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Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

thinkgrowth.org

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Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#171

Post by watwut »

lovich wrote: post #164
Hermel wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Providing counter-arguments that question the decisions of the executive caste is often seen as a threat The key to have an impact is not to pose critical questions, but to make constructive suggestions. Instead of saying "you are doing this wrong", suggest how to do better. Good leaders appreciate and encourage this, in particular if the request comes in an actionable format, i.e. "I suggest to do X in order to ac…

I don't find it very comforting that the people who are compensated the best have to be treated with kids gloves just so they can listen to the information coming from their people. I understand that may be how it _is_ but it's not how it _should be_. Additionally, people lower in the management chain are just going to avoid volunteering information if they are not 100% certain that the bosses are gonna take it well

The parent advice works exactly the same way whe you talk with people under you or with peers. Altrought they have less power to retaliate visibly, they will listen better when you do what parent suggested.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#172

Post by mhink »

logicfiction wrote: post #107
quotemstr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. You have to create a culture where it's okay to fail. And it's not enough to just say that: you have to actually practice it. You have to let people make mistakes, then do nothing so that other people don't feel afraid to take risks. Hell, reward people for failing. Highlight them as exemplars of people who do things. If you don't fail once in a while, you're not moving fast enough.

Rewarding failure can have pitfalls (if we mean something like customer impacting fallout). You may then be encouraging people that create broken things over people that more quietly create well-functioning things the first time around. Enabling people willing to act is important though and I fully support the do nothing aspect of failure, or better yet support and stabilize but not reward.

> Enabling people willing to act is important though

I think that's the key thing here. Rather than saying "whether you succeed or fail, you're still gonna get your $250 bonus", you're saying "if you try and succeed, you get $500- if you try and fail, you get $100, if you don't try at all, you get nothing."

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#173

Post by sgt101 »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #166
sanderjd wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still f…

That is the same argument kings and emperors used. But over time the abuses, and the frequently stupid decisions, became too much. It's faster in an business but no different. Democracy is coming to the last bastion of dictatorship in modern western world. It won't be pretty - but it will lead to better companies

Public companies are somewhat a democracy of ownership; they publish accounts and the board is accountable to the owners - the shareholders. Privately held companies are quite different, and there is a strong argument that they simply should not be allowed above a certain capitalisation - say $40m because they create an uncontrolled risk to the economy. For example; if five of the top 10 unicorns fail in the next three years due to Enron style lying this will implode the venture market choking investment for a long, long, long time.

But public company democracy is hugely problematic; modern shareholders think as a herd and work on 60 day time scales. Fortune 500 companies need diverse signals (and sophisticated risk management) and visionary management - creating processes, people and markets over decades. This is the model of the private market, but sans the potential for fraud and collapse.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#174

Post by imhoguy »

lovich wrote: post #162
e59d134d wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many companies have eroded employees trust by lying that something is anonymous when it is not. I personally will never trust any such survey at work.

I live when we are emailed "anonymous" surveys with a query string. It's even better when they are engineering specific surveys because at that point you have to question if they even think you can do the job if they thought they could get blatant tracking like that past any engineer

I saw such everytime too. These tracking params are to guarantee that the survey is filled only once by a person. But tracking is possible if email and the survey match is stored somewhere. It is all up to trust.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#175

Post by imhoguy »

krylon wrote: post #147
RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

I read somewhere - possibly here on HN, but I am not sure - of a Russian who migrated to the USA after the end of the Cold War, who remarked that in the Soviet Union, the state had been very authoritarian while the workplace was relatively democratic, and that in the USA, it was the exact opposite. And sadly, I believe that even with UBI, people will still play their power games, do politics, all that. There might be…

This is because back then cooperative was most popular form of enterprises in eastern block.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#176

Post by urahara »

anonisprivacy wrote: post #151
peterwwillis wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tolerate tyranny and imbalanced power structures everywhere in this country. Corporations are a cheerio in our cereal bowl of oppression.

From what I've observed, a lot of people 'tolerate' it because they just aren't willing to take the risk to achieve power in the first place. For example, very few people are willing to leave their cushy jobs and grind it out a few years at a startup that might fail.

It is more often about not having an opportunity to choose, and not about not being unwilling to switch to startups.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#177

Post by ironic_ali »

jmspring wrote: post #113
dleslie wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoidance of power inversion is, IMHO, the greatest contributing factor to this state. Management have little to no incentive to assisting the upwards mobility of their subordinates as it is, but the social stigma of someday possibly answering to those you have authority over can drive individuals to undermine the aspirations of others.

A colleague at a former company asked his then manager about the track for promotions. Said manager basically laughed and said "if you got that promotion, then you'd be competing with me". This was a company that had bands that were lumped together for purposes of evaluation.

HP?

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#178

Post by donmatito »

sgift wrote: post #152
e59d134d wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my professional experience, every time higher ups made a decision without input from worker bees, the project failed, delayed, or cancelled. I personally love it when higher-ups make a decision without consulting me. Because then I have zero skin in the game. I don't work ridiculous hours. When I am involved in decision making, then I make sure project succeeds. Sometimes that means working late hours, taking pro-…

> But if I am told what to do without consulting me, then I don't care. There is a lot less stress on me. If it appears decision was stupid and project will not meet deadline, I make sure everyone knows and rarely ever put in more than 40 hours on such projects. I envy people who can change into "I just do what I have to do"-mode when they don't have 'skin in the game' ... I always feel as if I have skin in the game…

You say you envy them but I'm not sure you really do. Working without feeling involvement or purpose in what you do is mind-numbing. Of course lots of people have to endure it, and some find solace in hobbies/family. But if you are the type of person who always feel you have skin in the game, I don't think you'd last a month in a position where you don't care :-D

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#179

Post by johan_larson »

RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

> The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company.

In this field, we can in fact move, so "love it or leave it" is not a hollow demand. People in some other fields are far more stuck. A military officer's career is over if he says no to the hierarchy he is part of. He may find work after the army or navy, but it will be very different work, effectively the start of a different career. We on the other hand can move pretty much down the street and do very similar work.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#180

Post by panic »

RealityNow wrote: post #99

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

Yeah, the people doing the work usually know the most about how it should be done. Even without UBI, collective ownership is a strategy worth considering.
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