Did we ever figure out why he wants the computer that comes in the smallest box?
Individuals Matter
161–170 of 419 posts
Re: Individuals Matter
#162I am a security engineer but have been a business leader from time to time. Business leaders often need to plan around dates- eg ”should we spend $50k announcing at conference Y in month Z, or should we wait until month A?” “Our competition just launched; will we be able to launch this quarter (the board wants to know, and we have to report material financial impact items quarterly or face SEC fines)?” Every team I h…
I'm really confused what this comment has to do with the article (not about planning) and why it's the top comment on HN.
Re: Individuals Matter
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
The corporate culture serves a very specific purpose of lowering the self-esteem of the 10x folks, keeping them at their place doing 10x work at 1x salary until they burn out. This is scalable, predictable, and serves management's interests well. It's just if you happen to be a 10x guy, for the sake of your own sanity, learn how to run a business and get out of the corporate swamp. Nothing else will bring you happine…
Isn't it insane that there are many 10x engineers who have created enormous amount value (creating patents, leading and executing projects, innovating etc.); Yet, the world will only know about the company or the CEO and never the engineers behind it.
There are other ways to be known.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2021/04/27/allen-man-w...
Re: Individuals Matter
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Devs: there are no 10x engineers!! Orgs: okay you are indistinguishable cogs and we will treat you as cattle Devs: no wait not like that Truth is everyone knows that who or which teams takes a task matters immensely. We know that if Bob leads it’s gonna suck and if Alice does it’s gonna rock and finish on time. Managers know this also. But we’ve constructed a corporate culture where this is not allowed to be said. So…
The corporate culture serves a very specific purpose of lowering the self-esteem of the 10x folks, keeping them at their place doing 10x work at 1x salary until they burn out. This is scalable, predictable, and serves management's interests well. It's just if you happen to be a 10x guy, for the sake of your own sanity, learn how to run a business and get out of the corporate swamp. Nothing else will bring you happine…
People often forget that the 10x guy is 10x only in the domain he’s been working on, and many chores has been taken away from him by his manager and given to someone else. It is fairly easy to make a 10x someone closer to a 1x just by changing his tasks and giving more chores like CR, bug fixes, more mundane features or GUI etc. Sure it will often be better quality but in areas where it matters less.
Re: Individuals Matter
#165"Who is going to do it?" is always my first question whenever I am asked to estimate a piece of work. PMs/EMs are usually taken aback by the response, as if we are all supposed to pretend that all dev "resources" are equal. Yet reality doesn't fit into neat planning spreadsheets or burndown graphs, so often gets ignored.
This comment made me laugh because it’s so delightfully insightful. You are absolutely right and I’ve never thought to pose the question.
Re: Individuals Matter
#166Did we ever figure out why he wants the computer that comes in the smallest box?
This still keeps me up at night.
Re: Individuals Matter
#167> A similar thing happens with retention. A great engineer I know who was regularly creating $x0M/yr4 of additional profit for the company per year wanted to move to Portugal, so the company cut the person's cash comp by a factor of four, causing them to leave for a company that doesn't have location-based pay. This was escalated up to the director level, but that wasn't sufficient to override HR, so they left. HR didn't care that the person made the company more money than HR saves by doing location adjustments for all international employees combined because HR at the company had no notion of the value of an employee, only the cost, title, level, and location5 This is overall a brilliant post by Dan (as usual) but in this case he is harsh on HR; there is also a cultural cost on breaking salary structure for exceptional individual contributors - everyone else gets upset and threatens to leave. HR needs to calculate this, which is more likely the motivator rather than saving a few dollars here and there on a single individuals salary.
Individuals matter, but in exaggerating the point, he has neglected to consider teams / groups matter also.
Re: Individuals Matter
#168I am a security engineer but have been a business leader from time to time. Business leaders often need to plan around dates- eg ”should we spend $50k announcing at conference Y in month Z, or should we wait until month A?” “Our competition just launched; will we be able to launch this quarter (the board wants to know, and we have to report material financial impact items quarterly or face SEC fines)?” Every team I h…
>One of the primary jobs of managers at all levels is to plan and then execute in accordance with the plan "Plans" can never be set in stone. They evolve based on the people involved and circumstances. A Manager's job is to understand his people and then Plan accordingly; not the other way around. >If all you can do is complain This is exactly the wrong way to frame the discussion. Pointing out that you are clueless…
>If all you can do is complain
This is exactly the wrong way to frame the discussion. Pointing out that you are clueless is not complaining but raising issues which if unadd
he’s pointing out that you are clueless ramadass
Re: Individuals Matter
#169This is a really interesting and enlightening article that covers an important topic, and it's honestly sad that it will get less engagement than some clickbait or hot-topic issue.
[deleted]
Re: Individuals Matter
#170I'm an introvert, I love working from home, I live in the woods with a 1/3rd mile long driveway. Since my youngest went off to college I'm here alone with her fish and a cat. I go into town once or twice a week for supplies and the rest of the time I'm just out here in my little sanctuary enjoying the lack of people. That said, even I know that while individuals matter, teams matter more. And I don't see anything in…
Wow, how do I start a list of people to never work for.