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Comment by PartiallyTyped | Hacker News Reader

Isn't over-hiring an indication of mismanagement?

Lots of salty people with poor reading comprehension… An “indication” is just that, a possible hint at an underlying issue, not an accusation.

I did not claim it’s entirely a C-suite fault either. “Management” goes beyond the C-suite.

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Wow, that's salty! Mismanagement compared to what? An omniscient entity that understood exactly what global advertisement demand and capital costs would look like in advance? The real world is messy and runs on estimates for everything. If Google is 6% off on their estimate for human resources, it should not be labelled 'mismanagement'.

Management goes beyond C-suite. Upper management makes predictions of their needs, their productivity, what they achieve and don't all the time, it's literally a job req. My org has consistently less than 2 percent error in predictions while growing.

Other orgs however grossly miscalculated the performance of their products and their capacity to deliver, by being wasteful and overambitious.

While not relevant to google, it is very difficult for me to sympathise with C suite with articles like this one[1] showing up.

[1] https://nypost.com/2023/01/19/microsoft-held-sting-concert-i...

In the 90s I worked in software development company. We constantly struggled with not having enough people for all the work we were getting so there was overtime involved. On plus side it paid good bonuses to employees on minus side it resulted with people being overstressed. So at one point I asked the owner/CEO why the fuck are we doing this? He said something like "when the other companies fire people because of downturns we don't".

No, all companies underhire or overhire, sometimes both in different departments. There are companies where firing 20% would not result in any efficiency loss, and ones where hiring another 20% would result in 100% efficiency gain.

No. Hiring like crazy when interest rates are low and cutting back when they are not is proper management.

The economy correctly drives company behavior, and that's not a CEO's fault.

I don't believe I blamed the CEO specifically. I hinted at upper management for bad estimations which includes more than the C-suite.

Making promises you can't keep, or being wasteful or grossly overestimating your capacity to deliver is a sign of mismanagement.

John Tuld : Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks.

Peter Sullivan : Yes.

John Tuld : I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That's it. Nothing more. And standing here tonight, I'm afraid that I don't hear - a - thing. Just... silence.

1. Stocks go up

2. Company has more money to hire more developers and invest in itself

3. Code stays in the company and potentially produces profit all the time

4. Developers are fired, but the code stays and produces value

^ this.

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