[hn_throwaway_99]

Hard disagree, and I don't think your quote accurately summarizes what the email says. On the contrary, when I've seen teams in large companies focus on nebulous goals like "fixing the team", it usually ends up being a sad, sad exercise it futility. What I've seen be much more effective is to give teams a very clear, concise business objective that they can all drive towards.

Zuckerberg didn't say "go on a death march and burn the team out". In my view he gave clear instructions on which features should be paramount, which can be immensely helpful for a team building a product.

[steve_adams_86]

Giving teams clear objectives is a huge part of getting them to function. Most teams I’ve been on that experienced any kind of dysfunction were suffering from a lack of leadership. We needed something to work towards, not just work to do.

[freejazz]

> Zuckerberg didn't say "go on a death march and burn the team out".

Is our standard going to be people like Zuck writing the literal equivalent? That's never going to happen

[iwontberude]

You clearly haven’t met many people who worked close to Mark or for a long time at Facebook. Mark is not an engineer and he does not understand team based development. The company he created is Kafkaesque with a bureaucracy which uses data to make personel decisions but in the most comically short-sighted ways. Like using LOC to justify compensation rather than impact. Mark created this idiot company that succeeds in spite of itself thanks to social dynamics and savvy acquisitions.

You can downvote me but it’s the reason they can’t make anything good themselves and why Mark’s email is actually hilarious. Google is captive to a similar handicap.

[crop_rotation]

Yeah in my experience in large companies, nebulous goals just get gamed to the hilt by bad actors.