Re: Forget Mice... are you ready for subscription COMPUTERS?

On Wed, 7 Aug 2024 08:11:26 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
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On 06/08/2024 17:03, Werner P. wrote:

Am 06.08.24 um 10:56 schrieb JAB:

Is one of the qualifications of being a CEO that you are completely
clueless about your own market?

 
She is probably or very likely an MBA who got a shot at being a CEO
without having any clue about the products they are selling! But she
probably can sell herself really well, by convincing clueless people
that she is the right woman for a high paying job. This looks more like
another nail into the coffin of Logitech!
 
Not sure why she was chosen, only the Logitech Board of directors can
explain that. But generally european companies after the founders retire
(tech companies always are founded by engineers) MBAs, clueless Bankers
and laywers take over on the board of directors and CEO level and even
in second management often coming from consulting firms and crossing
over straight at that level, usually this is the beginning of the end
and once this has been ongoing long enough the company goes down.
Engineers in Europe unless they run their own company usually hit a
glass ceiling at middle management max where they cannot move higher!
While often MBAs and Laywers start at that level where the engineering
ends! Thats also one of the main reasons why europe has been falling
wayside technically compared to the US and other regions!
 
The prime example was Nokia of old which in the end was run by Laywers
and MBAs
who did not have any clue on how far reaching the impact of the iPhone was.
 
The lower engineering levels tried to steer the ship into the right
direction but the board of directors chose to hire a Microsoft MBA CEO
which already people thought upfront was a juggernout to break the
mobile division away and sell it off to M$. It came es expected, the
first move from the CEO was to break all bridges which could work to
steer Nokia entirely to the Windows Mobile division of Microsoft and
later sell it off.
 

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I certainly saw a lot of that as time progressed over the years. So we
started with the senior engineer of the team running the project and
then we moved to something I think was a good idea of having a project
manager who was there there to put timescales together, get estimates,
track progress etc. but they weren't the one who made the decisions of
how the project was run. It stated to go down hill when project
management expanded it's scoped into actually directing the project and
the advent of department heads with no background in engineering or even
worse the failed engineer.
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Two ones that I particularly remember were that all engineers in the
company (so several hundred of varying disciplines) would be classified
and graded so when it can to setting up a project you would be given a
pool of engineers as a resource. Fortunately only lip service was paid
to it as it was completely unworkable. Whoever dreamt that idea up had
no idea about domain knowledge and how important it is to developing
products - a line encrypter and a Typhoon simulator, basically the same
thing surely? Another was when the project was going badly, which
apparently had nothing to do with how it was run but instead it was all
the engineers fault, the madcap idea was that a start of the week each
person would be given a set number of tasks/hours and they could only
work on them. It was pointed out that this just doesn't work for a
development environment but was rolled out a different site anyway.
After a month or so it was then quietly dropped.
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Did I say two I meant three and this is a classic case of I read a book
so this will work. To try and have a more dynamic/flexible workforce
they looked at what Google did and decided that the office should be
painted in different bright colours, I kid you not. We said maybe having
coffee and tea making facilities would be a better use of the money!

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I think anyone who's ever worked in any business of size has
experienced this.
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It's not that all top-level execs are clueless. I've worked at some
places where the execs knew their stuff; they knew the product, knew
they clients, knew the process to get the one from the other. Often,
this was because they had helped nuture the company from the start,
but in some instances they were a hire who arrived long after the
company was established and did the work to understand. I didn't
always agree with their decisions, but they never came off as
completely clueless.
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And then there are the other types. The many bad apples who ruin it
for the few. The ones who look at everything as if it were a
spreadsheet and try to min-max their scores. The ones who ignore what
the experienced, 'lower tier' workers say. The ones who have an idea
of what the business SHOULD be and will try to force it into that
configuaration, whether it's a good idea or not or possible or not.
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Unfortunately, modern capitalism too often rewards this latter group,
because immediate gains are more impressive than long-term stability.
"Look, I saved the company five million dollars by firing all our
experienced personnel and replacing them with fresh-faced temps! So
what if the product now bursts into flame and our customers are
abandonning us in droves! That's a problem for the NEXT guy!"
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Even more than the general abuse heaped upon employees -the overwork,
the shortchanging, the general neglect- it was this STUPIDITY that
drove me nuts. How could it not? I (and my co-workers) would pour so
much effort into a product or business and then we'd watch some
self-important MBA destroy the company. Sure, their antics sometimes
meant I ended up with more cash in my pocket, but at a cost to the
company, the other employees and the customers. Those extra cash in my
pocket was never the salve you might expect. I'd much rather a smaller
paycheck knowing the company is on good footing rather than chasing
after some bonus that came at the expense of common sense. I've _left_
good jobs because of nonsense like that (but I'm lucky that I could
afford to do that. Not everyone has that option).
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But... video-games, video-games. How to make this relate to
video-games?
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There have been a lot of business-management sims, but most of them
play it straight. I wonder if there's ever been an vulture capitalist
work-place simulator video game. "Buy companies and strip them off
their assets for your own gain!"
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I can't think of any... but it probably exists. There are workplace
sims for every profession nowadays.