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Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

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Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#81

Post by mittermayr »

michaelt wrote: post #27

If an army general orders a disastrous assault that completely fails, they might get demoted or relieved of command. The infantry that were ordered to charge the machine guns pay a much higher price (as do the junior officers that lead the charge). Hell, perhaps nowerdays they'll have a 'blameless postmortem' to 'learn lessons' and there won't even be a demotion. Us folks who work for a living aren't charging any mac…

The comparison to a war zone is, despite most of us sitting in front of screens and not having to live through such actual horror, quite on point, I think. A failed or misguided strategy hits those on the front first and hardest.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#82

Post by mittermayr »

johnsmith4739 wrote: post #74

Corporate world is tribal, if not feudal. Reason why the Nobles can do nothing wrong by default, and the Villagers are always the villan. If I may have a suggestion, Buckminster Fuller - Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth is a short and great perspective over these dynamics.

thank you for that, I'll try to find this and check it out.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#83

Post by eudamoniac »

You clearly care way too much about what is just a job. 15 years at a big 5 you should be quite wealthy. A layoff is just a vacation. I say this not to be glib but because your anger here belies a way of thinking that is unhealthy and unproductive. Work at a big company is just a random coinflip each layoff cycle regardless of anything you can control. Everyone should internalize and prepare for this to the point that being layed off is met with just a shrug.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#84

Post by mittermayr »

oumua_don17 wrote: post #52

Sorry to hear about the job loss. >> They're clearly not smart people Nope, they're cunning and if it offers you any solace they usually lead miserable lives which is also a natural outcome.

this is what I often hope, that this must reflect in one form or another in their actual lives, and hopefully, has some form of consequence there.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#85

Post by mittermayr »

regularization wrote: post #68
haitchf1ve wrote: post #8

The purpose of a system is what the system does. -- Stafford Beer

The most cogent reply I have seen here. She and/or you have a false conception of what a big five corporation is, or how it works. Yous probably also have a false conception of how relations of production under capitalism work as well. The man higher up the hierarchy at the FAANG has a better grasp of how these things work. Often, people don't realize their conceptions were wrong until they get let go. That she worke…

While this may make sense for the individual and their actions, I do not see how this is healthy or good for the organization. And, to my original question, I struggle to understand why organizations elevate those, or let those elevate, where the end goal is not to have a darwinistic corpus of staff, only interested in their own survival.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#86

Post by mittermayr »

zby wrote: post #73

It is an interesting subject - but so much have been written about it in the past. I would like to read what are the new angles. And for the past discussions see: HACKER NEWS DISCUSSION LINKS THE GERVAIS PRINCIPLE * The Gervais Principle Main Submission (October 2009) https://ycombinator.com * The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to "The Office" (August 2024) https://ycombinator.com MORAL MAZES * Moral Maze…

Wow, thank you for that, must've been quite a bit of work to put that together and I feel sorry for not digging through the archives. I hope this brought up a few new thoughts, perhaps, I know it's mostly ramblings and us-against-the-ones-on-top banter, but here and there, I see and was hoping for some insights. I'll go through the list in a bit, thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#87

Post by mittermayr »

solatic wrote: post #66

The easiest (but not necessarily best or most effective) way to survive corporate life is to give your boss quiet, make your peers happy, and your direct reports miserable. Therefore, naively, people look very different depending on whether they are your direct reports, your peer, or your boss. Your partner is below him looking up; he looks very different from the standpoint of the executive looking down at him. Case…

Great advice, I'll send this to her, thank you!

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#88

Post by mittermayr »

aristofun wrote: post #18

I think it’s the same pattern playing out as in politics - even the dumbest people get too powerful, too lucky or too influential to even realize the problem. But its often beneficial to large enough amount of bad actors who play along and support. Suppose some top executive has a choice - do something right for long term success of a company vs something sketchy and detrimental but get huge yearly bonus in the pocke…

I wanted to keep politics out of it, but I fully agree, politics is the primetime version of what I tried to get at.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#89

Post by goatlover »

folkrav wrote: post #28
Apreche wrote: post #9

Because corporations are autocratic. All power is top down. Make corporations democratic with bottom up power structures, and the opposite will happen. Leadership will face blame for everything, and the bottom rung will never.

Point me to a democracy where the failing leadership actually bears the consequences of the blame they face though.

They get voted out.

Re: Ask HN: Why do corporate failures always seem to punish the wrong people?

#90

Post by thisisit »

> how do these people consistently survive their self-inflicted disasters?

Because they don't believe the disasters were inflicted by them.

The other aspect is managing the manager. This comes in form of delivering something what their manager needs. So, their manager has a goal of reducing costs they will act as a yes-man despite their abilities. They might come up with ridiculous ideas and convince their managers that it is a good idea because they are the ones executing on the ground. If and when it fails the issue isn't because the idea was bad it was because circumstances.

Also, it is a fallacy that many engineers think being smart is enough. We tend to debate efforts - how much work we put in - but for management, company and even shareholders the outcome matters. People who figure out sooner thrive a lot.

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