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Comment by vcryan | Hacker News Reader

Politics is inescapable. Software engineers can't live outside of them. Whether these are the team politics, org politics, etc.

I don't think engineers are universality bad/good at politics. It's just like anything else, takes practice.

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There's a way out. Build your own company and make it something beneath you.

If you have other people working at your company or investors, politics will come into play.

It's rare to have a CEO that can decide things 100% by themselves and still retain talented employees. It's also super rare to have investors with zero desire to determine a company's direction.

On that level, there are other policies.

Politics in standards bodies, industrial organisations, regulatory issues, funding and investment, etc

I’ve been on both sides of the table. To me, all of those are far more palatable than petty company politics (both in BigTech and startups).

When I've reported to founders they were front and center in the politics (which is probably how it should be).

Becoming a career CEO might be a way out, though.

A fish rots from the head down.

There's an even better way out, implement workplace democracy.

Yeah, and you can also get rid of local politics by moving to the countryside and homesteading. And you can bypass national politics by homesteading on a ship or an island that nobody cares about. And you can just move to a different planet to escape global politics. But any group of people will develop some form of politics, and to do anything meaningful longterm, you need a group of people, not just an individual, why not get better at politics? It is inevitable you will have to take part in them.

But of course, I still want my hut in the woods.

I used to run my own business when I was a child, and made a lot of money from it. Paid my way through school with my earnings. There was no sales or marketing, and all I did was product and engineering, and at no point was I politicking. So no, it's possible (albeit difficult) to not be part of the meat grinder, I have done it.

I am a solo founder literally to avoid ever having to deal with politics and video calls.

amen brother :)

Sure, to some degree it will always be there. But company size and careerist culture - both local to the company and differences between countries - makes it vastly different in presence.

politics is 100% escapable

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