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Comment by hedora | Hacker News Reader

Once the CEO asked me to build a human level AGI in front of our only customer (small company).

I asked them what they wanted to do (it was solvable with keyword search) and told the CEO that I’d be happy to get it into the next version. It took an afternoon or so to implement.

Gotta love the PHB effect.

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It's interesting that you seem to be insulting your CEO, who managed to solve a customer problem with reasonable tech requirements for you and a grandiose upsold sales pitch. Seems like a win-win-win

> grandiose upsold sales pitch

Yes, liars should be insulted.

If it happened like the OP described, they just got lucky, but it could have gone differently. A good (but less than honest) CEO would have colluded with the developer before talking to the customer, both agreeing to upsell an easily implemented feature. However, the mark of a PHB is that he/she will ask for random features while completely misjudging their feasibility -- sometimes you'll get lucky, sometimes you'll crash and burn horribly.

My new hobby is using "collusion" instead of "collaboration"

My rule of thumb is that if it's a plot to dishonestly deceive the customer, it's probably collusion. If instead it's an honest plan made with the understanding of the customer, it's a collaboration ;)

PHB Effect?

this maybe? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29214487/

Certainly not. But the results they list are interesting - my gut tells me they wouldn’t be reproducible.

Can’t seem to find the full text though, pretty messed up that my tax dollars go to finance academia that I can’t even consume.

"PHB" means "Pointy-Haired Boss": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointy-haired_Boss

The relevant bit:

> He is notable for his micromanagement, gross incompetence, obliviousness to his surroundings, and unhelpful buzzword usage; yet somehow retains power in the workplace.

Pointy haired boss. (From Dilbert)

https://www.dilbert.com/strip/1995-11-17

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