Just People in a Room | Hacker News Reader

Just People in a Room

bonnycode.com

15 pointsbhollis9 comments

The anecdotes shared here are mildly interesting. But there is not much storytelling that pulls it all together. That is probably why it didn't get much attention the first 2 times it was posted. The author probably has internalized the connectivity between the stories so well that they did not notice that while some of it was written into the article, mostly their writing jumps from anecdote to anecdote without building upon an overall story/thesis/argument/point.

Rather than posting it multiple times and having a friend re-post it for you (which is, admittedly, an assumption based on OP and the author sharing the same work history), I'd recommend putting some energy into figuring out why this post is not garnering the attention the author clearly desires. As mentioned, I think it is just being too close to the writing to see the gaps in the writing style.

An incorrect assumption (though it was nice to have seen a familiar face when I came across it) but good to know what you think of it. I assumed HN deduped posts but I guess not.

I appreciate the feedback. I once presented a promotion document to a room of Amazon VPs, and the first words uttered were “this is the biggest pile of shit I’ve ever read in my life”. So you are in good company with your critique, although you were much kinder :).

Fwiw, I had no idea other people were posting on hackernews, and certainly didn’t ask anyone to. I’m also not sure why I would do that? I might only add, in the gentlest way possible and only the slightest of irony, that this is exactly the type of assuming wrong intentions the essay is referring to that we all do from time to time.

Cheers, Lucas (author of above blog)

Fair enough. I appreciate the calling out of my irony. :)

I see so many people aggressively push self-promotion on HN, breaking the rules and etiquette, trying to force visibility of their own content that I may have gotten a bit jaded about it. It is refreshing to see someone who is being more reasonable, and a good critique of my own reactions.

I guess the kind of hubris that the author calls out applies to writing just as well as code.

However, you may be right that this post is not likely to have a lot of engagement, and the problem is lack of shared context. The average HN visitor dreams of working for a FAANG, even if it's Amazon. They are unlikely to relate. For someone who's experienced the cesspool firsthand though, this post felt visceral and very lucid.

One can't dilute all writing for the average bear in the name of engagement - that would mean loss of substance.

Once the org chart is deep enough, the leadership won't understand the business anymore and everything starts falling apart.

There are plenty of rotten bastards in the middle who don't belong there and know they don't belong there.

In my experience the heads down workers towards the bottom of the org chart are far more likely to see the 10k ft view clearly just by being there long enough compared to existing middle management who may have been there for too long.

My version of "why Amazon is like this" is simpler. Think of their Supreme Leader. Good guy or a-hole? That one is easy to answer.

Now, what kind of right-hand man he's going to click with? What will their lieutenants be like? And what kind of people they will promote? And what kind of company will their company be?

Amazon is the kind of fish that rots starting from the head.

I often think what happens in organizations where groups validate their bad decisions. Is it one influential leader who makes it happen, or is it a series of meetings between well-meaning people who stack one bad decision over another, and all of a sudden you have the justification for something like the Tuskegee experiments. I mean, they too were just people in a room.

One of the most important game theory results is that in a hostile environment, asshole behaviour is rewarded, and the net group utility sucks. But in a supportive environment, virtuous behaviour is rewarded, and group utility skyrockets.

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