[william-newman]

You write "first, they are anecdotal." Fictional, in fact: "once upon a time..."

And you write "second, why are the programmers not taking control of management positions if they know so much better?" That question is outside the scope of the fictional dataset of the original post, but see "Jack and the Beancounter" in http://www.skotos.net/articles/BTH_27.shtml for a related fictional study.

And you write "but realistically, I think Alan created the best product for the company." Perhaps I am just being trolled. But at least this was a good excuse to refer to Jack and the Beancounter!

[rdtsc]

There is another level to this anecdote, and that is how HN readers respond to it. It seems that some of them identify with Charles, and some with Alan. Some identify because they are or act like Alan and Charles, or they choose the opposite because they had a bad experience with someone like one of them.

In other words, in this case the reader identified with Alan because that best describes how that reader works and acts, and they are just instinctively defending their position, even though, clearly, the parable portrays Charles as the better of the two. (Of course, that could be my bias, as I identify with Charles).