Some tasks, like nuclear plant worker, over time they have become less productive as more of them are needed per megawatt of power, due to more and more long tail risks being discovered.
It’s not just about discovering more tail risks but about having a different culture on risk in those companies. One example someone from the industry gave me is that they tell their workers in yearly seminars about how to avoid cutting themselves with paper.
Right. So this is one of those anti-progress patterns I see around. What happens internally to the company is that over the Very Serious People create some Very Serious Internal Processes like There Shall be Risk Management Training (on the prevention of papercuts). And anyone suggesting that maybe they could run the company more efficiently by skipping this training has to argue either (1) elders in the company were wrong to institute such training or (2) they (personally) are pro risk.
Hard to be “pro risk” in the same way if you spoke against, say, diversity quotas by definition you are for discrimination.
So over time the company adds more and more cruft—while not really deleting much—making it less and less economically efficient. This is why big rich companies have to constantly be buying startups for the technology, because they are unable to get their own engineers to develop the same tech (because those engineers are too busy/beat down by mandatory training). And why eventually most big rich companies fail, and their assets and technology get bought up by younger companies who, when the merger goes well, basically throw out the legacy trash. (except when the opposite happens, like in the boeing mcdonnell douglas merger)
It’s not just about discovering more tail risks but about having a different culture on risk in those companies. One example someone from the industry gave me is that they tell their workers in yearly seminars about how to avoid cutting themselves with paper.
Right. So this is one of those anti-progress patterns I see around. What happens internally to the company is that over the Very Serious People create some Very Serious Internal Processes like There Shall be Risk Management Training (on the prevention of papercuts). And anyone suggesting that maybe they could run the company more efficiently by skipping this training has to argue either (1) elders in the company were wrong to institute such training or (2) they (personally) are pro risk.
Hard to be “pro risk” in the same way if you spoke against, say, diversity quotas by definition you are for discrimination.
So over time the company adds more and more cruft—while not really deleting much—making it less and less economically efficient. This is why big rich companies have to constantly be buying startups for the technology, because they are unable to get their own engineers to develop the same tech (because those engineers are too busy/beat down by mandatory training). And why eventually most big rich companies fail, and their assets and technology get bought up by younger companies who, when the merger goes well, basically throw out the legacy trash. (except when the opposite happens, like in the boeing mcdonnell douglas merger)