[scruple]

I once stood up, as an intermediate level software engineer, in a meeting with executives and senior managers and senior engineering leadership, and identified multiple areas where a consultancy, who we were entering into a partnership with, was utterly full of shit. Isolating not only where the technical solutions wouldn't meet the technical challenge, but also in areas of outright legal / regulatory violation.

You know what I got for it? I was asked not to return to the meeting that afternoon. They went forward and everyone was happy and confident that everything would be perfect. I didn't get a promotion that year, and I do believe it was in no small part because of the fact that I called out specific instances of bullshit, and I earned a reputation that persisted there as a person who torpedoes progress.

Well... ~3 years after that meeting, and having watched many millions of dollars evaporate, we're in litigation with that consultancy. Yet, the people who made those original decisions had gone from manager to Director or VP. They go on to make other insanely stupid fucking decisions, without consequence, and with an even wider reach because of their shiny new titles. Wasting more and more resources and causing pain for the folks under them.

There's no justice here. The bullshitters have won.

[sharadov]

Theranos was a poster child for what you describe, all the engineers/lab analysts who complained were systematically gotten rid of and threatened. People who invested in or made deals with the company did zero due diligence. They are either disconnected from reality, or they think it's one big game. Reading the book "Bad Blood" is so unnerving. And yes, you are absolutely right!

[scruple]

Sometimes I wonder if Bad Blood will be used as a blueprint, instead of a cautionary tale, in the coming years. Much the same way that I've seen the shenanigans of Office Space applied over the last 2 decades. Except that that's a much more frightening prospect than the comparatively benign bullshit in Office Space spreading through the industry.