wrote: post #30

This is like designing just the right shape of bomb to bring peace to the middle east. Neoliberal solutions dont work on the captains of the neoliberal order. If you want to bring CEOs to heel the best way to to organize, unionize and strike (if youre not a dev) or unionize and/or covertly work to rule (if you are).

> unionize and strike (if youre not a dev)

Why is unionizing and striking not ok for devs? That seems a little cowardly

Re: Automate the CEOs

#109

Post by snowwrestler »

nickelcitymario wrote: post #72
dangerwill wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a vague term, it means people who manage managers, but who aren't the very top level. You'd have to be pretty delusional to be actively managing a group of managers/teams and not realize you are middle management.

Interesting... I always thought the term meant any manager who isn't at the absolute top. If that's the case, maybe I'm not middle management anymore.

You’re not alone, tons of people think the way you do. Any time the topic turns to “middle management” here on HN, there are developers complaining about their managers. But someone directly managing a dev team would not satisfy the definition above.

Re: Automate the CEOs

#110

Post by joshspankit »

nickelcitymario wrote: post #24

Close. Automate middle management. All the things mentioned in the article really are prime candidates for automation. But that's management, not leadership. Management is primed to be automated. See Marshall Brain's book "Manna" for a great take on what's possible here. Leadership is not. LLMs are great at doing the right things when there's a general consensus on what the right things are. Best practices, etc. But…

When the headlines were “AI is going to cause a loss of tech jobs“ I heard “AI is going to manage my company (the part I don’t want to do) while I build the things that solve customer problems (the part I do want to do)”
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