Back when I worked at NeXT we created a lights-out factory in Fremont, CA and then closed it. Steve said that we were moving it offshore to be closer to where the parts were manufactured. At the same time, I was told by…
I'd prefer that our society classifies it as illegal rather than evil or immoral. We need to have laws which also take away the acquired wealth from those who benefit from such practices.
I was just reading the book "The House of Morgan" and it describes how companies are purchased when they don't maximize short term profit. The bankers and executives make sure that they make millions in the transfer,…
I've worked with lots of Harvard graduates over the years. They all seemed to be cloned with some kind of "group-think" about Economics. Essentially, they were all convinced that markets solved big problems, and…
If I remember correctly Steinbeck's doctor was a friend from his days at Stanford. So we aren't talking about traditional doctor/patient relationships.
Steinbeck is amazing. He would recite his books as he wrote them - he believed that words were meant to be spoken. He wrote for the spoken word rather than the written word. I also saw a few pages of his revisions on…
Well, I spent a number of years writing drivers for PC systems. Some years the I/O chips were faster than CPU, and some years the CPU was faster than I/O chips. DMA was usually slower, just because release cycles for…
And my recollection of the Power Broker is that he got a lot done by aligning with the desires of the rich at the expense of incredible numbers of poor people who had no power to stop him from destroying their lives. I…
I've always thought that there should be a law which applies only to the wealthy or powerful. They should be required to submit to complete monitoring - every conversation, every interaction of any sort. That should…
I don't like all the toxic positivity that has been growing in the workplace. This has changed a lot since my early days in Silicon Valley. My impression is that different countries have different "power distance" - a…
I wonder if this is just another effect of regulatory capture? Government should set some minimum standards for things which impact quality of life.
Another aspect is autonomy. It is routine in most companies for a low level incompetent manager to be able to waste all the time and talent of a senior engineer. So the issue is more than just money.
I ran my own company for a few years just to make money to stop working so I could contribute to open source. By the time I finally made enough to not have to worry about money anymore, I had spent enough years working…
There are lots of effective things - enforce a healthy diet, monitor everyone continuously, reduce the population to improve the environment, put criminals to death. The goal of a society should not be "to be effective,…
Knowledge can be gain through proven datapoints and unproven datapoints. Insisting on proof reflects a particular type of ignorance -- the ignorance of someone who hasn't deeply reflected on the history of the…
I agree completely. If a director was meeting the company goals and running either a harsh or caring organization - well, at the higher levels of the organization nobody really cared as long as things worked. We would…
I was a PM at Oracle - our team VP reported to Larry. Everybody I worked with was very experienced and very sharp. On the other hand, we regarded most of the company as "sheep" who executed our plans. Completely…
These guys like 3M and Dupont and Monsanto are doing worse things than tech to destroy our society - why aren't we hearing calls to break them up or take them over or stopping their operations in our society? (ie. Are…
I spoke to a manager at a major airline - he told me that their research told them that many of their first class passengers are now renting private jets instead. Just another artifact of our "winner takes all" economic…
I think it varies with the group being managed. I've managed groups where many other groups hoped to benefit from our time, resources, and work products. In such groups a manager really does need to say "no" dozens of…
I think of concepts like "barriers to entry" or "differentiators" or "channels" or "positioning". These words all have important meanings and implementations which can impact whether a business succeeds or fails. They…
Bought a KitchenAid stand mixer - the motor made a loud "aircraft landing" sound. When I called the number in the instructions they told me that their warranty doesn't cover sounds, and that they couldn't do anything…
What is interesting is that most of Schein's book was based on Steve Jobs (the original draft was almost all Steve, but got rewritten to emphasize Steve much less and other executives much more when Steve complained…
As someone who was writing analysis for my CEO when we were involved with the POSIX definition, let me say that POSIX was driven by the complaints of users, who insisted that they would stop buying product if the…
You know, there are a lot of problems with your logic. I'm a product of a Jesuit University where I was forced to write paper after paper on topics around morality, good, evil, justice, and similar themes. Justice has a…
Back when I worked at NeXT we created a lights-out factory in Fremont, CA and then closed it. Steve said that we were moving it offshore to be closer to where the parts were manufactured. At the same time, I was told by…
I'd prefer that our society classifies it as illegal rather than evil or immoral. We need to have laws which also take away the acquired wealth from those who benefit from such practices.
I was just reading the book "The House of Morgan" and it describes how companies are purchased when they don't maximize short term profit. The bankers and executives make sure that they make millions in the transfer,…
I've worked with lots of Harvard graduates over the years. They all seemed to be cloned with some kind of "group-think" about Economics. Essentially, they were all convinced that markets solved big problems, and…
If I remember correctly Steinbeck's doctor was a friend from his days at Stanford. So we aren't talking about traditional doctor/patient relationships.
Steinbeck is amazing. He would recite his books as he wrote them - he believed that words were meant to be spoken. He wrote for the spoken word rather than the written word. I also saw a few pages of his revisions on…
Well, I spent a number of years writing drivers for PC systems. Some years the I/O chips were faster than CPU, and some years the CPU was faster than I/O chips. DMA was usually slower, just because release cycles for…
And my recollection of the Power Broker is that he got a lot done by aligning with the desires of the rich at the expense of incredible numbers of poor people who had no power to stop him from destroying their lives. I…
I've always thought that there should be a law which applies only to the wealthy or powerful. They should be required to submit to complete monitoring - every conversation, every interaction of any sort. That should…
I don't like all the toxic positivity that has been growing in the workplace. This has changed a lot since my early days in Silicon Valley. My impression is that different countries have different "power distance" - a…
I wonder if this is just another effect of regulatory capture? Government should set some minimum standards for things which impact quality of life.
Another aspect is autonomy. It is routine in most companies for a low level incompetent manager to be able to waste all the time and talent of a senior engineer. So the issue is more than just money.
I ran my own company for a few years just to make money to stop working so I could contribute to open source. By the time I finally made enough to not have to worry about money anymore, I had spent enough years working…
There are lots of effective things - enforce a healthy diet, monitor everyone continuously, reduce the population to improve the environment, put criminals to death. The goal of a society should not be "to be effective,…
Knowledge can be gain through proven datapoints and unproven datapoints. Insisting on proof reflects a particular type of ignorance -- the ignorance of someone who hasn't deeply reflected on the history of the…
I agree completely. If a director was meeting the company goals and running either a harsh or caring organization - well, at the higher levels of the organization nobody really cared as long as things worked. We would…
I was a PM at Oracle - our team VP reported to Larry. Everybody I worked with was very experienced and very sharp. On the other hand, we regarded most of the company as "sheep" who executed our plans. Completely…
These guys like 3M and Dupont and Monsanto are doing worse things than tech to destroy our society - why aren't we hearing calls to break them up or take them over or stopping their operations in our society? (ie. Are…
I spoke to a manager at a major airline - he told me that their research told them that many of their first class passengers are now renting private jets instead. Just another artifact of our "winner takes all" economic…
I think it varies with the group being managed. I've managed groups where many other groups hoped to benefit from our time, resources, and work products. In such groups a manager really does need to say "no" dozens of…
I think of concepts like "barriers to entry" or "differentiators" or "channels" or "positioning". These words all have important meanings and implementations which can impact whether a business succeeds or fails. They…
Bought a KitchenAid stand mixer - the motor made a loud "aircraft landing" sound. When I called the number in the instructions they told me that their warranty doesn't cover sounds, and that they couldn't do anything…
What is interesting is that most of Schein's book was based on Steve Jobs (the original draft was almost all Steve, but got rewritten to emphasize Steve much less and other executives much more when Steve complained…
As someone who was writing analysis for my CEO when we were involved with the POSIX definition, let me say that POSIX was driven by the complaints of users, who insisted that they would stop buying product if the…
You know, there are a lot of problems with your logic. I'm a product of a Jesuit University where I was forced to write paper after paper on topics around morality, good, evil, justice, and similar themes. Justice has a…