It is clearly a deliberate choice to send the signal of conforming to a particular type of non-conformance. It’s a costly signal because most people will see it as having the emotional maturity of a child, it signals to others that given their social status they can afford that self imposed handicap.
years and years and years of ptorrone's posts aren't capitalized, though. it's not like they suddenly decided today, for the purposes of this post, to change their writing style.
in any case, i prefer to decide whether someone has the "emotional maturity of a child" based on what they say, not whether they push their shift key.
They have a lot of staff turnover too, and each generation of new SDE has less of a clue how the old stuff worked. So when they're tasked with replacing the old stuff, they don't understand what it does, and the rewrite ends up doing less.
That was my impression of one of the major problems when I worked there 2008-2011. But I don't think it's just one problem.
I think that because their total compensation is lower than FAANG, especially at senior levels, and they are seen as uncool, they sometimes have issues retaining top-notch talent. It's paradoxical, because MS Research is probably the best PLT organization in the world. But they have failed to move a lot of that know-how into production.
Besides, because it's an older company, it might have more organizational entropy, i.e. dysfunctional middle-management. As you say it's probably several other causes too. But still, hard to understand how they can create F#, F*, and Dafny, just to name a few, and fail with their mainstream products.
I thought about this a lot while working at a high-growth company recently.
Decided that regular (quarterly) manager rankings (HR-supported, anonymous) by 2-3 levels of subordinates is the only way to solve this at scale.
The central problem is: assuming a CEO accidentally promoted a bad middle manager, then how do they ever find out?
Most companies (top-down rankings-only) use project success as their primary manager performance signal.
Unfortunately, this has 3 problems: (1) project success doesn't prove a manager isn't bad, (2) above-managers only hear from managers, and (3) it incentivizes managers to hack project success metrics / definitions.
Adding a servant/leader skip-level metric is a critical piece of information on "On, this person is toxic and everyone thinks poorly of them, despite the fact that they say everyone loves them."
Sounds a like a great solution, adding random skip connections so that information flows from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy.
Certainly, few companies have managed to avoid this trap. It's largely an unsolved problem.
I've often met managers and execs two levels above me that had a completely delusional view of what was going on below them due to lies spread by middle-management.
You also probably couldn't pay me enough to work in the kind of environment that produces such buggy software as Microsoft teams. A message based app which can't even guarantee delivery of messages, or synchronization across devices isn't a good sign for management and delivery.
I was a unix head at the time and ran OpenBSD on my personal Thinkpad. I figured a stint on the Windows team would broaden my horizons and expose me to differences. It did that. I don't regret it. I did in the end feel that the company was not my vibe, but I respect and appreciate some of what came out of there.
Back when I was there, part of my calculus was that cost of living in Seattle was cheaper than the bay. It was about 35% cheaper back then, according to regional CPI data I looked at at the time. Not sure what the difference is today. I believe housing is still substantially cheaper.
I think a few years after I left when more Big Tech opened offices in Seattle, competing companies started paying Bay Area salaries for Seattle living, removing this argument. I haven't watched this closely in recent years.
But fwiw, I was able to save and invest a lot in my Seattle days, despite a salary that was lower than in the bay.
Housing is just one component, there is a lot of other stuff that has equal price: if you order stuff from Amazon the price is the same, if you buy a new car the price is the same.
Is compensation really the issue? Like, people earning 160k simply can’t take a dive into the OS source code and make proper fixes, but people earning 250k magically can?
I don't know. I know there are a lot of people who want to work on the OS source code, given the chance, but need some hand holding in the beginning. Companies in general are not willing to give them the chance, because they don't want to hand hold them.
I think uncompetitive compensation is the dominant factor in Microsoft’s decline. Up there with stack ranking. They claim that it’s 30% cheaper to live there but then they go and capture most of that 30% for themselves.
It is my opinion that developer ability is on a Pareto distribution, like the 80 20 rule when 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. The job market is more liquid for those that are extremely productive so it’s pretty easy to for them to get a pay rise of 30% by switching companies. In the worst case you can often come back with a promotion because, like many companies, Microsoft is more likely to promote you when trying to poach you back. Doing a 2 year stint at Amazon was quite common. The other problem is that when your best people leave is that the process is iterative, not only are you getting paid less but you are now working with people who couldn’t easily switch jobs. You start being surrounded by incompetence. Stack ranking, which I hear is still being done unofficially, also means that you put your promotion and career in danger by joining a highly productive team. So it is rather difficult to get highly productive people to work on the same team.
Being paid less, being surrounded by incompetence, and being forced to engage in constant high stakes politicking really sucks.
I still think there are ways to hand hold people a bit and grow an ordinary engineer to a better one who is fit for system programming in maybe 12 months.
Otherwise as you said the only way is to offer the best compensation so that people don't leave. But again those people probably would leave for different reasons (culture e.g.).
Compensation is the easiest way and probably the most essential. It is hard to maintain a good culture when your best keep getting poached away with large sums of money. If Microsoft was the only game in town then sure they could get away with paying less, but they're not so they cannot.
Compensation can be the issue if the cost of living is creating problems. If you need 150k to just live in an area, 160k is not motivating while 250k gives you the peace of mind to focus on the work, not just on surviving. If you live in Bangladesh, the difference between 160k and 250k is almost meaningless.
Also compensation is a sign of respect and influences motivation. If you position yourself lower in the market, there is no reason to deliver top results for less money, correct? This attracts mediocrity, especially in management, and slowly kills companies. Usually there is no way back, no large company can replace the entire management and once and the mediocre ones will reject new, better ones.
It's not about the amount, but the type of people who stay when they could move to a higher paying job.
And the fact that it's impossible to poach people from companies offering a higher salary than you do. Unless you give them something more, like better conditions, or "mission", or the idea to work on something cool, but I don't think any of those apply to Microsoft.
A kernel engineering job is much more fun than yet another backend web gig. A large part because when working with typical web coding people do not want you to do actual software engineering.
But the actual issue is that if you underpay people they will not feel respected and valued so they will either not be motivated or leave. So you cannot pay below market, but you do not need to pay FB salaries either.
Theoretically (never happened to me), I'd definitely do a $100K Windows kernel, or whatever kernel work, over a $150K DE job that I currently have (I used to have a $220K DE job too and I won't hesitate to switch).
I can confirm, the guys still around for WinUI team and related frameworks, always appear clueless when posed questions about Windows features they were supposed to know about.
Just go watch a few recordings on their YouTube channel.
From the outside looking in one wonders why this is allowed to continue. Microsoft’s old school “developer tools for money” business is slowly dying (because Visual Studio proper is less popular than its ever been since so much is targeting web), you would think they’d reorganize and move .net and GitHub and stuff into their cloud team and yeet whatever toxic leadership is preventing Windows from using Microsoft’s own frameworks.
IIRC .NET was banned from core Windows components after longhorn died, but its been 20 years. .NET is fast now, and C++ is faster still. Externally developed web frameworks shouldn’t be required for Windows.
It’s a largely dysfunctional org creating largely dysfunctional software, I.e. Conway law. Dysfunctional orgs tend not to be capable of fixing themselves, especially without external threat. Satya Nadella, like many CEOs, seems mostly interested in impressing his peers and these days that means fancy AI, before that it was Quantum chips.
Microsoft has produced some great technology and when I was last there I was definitely focusing on getting as much of the good stuff out into open source as possible.
Back in the early V8 days the execs imagined JavaScript would keep getting exponentially faster, I tired to explain with a similar investment anything V8 could do dotnet could do better as we had more information available for optimization.
Yeah, .NET is actually an impressive piece of tech. They have F# too which is a really solid programming language. And then they chose React of all things to build core OS UI.
nothing beats perfectly good vendor firmware updates packaged in an obscenely complicated bash file that just extracts the tool and runs it while performing unnecessary and often broken validation that only runs on hardware that is part of their ecosystem (ex: dell nic on non dell chassis).
tends to be hit or miss when you use dell parts on non dell hardware (but the cost savings are worth it since typically nobody wants to touch dell hardware due to these issues)
Elon has done sufficiently impressive things which is why it’s sad that he has to make up a whole bunch of new things to try to impress people. Being the richest man alive is not enough he also has to be the best gamer as well. If he lies about small things that don’t matter then how could I trust him to tell the truth on important things that do matter.
Howard Hughes also did impressive things. Built amazingly advanced aircraft for the era. Started a Hollywood movie studio. Owned one of the world’s largest airlines. His company (after his death of course) provided satellite IP links for decades before Elon showed up with a cheaper option.
He died as an isolated insane hermit wearing kleenex boxes as shoes and collecting his urine in mason jars.
I think that we have already seen peak Elon, and the only thing we will see in the future is his continued descent into madness, which I expect will be aided and abetted by his business associates, just as Howard Huges’s illness was.
Perfect was not the bar that was set. Elon can be the richest person in the world and a lair at the same time. It's about what kind of person lies about being one of the best gamers in the world when clearly they're not. This is of course not the only thing he has lied about but it is possibly the pettiest. And possibly the stupidest because the very people it was supposed to impress were going to find out near instantly and now despise him for it. Consider his foray into politics, it wasn't enough to sway the elections with a large sum of money he also had to insert himself into the process. In addition to being the best gamer he was trying to be the best politician - the result was a catastrophic failure. I'm still pretty convinced Adrian Dittmann is his sock puppet account and his attempt at being the best streamer as well. Done 'anonymously' to make the case that he's not bootstrapping on his other successes but not too anonymously to avoid being totally irrelevant.
I assume then, when you've had a massive positive influence on the world, employed hundred of thousands, brought electric vehicles to the mainstream, built a rocket company and blanketed the entire planet in affordable, high speed internet, etc... then you'll agree with the people on the internet that attack you because you claim to be a better video game player than you actually are.
In your hypothetical you are asking that if I was a lier would I be ok with it. One would have to presume that I wouldn’t be a lier if I wasn’t also ok with it. I am neither a lier and if somehow I had lied I would also not be ok with it and would hope others hold me to a better standard.
The US seems mostly healthy except for corruption skyrocketing. I don't even need to see the stats. If the president is this bad, and Americans overall think that's fine, then a lot of lower offices will soon be filled with corrupt officials. Attitudes shape incentives, and incentives shape behavior. Otherwise, both in terms of labor laws and capital markets, the US looks very healthy. But corruption in itself might create huge problems in the long term.
Most of our people in the US do not think it's ok what trump is doing. We have a binary political system where both parties work to deceive the public that there is any real choice. Both parties in involved in the attrocies at varying degrees. Democrats are the carrot and republicans are the stick with business interests in the middle controlling both sides with money. I'm not sure what the solution is but more of same voting dems/rep ain't working.
In many ways electing Trump was a reaction to the corruption, but of course instead of getting less of it voters got more of it. That’s why it’s so hard to turn the ship around, profits from corruption are reinvested into more corruption.
> profits from corruption are reinvested into more corruption.
Beautifully explained.
And I want to ask is there anything we can do bottom line about it?
I think like stricter rules against corruption should be in check, but that requires the govt. to do something and I feel like govt.'s themselves are being corrupt
It's this cyclical loop and I don't know if there is rather anything that we can do to break out of it.
We have the rights to vote, but those end up being squandered in most/all countries with corrupt politicians, those right to vote aren't really used mostly to bring real change, maybe a different name perhaps
At the end of the deal, its more so an faith in overall humanity that we can figure out what's right for all of us but we just fight over petty differences sometimes.
Do you guys have faith in overall humanity in aggregate? At times I feel like some instances restore my faith whereas others reduce it so its all just feelings for me perhaps.
An internal reform would look like the catholic reformation. There was hope that having an external adversary like China would spur the US into self reform to save itself but it appears that our leaders have now figured out that despite recent attempts at puffery we would not win such a war and have instead chosen a managed decline. It also means we’re in the looting phase of collapse. It can last a long time as there is a lot of wealth to loot. I personally gave up hope and left the US 10 years ago. I wish those who remain all the best with it.
I am not really familiar with the catholic reformation sorry.
Regarding your comment, its very interesting, where have you shifted now if I may ask or more details about it?
I am not really American but I still hear that its startup culture is well although with all of the other downsides we have mentioned, it does become moot.
A lot of people feel like the system is unfair but they want to be on the other side of unfairness rather than making the system fair from what I've observed. And this observation kind of fits globally sometimes imo
Somewhere cheaper, I expect the downturn to present as things generally becoming too expensive to afford so I got a jump on reducing expenses.
If you want to be in startup culture SV is still the place to be. I didn’t like it because of all the trend following, if you want to succeed there it’s best to jump on a trend. I’m more of an applied researcher and had my own ideas I wanted to explore.
As inequality continues to get worse those who initially benefited from it will generally find themselves on the other side of the transition and losing out.
AI is going to increase inequality far more than economic policy, I’m 5x more
productive with AI and am able to compete with much larger orgs. What happens when they lose their job, what happens when someone does the same to me. The Pareto distribution of productivity is about to get a hell of a lot steeper.
Hm Interesting, I already live in India and its already really cheap and still has a really good startup ecosystem. When I wrote that comment, I didn't mean that I wanted to go to startup, I am a little annoyed by some of the things happening there too
So I guess India's the best option considering all factors I guess.
but one of the problems especially in India is the saturation of the market for software engineers and the competition to get into college is so cut throat that I can't even start to tell smh
I think perhaps remote jobs from india might make more sense but I clearly am not the only one with this idea so might be hard to differentiate I suppose
> AI is going to increase inequality far more than economic policy, I’m 5x more productive with AI and am able to compete with much larger orgs. What happens when they lose their job, what happens when someone does the same to me. The Pareto distribution of productivity is about to get a hell of a lot steeper.
That's great but I think I have nuanced discussion on AI, I think that we are gonna have much bigger financial issues all around the world because of the AI bubble itself
Perhaps catering towards TikTok experiences, help them make the videos that they then share with their friends.
‘Pic or it didn’t happen’ has now been replaced by ‘TikTok or it didn’t happen.’ Is it possible to enjoy something without there being video evidence of it? According to my gf and her female friends the answer appears to be no.
I’m pretty sure no-one has argued that a gold standard would prevent economic disasters. That sounds like a straw man. My understanding is that there would be more of them but the individual and cumulative impact would be far less. You can still have fractional reserve banking with the gold standard so the gold standard alone is not sufficient to prevent that.
> I’m pretty sure no-one has argued that a gold standard would prevent economic disasters. That sounds like a straw man. My understanding is that there would be more of them but the individual and cumulative impact would be far less.
Contrary to popular opinion, the historical record shows that gold does not actually bring price stability; see "Why the Gold Standard Is the World's Worst Economic Idea, in 2 Charts":
Before what we call "The Great Depression" (of the 1930s), that label was applied to another years-long economic malaise, which was in part caused by using gold-backed currency (as was the 1930s Great Depression):
Many things work just fine right until they stop working, our current strategy of blowing ever bigger economic bubbles has worked for a long time and I expect it will continue for long time. It has the very stable property of enriching the already wealthy.
But it will not last forever and I do expect to see the end of it within my lifetime. It is this calamity that I'm interested in diminishing and it is on this basis that I think a weaker federal reserve would be less damaging. Since the federal reserve obscures the true state of the economy uncovering the true state will coincide with a weakling of the federal reserve and will appear causal.
I'm not a gold bug, I don't own any of it, I do own some bitcoin but my main asset is my software company.
> Many things work just fine right until they stop working, our current strategy of blowing ever bigger economic bubbles has worked for a long time and I expect it will continue for long time. It has the very stable property of enriching the already wealthy.
The enriching of the already-wealthy is happening because of non-progressive policies (taxes, and others). Plenty of countries have fiat currencies and independent central banks, and yet don't have inequality rates like that of US currently has.
In fact, the US used to not have inequality rates that the US currently has. This is a phenomenon that has a fairly definitive starting point, with particular policies that (US) society has "accepted" and can 'simply' choose to start rejecting:
The US is a completely different country compared to what it was 100 years ago, or even 50 years ago, and economic policy is not the only thing that has changed.
It appears that you see ‘progressive solutions’ as an answer which I would expect to arrive in the form of tax normalization which alongside monetary inflation constitutes the much coveted wealth tax. I am in disagreement with progressives that this would result in a decrease of inequality, for one the state will be completely reliant on the wealth of the wealthy increasing, as opposed to the income of the middle class increasing. I see inflation as a regressive tax, the poor will pay a higher percentage in tax but a lower in relative terms due to the increase in inequality caused.
> I am in disagreement with progressives that this would result in a decrease of inequality, for one the state will be completely reliant on the wealth of the wealthy increasing, as opposed to the income of the middle class increasing.
Funnelling more money from the top tax brackets to social programs like childcare, better teacher salaries (to attract better talent), lower tuition for (community) colleges and (public/state) universities would be helpful to the lower deciles of the population IMHO.
> I see inflation as a regressive tax, the poor will pay a higher percentage in tax but a lower in relative terms due to the increase in inequality caused.
Look at the history of the gold standard and deflation (which often happens under gold regimes): it was poorer folks that were mostly against it. Inflation helps those with debt (like mortgages, student/car loans), which I would think is more helpful to lower income folks. Deflation helps creditors.
It hurts those with debts more, they have to pay a higher interest rate than the wealthy and with things being more expensive they have to borrow more. Wages don’t keep up with inflation.
The problem with large redistribution initiatives is that they invite corruption. When such initiatives can be reliably delivered without corruption then maybe I could have some faith in it. I’m to see how all these Somali ‘learning’ daycare centers shake out. Prima facie it looks rather fraudulent. I fail to see how giving more money to fraudsters will help matters.
Price stability is overrated. Prices must change according to scarcity. Letting the government print money any time prices start to fall is literally letting the government profit off your back. It makes accounting easier, but it destroys market information like "Supply of goods is catching up to demand, find something better to produce".
And the money supply that is created by government(-ish) institutions is by central banks, which—in modern times—are generally operated independently from the government (except in, e.g., Turkey; and some folks want less independence). Central banks often work in opposition to what politicians want: just ask Powell.
You are preaching to the choir, for the most part. People just got brainwashed into expecting prices to be "stable" but what is really happening is the price of money is being manipulated for various reasons.
Credit is a very thorny issue. Politicians and banks have promised people impossibly good and contradictory outcomes.
>And the money supply that is created by government(-ish) institutions is by central banks, which—in modern times—are generally operated independently from the government
In all cases the independence is an illusion. Conflicts over policy are manufactured to make the government appear more frugal than it is. Every fiat currency ever has gone to zero.
Aircrete is far too fragile and will not hold tolerance. There is a shit towards ultra high performance concrete but that’s a completely different material.
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