You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss • Hacker News Board

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#51

Post by prawn » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 2:55 AM UTC

amelius wrote: post #9

> Another thing you notice when you see animals in the wild is that each species thrives in groups of a certain size. This is another reason why we should really limit companies to a maximum size. Other reasons are that companies should not become too big to fail, and that smaller companies lead to a more modular economy, where one company uses the outputs of several other companies, instead of having a few MegaCorps…

I've always wondered about a debate about limiting the size of businesses. Only state-owned enterprises building or running base infrastructure could be over x,000 employees. What would that world look like?

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#52

Post by deciplex » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 4:10 AM UTC

thewarrior wrote: post #40

Retra wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a bit mystified as to where people get the idea that competition is fundamentally better than cooperation. The only time competition has ever done any good is when it leads to greater cooperation.

That's not always true. Competition always produces better performance , atleast in individual activities.

Individual activities are precisely not what we're talking about, and at any rate you're wrong even at the level of an individual.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#53

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 12:44 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#54

Post by habitue » Mon, Jun 22, 2015, 1:30 PM UTC

astazangasta wrote: post #45

habitue wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're human, but you're not all humans. I think people have a continuum of attitudes on what they're willing to trade autonomy for. I've met a lot of people who are happy to have someone tell them what to do, because it means they don't need to figure it out for themselves. That's not bad, it's sort of a necessary ingredient of working together that some people need to be more willing to follow than to lead.

I think people confuse division of labor with hierarchy. The former means other people make decisions I don't care to. The latter means others tell me what to do and are acknowledged as my superiors.

Yes, this is true. There's definitely a difference between "this guy is making strategic decisions and interfacing with the rest of the company on my behalf" and "this guy is my superior and should be paid more than me". Unfortunately, the bosses make the salary decisions, so it just sort of falls out of that