Comment by gtowey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gtowey | Hacker News Reader

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This seems like a popular management style at big tech companies. I've seen exactly this kind of behavior at MS too. It's a kind of "pacifist management".

Just agree with everything and everyone so you're not seen as someone who creates conflict. But then just silently ignore or drop issues you don't want to deal with.

Don't take risks or take responsibility for difficult problems so your reputation is clean of any failures.

Jump on board only the largest and most well supported of company initiatives so you can claim success.

And the thing is, I'm not sure it's the fault of these managers that behave this way. I think it's the result of the promo system adopted by so many tech companies. As long as you have some good things to write about each promo cycle and nobody has anything bad to say about you, you can coast your way up the management chain. And with each promotion comes more money. There is no incentives to take risks as it can only hurt your promo chances and then once you're high enough up the chain, why would you risk the huge comp package? Pichai complained about engineers who "rest and vest" but only because that is exactly the behavior incentivized by the company culture and the absolutely stupid promo process and comp structure.

With leadership like that, it's sure that nothing will ever change.

Well said. I rocketed up the chain early in my career for inventing some truly innovative stuff (that's been published in top conferences). Then I fought against stupid shit. I spoke out. I had strong technical opinions. Eventually I was pushed aside and my career has tanked (but rest-and-vest baby...except I'm slowly recovering and still seen as a company intellectual resource). Meanwhile I watch all the mediocre managers keep rising who are "yes, sir" and don't make any enemies. They don't do shit except follow the status quo and build their empires.

It doesn't have to be a huge tech company this is pretty universal even at mid-sized companies.

This isn't just tech per se, if you look around you in society that's literally how countries are governed.

Basically a lot of people have promoted weak leaders all the way up to premierships and presidencies and have pushed out anyone that could potentially criticize them. The result is this shitshow we're in right now.

For anyone reading this deep in the thread: read Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, The Dictator's Handbook. A variations of a few simple rules result in virtually all models of government. And none of them involve technical competence.

https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...

Or watch the CGP grey 'rules for rulers' adaption of it on youtube

I rewatch that video from time to time. It's amazing how accurate that is, despite what academics say.

What do academics say?

This is why democracy is so rad. We can vote out the idiots whenever we feel like it. Of course, we don't always agree on who the idiots are.

Democracy for Realists, 2016

Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government

By Christopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels

Page 112-113

Scholars who have quoted Key’s colorful phrase have mostly failed to note that he used it derisively. “The Founding Fathers,” he wrote in the final edition of his influential textbook on party politics, “by the provision for midterm elections, built into the constitutional system a procedure whose strange consequences lack explanation in any theory that personifies the electorate as a rational god of vengeance and of reward.”

In the first edition of the same textbook, Key (1942, 628) offered an even clearer dismissal of the rational interpretation of retrospective voting, noting that voters seem to have rewarded and punished incumbents at the polls for good or bad times

Even before it could be said that the national Government could do much of anything to improve their condition…. Yet if the party control of the national Government had little or nothing to do with their fate, how is this behavior to be explained? Is it to be considered as a rational seeking to better one’s status by the ballot or is it merely blindly striking a blow at a scapegoat? To throw out the “ins” probably had about the same effect on economic conditions as evangelical castigation of Satan has on the moral situation. Perhaps the swing against the “ins” can best be described as a displacement of economic resentment on political objects. By this catharsis discontent was dissipated and the peace kept.

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/democracy-for-realists-part...

This starts all the way at the interview btw. If you go out of your way to do something extra, you’ll be suddenly judged on it even if it wasn’t originally in the scope of the interview, so you’re pushed to be the most average you can get.

It is still their fault. Personal accountability is the only thing that can improve a situation. At all levels.

When has personal accountability really solved any systemic issues we humans have faced?

So you'd like government regulations?

Answer my question first and I can answer yours after :)

Personal accountability isn't meant to solve problems. It is meant to prevent them by forcing individuals to put something ahead of their own career advancement. In other words, it aligns incentives in favor of preventing problems rather than in favor of solving them - you can only be the hero who slays a dragon if there is a dragon.

The laws around medical malpractice don't fix it when doctors screw up, but they make it a lot less likely for the screw-ups to happen, since those laws force doctors to adopt reasonable standards of care.

My question still stands, when has that really solved issues if they aren't regulated? Personal accountability without regulations is moot, toothless and I don't recall any instance of it ever solving anything.

To me what you are describing is basically regulations. Personal accountability only derives from regulations because there are punishments, in that case it aligns incentives.

Democracies and republics create personal accountability through regulations, since there is no single boss and power tends to come from legislative bodies or the people directly - those people want to provide input. Dictatorships (which companies fundamentally are) do not need regulations and rule-making processes to have personal accountability. Instead, the CEO can determine if you screwed up and fire you (or the dictator can shoot you) if you did. The specter of being fired (or shot) aligns your incentives to "do the right thing" even if the rules are not well-communicated, although you are better at doing the right thing if the dictator tells you what they value and what they want you to do.

Regulations are only one form of personal accountability. Regulations, in theory, create uniformity and transparency. These can be good things. In practice, regulations are often selectively enforced, which leads back to the same situation as in a dictatorship, but with a formalized process of input for the dictator.

I actually disagree with you that malpractice lawsuits are examples of regulation. More often, when something goes wrong and a doctor is involved, there is an argument about whether the doctor was negligent or not. There is no fixed "standard of care" that is written down, only a set of practices that are known throughout the industry. Experts argue about whether negligence occurred or not. There are regulations that the experts can cite in their determination of negligence (some of those rules carry separate penalties too), but you don't need to have broken any rules to commit malpractice. This is a prime example of accountability without regulation.

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