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You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

paulgraham.com

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Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#21

Post by invalidOrTaken »

quanticle wrote: post #7

You weren't meant to have a boss. You also weren't meant to read, work on computers, drive cars, fly, or even practice agriculture. Its very easy to criticize any modern institution on the grounds of, "Our H. Erectus ancestors didn't do it, so it must be unnatural." Rather than snark about how the phenomenon is bosses is somehow unnatural and antithetical to human existence, why don't we work on creating institutions…

Ah, but you use your computer, your books, the plane, and the plow...but I'm afraid that it is the boss that uses you most of the time.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#22

Post by dgallagher »

mannicken wrote: post #10

There's just one thing about this article that makes me feel eerie. It sounds like a piece of propaganda. PG tries evoking an emotional response out of the reader, pulling some random unsupported facts out of nowhere, like a religious preacher who'll do anything to support his point of view. What doesn't help is that since he's an investor, he is directly profiting from people working for rates below market rates and…

I've always felt that PG uses his essays to flesh out ideas, thinking out loud. By putting it out there, others' can question things and draw their own conclusions (plus they provide a feedback loop). It's like overhearing a really intelligent person talking at a bar; you don't have to agree with everything they say, and they might be wrong, but it does get you thinking...

His usage of metaphors paints a more vivid picture of the point he's trying to get across. If you read enough of his essays, you begin to adhere to this tone. Interpreting the metaphors literally would be the equivalent of doing the same towards sarcasm. But like a sarcastic person you just met, it can take some time to figure them out and "really" understand what they're saying.

PG did work for Yahoo after they acquired ViaWeb in the late 90's. He doesn't mention this in most essays, so it's understandable to question that here.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#23

Post by EwanG »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #21
quanticle wrote: post #7

You weren't meant to have a boss. You also weren't meant to read, work on computers, drive cars, fly, or even practice agriculture. Its very easy to criticize any modern institution on the grounds of, "Our H. Erectus ancestors didn't do it, so it must be unnatural." Rather than snark about how the phenomenon is bosses is somehow unnatural and antithetical to human existence, why don't we work on creating institutions…

Ah, but you use your computer, your books, the plane, and the plow...but I'm afraid that it is the boss that uses you most of the time.

Maybe I'm just the odd one out (ok, I KNOW I'm just the odd one out in general, but still), but I find that I use my boss too.

First off, it's hard to play good cop, bad cop to get someone to change their mind if someone isn't willing to play the bad cop.

Second, my boss has been at the company a number of years, and so can tell me what my sponsor is going to be looking for, and any political landmines I might run into.

Lastly, my boss is the one who goes toe to toe with upper management to get the raise that he thinks I deserve, not just the default raise.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#24

Post by mindcrime »

Or rather, a large organization could only avoid slowing down if they avoided tree structure. And since human nature limits the size of group that can work together, the only way I can imagine for larger groups to avoid tree structure would be to have no structure: to have each group actually be independent, and to work together the way components of a market economy do.

That might be worth exploring. I suspect there are already some highly partitionable businesses that lean this way. But I don't know any technology companies that have done it.

This is the most interesting bit in the whole article, to me. I honestly believe firms can be organized like this, and probably should be organized like this. Interestingly, there was a book that I read a few months ago.. I think it was this one (http://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Enterprise-Sense-Respond-Orga...) that argued for something similar, and went into a lot of depth about how it could be done.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#25

Post by alf »

wpietri wrote: post #16
quanticle wrote: post #7

You weren't meant to have a boss. You also weren't meant to read, work on computers, drive cars, fly, or even practice agriculture. Its very easy to criticize any modern institution on the grounds of, "Our H. Erectus ancestors didn't do it, so it must be unnatural." Rather than snark about how the phenomenon is bosses is somehow unnatural and antithetical to human existence, why don't we work on creating institutions…

I think the difference there is that books, computers, cars, and planes are tools that one can choose to work with, rather than a system that one has to work within. More briefly: you use tools, but hierarchical power structures use you. And it's worth noting that Graham is working on creating alternatives ( coughycombinatorcough ), so your grumping seems a little out of place.

Humans also weren't meant to build pyramids, send men to the moon, or write operating systems. Big organizations are needed for big problems. But I do generally agree with the article that big organizations are not the best place to develop as a programmer.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#26

Post by buckwild »

EwanG wrote: post #23
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but you use your computer, your books, the plane, and the plow...but I'm afraid that it is the boss that uses you most of the time.

Maybe I'm just the odd one out (ok, I KNOW I'm just the odd one out in general, but still), but I find that I use my boss too. First off, it's hard to play good cop, bad cop to get someone to change their mind if someone isn't willing to play the bad cop. Second, my boss has been at the company a number of years, and so can tell me what my sponsor is going to be looking for, and any political landmines I might run in…

I like to use my boss as my politics filter as well.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#27

Post by nitrogen »

mannicken wrote: post #15
moondistance wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rates below market rates? I think most people would disagree. They aren't salaried but the equity often pays well.

Good question. http://ycombinator.com/apply.html tells us that three founders (common situation) will get $20, 000, or roughly $6,667 per person. For three months. That's around $2200/month for skilled work, and it's not even a full-time job: http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html " Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can for four. " That sounds like 12-14hr/day, inc…

I'm not going to rehash the old arguments here, as this has been discussed to death. Suffice it to say that any investment is not a job, is not a paycheck, and can't be compared to an hourly wage. YC and other high-quality investors provide more than just capital, they provide advice and connections, because they want their capital to succeed.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#28

Post by ww520 »

Whether you meant to have a boss or not, one thing I notice when working for myself is this - absolute creative freedom. There is no boss to tell you to finish a project you don't like. There's no boss to tell you to start a project on someone else's idea. There's no boss to tell you to use a certain technology or tool. If you want to suspend a project to pursue another one, no one would stop you. You have complete control over your creative process.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#29

Post by dkokelley »

bdhe wrote: post #11
dkokelley wrote: post #9

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=you+weren%2... How is it that this article is getting reposted? It's a great article, I know. But couldn't the HN community submit and upvote new and current articles? Wouldn't the community be better served by this? I suppose if enough members haven't seen it then the upvotes and front page placement are a net gain, but please don't let this stuff rise to the top just bec…

You can see I've posted at least one pg article I found insightful but wasn't voted up, so anecdotal evidence suggests people don't vote it simply because it is written by pg. And towards your second point, as someone who has been on this site for little over six months, this is the first time I came across this article and found it interesting, insightful, and gave me lots of things to think about. I presume there w…

Your article was also an old one (from 7 years ago in this case). You were also not the first to post that article (preempted by 4 years). I mention the author because there's usually a rush to be the first to post new his new essays and they get upvoted highly and quickly (although I believe they are well-deserved votes). Typically reposted articles get translated into upvotes for the original article submission, but this is not always the case (although I believe it is the intended behavior).

As a general rule, if it's from pg, it's either new or it's been posted before. This opens up an entirely new debate over whether reposts are good for an online community or not. Generally, I'm for them, provided they are voted up because of their value to the current user audience, and not any sort of fanaticism.

Re: You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss

#30

Post by chc »

quanticle wrote: post #7

You weren't meant to have a boss. You also weren't meant to read, work on computers, drive cars, fly, or even practice agriculture. Its very easy to criticize any modern institution on the grounds of, "Our H. Erectus ancestors didn't do it, so it must be unnatural." Rather than snark about how the phenomenon is bosses is somehow unnatural and antithetical to human existence, why don't we work on creating institutions…

Actually, from what I've read, your brain actually is specialized to benefit reading, and humans have adapted a lot for agriculture.
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