The machine building itself is end game. At that point you're suggesting singularity. I don't see how any profession survives that.
There's so much hype around AI right now, it's absolutely unhinged. Yes, we have semi-conversational AI. Yes, image detection is pretty good. It's all supervised.
Sociopaths, the clueless and losers. This great essay analyzing The Office argues that in a modern business context you're one of the three. [1]
Those "functional elites" you mentioned? Usually they're working 20-50% more for 0-25% percent more pay. They're called the clueless because they've been conned into working more for less, usually under some clever guise like company being family or company values or the promise of a promotion that's always a cycle or two away. The essay then goes on to argue that losers are really just the clueless once they "get it." Losers understand the treadmill and lean into the tedium always aiming to save their time by playing dumb as needed. Sociopaths break out of the cycle by operating only with concern for power and switching up how they talk to folks based on whether they're clueless, losers or fellow sociopaths.
Sociopaths speak in powertalk -- an exchange of information on clear terms. It's usually veiled because the clueless and losers listen in and it makes them feel uncomfortable. If it weren't veiled it would probably sound like lawyer-jargon with lots of plausible deniability, conditions, arguing and explicit shared definitions.
Losers and clueless speak in their own languages based on who they're talking with. It's basically just lots of trying to feel okay... except for when it comes to losers speaking with sociopaths. There the only communication is straight talk, which is basically just direct requests of a master-slave dynamic (i.e. "do this"). The essay is well worth the read!
It's a terrible bet. But it's the direction American corporate leadership has overwhelmingly been heading for the past couple decades [1] [2].
I get the sense you've had the good fortune to run and work in smaller startups in The Bay Area that have been unprecedentedly democratic in the scheme of human enterprise. I'm guessing you've also had the good fortune to do that during a 3 decade span of falling interest rates that drove money into VC and startups in a similarly unprecedented fashion. Everyone plays nice when they're eating good.
I studied social sciences / economics and it gave me a lot of perspective when I went to SF for tech work. The history of American labor is one of asymmetrical power and blood. This isn't a notion we've disabused ourselves of and grown beyond. Between the early 1800s and early 1900s the US saw decades of terrorism against workers by corporate leaders. Look into Labor Wars [3], The Pullman Strike [4], The Battle of Blair Mountain [5], The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire [6]. After labor laws cemented and wars settled, corporate leaders moved towards globalization to start the process all over again in other countries and hollowed out middle America to do so.
Historically, the defining traits of American corporate leadership are amorality and self-pursuit. Startups have this silly habit of sitting around to LARP as altruists that might, maybe stumble into billions of dollars. Like if they talk about company values, truisms, and team building enough it changes gravity. Who is getting paid what? That's all that matters. If you're making a half a percent over four years as the 5th hire at a startup, you're getting screwed unless your founder is the second coming of Jesus Christ himself. I think workers and the general public are waking up to this and getting tired of lip service and signaling from leaders that play altruist or cut throat as they see fit.
I'm using the pronoun 'you' in that last paragraph generally, more as in the pronoun 'one.' I'm not specifically berating you. I'm glad you exist and I appreciate you sharing your experience and talking with me! It was a rewarding discussion. All the best.
I agree: Conflict resolution, public speaking, salesmanship -- they're all valuable. They make for better people in this world.
When it comes to how these traits translate to the success of leaders or companies? I have no idea. I'd guess causation there is noisy. I bet leaders get a lot of mileage out of bullshit like playing surreptitious games for social capital, managing risk in decision making by offloading it and/or shifting blame, carefully crafting turn-of-phrase to manipulate people against their own self-interest -- especially in favor of a compensation structure that has senior leadership making 300:1 versus their lowest paid workers.
In a modern secularized world corporate leaders of large companies seem to take on the role of psuedo-religious figureheads that grant absolution and purpose in the face of the unknown and rob workers blind in return. Like, why in the hell do we need company values? Never understood why workers collectively put up with that patronizing, condescending nonsense. But I guess they're there for some poor shmuck that doesn't know himself otherwise and will warp his identity to them and put in 15 extra hours per week for the privilege. You gotta feel for his wife and kids though, don't you?
It's all just soft skills though -- that's the differentiator, the secret sauce, what makes great leaders. So soft. So skilled. /s
There are a lot of ways in which companies can succeed simply by their timing, or a couple incredibly lucky early hires, or first mover advantage in a growing space, or the right VCs -- not because of good leadership but in spite of it. Leaders take credit regardless.
Often this is why technical folks deride soft skills. Folks that tout them sound like my friend who's "figured out slot machines." My response: "Dude, that's awesome!" I'm not about to burst his bubble on the random, ambivalent jitter of the universe. We all need our delusions, who am I to take his?
Lack of corporate regulation and labor organization have led to a real asymmetrical arrangement for workers. It's a classic power imbalance. CEO-to-worker pay is at its highest level in 100 years [1]. Seems to me senior corporate leadership and founders are basically full of it. If scientific discovery is subject to multiple discovery, leadership just can't be a unique skill and founding a company just can't be a unique occurrence [2]. I'm confident there are 1000s of qualified folks capable of outperforming senior leadership in any position at any fortune 500. I'm confident if it wasn't Tesla, it would've been another American electric car company 6 months later. Buuut do we pay CEOs or founders as though they're replaceable? They play golf with board members and send their kids to summer camp together. They're dilettantes, hucksters, shmucks, dorks. For example, I'm always amazed when this type holds an all hands to discuss company culture un-ironically. As though leadership principles or company values or whatever pseudo-religious structure they divined might actually take us in? How can you even respect yourself? I suppose the pragmatic, sociopathic voice in my head might justify it: "If they can see this as more than work, I can extract more from them. If they can see me as more than another person fumbling around in the dark, I can elevate myself above them." I just couldn't live with the constant lying to myself.
Always makes me chuckle when folks blather on about risk-reward premiums while relying on public infrastructure -- postal service, education, military, internet, rail system, roads, power grids, democracy, freeways, bridges, etc. Start or run your business in war torn Afghanistan and I'm happy to talk about 400:1 pay ratios between leadership and lowest paid employees. No? Alright then. Sit down, shut up, and just be happy folks aren't pulling out the pitchforks... yet.
Oddly I quite like these people -- provided they're internally and externally consistent. It's refreshing to say, "you're being an asshole" and have a friend go, "oh my bad, I do that sometimes."
Most young folks can't imagine having been an asshole and they call themselves emotionally intelligent without realizing their feelings are a tyranny. They've unsubscribed from anything that ever brought them even minor discomfort. Their social contract basically amounts to "lie to me and I'll lie to you." They are huge wusses.
If a friend asks you if their hair looks nice, it's kinder to say, "your hair looks like my nana's and she's been dead for 10 years" then it is to let dozens of folks think the same thing of them. I have a couple friends who would tell me the first thing -- they're whose opinion I trust. If they told me that, I'd piss my self laughing even if I just paid $70 for the haircut. Modern day stoics IMO. They're smart enough to know how to be like-able, they understand the fluff-each-other's-shared-delusions game, they just don't want to play. When they tell you something kind, you know it was real.
Most of my friends who are brutally honest try to say the things they're thinking as much as possible. They want that from others too. It can be super off putting, especially if you need to believe certain things about yourself.
I don't own multifamily property in SF, so I'm not whining about my ability to do anything.
When tenants rights are restrictive enough property owners view tenants as a liability and that sets up perverse incentives that cause inefficient markets and underdevelopment. Occupied multifamily properties sell at steep discounts compared to their vacant counterparts. Property owners price in the potential longterm loss of use caused by a tenant. Do we want to heavily incentivize property owners to sell their properties without tenants? Do we want a housing market where multifamily properties sell for the same amount as much smaller single family homes? Do we want a development market where subdividing property is inadvisable and actually lowers property value?
At the end of the day, everyone deserves dignity. Part of that means acknowledging property owners take significant risk tenants do not and as such deserve fair use of their property. That means owners need to be able to give notice to end a tenancy amicably without eviction -- maybe that required notice is measured in years. That's plenty of time for any tenant to find another place. It means we need to stop conflating romantic ideals of "home" with actual ownership. If tenants watched themselves priced out over a decade, they're going to have a hard time. City programs should provide safety nets there, but it isn't their landlords burden to take carry them like a dependent. Tenancy is a very simple proposition: renters don't have to come up with downpayment, if the city goes to shit they can leave in a month, if the foundation gets water damage or an electrical fire breaks out they have no liability, their monthly payment is significantly less than a comparable mortgage payment. Tenants trade optionality for equity. As a tenant I never lost a single night of sleep worrying about electrical fires or new sewage pipes or the heater going out. I'd never have the gall to squat on a place for 10 years while paying inflation adjusted rent (far under market rate) and come out the other side with my hand held out for a tenant buy out. I would be absolutely ashamed of myself as a tenant in such a situation. If I'm being honest, I suppose I'd still do it and find ways to justify it. I'd tell myself it was after all "my home" and the landlord had more than one house so it was only fair. The story is just all too common in SF.
The vacancy rate doesn't tell the whole story. Short term rentals and self reporting likely mask the effect I've mentioned.
I generally agree, SFs problem is 100% supply. But I think that ends up being caused by slow approval processes and highly restrictive tenants rights. Why would you ever subdivide your property in SF to add another dwelling unit? You can't give a tenant any amount of notice to end a tenancy. You can't ever merge those units back together. SFs property market is really crazy in this regard: older buildings with lots of units are often worth less than large single family houses. Properties with tenants sell for 25-50% less than vacant comparables.
People buying a second home are not the problem. A healthy housing market needs rental housing stock. We have to have places for people in transitory phases of life, for people struggling, for retirees that want to live off the value of their house after downsizing or divorcees or folks trying the city on for size.
Supply is the problem and bad governance created it. Why do we keep turning it around on individuals that made rational investment decisions as though they've done something predatory? It seems absolutely backwards.
Build more housing stock. This is it. There's no bad guy, no magic bullet, no righteous fight. We just need to build more.
> the casual way you say "you could evict" makes me think you don't appreciate that that's someone's home...
It's their home and your property. I'm not advocating anything crazy. As that hypothetical landlord your tenants deserve dignity, but it's your property and that has to confer certain rights beyond their tenancy. Otherwise, you don't really own it. You should be able to ask your tenants to leave with some amount of notice. You should be able to plan on your parents living in that unit at some point. Make the amount of time and planning for that very large, say 2 or 3 or 4 years. Doesn't that seem pretty fair?
Restricting ending tenancy in good faith all together creates perverse incentives. It pits your interests as a landlord against your tenants. If you bought a duplex in SF today, it would be in your best interest to do everything you could not to rent out the other unit. That is the problem.
I'm pretty familiar as a renter and property owner with tenants rights in SF. If I were to buy a duplex in the city I would never ever ever rent out the extra unit. I'd lie about tenancy, ask a friend to pretend to rent it, or pay this proposed tax rather than rent it out. I'd recommend the same to everyone.
Tenants are a liability for landlords in SF. You cannot end a tenancy, not with any amount of notice. That's a big deal and a huge policy mistake. Really messes up incentives. Let's say you and your partner have a duplex with two 2B/2BA units. You eventually decide to have kids and your parents are retiring. You want them to move into that unit so they can be near and babysit now and again. You could evict, but it's going to be costly and time consuming especially if the tenants are protected. Lawyers are going to tell you to buy the tenants out. Tenant buyouts in the city are usually mid five figures and they end up restricting some of your uses of the property forever. It will take months (maybe more than a year) and may end up creeping up towards six figures. You would've been better off never renting it out in the first place.
Landlords aren't idiots and they aren't evil, at least not more so than anyone else. Put yourself in their shoes and figure out how the incentives would cause you to act. IMO it's as simple as fixing the policy issue: Landlords can terminate tenancies in good faith with two years notice. Seems very fair for everyone and I bet you get reduced vacancies without needing to increasingly ratchet up heavy handed market interventions that are themselves prone to unintended consequence.
I posted something to this effect elsewhere, so forgive me for repeating myself. I do want to get your take though.
First, the implementation of the fine isn't so important as the fine itself. Most landlords are individuals that own a few units [1]. Maybe a couple decided to buy a second home or a duplex instead of investing in the S&P500. That's a lot more common than you'd expect. These are the folks navigating renters protections. Large companies don't have issues with them. They hire professionals to follow the rules. Or they build newer buildings so protections don't apply to them. We're not going to get even with some multinational real estate syndicate somewhere through a vacancy tax. We're mostly going to transfer wealth between varying shades of middle class. And really largely, we're transferring it from folks that saved for a downpayment and risked a 30 year mortgage and financially put their ducks in a row and those that spent years and years renting while knowing full well they were getting a comparatively affordable monthly payment in exchange for not building equity.
Second, I'm pretty familiar as a renter and property owner with tenants rights in SF. If I were to buy a duplex in the city I would never ever ever rent out the extra unit. I'd lie about tenancy, ask a friend to pretend to rent it, or pay this proposed tax rather than rent it out. I'd recommend the same to everyone.
Tenants are a liability for landlords in SF. You cannot end a tenancy, not with any amount of notice. That's a big deal and a huge policy mistake. Really messes up incentives. Let's say you and your partner have a duplex with two 2B/2BA units. You eventually decide to have kids and your parents are retiring. You want them to move into that unit so they can be close by to retire and babysit now and again. You could evict, but it's going to be costly and time consuming especially if the tenants are protected. Lawyers are going to tell you to buy the tenants out. Tenant buyouts in the city are usually mid five figures and they end up restricting some of your uses of the property in the future. It will take months (maybe more than a year) and may end up creeping up towards six figures. You would've been better off never renting it out in the first place.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that most owners letting their properties sit vacant are probably doing it because of bad policy that deprives them of fair use of their property. Not because they don't already realize they're missing out on rental income and would see the light if they had to pay a little more tax each year.
> Most people don't think you should be able to buy up a precious thing and squander it.
What does it mean to "squander" and who decides? I'm pretty familiar as a renter and property owner with tenants rights in SF. If I were to buy a duplex in the city I would never ever ever rent out the extra unit. I'd lie about tenancy, ask a friend to pretend to rent it, or pay this proposed tax rather than rent it out. I'd recommend the same to everyone.
Tenants are a liability for landlords in SF. You cannot end a tenancy, not with any amount of notice. That's a big deal and a huge policy mistake. Really messes up incentives. Let's say you and your partner have a duplex with two 2B/2BA units. You eventually decide to have kids and your parents are retiring. You want them to move into that unit so they can be close by to retire and babysit now and again. You could evict, but it's going to be costly and time consuming especially if the tenants are protected. Lawyers are going to tell you to buy the tenants out. Tenant buyouts in the city are usually mid five figures and they end up restricting some of your uses of the property in the future. It will take months (maybe more than a year) and may end up creeping up towards six figures. You would've been better off never renting it out in the first place.
Most landlords are individuals that own a few units [1]. Maybe a couple decided to buy a second home instead of investing in the S&P500. That's a lot more common than you'd expect. These are the folks navigating renters protections. Large companies don't have issues with them. They hire professionals to follow the rules. Or they build newer buildings so those protections don't apply to them.
And really this is the bleak reality of heavy handed, top down market manipulations: They're not going to hurt the big guys. You're not going to get even with some multinational real estate syndicate somewhere. You're mostly going to transfer wealth between varying shades of middle class. And really largely, you're transferring it from folks that saved for a downpayment and risked a 30 year mortgage and financially put their ducks in a row and those that spent years and years renting while knowing full well they were getting an affordable monthly payment in exchange for not building equity.
My point in saying all this is that usually if you look at a market and see folks "squandering," you probably don't understand the market. There are probably competing incentives that cause that market to be inefficient.
It's pretty coercive. Taxes are levied against transactions. A tax in the absence of a transaction is really just a fine. And fining people for not selling something violates most folks conception of basic property rights and privacy.
I get that the city is looking for a way out of 50 years of systematic underdevelopment, but this just feels wrong. I don't trust government overreach to fix decades of bad governance.
> ...unless the org is completely dysfunctional they are responsible for the ultimate deliverables.
This is true in theory if everyone has perfect knowledge. In practice I've never seen it play out. A large part of management is framing (i.e. playing off imperfect knowledge). It happens before and after success or failure is decided. Smart managers commit, but frame their responsibilities or outcomes in favorable terms. They find ways to de-risk. They publicly share risky deliverables with other teams or increase scope to push decision making up the ladder. They commit to only what their team can slam dunk. They make sure to only lead rockstar teams (this is huge). They cherry pick metrics to make failure look reasonable and success look incredible. They leave before major failures are realized or hand failures off before they sour. Remember: In large human systems, feedback cycles can easily take years.
It's a game and there's lots of clever ways to play. But the only way to lose is to publicly accept loss. When you do, it's very honorable and moving. But I've never seen the hit to perceived competency offset by perceived integrity. Because at the end of the day, companies make money. There's no company metric for honor. It's politics, whether we choose to see it or not doesn't really matter. For an extreme example, take a look at the presidency. Incumbent presidents lose in election year recessions. Period. Never mind most economic crises are a decade or so in the making.
People in aggregate are much simpler than we like to think. And so leadership is much more sleight of hand than our nobler ideals would have us believe.
I wonder, why? Sisyphus was condemned to aimlessly push a rock forever, but isn't that basically just the human condition? Most of us convince ourselves we're doing something, but it's narrative. Very little materializes, very rarely as intended. We like feedback and certainty in the face of randomness -- it's the attraction to slot machines. But musicians rarely predict their most popular songs (and sometimes come to hate 'em), founders toil away pivoting for years before they stumble on something that works (but most give up first), artists often only have their work recognized posthumously.
I'm drawn to characters like Jerry in Parks and Rec or Stanley in the Office because they embrace the rock. They aren't revolutionizing or disrupting. In a certain way they're really very heroic. They meet the soul-crushing apathy and uncertainty of their place in the universe head on without complaints, excuses or lies. Though mocked and derided as lazy, incompetent fools they steadily carry on. They're stoics in a modern bureaucratic context. And really there's a certain beautiful zen to that. It's very unrelatable for me and, I assume, most of the tech world.
I guess it's all relative. To be honest, I would be over the moon to never "work" again. Don't wanna be needed, don't wanna have to report to anyone, don't wanna be part of a pyramid scheme earning some CEO or founder 50% of company payroll.
I could very happily set and achieve little goals for the rest of my life -- in video games, education, little creative pursuits, and hobbies -- and never once look back. Really don't care for externally set goals or validation.
This is hilarious. You're wrong for like every reason, but I'll give you 3:
1. Berkshire has not significantly outperformed the S&P500 for 20 years. Go take a look, they've basically converged. Markets become more competitive over time. People lose their edge.
2. Investment returns in excess of diversified market returns (which represent underlying growth across the entire economy) ARE zero sum. If you get them, Berkshire does not and quant firms do not and hedge funds do not. If you can beat these guys, don't use your money. Go get a job doing this.
3. Watching Michael Phelps swim is a terrible way to learn to swim. Anatomically he's totally aberrant, but he's also optimizing for fractions of a second racing across an indoor olympic pool. That's all inapplicable to basically everyone swimming anywhere.
You're choosing not to hear what folks are saying and I wish you luck. Your hubris will be rewarded justly by markets, but perhaps only after a few confidence building wins that convince you random jitters of a trend line are really signs of your hidden brilliance yet to be recognized.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/noam-chomsky-chat...