101–110 of 238 posts
My company went through executive changes, layoffs, etc. I thought it was VERY clear that our senior manager handled the situation extremely poorly. At least a few people agreed with me, so imagine my shock when several others not only defended him but joined his next company.
I am reminded of that when people assume "interpersonal dynamics are obvious to all involved", which is often.
You know, watching Mad Men, it seems to be that work culture hasn't changed since the 50s. The same fake smiles, the same small talk, the same boss's favorite getting the credit. What's really changed since then? Let's not assume bygone days ever were what we think they were.
I’m sure you’re right, at least to some extent, but let’s not forget that Mad Men is fictional, and from the 21st century, and might not accurately reflect the 1950’s.
One of my favorite scenes:
Peggy: "You never say thank you!" Don: "That's what the money is for!"
It captures a lot of the mismatch in perspective between employer/employee boss/subordinate. You're there to do something for someone who is paying you to do it. That's as far as it goes (despite the constant human pull to perceive it as more).
I've had some amount of success running a startup, and honestly the only thing that reliably paid off was hiring great (i.e., smart, thoughtful, kind) people and treating them like family.
Being a leader means a constant confrontation with choosing political or organizational consequences to a decision. If all you’re doing is operating politically, your reward will always be burned out, tired, and frustrated workers who, for once, want you to do what’s in the best interests of your own organization rather than your personal political advantage. At least until a better political player than you outmaneuvers your ass, because you gave them room for growth in an organization that rewarded such behaviors.
Workers just want to do good work, make good things, get paid good money, and go home. If your decision-making as a boss regularly imperils or impairs those things, you suck as a boss.
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Why does it matter? The information in the post still accurately captures a sentiment held by many people.
The complaint is definitely getting old. I wonder how many HN threads at this point don't have someone speculating about AI-generated content. Hopefully @dang adds something to the guidelines to discourage it.
AI has it's demons, for sure, but there is an awful lot of jumping at ghosts these days.
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The complaint is definitely getting old. I wonder how many HN threads at this point don't have someone speculating about AI-generated content. Hopefully @dang adds something to the guidelines to discourage it.
AI generated content in the comments is already prohibited. I hope we extend the restrictions to submissions entirely.
And I'm certainly weary of "someone used an em-dash, must be GPT" low-value comments.
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That's because many of us older developers got into the profession when it didn't pay well, and had negative status associated with it, because we loved doing it. So yes, there is very little tolerance from us toward those who are in it for money/status/prestige, and not for the love of it.
Why does having different values imply intolerance?
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I wonder if this is related to the agency problem[1] and the rise of short-sightedness from the ruling class. If you're just trying to make as much money as possible this quarter and have no real care about building long-term value, why wouldn't you put agents in that mercilessly generate money at the expense of things like your brand and people? I also wonder how many of the authors of the piece are at public vs pri…
The Professional Managerial Class (college -> management being the norm) gained a lot of steam in the '80s and had basically taken over the entire economy by the end of the '90s. My dad's career spanned the pre- and post-transition eras, with the latter coming as a very sudden shift due to a large merger. His description of the difference was... not flattering to the modern notion. Way, way more wasted time. Way more…
This isn't the norm in most STEM industries anymore.
Most of us started off as IC-level engineers before either beung given progressively more responsibility and/or being sponsored by our employees to participate in a PTMBA like Wharton, Booth, Fuqua, or Haas.
Networking and hustling did ofc play a role, but lacking domain experience would limit how high you could climb.
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"contemporary fiction set in the past" Nitpick, but this is a contradiction. Contemporary fiction doesn't mean "current" (or least it didn't used to) it means "set in the time it was written". I guess the word contemporary has been misused to the point of just meaning current or modern and I shouldn't nitpick it!
Ah, thanks -- I was just trying to capture the weirdness that happens when a work is set in the past, and then that work itself becomes old. For instance, if you watch Braveheart right now you're getting two views of the past: you're getting a (not-very-realistic) view of medieval England, and then in addition you're getting a view into how people in the 90s felt about history and social issues.
Your example of Braveheart, for instance, involves two views of the past through the lens of the _present_. So even in that context, both of those views are tinted by the experience and environment of the observer.