[collingreen]

This article is a roller coaster of the authors very mixed emotions and thoughts. It hits all the b-school tropes from "workers should be grateful for their employers not the other way around" to "retention is waste" while also saying how valuable engineering is and how the best companies they worked for had leaders that came with the exact mindset being attacked here. Add in a little "see how good of a writer I am" thrown in for flavor. The structured abuse makes the short blips of "I'm trying to help you" feel hollow and tacked on in response to someone's feedback on an early draft.

The funny bit is the article completely understands the problems, it just makes all the wrong conclusions. Aside from a "workers should be property" vibe, the author very clearly identified that modern business leaders think of engineering as magic, aren't taught anything about it in business school, and can't be bothered to learn about it. It is an absolutely bonkers idea that anyone running a software company doesn't need to know even the basic ideas underpinning their software.

Maybe, as an engineer, I have a very different view of what "leadership" is but this gives me the same feeling as an entitled kid inheriting dads business and being angry about the salary of the senior folks that make it work without even stopping to consider why they might make what they make or if it is a good deal.

Unfortunately there are lots of people who think and act this way. The author is right in some ways because of it - there will always be people who see someone getting paid well but don't understand the value of it and their response will be to try to knock them down a peg instead of trying to understand the why.

[FooBarBizBazz]

The solution is to gleefully disrupt these people. They can't keep doors on airplanes.