Ask HN: What's the equivalent to a 3 Michelin starred restaurant in tech?

[itamarwe]

I've been watching "Chef's table" recently and I was so impressed by the level of expertise that the chefs have. Even more impressive is the team spirit, attention to detail, desire to never stop innovating, pursuit for perfection. It feels like working in such a restaurant is an amazing and enriching experience. I'm wondering if there is an equivalent in the tech world - if there are companies that work like this, and if so, are they more successful than other companies?

[mtmail]

Michelin awards the whole experience in the dining room and doesn't check what went into creating it (they don't step into the kitchen). From documentaries I learned the low level kitchen staff gets a lot of pressure and many are only enduring it (low pay, longer hours) to have that on their CV. I'm not sure I'd call that "amazing and enriching experience", maybe it is later if they look back.

I would see https://developer.apple.com/design/awards/ as the tech equivalent award currently.

[busterarm]

> the low level kitchen staff gets a lot of pressure and many are only enduring it (low pay, longer hours)

This pretty much universally describes the work environment for kitchen staff in any mid to high end restaurant I know of.

[WheelsAtLarge]

This is interesting. I worked in a kitchen for a while after high school. People look down at kitchen workers but it takes a strong, well organize, calm person to do the job.

The pressure was high, the pay was low and you are constantly being told how to do your job. If you don't agree think about how you act when you're hungry.

The workers have to deal with people that are waiting for their meal. 99% good is a failure because there will always be someone that gets upset because their meal was wrong in some way. It has to be perfect and needs to be done in a timely manner. An to top it all, people get upset because it's too expensive.

When I compare those days to my IT career. IT is easy and I'm happy I never have to work a kitchen again.

I would say, from what I've heard, Amazon would take the 3 Michelin stars.

[mtmail]

I have chefs in my family and worked at kitchen staff one summer and can relate. Everytime we meet they tell me I'm lucky to work in tech.

[J-dawg]

A related anecdote: a friend used to be a chef at a restaurant in London (not Michelin starred, but a very high-end, global brand). I was shocked to learn that there was no paid sick leave. So, not wanting to lose money, people come to work when they're unwell. And handle food.

I'm sure this happens at lower end places too, but given the enormously high prices I expected they would look after their staff better.

[WheelsAtLarge]

I suspect that as you get up the latter in the restaurant business it gets harder to cover the costs.

Chefs and the general staff expect higher pay, the restaurant needs to be in a high rent area, you need to make a very specialized meal, and you don't have the customer turn over that you have at a fast food place. Plus their's a limit as to how much you can charge. How many people can afford a $200-$300 meal? Not many... So taking care of the staff in terms of sick time is probably easier at a fast food shop.

[itamarwe]

I wasn't talking about the awards specifically, but rather about the state of mind. And I'm sure working in such a restaurant is not for everyone. But it's nice to see people who actually enjoy the challenge.

Are there companies that take quality, perfectionism, innovation, workmanship to that level in the tech industry? And do they succeed more than other companies?

[WA]

The game development industry. Low pay, high pressure, trying to achieve better graphics and gameplay and whatnot all the time. Ratings and reviews as Michelin awards.

[ekianjo]

Sadly unlike Michelin restaurants, you are not guaranteed to get a good game even if it has good reviews. Too much corruption going on.

[thenomad]

I don't know much about the Michelin process, but I would be shocked if it was completely impartial either.

And I do know that there's the well-known "French Michelin" phenomenon - a star in France means much less than a star elsewhere. There are, by repute, three-star Parisian restaurants that would be struggling to get two stars elsewhere in the world.

[ekianjo]

What I mean is that a 3 stars restaurant is really never going to be "bad" by any measure. Michelin would kill their reputation if they gave out 3 stars to just any high-class restaurant.

On the other hand, there are games like BioShock Infinite which get widespread critic appraisal, while the game is obviously just a repetitive shooter with corridors and an obvious lack of any freedom. Sure, it has a storyline (whether you like it or not is a different topic) but a game should be rated primarily for how good it is in its interactive medium, not its novelization. I picked on Bioshock Infinite but it's certainly not limited to that one.

[tetraodonpuffer]

besides the ratings/reviews note that sometimes compensation is also tied to metacritic scores

[joezydeco]

A long time ago we used to obsess over the SEI/CMM (Capability Maturity Model), where a software organization is inspected and rated on a level from 1 (chaos, cat herding) to 5 (managed, optimizing).

Managers would read papers about the CMM and declare that they wanted to be a Level 5 organization, causing insane amounts of busywork and document generation and overall grief to realize that their underlying business processes were hopelessly in the way of any positive change.

So then the goal went from "Level 5 or Bust!" to "Okay, let's try to get to 3" and then later "Um, can we make Level 2?" Then everyone just gave up. There were only a handful of shops that ever made 5 and stayed there, the Space Shuttle engineers being the most famous example[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Maturity_Model

[2] https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff

[itamarwe]

But it doesn't seem like 3 starred restaurants create "busy work" or documents, and yet, they highly value craftsmanship, quality, creativity.

What's the equivalent of that?

[joezydeco]

You might want to dig in and truly understand what a "3 star" establishment is and the insane amount of hard work necessary to achieve it. The trick to earning any kind of Michelin Star, even one, is to keep the diner from ever seeing that work.

It may seem "amazing and enriching" from the outside, and sous-chefs that work in these establishments surely have a resume that will open doors around the world, but to think it's a fun or entertaining experience is an incorrect assessment.

Here's some reading to get you started:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/09/top-chefs-michelin...

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Likewise, while I haven't worked in a CMMI-5 environment, I have worked in an organization where I was required to be trained in TSP/PSP which (arguably) provides an even lower defect rate than CMMI-5. The amount of process and paperwork required was absolutely ridiculous and eventually caused me to leave due to all the fun simply having been removed from the job.

It may produce high-quality output, but you won't enjoy doing it!

[ethanbond]

I think such discipline is exceptionally rare in software, and it's never sexy. How about NASA? Haven't they only had like 4 software bugs in their control software ever (or some equally absurd figure)?

In design, Apple's core hardware design team is over the top psychotic about the quality of their work. It's a true obsession for them. Many font foundries have similar neuroticism driving their work.

I think Chef's Table (great show!) does us all a disservice by kind of skipping over how unbelievably grueling such an undertaking is. It truly is inhuman. It's unfathomably difficult to create merely a successful restaurant... it takes a perfect storm — in both the positive and negative sense — for someone to create something like a Michelin starred restaurant.

So yes, probably. Is it sexy? Certainly not. It looks insane more than anything outside of the lens of a beautifully crafted documentary.

[js4]

It really depends on how you define success. Cheesecake Factory is more "successful" then Jiro's Restaraunt with regard to cash generation.

[heisenbit]

This is a people service business like cooking. Which makes it hard to scale when it comes to excellent service. Boutique consulting companies may offer excellent service. Like with kitchens there are plenty of them all claiming to serve great food. Stellar are few. The initial looks can be deceiving.

Hint: The proof is in the pudding. But you have to sit through the whole meal to know whether you enjoyed it...

[itamarwe]

Any concrete examples for such a boutique consulting company?

Can't a product company have these characteristics?

[hood_syntax]

Galois is one example

[LarryMade2]

I would say probably Apple is a good example in past experiences.

Their products were regarded as things that "Just work" their website was very easy to use for support and information, and these were consistent over a long period of time.

I'm not so sure about the Apple today, but in the 2000s they were certainly were hitting their marks.

[perfmode]

Working with Jeff Dean or Sanjay Ghemawat.