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Comment by valuearb | Hacker News Reader

In my case my company has a terrible product development process, and it’s a big reason why our app sucks, it doesn’t deliver the key value customers and the company need.

I have said as much to everyone up to the VP level, and provided detailed recommendations (I am a Sr Dev, but in prior jobs I successfully managed dev groups of 40+ people). The response I’ve gotten has been coaching on delivery (stop being so blunt) and crickets on any actual changes.

If a $30K a week consultant came in and made the same recommendations at VP level, they’d be prized for their directness, and people would be having fires lit under them to implement most of the changes. And the actual staff would benefit as much as the company.

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A huge huge part of it is just persona, profile, reputation and perception.

A fancy consultant with a laundry list of "credentials" will be automatically trusted.

When Joe Schmoe developer says the same thing it will be dismissed.

You can see a variation of this happen with books, particularly self-help books.

A nobody author writes lots of valuable stuff and people flick through it and go mehhh.

A famous self-help personality writes a pretentious 50 page book rehashing cliches (probably actually written by someone else) and give it a title like "the pink monkey that was red" and it will "blow up" because everyone talks about it.

Nothing wrong with that. That's the game, I get it.

The point is if you ignore this or don't understand it you are going to be disappointed.

> "The point is if you ignore this or don't understand it you are going to be disappointed."

You can recognise it exists whilst still being disappointed that it exists.

Someone I work with suggested "Perception is the only reality", which seems to fit here.

> You can recognise it exists whilst still being disappointed that it exists.

Yep.

To me an interesting contrast to what I said is Bitcoin.

It has legs of its own to stand on and therefore does not need to borrow credibility from the author.

Imagine if books and blog posts and movies and art work didn't have the author/creator next to it. Interesting to think how people's reactions would change.

> "Imagine if books and blog posts and movies and art work didn't have the author/creator next to it. Interesting to think how people's reactions would change."

I find this interesting too.

Generally speaking, people are drawn to creating narratives about the world around them. I'd suggest that even if the creators of art become nameless/faceless, the vacuum would get filled by a cult of personality around taste makers. For example, in the world of electronic dance music there's a high volume of music producers without public recognition. However, the DJs that play this music then become the "face" for this music, and it's their reputation which is more prominent than many of the artists making the music.

And the reason for this situation is that frankly, most management really sucks. It's not easy to be a good manager, and I wouldn't claim I would be a good one. (Like most people, I think I would be better than the people I've worked under, but that's irrelevant.)

The best thing is just to quit and move to a hopefully better company. Companies with this mentality seldom change for the better.

I think it runs just a bit too deep in the psyche for one to be able to escape it by moving to a different company.

It happens in many contexts even outside of business.

Perhaps you can escape it by making a product like a mobile app or SaaS.

It gives you a curtain to hide behind which consequently allows the judgement to be directed towards the product/service.

That could explain why everywhere I go, I experience the same thing :).

This is exactly right. This is how many companies operate, and it's why there is so little satisfaction working at most companies.

One can try to become that consultant, or one can try to go off and start their own project/product/company.

Would this be a software consultant or a management consultant?

Doesn't matter. Both are respected by management types, that's why they can command high wages.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t have “developer” in the title.

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