31–40 of 103 posts
> Complex jobs cannot be accomplished effectively with transients. I love this quote.
> I did not recruit extraordinary people. I recruited people who had extraordinary potential—and then I trained them.
> From time to time, I note evidence that NR representatives at field offices, such as a shipyard or laboratory, do not fully understand their primary mission. It is amazing to me how representatives new to these positions uniformly get themselves into the frame of mind, where they conceive of themselves as intermediaries between NR and the contractor. That is, that their job is to judge who is right, NR or the contractor, and then make the decision on their own. In many cases, not even notifying NR. In this way, the NR representative then becomes in effect NR's boss. All NR representatives are of course, encouraged to state their views to me at any time, but it is not their job to assume my responsibility. Another and more serious mistake arises when the NR representative decides what he should or should not report to me. Frequently, he decides not to report things to me because he feels he can handle the matter better himself or he is afraid that by notifying me of the situation, which is his job, I will take ignorant, improper action and upset the applecart. Nearly all NR representatives have had inadequate experience to handle the important and complex tasks they face. I do not expect them to be able to make wise decisions on all matters by themselves. Under some circumstances, it is better to have no NR representative at all because I would not then be lulled into thinking the NR interests are being taken care of. Please bear in mind always that you are the NR representative. That you are to carry out the policies of NR. That you are not to judge NR or to represent the contractor to NR. To achieve the status of a true NR representative requires the acquisition of godlike qualities, but you can try. Signed H.G. Rickover.
[1] https://itrevolution.com/podcast/the-idealcast-episode-10/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The AUKUS deal is just Australia shovelling money at the US and getting four fifths of fuck all in return, but that's purely for political reasons.
Yeah it's basically paying the US for protection. I don't blame them though because they do have a whole country full of about 15 times as many space-constrained citizens next door (Indonesia)
Um. I don't know how many people on HN have served and heard of Rickover? But I'm pretty sure most people on HN could not function in a Rickover style management context. It gets things done, but it's not terribly polite about going about getting them done. To the article's credit, it does touch on this aspect of his management style. But engineers today are from the Millennial or GenZ generations. A lot of that just…
> He doesn't like the architecture you chose? You're gone. He finds issues in the code of one of your subordinates? That subordinate is gone and you are too. I doubt it would have been that severe unless it was a recurring thing. But it does bring to mind a story told by the USS Enterprise's then-chief engineer, about an episode before my own time aboard. Back in the day, there was a "billet" (org-chart position) kno…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've read biographies of Rickover and not all people who lived through this time are complementary. History is written by those who remain in power and Rickover was a man who embodied speaking truth to power. His career was largely ended when some corporate powers he spoke truth to finally punished him for his opposition. > but whatever his lessons are Rickover was very forward about his lessons: https://govleaders…
Fantastic article on leadership - thanks for linking to it
Um. I don't know how many people on HN have served and heard of Rickover? But I'm pretty sure most people on HN could not function in a Rickover style management context. It gets things done, but it's not terribly polite about going about getting them done. To the article's credit, it does touch on this aspect of his management style. But engineers today are from the Millennial or GenZ generations. A lot of that just…
I see what you're saying, but as soon as you go in the direction of "engineers today are from the Millennial or GenZ" I'm writing you off. My boomer parents were spoiled little snowflakes. I spent six years operating Rickover's reactors on US Navy submarines. I actually served on the boat that finally got Rickover fired. So I'm very qualified to say that this has absolutely nothing to do with generational pampering.…
What people forget is that Rickover controlled one of the largest budgets in the DoD, so there were people lining up to kiss his ass just to get a piece of that pie regardless of his behavior.
We don't have time machines and so can't re-run the experiment. I've read biographies of Rickover and not all people who lived through this time are complementary. It's certainly true the strategic arms processes and nuclear submarine engineering benefited in a long term view. I just find myself asking if the US army recruiting tag line Be The Best You Can Be was really met, or if Rickover achieved what might be more…
The AUKUS deal is just Australia shovelling money at the US and getting four fifths of fuck all in return, but that's purely for political reasons.
The corner stone of this system is nuclear weapons nonproliferation. This is, on one hand, unjust - why Australia cannot have its own nuclear arsenal and not be dependent on USA to give them protection? But on the other hand, though, think what would happen if we didn't have proliferation and every second African country had nukes (e.g. Yemen Houthis, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Algeria, etc.).
How Algeria would resolve, say, Algerian-Spanish their territorial dispute if Algeria had nukes and Spain did not?
This system is certainly not perfect, but it worked, we'll see if it will work in future.
I'm a former USN Submariner, Nuclear Electronics Technician, and served from 2006 - 2016. Boy do I have some thoughts. Not all quotes here are from TFA, some are from various speeches he gave. > Free discussion requires an atmosphere unembarrassed by any suggestion of authority or even respect. This has always been an interesting idea to implement at tech companies. I've not yet been reprimanded for it, but I have de…
We don't have time machines and so can't re-run the experiment. I've read biographies of Rickover and not all people who lived through this time are complementary. It's certainly true the strategic arms processes and nuclear submarine engineering benefited in a long term view. I just find myself asking if the US army recruiting tag line Be The Best You Can Be was really met, or if Rickover achieved what might be more…
> I just find myself asking if the US army recruiting tag line Be The Best You Can Be was really met Why would an army saying be relevant to an Admiral in the Navy?
Carter replied: "No, sir, I didn’t always do my best."
And Rickover asked "why not?"
This significantly impacted Jimmy Carter and eventually became the title of a book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/645520.Why_Not_the_Best_
I think GP is probably pattern matching a bit too much. It's plausibly connected, but I doubt it.
> without cost overruns That's downright un-American! I love hearing stories about him. One that I have heard, a couple of times, is that a salesgoblin went into his second-floor office at the Pentagon, with a sample of some electronic equipment. Rickover is said to have grabbed the device, walked over to his window, and dropped it to the ground beneath. He then said something along the lines of "If it still works, w…
That's kind of along the lines of something I heard that Steve Jobs did to the iPhone prototype. He threw it in the fish tank and said, all those bubbles are wasted space. Could be this is an urban legend though.