Let me tell you, delivery pressure exists even right at the very top. You think there’s no pressure as a CEO/COO beholden to 30% top line growth this quarter? I sometimes think about being in that position and it seems pretty scary too
The most stressful part is that as you transition from IC to manager and work your way up the org chart, you become more abstracted away from actual being able to do the work and influence the outcome yourself. More responsibility, less direct influence.
Some managers struggle with this pressure and resort to trying to make their teams feel as much of the pressure as possible. Good managers learn how to set a healthy cadence, manage expectations upward, and keep a healthy but reasonable amount of delivery pressure on the team.
There is no realistic scenario where teams have zero delivery pressure, but it needs to be kept in balance. Burning everyone out all the time only works if you have a constant stream of replacement employees as everyone leaves, but then you lose institutional knowledge and reputation tanks. Managers who use these tactics need to be coached or removed from the company.
You're definitely less able to do the work yourself, but ideally you can still influence the outcome by getting the right people to do the work and making sure they're not blocked, etc.
I envy you how you have no idea how many devs are almost literal slaves. Not me, but I know plenty.
Truly, my heart bleeds for the plight of the beleaguered CEO.
Sure, they get paid well. So you could argue that they have to take the pressure.
Or, at least tell them, our growth target this year is 2%, our growth max is 10%, if we grow more than that I'm concerned about the pressure on my employees and my goal is to have a great and sustainable place to work and not to fill the universe with paperclips, and I'm going to start laying off sales and marketing if we're taking on more commitments than we can handle. We're not letting you into the board if you disagree with it, and you'd better price this assumption into the stock if you want to hold stock.
You don't have to grow forever just because you're a company.
(I think I've heard companies register as a public benefit corporation to make it easier to push back on growth-seeking entryists.)
There is a lot of value in being good for your people, the environment and the rest of your supply chain.
From what I've read about co-ops, I would definitely love to work at one one day. Even having to work more hours would feel more meaningful because I'd by benefitting my own bottom line in a way, not just going towards the CEO's private island fund.
It is in deed ideal in many ways or ay least has been while I've worked there.
(It doesn't hurt either though that it is the first place I've worked for more than two - three years without spotting an a__hole or two. Take this into account.)
Being ~8 layers deep in the corporate hierarchy at my current place is very frustrating, and I think it probably affects my current a-hole level just due to apathy...
Maybe it also helps that everyone has a financial incentive in making sure everyone else performs at their best since that means more bonus and also higher stock prices.
I just wonder how one would handle this beyond ~Dunbar's number. I've only heard of the company that makes Gore-tex handle this in a creative way [0], essentially splintering organizations into separate orgs once they became large enough.
[0] https://blog.gembaacademy.com/2011/06/21/dunbars_number_span...
I mean, there's a strict hierarchy there of who answers to whom and who gets to choose who to work with.
If the CEO tells the board "our growth target this year is 2%, our growth max is 10%, if we grow more than that I'm concerned about the pressure on my employees and my goal is to have a great and sustainable place to work and not to fill the universe with paperclips" then the board is likely to answer "it seems that our goals are not aligned, you'll be replaced with someone who does not share your concerns". If the board tells something like that to shareholders, then there's going to be a shareholders' meeting to replace the board.
"We're not letting you into the board if you disagree with it" - who's "we"? CEO's certainly can't say that unless they happen to be majority shareholders since e.g. founding the company; CEOs don't get to veto who comes on board, the board gets to choose who will be appointed CEO.
"you'd better price this assumption into the stock if you want to hold stock." - those who bought the stock get to set the rules including changing most company bylaws, so it's a legitimate tactic to buy stock in a company that's focused on being a great workplace instead of growth (i.e. the stock is likely to be cheap due "pricing in that assumption"), then destroy that assumption and replace the management to focus on growth, and sell the (now more expensive) stock. And it's very likely to happen since there are organizations whose whole business is to identify such opportunities and execute on them.
You don't have to grow forever just because you're a company, you're required to try to grow forever because the company shareholders want to. Companies can register as a public benefit corporation iff shareholders choose to do so, it's certainly not a way for someone to stop having shareholders.
You're right, once you've given up ownership to the public, it's a little too late for the current legal entity. But it's not too late to quit your job and start a new workplace.
Ed: I can't take the first question seriously... Is it really a serious question?
Or do you think HN is an exclusive forum for actual business owners and shareholders?
I don't think HN is exclusively business owners and shareholders, but I do believe that there is a lot more of it here than in hacker culture in general. I'd like to own a business myself one day, but I'm not sure I can extend myself to the ruthlessness required to survive as one.
Why not? Can’t lose.
When it's short term, put pressure.
When it's long term, plan.
In a sense, a company run by the owner is more inclined to think long term than one where some CEO takes the wheel for 5 years.
That and a general narrative from the news media that C-Suite has it pretty good relative to the rest of the world (financially they definitely do).