[matrix_overload]

Business likes predictability. The chance of 5 people deciding to leave all at once is exponentially lower than a chance of 1 person. Hence, unless you are the owner/founder, your replaceability will be valued more than your performance.

[re-thc]

> The chance of 5 people deciding to leave all at once is exponentially lower than a chance of 1 person.

And the chance of 5 random people producing something compared to the 1 you know is a huge contributor is exponentially lower too.

> Business likes predictability.

That's great. Then they should actually stick with it i.e. reward the 1 that's been contributing rather than gamble on something that might not work. It's common in sports teams, e.g. where you sell your star player and buy 5 others hoping to get more value. At the end of the day you're lucky to even get the same value.

[psd1]

Counterexample: sports teams that improve when they replace their star player.

Football doesn't have great players in an absolute sense. For the last decade, the greatest player, depending on which tiresome fan you ask, had been either Ronaldo or Messi.

Messi didn't pull up any trees at PSG, and Ronaldo's second stint at MU was underwhelming. In both cases, that's because the team tactics had to be shifted to accommodate these players, to the detriment of the other players.

My old team lead was rated highly. But he stifled the rest of the ICs. From above he looked good, from below he looked shit. He should not have been developing software, he needed to be in a process-oriented role. I believe that our productivity would have increased - certainly morale and cohesion would have - if he'd fucked off and not been replaced.

[re-thc]

> Messi didn't pull up any trees at PSG, and Ronaldo's second stint at MU was underwhelming. In both cases, that's because the team tactics had to be shifted to accommodate these players, to the detriment of the other players.

Messi nor Ronaldo were the star player of these teams that you mention.

The fans at PSG booed Messi. Kylian Mbappe was the main star and maybe Neymar. Messi always wanted to stay at Barcelona but it didn't work out. He more played his part and wasn't trying to be the star.

Ronaldo was well past his peak even in his Juventus days. He definitely wouldn't be a star player in any top team. No, it's not the team's fault.

> My old team lead was rated highly. But he stifled the rest of the ICs. From above he looked good, from below he looked shit. He should not have been developing software, he needed to be in a process-oriented role. I believe that our productivity would have increased - certainly morale and cohesion would have - if he'd fucked off and not been replaced.

I don't see this as a counter example. You assume there's some god neutrally working towards the greater good of the organization. Often there isn't. If the above, i.e. those paying the salaries like it - that's all that matters. It's a different problem if management gets their priorities, metrics or whatever wrong. This team lead is the way they are because of such incentives. They are rewarded for it.

[quetzthecoatl]

Both Messi's and Ronaldo's last stints were underwhelming because they are well past their prime. They are in their late thirties, and they started their professional first team career at extremely young ages (15/16). It's a testament to modern medical science that they are still not retired. Most professional striker/midfield players either retire by 32/33 or drop deep, or go to US/Middle east for a good pay day that isn't very physically demanding. The other players who started playing along with them retired years ago or moved to less demanding leagues (Rooney, Fabregas, Van persie, Robben all retired years ago. Even iniesta who started years after these, is in Japan for the last few years). Ronaldo didn't help at all acting like a primadonna instead of showing age and leadership in his second stint at MU, but that is him.

[squokko]

Is it team tactics that had to shift or is it just that the team had to let go of good players to afford the salaries of Ronaldo or Messi?

[matrix_overload]

>And the chance of 5 random people producing something compared to the 1 you know is a huge contributor is exponentially lower too.

When a customer presses a button to book a taxi ride, they don't care whether the underlying database query takes O(log N) or O(N^2). As long as the price is good and they get a response within 3-5 seconds, they're cool.

This works for the absolute majority of real-world projects. Technical excellence has very little impact on the revenue, compared to other factors (product/market fit), so people making business decisions don't care about it.

>That's great. Then they should actually stick with it i.e. reward the 1 that's been contributing rather than gamble on something that might not work.

Business is always a gamble. You don't know how the market will take your product before you launch it. You don't know what the competitors will do, how the sentiment will change, let alone global events like the COVID money printing followed by an interest rate squeeze. It's like you are trying to navigate a ship in a storm, and the mechanic keeps telling you how he can shove coal 5x faster than others and hence needs to be paid more. Except, you never need it that fast, and need to have 2 onboard anyway, in case one gets sick.

[re-thc]

> As long as the price is good and they get a response within 3-5 seconds, they're cool.

You're so amazing aren't you. You even know precisely what the customer wants. Are you saying that if I offered a service with a 2 second response they're not going to take it? Nah they only want 3-5 seconds!?

> Technical excellence has very little impact on the revenue, compared to other factors (product/market fit), so people making business decisions don't care about it.

If you don't care about it how do you know it doesn't impact? If you don't care you don't know the details. So problem is, maybe if you cared it'd make a difference?

Also what does this have to do with technical excellence or whatever you're referring to? The whole point was the 1 person that could do a job better than potentially 5. It is about delivering business value.

> Business is always a gamble.

And? It was the poster above that said business preferred predictability and I responded to that. You're now taking it out of context and trying to derive other meaning from it.

So is it predictability or a gamble?

> It's like you are trying to navigate a ship in a storm, and the mechanic keeps telling you how he can shove coal 5x faster than others and hence needs to be paid more. Except, you never need it that fast, and need to have 2 onboard anyway, in case one gets sick.

Again we're back to assumptions. How do you know this mechanic that shoves 5x faster will get sick? Maybe they never get sick? So it'll be better than hiring 2 that might get sick. Again, that was the original argument. If you change it - then whatever. You might as well say those 2 you have onboard ALWAYS get sick so I still prefer the 1 that can shove coal faster.

[Rexxar]

It would be true if leaving probability were uncorrelated but in reality they are correlated so it's not such a big improvement than people usually expect.