41–50 of 187 posts
Engineer types want everything to be neat and tidy, well planned and thought out. But this doesn't work in the business world, which is messy and chaotic. If you can't live with th chaos, starting a business is a bad idea. (And I say as someone who had failed to start a profitable-compared-to-day-job business)
Thanks. I'll tell my boss and let you know how my performance review goes...
Having worked many places and looked at various technical solutions developed and used, I can understand where the author is coming from. Many things work and get the job done, but it's clear that the creators had little knowledge about how to solve the problems they solved from a mere technical know-how perspective. I read him as don't think you need to know everything about something to start doing it.
Agreed that this is a thing, but this is not what the article is about. Running a business and having software engineering prowess are two different problem areas.
I've seen well over a hundred organisations, small and large, in my careers as a consultant. They're all run by the 90% that have no idea what they're doing. They're chair warmers. Paper pushers. Project mismanagers.
Then there are the 10% that keep the lights on, put the fires out, have the brilliant ideas, and keep science and society progressing.
Generally they're under-appreciated and under-paid. Sometimes they're not noticed at all. That doesn't mean they don't exist!
Someone figured out all of the amazing things that you take for granted in your life. The x-ray lasers use to make your iPhone. The 5G protocol that lets it get gigabits while you're standing at a bus stop. The encoding that lets you stream your own personal "TV channel". The chemistry that made up the OLED panel that is bright enough to see in sunlight. On and on...
Companies... including startups... are like this. There are the 90% that just keep treading water, and then there's the 10% that push the boundaries.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I spent almost a decade in public sector digitalisation in Denmark, and those politicians who look like they don’t know what they are doing in the media, well, they absolutely know what they are doing. Not only that, but they get advice from a bureaucracy full of well educated, really smart people, who also know what they are doing and have known so for decades. One of the…
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I spent almost a decade in public sector digitalisation in Denmark, and those politicians who look like they don’t know what they are doing in the media, well, they absolutely know what they are doing. Not only that, but they get advice from a bureaucracy full of well educated, really smart people, who also know what they are doing and have known so for decades. One of the…
They might be smart, but it has no impact on the quality of their work. Right or wrong, good or bad, non of that has any bearing on how they do their work. They want to get stuff done. Without getting in any political trouble. In a way that can be claimed as a win (if it actually is a win is immaterial).
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I spent almost a decade in public sector digitalisation in Denmark, and those politicians who look like they don’t know what they are doing in the media, well, they absolutely know what they are doing. Not only that, but they get advice from a bureaucracy full of well educated, really smart people, who also know what they are doing and have known so for decades. One of the…
I think realizing this was the biggest disappointment of my adult life. As a kid, you think that there are people looking after the world, looking out for the best interests of society, etc. When you get enough and can see behind the curtain, it's very depressing.