McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source • Hacker News Board

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#151

Post by phrz » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #143

frankbreetz wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>As part of the settlement, McKinsey admits to no wrongdoing. https://www.npr.org/2021/02/04/963864747/consulting-giant-mc...

That’s incredibly normal. It’s a regularly negotiated term that’s used to shield the wrongdoer from continued civil liability. Frankly, I think it’s such transparent bullshit that we should abolish it. Really, you admit to no wrong doing but you’re willing to fork over half a billion because ...?

If you're going to be made to pay out and concede liability, why not simply go to trial and suffer the same legal fate? It's not there as a mere legalese recitation or to shield the defendant's ego. To finish your rhetorical question, the reason you pay out but admit no wrongdoing is in recognition of the risk of financial liability stemming from the litigation.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#152

Post by klmadfejno » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:03 PM UTC

nus07 wrote: post #94

klmadfejno wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what a big computer consultancy is. Is that like IBM? Accenture? I don't think where I fall in the ranks matters much here. Loaned out doesn't feel applicable here though. There are some consultancies that are primarily just staff augmentation. Like, here are some expensive workers for you to use for a while. That's not really what McK does. McK is doubtlessly very expensive. "pumping people up on the jo…

Can you give me a couple of examples where McKinsey’s work was helpful to a society ? Jobs were saved, lives were saved , poverty was eradicated ? Everywhere I look it’s just strategies to increase sales ,lay-off lower level employees and boost executive and shareholder profit .

Probably not to a degree that would be satisfying to me as a random external stranger. Most work is very secret, to avoid conflicts of interest. I don't know what others work on. I know of a few high profile things lately that have had positive impact on the world, but it's all NDA'd as well.

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analyti...

I guess this group is a decent example of our public things, doing data science stuff to help human trafficking victims and what not. I don't have any experience with this group in particular and cannot speak to it. For my personal work space all I can say is that ~90% of my work felt morally neutral, and 10% felt morally positive.

One project was for a similar neutral task in an industry I think is detrimental to society so I declined to do it. That's also a thing which is encouraged and I think is nice. YMMV

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#153

Post by ativzzz » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

0goel0 wrote: post #55

Maybe ethics and morals should be mandatory trainings?

The only training in the end is that everything is for sale if the price is high enough.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#154

Post by rmrfrmrf » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

asjldkfin wrote: post #15

It's funny reading comment here saying how "Consulting is useless BS" whilst also condemning them for "turbocharging Opioid sales"

Interesting that you think the two are mutually exclusive. Personally, I'd consider consulting advice to systematically hook an entire country onto opioids to be "useless BS" much in the same way I'd consider schemes to fix bread prices as "useless BS". Both are cases of rather obvious approaches that are not only legally and ethically bankrupt, but more importantly fundamentally unsound and unsustainable as growth strategies.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#155

Post by iwintermute » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:05 PM UTC

A12-B wrote: post #77

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

> Bringing in consultants is, among other ways, a way to bring in people who can get shit done. I don't think consulting is useless or scammy, but come on, you're not rock stars. Consultants advise a business on how to get revenue, and the business implements changes that generate revenue. This leads to the headline we have before us. There's not much more to consulting. Note: my family are consultants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp6_3UQLi2Y

Steve said it best.

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#156

Post by aisengard » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

mola wrote: post #81

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

No one wants to believe they have a bullshit job. So we usually tell our selves nice little fairy tales to overcome this cognitive dissonance. Truth is, McK and the like, are there just to give mediocre leaders an extremely expensive psychological crutch needed when human beings face uncertainties. Now that these consulting agencies are the behemoth they are, it's mainly corrupt leaders that are being "pursuaded" to…

If a consultant is being brought in to do a job you think you should be doing yourself, then who really has the bullshit job in this instance?

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#157

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

phrz wrote: post #151

ashtonkem wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s incredibly normal. It’s a regularly negotiated term that’s used to shield the wrongdoer from continued civil liability. Frankly, I think it’s such transparent bullshit that we should abolish it. Really, you admit to no wrong doing but you’re willing to fork over half a billion because ...?

If you're going to be made to pay out and concede liability, why not simply go to trial and suffer the same legal fate? It's not there as a mere legalese recitation or to shield the defendant's ego. To finish your rhetorical question, the reason you pay out but admit no wrongdoing is in recognition of the risk of financial liability stemming from the litigation.

[deleted]

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#158

Post by htrp » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

andreilys wrote: post #58

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

”Bringing in consultants is, among other ways, a way to bring in people who can get shit done, moving bricks at lower levels of the org with the political mandate of the top” It seems more likely that it’s a politically expedient way to get cover for a decision (in other words CYA insurance). If the plan fails, blame the consultants. If it works, take credit for having brought them in. It also puts more pressure on e…

> It seems more likely that it’s a politically expedient way to get cover for a decision (in other words CYA insurance).

This guy consults

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#159

Post by aabhay » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #57

klmadfejno wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a 20 something McK consultant with a $10 haircut. Maybe $20 with tip. Or $0 now, because it's done at home. I post this fairly frequently, but here we go again. Business is hard. Change is hard. Consultants get a lot of shit for saying things that someone lower in the org could have told them. That's not evidence of abuse, that's evidence that your org isn't working well. A lot of the time substantial portions of…

You at your years-of-experience most likely don’t yet find it painful to learn. The folks with one to three decades more time at bat who are hiring you most likely do find learning and change literally painful. Not because of age, but because of “number of trials” at the change experiment, where often someone gets burned. Reading, learning, thinking differently, hurts the ego, as it makes clear you were less informed…

Sage wisdom

Re: McKinsey to pay $573M to settle claims over opioid crisis role: source

#160

Post by rvwaveren » Thu, Feb 04, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

IMTDb wrote: post #27

alexpetralia wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's fashionable to hate on MBAs, but I am not entirely convinced engineers are any better equipped with skills such as: requirements gathering, scoping, presenting, project management, competitive research, financial modeling, memo writing, and strategic planning. I don't believe these are truly vacuous activities, and - loathe as I am to say - MBAs may be the best trained to do this. (Disclosure: I do not ha…

The problem are not MBA's. The problem is that the incentive of consulting companies are not aligned with the incentive of their clients. Take a big construction project. In the like of the Berlin airport. What do you think is more profitable for the consulting companies : a) A well thought project, done in budget and in time. Where the consulting company gets the whole contract + all the bonuses associated with it.…

Your point about incentives is exactly the structural problem here. I've been a consultant years ago and on a human level we loved projects that ran well. You feel good about yourself and your team for helping the client quickly and efficiently.

However, zooming out, it's the incentive system that's completely broken: there is no skin in the game. Consulting firms are too detached from the consequences of their advice. Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote a nice book about this phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_in_the_Game_(book)