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'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

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Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#981

Post by shanusmagnus »

krageon wrote: post #911
shanusmagnus wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume because you literally spend most of your life there, and if it doesn't mean something, that is ... awful? I mean, there have been times / places in history where you work so that you have enough money to not die; and you enjoy your life with whatever pittance is left afterward. I doubt anyone reading this website is in such a time or place.

Basically every corporation you can work for will have you doing something meaningless (and is dedicated to a meaningless pursuit besides). As the world population shrinks in the deep future, perhaps that will change - but right now it definitely will not. As such, I have trouble seeing why you'd think any work you do means anything. Most likely it doesn't and that's okay. It is not within your control to have meanin…

If you find your work to be meaningless, who am I to argue. But I've had a number of jobs at different companies at various places along the 'meaning' gradient. It's not all the same. Though I also agree that meaning is, to large degree, yours to make, at least as much as it is a property of the situation.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#982

Post by antipaul »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #692
potatolicious wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think it's massively under-discussed that product management quality across the industry is generally very poor . There are multiple manifestations of this but the main factors IMO are: how involved is management in the product? How good is your product definition process and talent? For big companies the problem tends to be more the former. Product management talent tends to be solid, but upper management is…

FWIW, I don't think this is the case at Apple. I sit in with the product manager as they get grilled by VPs and SVPs. They get damned hard questions - mainly the short ones ("why", "what if" and "how", and to a lesser extent "when" and who") and part of my job there is to provide data for their cover. I've given demos to SVPs before, and it's not a pleasant experience, I'm very happy to leave it to the PM. Sometimes…

If readers want to learn more, see: https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-innovatio...

What I wonder: is this "experts leading experts" philosophy unique to Apple?

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#984

Post by ikrenji »

metabagel wrote: post #236
mgfist wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but the big faang stocks literally print more money than every other company (idk maybe aramco or berkshire can compete, but nothing else). So something's working there.

I think you have it backwards. Highly profitable companies with high growth can afford to be wasteful. Being wasteful isn't what made them successful.

idk that this conclusion can be made. maybe the wasteful work culture is what enables them to generate high profits...

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#985

Post by iancmceachern »

codegeek wrote: post #287
fefe23 wrote: post #245

As a consultant, I come around a bit. I have seen many companies with very poor productivity, and in zero of those cases was it laziness of the employees. In fact they usually would have loved to be more productive. Nobody wants to spend their life being dead weight. But as companies grow they install more and more rules and regulations that end up making sure nothing ever gets done. It is not unusual to meet "develo…

"Nobody wants to spend their life being dead weight." I disagree. There are plenty of people who would love to be dead weight just to float around in a company. The larger the team/company, the more chances of those people being around. They pretend to be always busy and doing something but don't actually get anything done. Seen it all for 18+ years. Having said that, there are plenty of people as well who would LOVE…

I think the dead weight is a given, in either circumstance. It's not about motivating them, that's a sunk cost.

It's more about making the 90% of folks that aren't dead weight not suffer under the burden of the stuff OP mentions that overtakes day to day life as organizations get bigger. That's the issue.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#986

Post by grogenaut »

hackerlight wrote: post #799
austinjp wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depresses me no end that someone can see poor performance, laziness etc only as a trait others possess, and not as a reaction to circumstance that they themselves might experience one day. I guarantee that anyone -- anyone -- can find themselves viewed as substandard. It's truly disturbing when Zuckerberg says something so dystopian, and people 'in the trenches' call for more.

Even if it is due to circumstances, I've never seen a lazy person become unlazy after intervention from management. Sample size .. perhaps 20? The best solution is to terminate them quickly. Zuck's attitude here is what I look for in leaders when considering whether to join a company. There is little that's more demoralizing than pulling someone's weight for years while management is too disorganized to fire them, or…

I've seen many turnarounds. I've seen others that just don't understand what's expected and will never turn around. I've seen folks sit on a team they hate for 3+ year cause they love the people but hated the work. I found that one a new team and they're very productive again, but they would have stayed unhappy and unproductive for years without intervention.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#987

Post by fiveyearsinarow »

fiveyearsinarow wrote: post #959
wizofaus wrote: post #883

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What level are they hired at though, and are you talking developers?

Mostly level 4 SWEs, a few L5s.

Our org doesn’t have daily standup. We have weekly meetings but they dial in with camera off. When asked to give updates, they usually mention some small change, being blocked by other teams, or waiting for test result/releases. When you look at their code review, they often take 1 day to reply to comments so each diff could take a few days to submit.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#988

Post by addicted »

fefe23 wrote: post #245

As a consultant, I come around a bit. I have seen many companies with very poor productivity, and in zero of those cases was it laziness of the employees. In fact they usually would have loved to be more productive. Nobody wants to spend their life being dead weight. But as companies grow they install more and more rules and regulations that end up making sure nothing ever gets done. It is not unusual to meet "develo…

I find this attitude among developers frustrating to say the least.

Apparently developers are just helpless sheep being ruled by an amorphous entity called “management”.

Supposedly developers are important enough to command 3-400k in salaries, but not important enough that “management” would be open to all of them pointing out that maybe that 1 daily meeting is costing too much in employee time and not giving enough value and could be reduced to 2-3 times a week.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#989

Post by exBarrelSpoiler »

gorgoiler wrote: post #496
becquerel wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh... why should employees have a friendly relationship with their work? We don't work because we want to make friends. We work because otherwise we don't have money to buy food or clothe ourselves. This is not a voluntary arrangement. Expecting us to be grateful for it is absurd.

Your employer — and particularly your hiring manager when they become your line manager — is grateful for your time, I can assure you of that. You didn’t have to work there and a large part of accepting a role is wanting to work for / with someone. It’s uncharitable to not bring at least some level of social pleasantry to the office every day. I mean unless you work for Walmart or something. I assume we are both talk…

That same employer who's perfectly happy with laying you off once economic winds shift?

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#990

Post by hackerlight »

grogenaut wrote: post #986
hackerlight wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it is due to circumstances, I've never seen a lazy person become unlazy after intervention from management. Sample size .. perhaps 20? The best solution is to terminate them quickly. Zuck's attitude here is what I look for in leaders when considering whether to join a company. There is little that's more demoralizing than pulling someone's weight for years while management is too disorganized to fire them, or…

I've seen many turnarounds. I've seen others that just don't understand what's expected and will never turn around. I've seen folks sit on a team they hate for 3+ year cause they love the people but hated the work. I found that one a new team and they're very productive again, but they would have stayed unhappy and unproductive for years without intervention.

> I found that one a new team and they're very productive again

This. I should have added context that my experience was in small companies where it wasn't really possible to change teams. But some of the people that were bad performers became good performers only after they were fired and found new jobs. I've seen this happen at more than one company. They were probably just demotivated or hated their boss or something, and no amount of intervention can really fix that, short of a change in job (or a change in team, as you mention, if it's a bigger company).

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