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OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

overpaid.lol

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Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#371

Post by CGP_Labs »

CSMastermind wrote: post #220
CGP_Labs wrote: post #53

Considering AI's strengths and weaknesses, it makes sense that upper management—whose job often involves making decisions based on data and established practices—may be easier to replace with AI than frontline or essential workers, who constantly have to adapt to unpredictable situations. But if competing companies all start using AI to make similarly rational decisions, it will become much harder to gain an edge thr…

> whose job often involves making decisions based on data and established practices That's what middle management does, your C-suite has an entirely different function.

Fair point — I may have blurred the line between middle management and C-suite. Though if my CEO has been doing middle management all this time, I might have some questions for him. My broader point was that structured decision-making is easier to automate than vision, direction, and taking responsibility for uncertain bets.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#372

Post by CGP_Labs »

runamuck wrote: post #102
CGP_Labs wrote: post #53

Considering AI's strengths and weaknesses, it makes sense that upper management—whose job often involves making decisions based on data and established practices—may be easier to replace with AI than frontline or essential workers, who constantly have to adapt to unpredictable situations. But if competing companies all start using AI to make similarly rational decisions, it will become much harder to gain an edge thr…

I worked for five companies in two years about a decade ago (Pre retail Gen-AI). All of them had the exact same mission slide deck. Same goals, same priorities, same strategy.

Same here. It makes me wonder if many companies are optimizing for the same “rational” answers, and the real advantage comes from asking different questions.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#373

Post by Thiez »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #343
DangitBobby wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything matters. Luck matters as much as the other things.

What is luck and why assume an equal weighting? Is it luck whether you accomplish your household chores?

Of course! For example, luck may be the difference in being in good health or not, or having people that depend on you being in good health or not. If you are suffering from a depression, or (undiagnosed/untreated) ADHD, or a broken leg, or blindness, or you have to take care of a sick loved one, those are all things that you have little control over but they affect your ability to do household chores. And if you are disabled but you also happen to be rich due to a large inheritence (so luck), then you can hire a housekeeper. There are so many factors that can influence your ability to complete household chores that are outside your control, that we should surely include luck as a factor.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#374

Post by CGP_Labs »

DrScientist wrote: post #138
CGP_Labs wrote: post #53

Considering AI's strengths and weaknesses, it makes sense that upper management—whose job often involves making decisions based on data and established practices—may be easier to replace with AI than frontline or essential workers, who constantly have to adapt to unpredictable situations. But if competing companies all start using AI to make similarly rational decisions, it will become much harder to gain an edge thr…

Perhaps you've watched too many classic StarTrek episodes as a child and are channelling the Spock versus Kirk leadership theme.

Haha, fair point. Maybe I am channeling a bit of Kirk vs. Spock. But I think the interesting question is whether AI can ever make the kind of irrational-but-successful bets that great leaders sometimes make.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#375

Post by CGP_Labs »

neutronicus wrote: post #111
CGP_Labs wrote: post #53

Considering AI's strengths and weaknesses, it makes sense that upper management—whose job often involves making decisions based on data and established practices—may be easier to replace with AI than frontline or essential workers, who constantly have to adapt to unpredictable situations. But if competing companies all start using AI to make similarly rational decisions, it will become much harder to gain an edge thr…

I think the main strength of the AI is just that its schedule is not a constraint. Anyone can get a decision now-ish, without filtering through tiers of middle management.

Exactly. It’s funny — Japan once had a famous slogan, "Can you work 24 hours a day?" We were asking humans to become machines. Now AI is the one that can actually do it.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#376

Post by groundzeros2015 »

gtowey wrote: post #361
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don’t think people have a skill ceiling in this area?

There surely is at some point. I'm saying this more from the perspective of an IC though, who is dealing with the next 2-3 levels of management. Perhaps it's a different story in the C-suite, but I'm dubious. IMO it's more often a problem of training and support. Throwing people into the deep end and standing back while they sink or swim seems like a myopic strategy to me, but maybe that's why I'm not a CEO.

I’m typically an IC as well. I’m certainly at my ceiling whenever I do any management.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#377

Post by DrScientist »

CGP_Labs wrote: post #374
DrScientist wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you've watched too many classic StarTrek episodes as a child and are channelling the Spock versus Kirk leadership theme.

Haha, fair point. Maybe I am channeling a bit of Kirk vs. Spock. But I think the interesting question is whether AI can ever make the kind of irrational-but-successful bets that great leaders sometimes make.

While the Shatner portrayal of Kirk is hard not to like, I was always slightly irritated by the recurring transparent theme of gut winning over reason ( but then I became a scientist ).

Though not sure 'irrational' is the right term - perhaps the willingness to take a decision without all the data, because doing something is more important than being completely right. Or the willingness to do something new based on personal judgement.

Take the classic example - the iPhone - I suspect pretty much everybody working on the project, who saw the working prototypes knew it was great - 'you had me at scrolling' etc.

Could AI have predict that emotional response to the product in advance? Dunno.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#378

Post by conductr »

Trasmatta wrote: post #301
conductr wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been on Csuite of 3 orgs since the pandemic forced wfh normalization. Your correct the RE thing has always been a false narrative. I’ve never seen or read of it coming from an executive. To my knowledge, it was dreamt up by pundits, speculators, and is just a lazy attempt to understand what goes on in boardrooms driving these decisions. What I have witnessed, with empirical evidence, is that productivity and/or…

> Even if some people will be less productive, the organization as a whole will function better This is what the execs might THINK but it's not actually based in real evidence. RTO does not make organizations function better. Execs are gaslighting themselves into believing that RTO makes the org function better, but it's an illusion.

It comes down to how you define "better"? Because they're looking at it from a lot of angles and sometimes easier~=better. It's not easy to onboard and train and career path junior employees, so the preference for senior employees exists (even at IC level). Employee engagement and retention metrics are usually higher. I could go on, but I do not believe your take so please cite the evidence that remote orgs are holistically "better"

Honestly, the amount of times I need to call and impromptu meeting during normal/expected work hours but can't get the necessary attendees because 1) walking the dog 2) at the gym 3) putting baby down for a nap 4-99) life>work. This is something I can manage around, but it slows things down. I can't make a decision today, I have to schedule the discussion for another day when my calendar is open which might be next week. This just doesn't work for executives in our fast paced business environment. I appreciate that IC's like the flexibility and balance wfh provides, and feel like they are checking all the boxes even better than ever, but they often do not actually hold up their end of the deal and prioritize the urgency of their jobs once they get settled into the wfh setting. It's great if you do, but on average, people take a lot of advantage of the flexibility and it does slow down everything.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#379

Post by seany »

conductr wrote: post #359
seany wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bad take. There are plenty of orgs that were remote in some form or another way before covid. They're just organized and managed differently. It's 100% a management doesn't want to change issue.

It was forced on most businesses from the pandemic, you're right they never wanted it. Acting like businesses should honor it forever is a bad take too, like businesses should ignore what worked previously in favor of what doesn't work as well. It's really just about removing friction, remoteness can cause friction. Not many managers care about trying to adapt, if you require fully remote that's great, you're free to…

I mean, it's just anecdote vs anecdote. I'm a serial first eng -> VP/Dir for the last ... almost 30 years; I'm well aware of how creative projects work remote, and that retention and engagement are important. I've seen repeatedly over the last ten years especially C levels that want people in offices for "vibes" with _no_ data to back that up... In some cases opposite data. All of that gets mixed with data from teams that I support and/or lead being productive and never having a single person leave for reasons other than total corp restructuring; mean while everyone has a good mix of flexibility to have a family life.

Office first by default is a scourge on this industry.

Anyway, need to go empty my mouth after throwing up from reading your reply.

Re: OverpAId – Fire your CEO. Hire the future

#380

Post by mikert89 »

enoint wrote: post #282
quacked wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was part of a company that was doing 10s of M in revenue, a few hundred employees, and had the technical prowess and IP to become a multi billion unicorn but the blue blood CEO was so clueless that he lost literally his entire technical core staff to incredible mismanagement. My favorite memory of him, and this sounds like a fake anecdote, is that on a big emergency call where he was pulling a huge amount of engine…

Sure, but his equity award deadline had passed, thus the fishing trip. And if things go well with Everett on the trip, the new funding would mean he can ditch those risky accounts.

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