51–60 of 113 posts
This attitude is why private equity is destroying US companies. The hubris and ignorance of investors routinely gets translated into a cull of workers whose jobs they don't understand, leaving behind "lean" organizations that retain only whatever bits are currently most profitable but are less functional, resilient, sustainable, and humane.
I know this is an against the grain (for HN at least) take, but I don't disagree. If you're not working on, or supporting, the company's product, you MAY have a BS job. Good example: Twitter, which functioned well after layoffs of 80% or so (the owner's persona has damaged the revenue and reputation extensively, but the product itself has been fine). They're maybe the boldest, but hardly the only company in the past…
Of course it would be silly for an outsider without any real knowledge of their complex operations to hazard such a guess.
The ideological bullshit here is hilarious. We have a VC here whining that a business with one of the most exceptional margins in modern capitalism is… not returning enough to shareholders? And those pesky workers are to blame? The buck here stops with management. If the people with power in your organisation are powerless to ship features, innovation and value… aren’t they the problem? Get leadership that works. Hir…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stockholders are the owners.
Yeah but stockholders aren't necessarily retired.
- everybody should have the opportunity to retire
- that means they have to save & invest
- that means corporations have a moral duty to do their best
- if an old person entrusted my company with the financial results of their life's work, I'd feel a lot of pressure to make good on the implied promise that I won't just take the money and put my feet up
There's a few types of "non workers" I've encountered, that for all extents and purposes are worthless .... until they very much aren't. 1. "former" engineers and non-specialists - they tend to sit in meetings, try to sound important, pontificate about "better ways" but never seem to do real work. Then when SHTF they seem to have all the knowledge to make the problem go away super fast. Maybe SHTF never happens to yo…
They're very much like firefighters. Firefighters spend the vast majority of their working hours either literally doing nothing or else doing somewhat pointless make work, like washing the fire truck. If your firefighters are spending more than ~10% of their time doing their actual job, then the odds of them needing to be in two places at once reaches unacceptable levels. Old fashioned secretaries are similar, if les…
lol
I think it's more than that
Whereas VC and private equity staff all "work"...
VC’s, hedge funds, etc. all run lean—none have 10k+ employees or anything close. Employees are under a much brighter spotlight by the owners all the time. Groups might lose focus for an interval but once they their score is down it’s goodbye & the score is P&L calculated in very short intervals.
This describes none of the multi-fund behemoths, e.g. Andreessen, Sequoia, et cetera. They have an entire caste of VC associates whose productivity is measured by the number of meetings they take; they're literally professional time wasters.
Things going well: all these engineers are just wasting salary dollars and not contributing anything, layoffs for everyone! Things going badly: all these engineers are incompetent and just wasting salary dollars, layoffs for everyone! Now where's my 7 figure consulting fee...
I doubt they're referring to engineers.
There's a few types of "non workers" I've encountered, that for all extents and purposes are worthless .... until they very much aren't. 1. "former" engineers and non-specialists - they tend to sit in meetings, try to sound important, pontificate about "better ways" but never seem to do real work. Then when SHTF they seem to have all the knowledge to make the problem go away super fast. Maybe SHTF never happens to yo…
They're very much like firefighters. Firefighters spend the vast majority of their working hours either literally doing nothing or else doing somewhat pointless make work, like washing the fire truck. If your firefighters are spending more than ~10% of their time doing their actual job, then the odds of them needing to be in two places at once reaches unacceptable levels. Old fashioned secretaries are similar, if les…
Firefighters do a lot more than just fight fires.
Well most VCs loose money ...