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Things I want to say to my boss

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Re: Things I want to say to my boss

#231
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in the policymaking world and was considering grad school/academia, an underlying theme in my research was that the principal-agent problem is a reflection of misaligned incentives which leads a stag-hunt dynamic to become a Nash Equilibrium. Long story short, incentives matter, and understanding how to align your initiatives with the incentives of veto players helps build coalitions that you need to get i…

> but I also taught myself how to do basic FP&A, marketing, user experience research, and other functions Any recommended resources?

FP&A is useless for most ICs (I only taught myself when I transitioned into a leadership role with P/L responsibility some time ago).

For marketing and pricing strategy, probably "Monetizing Innovation".

For UX research, CS160's content [0]

For sales strategy, "Blue Ocean Strategy".

For launching products, "The Lean Startup".

But most critically, start having sincere conversations with stakeholders and understand why they do what they do.

Ofc, if you don't work in a major tech and startup hub like in the Bay, Seattle, NYC, TLV, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Shanghai, Beijing, London, Prague, Warsaw, or Bucharest, much of this is moot because the kind of organization that would allow you to grow doesn't exist outside of those hubs.

[0] - https://kwsong.github.io/cs160su23/

Re: Things I want to say to my boss

#233
post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I also taught myself how to do basic FP&A, marketing, user experience research, and other functions Any recommended resources?

FP&A is useless for most ICs (I only taught myself when I transitioned into a leadership role with P/L responsibility some time ago). For marketing and pricing strategy, probably "Monetizing Innovation". For UX research, CS160's content [0] For sales strategy, "Blue Ocean Strategy". For launching products, "The Lean Startup". But most critically, start having sincere conversations with stakeholders and understand why…

Thanks, great list!

Re: Things I want to say to my boss

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Deep professional understanding of a problem space that a business solves is way undervalued. Institutional knowledge, experience, and domain expertise have been devalued precisely because the managerial class (particularly executives and VPs) actively learn and live the idea that labor is always bad and to be minimized as much as possible. This is what the AI boom is really about, removing more power from labor. Its…

The System's purpose is what it does.

As capitalism moved towards financialization, the societal incentives moved from "profit from doing things" in the long run towards "profit from trading ownership of entities that eventually do things" in the short term.

This requires a completely different kind of management. I don't need someone who deeply knows what it takes to create and manufacture planes as a CEO anymore, I need someone who can make the most out of the numbers to make the speculators happy during this quarter.

Re: Things I want to say to my boss

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1. Unreasonably happy. 2. Explosive anger." That was exactly my experience. It was either extremely friendly and fun, or extreme anger. It was terrifying. I would usually stay up 24 hours in a row preparing for meetings because I would be too anxious not knowing what I was going to get.

>It was terrifying. I feel this. I'd get butterflies knowing I had to call him or hearing the phone ring. I don't know how people like this remain employed for so long. >I would usually stay up 24 hours This is wild. Hopefully you never have to deal with someone like that again. Likewise, I would just leave if it ever got to the point of interfering with my mental health again.

I believe this is also a problem that requires some introspection on your side.

Just judging by the fact that you bashed one of my side projects on another thread saying it's 100% AI-generated when it's not.

What kind of person takes the time to post something bad about a stranger? What is the benefit on your side, what satisfaction do you get from that?

I would just have ignored it if I didn't like it, but not sh*t on someone's work like that.

What you seed usually returns to you 10fold, just keep that in mind.

Re: Things I want to say to my boss

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was terrifying. I feel this. I'd get butterflies knowing I had to call him or hearing the phone ring. I don't know how people like this remain employed for so long. >I would usually stay up 24 hours This is wild. Hopefully you never have to deal with someone like that again. Likewise, I would just leave if it ever got to the point of interfering with my mental health again.

I believe this is also a problem that requires some introspection on your side. Just judging by the fact that you bashed one of my side projects on another thread saying it's 100% AI-generated when it's not. What kind of person takes the time to post something bad about a stranger? What is the benefit on your side, what satisfaction do you get from that? I would just have ignored it if I didn't like it, but not sh*t…

I didn't "bash" any project. I just said it looked AI-generated, because it looks exactly like a bolt.new or lovable template.
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