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Comment by lifeisstillgood | Hacker News Reader

Please stop the madness !

there is only one distinction that matters - do you own a budget? In other words has the company give you at least 10x your own salary to spend on your signature alone? If not you are not a manager, no matter your job title (including Project Managers!)

Everyone else is a work for hire.

Is it the best way of arranging things? Hell no. My bet is voting on projects to be funded by the the employees will be transformative

And if we clarify things like that, other things become easier - why should a manager be the arbiter of technical decisions? They should not - it's like hiring a dog and barking yourself.

Hire people, be clear in the outcomes do not confuse operations and development and release often.

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I've never seen this to be true in any of the mature, publicly traded companies that I have worked at. It also seems like poor corporate governance to let someone spend millions without proper review. Consider the opportunities for fraud, waste, embezzlement, scams, etc.

How would making decisions by committees lead to more scams or fraud then one man decisions?

I am not sure I understand.

At mature public companies there are people with sign off on millions and often billions of spend. Choice between this supplier or that? Between a factory in Vietnam or Ohio? 100 Million on the nose and his / her signature is the final decision.

There is obviously auditors to catch the worst corruption and a process as to how a decision gets made (usually with an eye on the auditors) but yes. It's that person who makes the call.

Do they do it on a whim ? Unlikely but do they also give a monkeys what the devlead on the third floor thinks?

On the corruption front ... hell yes! Ok there is rarely the envelope of tenners dropped on the desk, but tell me, if the SVP with millions to spend on a supplier happens to serve on the board of the Gotham Orphanage alongside the CEO of a major supplier, is that corruption ? What about the understanding they have of "working together in the future"? And the nice directorship waiting on the suppliers board ?

We live in a world where Air Force Generals join boards of air plane manufacturers, so a quiet understanding between suppliers and buyers will easily pass muster. Is it corruption ?

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