Have you seen this kind of stuff first hand? I mean, it sounds super pessimistic and maybe not 100% accurate—I know a fair number of managers who seem to have fulfilling lives.
I’ve worked in small tech companies, and in very large (but fairly young) companies. I know people in very traditional megacorps where dress code is still a thing. I’m sure there are segments and places as bad as described in Moral Mazes—people aren’t lying when they describe this. And there are hints and lesser instances in all situations I’ve seen.
But none of my first- or second-hand experience matches this level of horror and denial of merit.
Yeah, same here. Maybe Zvi is talking about non-tech. But I’d really like to hear where he’s getting this. Because if it’s all from a book, well, books can exaggerate, or talk about a different time and place than ours.
This is a combination of (1) the book, (2) my personal experiences of various places including my attempt at running a business of my own, (3) my observations of what is going on in the world, (4) my interactions with major corporations when attempting to do business and otherwise, (5) talking with others who have been in such situations and (6) building up of models.
Is all of this potentially extrapolated from unusually bad experiences? It is certainly possible, but those experiences seem to have been chosen in ways that would not be likely to maximize their degree of badness beyond the issue of size. The book certainly wasn’t trying to paint as gloomy a picture as it could have.
But of course, the picture is extreme. And no, none of the examples here or the ones I’ve directly experienced were tech as such.
In tech, I would describe the maze structure differently, and the maze would importantly extend beyond the corporation itself, but that’s a complex topic I can’t get into fully here.
In tech, I would describe the maze structure differently, and the maze would importantly extend beyond the corporation itself, but that’s a complex topic I can’t get into fully here.
If you’re making a claim that this model is applicable outside the excessively-toxic specifics in the book, I’d really enjoy seeing how it applies or differs in tech. I’d also be interested in a comparison with Steven Levitt’s work on low- and middle-level drug dealing (briefly discussed in _Freakonomics_, I haven’t read his actual paper on the topic).
Fundamentally, I don’t doubt that these unpleasant equilibria exist, but I question how common they are and how applicable any lessons from them are to more moderate examples. I don’t think we’ve seen enough examples to find common causes/features, let alone recommendations.
My guesses:
Tournament/pyramid structure: unpleasant to horrific for entry-level participants, pretty darned nice at the top, but the vast majority never make it anywhere close to the top. Applies to sports, entertainment, some kinds of retail, and many crime setups.
Very large potential rewards (which, again, most don’t get). Goes hand-in-hand with tournament list.
Participants don’t see attractive alternatives (I think “entry/exit” is a mis-statement of this one). This is often an input to the equilibrium, rather than an attribute of it.
I’m unsure whether objectivity of performance measurement matters. It’s lacking in management, present in sports/entertainment stars, unsure in criminal gangs. There probably does need to be a sense of unfairness by the losers and smugness by the winners, in order to make it really soul-crushing.
How many levels of hierarchy are there in their organizations?
(I’ve read some advance draft’s of Zvi’s sequence and know that an upcoming claim, which I think probably should have been made explicit here, is that this sort of thing is most true in large companies with many layers of hierarchy. i.e. the author of Moral Mazes was in a company with 25 levels)
I hate to identify my employer this precisely, but you can likely guess it from other things I’ve posted, and perhaps just from this. Please don’t out me in any easily-searched way; I like my deniability.
I’ve been 15 years at a very large retail/tech company which has become truly gigantic during my tenure. There are 8 salary levels between entry-level programmer and CEO, and reporting chains of 7-10 are not uncommon for skilled workers (including chains like CEO-SVP-SVP-VP-VP-Director-Sr.Manager-Manager-Manager-IC). Number of salary levels here is ludicrously smaller than normal, but reporting chains are, if anything, deeper than other big companies I know of.
I would be interested to hear the names of companies that have 25 levels of reporting structure. That’s insane.
Thanks for the explicit info. (While I certainly won’t out you, it’d probably fine if you slightly randomized each of the information to make it harder to pin down, if you haven’t already)
I have more thoughts about how this fits into Zvi’s model but I think makes more sense to wait until a future post.
Yeah, I added a note at the top (in original, please reimport) to make this explicit. The requirement to meet this picture is not merely “I have someone who reports to me and someone I report to” ergo all of this, and the discussion about that comes later.
Have you seen this kind of stuff first hand? I mean, it sounds super pessimistic and maybe not 100% accurate—I know a fair number of managers who seem to have fulfilling lives.
I’ve worked in small tech companies, and in very large (but fairly young) companies. I know people in very traditional megacorps where dress code is still a thing. I’m sure there are segments and places as bad as described in Moral Mazes—people aren’t lying when they describe this. And there are hints and lesser instances in all situations I’ve seen.
But none of my first- or second-hand experience matches this level of horror and denial of merit.
Yeah, same here. Maybe Zvi is talking about non-tech. But I’d really like to hear where he’s getting this. Because if it’s all from a book, well, books can exaggerate, or talk about a different time and place than ours.
This is a combination of (1) the book, (2) my personal experiences of various places including my attempt at running a business of my own, (3) my observations of what is going on in the world, (4) my interactions with major corporations when attempting to do business and otherwise, (5) talking with others who have been in such situations and (6) building up of models.
Is all of this potentially extrapolated from unusually bad experiences? It is certainly possible, but those experiences seem to have been chosen in ways that would not be likely to maximize their degree of badness beyond the issue of size. The book certainly wasn’t trying to paint as gloomy a picture as it could have.
But of course, the picture is extreme. And no, none of the examples here or the ones I’ve directly experienced were tech as such.
In tech, I would describe the maze structure differently, and the maze would importantly extend beyond the corporation itself, but that’s a complex topic I can’t get into fully here.
If you’re making a claim that this model is applicable outside the excessively-toxic specifics in the book, I’d really enjoy seeing how it applies or differs in tech. I’d also be interested in a comparison with Steven Levitt’s work on low- and middle-level drug dealing (briefly discussed in _Freakonomics_, I haven’t read his actual paper on the topic).
Fundamentally, I don’t doubt that these unpleasant equilibria exist, but I question how common they are and how applicable any lessons from them are to more moderate examples. I don’t think we’ve seen enough examples to find common causes/features, let alone recommendations.
My guesses:
Tournament/pyramid structure: unpleasant to horrific for entry-level participants, pretty darned nice at the top, but the vast majority never make it anywhere close to the top. Applies to sports, entertainment, some kinds of retail, and many crime setups.
Very large potential rewards (which, again, most don’t get). Goes hand-in-hand with tournament list.
Participants don’t see attractive alternatives (I think “entry/exit” is a mis-statement of this one). This is often an input to the equilibrium, rather than an attribute of it.
I’m unsure whether objectivity of performance measurement matters. It’s lacking in management, present in sports/entertainment stars, unsure in criminal gangs. There probably does need to be a sense of unfairness by the losers and smugness by the winners, in order to make it really soul-crushing.
How many levels of hierarchy are there in their organizations?
(I’ve read some advance draft’s of Zvi’s sequence and know that an upcoming claim, which I think probably should have been made explicit here, is that this sort of thing is most true in large companies with many layers of hierarchy. i.e. the author of Moral Mazes was in a company with 25 levels)
I hate to identify my employer this precisely, but you can likely guess it from other things I’ve posted, and perhaps just from this. Please don’t out me in any easily-searched way; I like my deniability.
I’ve been 15 years at a very large retail/tech company which has become truly gigantic during my tenure. There are 8 salary levels between entry-level programmer and CEO, and reporting chains of 7-10 are not uncommon for skilled workers (including chains like CEO-SVP-SVP-VP-VP-Director-Sr.Manager-Manager-Manager-IC). Number of salary levels here is ludicrously smaller than normal, but reporting chains are, if anything, deeper than other big companies I know of.
I would be interested to hear the names of companies that have 25 levels of reporting structure. That’s insane.
Thanks for the explicit info. (While I certainly won’t out you, it’d probably fine if you slightly randomized each of the information to make it harder to pin down, if you haven’t already)
I have more thoughts about how this fits into Zvi’s model but I think makes more sense to wait until a future post.
Yeah, I added a note at the top (in original, please reimport) to make this explicit. The requirement to meet this picture is not merely “I have someone who reports to me and someone I report to” ergo all of this, and the discussion about that comes later.