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You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

paulgraham.com

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Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#91

Post by weakfish »

lstodd wrote: post #87
weakfish wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should coin a law that any time something vaguely cooperative or worker-focused is proposed, someone will inevitably reply that it will fail because the Soviet Union did something sort of maybe similar once.

If people keep suggesting solutions that were tried and failed of course other people will point that out. 1930-s Gosplan, 1950-s Gosplan, OGAS, Cybersyn, they all failed. Come up with something new maybe?

My point is that they’re not the same thing and it’s an attempt to link two things that are loosely related, at best.

“Come up with something new maybe?” Is a trite attempt at belittling a conversation that is seeking knowledge and frankly just annoying.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#92

Post by WhrRTheBaboons »

musicale wrote: post #84

I've seen flat structures (with a "boss" who is almost entirely hands-off) work very well for teams with several dozen people. Where things seem to break down is at the next level, if the teams (and their "bosses") need to coordinate but can't reach agreement and end up blocking each other. Sometimes the teams lack global information while the bosses (for some reason) are not interfacing well. I don't know if Valve s…

> I don't know if Valve still has their "wheeled desk" system for self-organizing teams, but I would like to hear from anyone who has experienced it.

Unable to link a source right now but they have stopped doing that years ago. I remember the original article used to be posted as explanation for why CSGO wasn't getting any updates but it got debunked even then.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#94

Post by musicale »

WhrRTheBaboons wrote: post #92
musicale wrote: post #84

I've seen flat structures (with a "boss" who is almost entirely hands-off) work very well for teams with several dozen people. Where things seem to break down is at the next level, if the teams (and their "bosses") need to coordinate but can't reach agreement and end up blocking each other. Sometimes the teams lack global information while the bosses (for some reason) are not interfacing well. I don't know if Valve s…

> I don't know if Valve still has their "wheeled desk" system for self-organizing teams, but I would like to hear from anyone who has experienced it. Unable to link a source right now but they have stopped doing that years ago. I remember the original article used to be posted as explanation for why CSGO wasn't getting any updates but it got debunked even then.

Would be interesting to hear how (well) it worked, why they abandoned it, what they replaced it with (and why), and whether the replacement actually helped to expedite Half-Life 3.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#95

Post by EA-3167 »

weakfish wrote: post #91
lstodd wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people keep suggesting solutions that were tried and failed of course other people will point that out. 1930-s Gosplan, 1950-s Gosplan, OGAS, Cybersyn, they all failed. Come up with something new maybe?

My point is that they’re not the same thing and it’s an attempt to link two things that are loosely related, at best. “Come up with something new maybe?” Is a trite attempt at belittling a conversation that is seeking knowledge and frankly just annoying.

It’s a desperate attempt by people who understand that identifying huge problems in the easy part. So much of life is just people thinking that by identifying the problem they’re 99% of the way to fixing it.

But apply this to something you understand in detail, unlike a whole society. “That guy has a bad heart, better fix it!” That’s something that doesn’t need to be said, never mind repeated like a solution to a hard problem.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#97

Post by Thlom »

lstodd wrote: post #87
weakfish wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone should coin a law that any time something vaguely cooperative or worker-focused is proposed, someone will inevitably reply that it will fail because the Soviet Union did something sort of maybe similar once.

If people keep suggesting solutions that were tried and failed of course other people will point that out. 1930-s Gosplan, 1950-s Gosplan, OGAS, Cybersyn, they all failed. Come up with something new maybe?

Cybersyn was an experiment and we don't really know if it would have worked or not because the USA arranged for a military coup to destroy it ...

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#98

Post by smsm42 »

jjulius wrote: post #13
stabbles wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is fair criticism. It's hard to read this blog cause its premise is based on an "appeal to nature" fallacy.

It's flawed criticism because it's rooted in an all-or-nothing perspective.

No, it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. The flaw in the Graham's argument is that he argues we should prefer "natural" without first proving "natural" means "good". Bubonic plague is very natural, but not so good, right? That doesn't have to be all or nothing, but each time somebody says "do X not Y because X is more natural", we ought to ask "but does natural here mean good?". Sometimes it does - eating an apple is probably better than ingesting a bunch of high-inducing refined sugar - but sometimes it doesn't. Antibiotics are not natural, but preferable to being eaten alive by bacteria. So this needs to be established on case by case basis - is "natural" good in this case? And Graham doesn't seem to bother to do that.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#99

Post by smsm42 »

ACCount37 wrote: post #27
wavemode wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are "naturally" meant to die at 21 Not really? Historical life expectancies were low because it was so common to die in infancy and childhood (thus dragging down the "average"). For people who made it to 20, it was common to live past 60.

Yeah, you were just meant to "naturally" have 7 children, of which 2-4 die before they get a name. But the ones who live? They might make it past 60.

Or die from an infection coming from a random splinter. Also a very natural thing.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#100

Post by smsm42 »

stephbook wrote: post #49

The naturalistic fallacy needs to die. Then a metaphor about food without any expertise and "programmers are special" sprinkled in. Holy lord, what a wild ride of an article. Guess what? People weren't meant to live in stone houses and get cancer treatment either. Gathering berries all day sucks, that's why everyone abandons that lifestyle as soon as possible. Life in a big company is very well-paid for very little w…

> that's why everyone abandons that lifestyle as soon as possible.

Not everyone, there are still societies doing that. The thing is, it doesn't scale. And the other ways of having a society do. Which, naturally, leads to a situation where the most of the population is not doing that, and keeps those who do that around just out of benevolent tolerance. It may even be a more pleasurable way of life, for all we know, than many others (such as one of a medieval peasant) but it can't ever be anything but a tiny minority.

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