trentnix

When I talk about the same topic with a friend, we say variants of "MBAs ruin everything they touch". But what we really mean is what you said.

But my gut reaction after reading was “what a bunch of self-serving nonsense”.

From “they needed me to babysit the CEO and board” to “I still believe in HP despite destroying 1.2 billion in value while I was on an 8-week break” to “the DECIDE framework”, it’s a masterclass of modern tech executive bloviation. They are always so confident and convincing as they explain their cognitive dissonance, preaching to audiences stuck in the same reality-distorting game. The tech market is a mess because these same types are utterly paralyzed over the path forward now that LLMs have emerged but full of so many words to explain how they have it all figured out.

But this guy insists it isn't his fault. He was just unlucky that he wasn't there to be the beacon of reason their leadership needed:

> Their exact words still echo in my mind: "The CEO and board need adult supervision." Think about the implications of that statement. HP's own technical staff, the people closest to our innovation work, believed that senior leadership couldn't be trusted to make sound technology decisions without someone there to provide oversight and guidance. They weren't wrong. The numbers proved it in the most painful way possible.

Hollywood-grade drama and warning sirens all around, but a few paragraphs later…

> Despite watching the WebOS disaster unfold, despite being blamed for not preventing it, despite everything that went wrong during that period, I still believe in HP as an organization.

Mercy. The author thinks he's provided an apology to explain his culpability in the failures of the Palm acquisition but, instead, he's just made it clear he has awful judgement.

HP is far, far away from the once-great version of itself. For example, once they achieved dominance, HP ensh*ttified their printer business beyond any reasonable tolerance level to squeeze every last dollar out of its customers. They abandoned all pretense of technical excellence or innovation or customer satisfaction and embraced dark patterns to please their MBA masters.

Like so many of their peers, they see their employees as headcount and their customers as vassals.

That’s the type of decision-making HP values. That's the type of company HP is. And this guy, his excuses, and his experience are a shining example of why.

Good times...

On Logitech, for one system I still use a Harmony One that was gifted to me in 2008! I bought a Harmony Elite (and hub) off Ebay a few years ago for my upscale system.

It feels like there's definitely an opportunity for someone to build remotes or an orchestrator for A/V systems that works well.

Yes, but they are significantly less destructive than an MBA.

My system is very similar to yours. I’ve got a UHD player, XBox, Plex Server, and a half-dozen retro gaming systems in the mix. But apparently I'm not as patient as you (and others that responded) are.

I find 10 seconds to be intolerable and unnecessary. I’m old enough to have been spoiled by the analog world where power meant you were ready.

Not only is the time-to-wait painful, occasionally the HDMI handshake fails or the TV powered on quicker than the receiver’s signal was output and its input selection “picks” the wrong input or wrong display settings. So now you have to consider the order you’re powering things up, because the TV is “smart” and if you tell it to choose an input that isn’t ready, it’ll self-select one it thinks is ready.

And if I’m using HDMI-ARC, which I frequently do when using an over-the-air signal, if the TV powers on sooner than the receiver, the TV falls back to its own speakers. So now I’m stuck navigating the TV menu to get the audio through my SVS speakers instead of the ones in the TV.

Occasionally my TV has an “update” and then its apps have updates and then the update presents a new “user agreement” with all the data harvesting options pre-selected. If I don’t use my system frequently, two of the devices in the chain may want to update!

And after all that, if I’m watching physical media I then have to wait for the disc to be read and navigate through forced ads or trailers or piracy warnings. If they aren’t forced, I still have to intervene to skip them and get to the menu. But don’t select anything too fast on the menu! It has its own animations it wants you to watch before it will show you what options you have.

And all of that whining doesn’t even cover the wasteland of options available to remote control and make sense of the Rube-Goldberg AV system. The best option (Logitech Harmony) bailed leaving consumers with nothing but the Chinese schlock that hollowed out the market in the first place.

How much do you have to pay for a quick boot, no ads, and a private movie or music experience? Just like every retailer has embraced usury with their credit card programs, every technology company has decided they are in the data harvesting business. I’m so over it.

And so, everything from Hollywood blockbusters to software solutions is created by committee. The end products are all box-checking, lowest common denominator throwaway garbage. No risks are taken. And very little value is delivered.

That cuts me right to the bone.

I understand the reasoning for why they put so much weight on the number of reports you’ve been previously responsible for, but it also explains why big companies stagnate. The people change but the thinking and strategy doesn’t.

Some roles are “hands on”. For others that’s a red flag. For some it’s all about managing people and emotional intelligence. For others it’s all about technical acumen and technical direction. Sometimes what they are really looking for is exactly what the last person in the role did. In other cases, they want the opposite of the last person to hold the role.

The only thing you can really depend on when it comes to leadership titles in software, in my experience, is that one’s title explains which meetings one is expected to attend.

Season 2 is simply forgettable.

Product confusion, inconsistent marketing, unnecessary product renames, and rushing half-baked solutions has been the Microsoft way for dozens of products across multiple divisions for years.

Many learn better at a workbench than at a chalkboard. And even those that don’t often appreciate the chalkboard more when they can relate what they’re learning to what they are doing.

I (and many others) have worked for, contracted for, interacted with, and/or closely observed government for decades. The only “reflexive” thing here is your argument that people who disagree with the you are the victims of propaganda.

You can certainly quibble with the details on how to deliver government efficiency (and I highly encourage people to sincerely scrutinize any efforts to do so - it should produce better results), but there are good and valid reality-based reasons that the “DOGE” mission has broad support.

Jason also coined the term "Luck Surface Area" which has since been popularized by a number of others.

I haven't used Math Academy myself (although it's something I intend to try one of these days), but I can safely vouch that Math Academy isn't a fly-by-night shallow edtech grift. They've spent a small fortune and thousands of hours developing and refining content and curriculum. Math Academy is a thoughtful, intentional, well-manicured solution.

Maybe I’m too curmudgeonly for my own good, but that is quite underwhelming.

Considering the government uses classification far too flippantly as it is, they still won’t have access to much.

I don’t care whose problem it is, I’m not subjecting my kids to that kind of nonsense.