I also think HR has this same mistaken belief about themselves. There are things they're aware they know that the employee(s) don't so they have some sense in which they're part of a misdirection, but anything that seems "a little unethical, but those are the rules" they kinda attribute to "I'm just doing my job and so it's not unethical". The job can of course be to do unethical things.
Depends on the company, but HR (and some other functions) can be relatively low power and it frequently seems that the low power person is facilitating groups that are above them, which leads to them serving as a pillow for the higher powered person to abuse the medium powered one and let the low powered absorb the blame/blows. It's unfair in a certain way, but realistically I think the low powered one refusing (in spite of them having the most to lose) is kinda the main way to keep things from getting worse and so things get worse. They can refuse or they can not take the job or they can somehow not pass the high powered person's problem on to the medium powered one, but they're disincentivized. I can empathize with the situation and expect them to take the deal that enables the high powered ones to take advantage of others while still assigning blame for not fixing the little part they could fix. Fwiw, it's also true of most middle managers and PMs, though they might not technically be the lowest powered one in the triangle. If they don't stand up for the thing they say is ethical, then I think it's straightforward that they're a/the problem.
I totally agree with this. I would add that it's well beyond the discussion boards. It's probably most clear there and it's well possible we learned it there and then took it into our social interactions everywhere, but the majority of my irl interactions—except with my closest friends—are sorta like this. Sometimes I think its ADHD, other times I think it could be any number of things, but I think to say anything that isn't dead simple (or in dead agreement with the other person), you need a few sentences. Often, you need to hear the third sentence before the first will make sense. But if you get distracted by the first one or can't suspend your disagreement enough to get to the third you will think the person is mistaken. You'll think that about both their first point and the larger one, which you didn't really hear or even get to but thought you did. So the speaker does the hedging each sentence in hopes of getting to the third (or whatever) sentence.
To add to this: another sign of posting on online boards is starting your comments with "I agree" because otherwise the other person might default to assuming you are disagreeing (as is the norm for replies), leading to a comment chain of people violently agreeing with each other without realizing it
There's a tension (imo) between deciding to only spend time trying to talk to people who immediately agree with you or are open to hearing you out vs those who immediately disagree such that they will fight hard to not hear, not understand, misinterpret, or "not have time for this". The latter is a specific form of disagreement where they've "noise-canceled" the possibility of learning or understanding (even if it would be perfectly reasonable for them to disagree with it afterward).
Is your life easier to not waste time on them? I guess. But obviously you're going to put yourself in a similar bubble, and to whatever extent the issue is important it's now become undiscussed. As you've hinted at, they could be right and you wrong, but the difference is (at least in the premise) that one is willing to talk and listen and so really only one side has the potential to change and it's not based on the merit of the argument—because of course no conversation took place. How hard does one try to encourage someone else to listen? Or rather continuing pursuing a conversation that's being denied? That's the tension. I don't know other than it seems like the side unwilling to listen wins a little bit each time they've successfully evaded it and wins a little more when the other has decided to let it go. I don't just mean they've won a proverbial argument, I mean the issue or decision in question tilts toward their side.
Fwiw, I don't see "disarming" as a particular goal or win. It's neutral maybe. It might even be a bit unjust if we think the aggrieved is owed some form of recompense.
I guess my framing of these things goes something like:
* Person A made an error that made things worse for Person B
* A sorta owes B now. Could be A making up for the error—like if A knocked over B's coffee, A could get them a new one. Or another, perhaps disagreeable, sorta justice is B now getting to do something back to A—like B knocking over A's coffee, or just cursing at A for a bit.
* These things would put them back to even.
I feel several comments are thinking of "owning the mistake" primarily as a tool to neutralize B's ability to get back to even. This, rather than owning it to take responsibility or just because it's honest. Saying we're "owning our mistake" is not owning our mistake. The point is to know you were in the wrong—whether that's by introspecting on it, having to buy an extra coffee that day, or getting cursed at.
When I'm dealing with an upset customer on the phone, disarming means that we can move past the "I'm pissed at you, why can't you fix your stuff" useless conversation into the "how can we help you" much faster.
In other words, disarm means the "emotional" center of the brain can safely disengage and the logical center can take over. When someone is angry, most likely, their emotions have taken over and, once that happens, you're going to spend a lot of time dealing with emotions and not moving toward a mutual solution.
Therefore, if you look at it this way, how is the pure emotional response from the aggrieved helping them get to a sort of recompense? I would argue the short answer is that it is not helping at all, it's just pure lashing out. Which, of course, could be a rational response to the situation. However, no matter how justified the aggrieved may feel in lashing out, the act of lashing out itself doesn't actually move the needle.
If I can show compassion and empathy toward the customer, including saying the simple words "I'm sorry" I'm trying to move out of the emotional state and into a logical state where we can come to some sort of agreement on the next course of action. I'm not trying to "get out" of anything, just trying to literally disengage a part of the brain that is not doing anyone any good for either party.
To your point though the apology has to be authentic. And, yes, I do empathize with the customer's anger in the moment. I've been there myself. So I can easily put myself in their shoes. Of course, as the great philosopher Daniel Tiger says, "Saying I'm sorry is the first step, now how can I help?" [0]. So unless you just want to enrage the customer further, you need to immediately follow that apology up with action - in my case, it could be escalating to the right engineering group, finding a workaround, helping identify the root cause, whatever it could be...
Hope this helps clarify. I'm in no way trying to "pull one over" anyone. I truly want to help - which is probably why it works so well.
disarming means that we can move past the "I'm pissed at you, why can't you fix your stuff" useless conversation
I'm not so sure this part is "useless." It's not the most pleasant part (particularly to the perpetrator), but it is deserved. It would be like catching a thief, having the possessions returned, and the thief arguing that punishing him would be useless because everything was returned. Getting yelled at might be the punishment. Having to buy a replacement coffee (in my earlier example) could also be it. It would be weird to assume the perpetrator has the largest say in the matter.
disarm means the "emotional" center of the brain can safely disengage and the logical center can take over. When someone is angry, most likely, their emotions have taken over and, once that happens, you're going to spend a lot of time dealing with emotions and not moving toward a mutual solution.
There of course can be benefit to toning down the emotion, but this part is grayer than described imo. It isn't exactly the perpetrator's place to choose when and whether the victim should chill out (assuming they stay within some limits). I find there to be a latent privilege (for the perpetrator) in the framing of a lot of this. The perpetrator has shifted from taking blame (in the sense of consequences, not apologies) to moving on. Some of moving on can be meant well for sure, but the shift is there. The reason they "have to spend time dealing with this" is because they caused it. Those are the consequences of the mistake. Again, getting yelled at might be the solution. To encourage wrapping up the emotional part is to encourage moving past the parts that are uncomfortable for the perpetrator—which also might explain the perpetrator's inclination to "find a mutual solution" sooner than the victim.
This is an aside, but I find this shift in a lot of places. Someone double parks on a busy street, a person gives them a honk (doesn't lay on the horn, doesn't curse them out, doesn't flip them off), and the doubleparker gets pissed (lays on the horn, curses at them, flips them off). This seems a rather common scene today. One honk is a fairly low form of accountability for the inconvenient/selfish behavior, but culturally we often treat the honk as the bigger faux pas. We expect the driver to "chill out" and "move on" and don't expect the doubleparker to accept the tiny consequence let alone own the mistake.
I think this may ultimately involve some amount of personal philosophy. I would stand by the notion that disarming shouldn't be a particular goal of owning mistakes. It focuses too much on the victim. Owning mistakes is a kind of hygiene for the mistake maker (which they/we often skip) yet the victim is getting a lot of scrutiny. Totally agree that saying "sorry" is only the first step of being sorry—that phrase has been used by friends/myself before, though I didn't know it was a wider one. Thanks for the thoughts, definitely no concern on my end about intent.
I think maybe you're thinking it in the wrong way? If A immediately owns up and apologizes, B not getting into a frenzy of swear words is not only good for A, but it's good for B, too (unnecessary stress and getting-worked-up is probably not really good for us!). Clearly if they were still upset (despite the apology), they might still feel the need to yell and vent a bit, and if they do, perhaps they will. But if they don't, then likely the acknowledgement of fault and apology has been appreciated, and B has gotten out of it what they need to.
For something like knocking over a coffee, certainly, the knocker owes the knockee a new coffee, and acknowledging fault and apologizing is the first step to getting there.
(B retaliating by knocking over A's coffee is always going to be unproductive and childish, even if A is unrepentant and rude about it.)
I agree that just saying that you own your mistake isn't enough; owning it means doing the best you can to make amends. But sometimes the person you wronged is fine with just an acknowledgement and an apology. For example, if someone knocked over my coffee, and it seemed like a genuine mistake (that is, it wasn't because the person was being careless or negligent), I probably would accept an apology but decline a new coffee. The apology would be enough for me. Not saying that it would be for everyone, but people are different.
A caring about B is a good point. If A thinks to themself, "Crap, I effed up. I should apologize. B will be mad, what can I do to make B feel better? I could buy them a coffee", that's pretty good. If A thinks, "Crap, I effed up. I should apologize and reconsider wrestling near people's desks", that's also pretty good. Ideally, both the reflection and the coffee would be nice. If I had to choose just one, I'm leaning towards the latter as owning the mistake more than B being made whole with coffee, but that's debateable (and might be where we differ).
If it's, "Oh, B will be mad, what can I do so that this doesn't take too long? I could apologize and buy them a coffee", it feels less right. It inches toward that phrase that goes something like "the fastest way to get someone to shut up is to agree with them." It might be true in a practical sense and yet it's woefully sociopathic.
The extremely powerful part imo is what it implies about the person owning the mistake and how they might change future behavior because of it. I think it's less about the effect it had on the other person, who as you point out was entitled to anger and low expectations of you. Can it (powerfully) de-escalate things relative to how these situations often play out? Yes, but if the goal of owning mistakes becomes about minimizing the consequences you face for them, it seems more meh. If it's to recognize mistakes and be accountable (particularly to yourself), it seems more powerful.
I worry a bit about the "when used correctly" part because it suggests only owning mistakes sometimes, but it could be read many ways.
> The people that pirate were never going to pay in the first place.
I think I agree with your larger point, but is this part true? When Spotify provided a much simpler UX to get the goods, people were happy to pay $10/month and Napster et al basically died.
I interpreted his "intrigue" (he's left it at that for now) with Palantir as an AI player to be based on two things. First is what you mention around data integration. I don't know enough about this and your point makes sense, but he was suggesting they're already doing a lot of it. Their execs say most of their actual work is this. This work is something others might need to make up ground in. Still, I think your point might argue fairly this is something others can do.
The second, and I thought bigger conceptual point, was that unlike the past decade and a half, this wave of AI might be based more on selling to enterprises and the executives of companies. The Slacks or Dropboxes or others (including perhaps consumer apps) involve making your case at the user/employee level and that trickling up into enterprise contracts. The products you create are also different when you're trying to sell in that direction. And Palantir works that way already.
The problem is that the PM—the role (and sometimes the person)—at this party enables this.
1. We can think this sort of agility is good (and the outcomes better because of it). If so, we are at the least saying the PM doesn't know or arbitrate what's good. The half of the PM job that is planning and visioning is being done by the owner and the PM receives it. The PM work here is reshuffling the new, late, non-ideal constraints into something where the team actually can and does implement it. That work is real, but it's best case scenario. PMs can also pass on the "entropy"—taking the problems they've received from the owner and simply relaying them to the team. That's not so additive.
2. We can think of this sort of agility as bad. If the asks are ridiculous—and the PM doesn't push back—then the team has the problems and a buffer between them and anyone who could do anything about it. The changes you mention are ones that could have been known earlier. These aren't sudden environmental changes, these are ones that should have been planned for. That is in some way or form the PM's responsibility to stabilize. Are there bad executives who do whimsical things like this? Yes, they hire PMs (intentionally or not) to make it easier for them to do it.
When PMs are good, they frequently and actively go against the company/leadership. PM as a job description is a leader with no power. PMs as people either find a way to make those untenable things work (which means the current problem is fixed, but the company has a leadership problem) or they don't (which means the current problem becomes the ICs' problems and there is no feedback mechanism to leadership).
Decentralize decision-making, delegate, bottom up culture, etc.
These things have merit, but increasingly less the more you move away from "whole" plans in which they make sense. These particular ones are troublesome because they fall closer on the spectrum to "reduce executives". If you're pushing decision-making downstream, it should also be reduced upstream. If you reduce it upstream, you have less (not zero) need for leadership there. That has to manifest either in fewer leaders or leaders doing a better job at their other duties. In particular, they need to be producing much clearer stronger vision for the downstream folks to align their decisions to. Vision is perhaps the hardest task in the org and when it's hard it's easy to shirk on. Often, when leaders talk about trying to move to a bottom up culture, they are (unconsciously?) trying to absolve themselves of the vision work. And they're usually doing it while still gatekeeping information and resources they were meant to have because they were decision makers.
This is going too far, but directionally:
Leaders should largely not be advocating for delegation and bottom up decision-making. It's not that this can't be better for the company, it's that they could be executing the goal better by quitting or firing their peers. It's more of a catch-22/worst of both worlds situation—leaders shouldn't be advocating for it because they shouldn't be there to advocate for it.
Right. And even if you outcompete your competitor on product—say they're un-innovative and even slow such that they continually copy all your stuff, doing it with a year lag and less polish—they can still beat you because you're charging $X and they're "free" using the VC money at a huge CAC to outgrow you. That CAC may have no real path to coming down, but it's easy enough to describe highly unlikely ways it might—particularly when the investors and the execs are aligned on finding greater fools.
As unsustainable as their path might be—and it is on a few dimensions𐠒—they have options you don't. The obvious ones are buying customers long enough to last until exit and "re-financing" by showing the same VCs the same (high CAC-powered) numbers and extending the runway.
𐠒 It's unsustainable first financially (if you don't count the exit). It also (in theory) doesn't sustain/grow your team in an expertise or culture sense, the way that coming up with the features yourself trains some creativity and grit and might provide a greater culture win when things launch. And lastly if your customers base is there because it's free, then they'll leave when it's not free (or not cheaper than alternatives). You can definitely find all three of these as sweet summer child ways to care about business today, which I think is the point.
If your product’s value proposition is that fragile, that it can be eroded down to near nothing just via some schemer(s) with more money in the bank account saying ‘free’… then maybe it’s just not that big of an improvement over the status quo?
I think there's two ways to read this. One is that maybe a lot of startups are not improving the status quo today. Perhaps this is right. If so, I don't think it would negate the environment described.
If the intent is that solid value props can't be eroded in such an environment, I'm not sure I agree. The issue I think is less about value prop, it's closer to not having a moat. Or one that can't be bought anyway. People are paying for and using the product—so there's some value prop—but then it's being copied and sold for free (at a loss). The competitor may even pay to take customers. I'm not sure that stronger value props are inherently harder to copy or harder to buy users.
For the bootstrapping startup to win, it needs to find a product people want, create it from scratch, then find a non-money-based moat. The startup with the money can copy the idea, create it (benefiting from your blueprint), and then find the moat (with some capacity for it to be money-based).
In any case, I think the need for value prop lessens in this environment. If we're talking purely about getting paid and you have the option to do so via exit rather than only via profit, value prop becomes a means and maybe not even required one.
Silly take. If my product is worth $5 and I sell it for $6, that’s a sustainable business. If a competitor uses VC cash to subsidise their operation and charge $1 they can run me out of business, then they’ll charge $6. Or, hey, $7, why not.
But it has nothing to do with my products value proposition.
No it isn’t a sustainable business, because the competitive landscape, which it has to be sustained in, would now also include this group out to get you for whatever reasons, for some unknown period of time.
Depends on the company, but HR (and some other functions) can be relatively low power and it frequently seems that the low power person is facilitating groups that are above them, which leads to them serving as a pillow for the higher powered person to abuse the medium powered one and let the low powered absorb the blame/blows. It's unfair in a certain way, but realistically I think the low powered one refusing (in spite of them having the most to lose) is kinda the main way to keep things from getting worse and so things get worse. They can refuse or they can not take the job or they can somehow not pass the high powered person's problem on to the medium powered one, but they're disincentivized. I can empathize with the situation and expect them to take the deal that enables the high powered ones to take advantage of others while still assigning blame for not fixing the little part they could fix. Fwiw, it's also true of most middle managers and PMs, though they might not technically be the lowest powered one in the triangle. If they don't stand up for the thing they say is ethical, then I think it's straightforward that they're a/the problem.
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