Rich Moran, a venture capitalist, consultant, and author of several books about the workplace, prefers to call it a “false sense of activity” and said it’s “more rampant” among tech companies. “The tech sector is more willing to try different things,” he told us. “And so you get assigned to a project that you know may be going nowhere, but they have a hard time saying, well this isn’t going anywhere.
years. Many of these issues come down to one fundamental problem: managers trying to get ahead. At almost all tech companies, current and former employees said, bosses were rewarded for overhiring since it made them look important. Bloated org charts resulted in too many people fighting for work, a poor understanding of what each segment of the company was doing, and a rise in projects spun up merely to help managers get themselves promoted
years. Many of these issues come down to one fundamental problem: managers trying to get ahead. At almost all tech companies, current and former employees said, bosses were rewarded for overhiring since it made them look important. Bloated org charts resulted in too many people fighting for work, a poor understanding of what each segment of the company was doing, and a rise in projects spun up merely to help managers get themselves promoted
almost all tech companies, current and former employees said, bosses were rewarded for overhiring since it made them look important. Bloated org charts resulted in too many people fighting for work, a poor understanding of what each segment of the company was doing, and a rise in projects spun up merely to help managers get themselves promoted.
almost all tech companies, current and former employees said, bosses were rewarded for overhiring since it made them look important. Bloated org charts resulted in too many people fighting for work, a poor understanding of what each segment of the company was doing, and a rise in projects spun up merely to help managers get themselves promoted.
People are often measured not in contribution but in head count.” Moran said. “The bigger your team you have, the more qualified people you have in your team, the more weight you have in the company,” Graham, the former Amazon employee, said. “It’s what we call empire building. You’re not focused on building a product; you’re focused on building an empire. That leads to fake work and unnecessary bloating.”
“I do think that process favored the people who were better at bullshitting and storytelling,” he told us
At Meta, one current employee said it was common to see employees all the way up to vice presidents invent workshops or “sprints” to set “strategic visions” for projects, while only a small fraction made it onto a road map, an actual timeline for a product to launch to the public, the employee said
“One reorg after another led to fake work,” a former longtime Google employee said. “I got used to getting introduced to a multiyear product, for a project I would look at and say, ‘This is a poster piece for some executive to implement while job hunting
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We have a good leader, which makes all the difference. “It’s natural for a worker to try and find a way to increase their status or differentiate themselves, but cultures are set by the people at the top of the organization, and it’s their job to incentivize the right things,” Kennedy said. “This is probably an issue a company would face if it focused too much on rewarding social status instead of performance. It’s important employees understand the overlying purpose of the work they do. Good leaders know how to properly motivate their employees. View Highlight 2023-07-14