If someone does something wrong, Alice tells them plainly, and they get offended, whose fault is it? Some people say it's Alice' fault for offending; some say it's the person's fault for doing it wrong in the first place, and for subsequently getting offended.
I think we're conflating is and ought here. It's probably a fact of reality that most people aren't happy to be told they're wrong. But arguably people ought to accept the consequences of being wrong, e.g. feeling bad when they're told.
I've talked to lots of startups in San Francisco. Most are failing, just due to the nature of startups, but can survive if they reach a finite set of straightforward goals. They've found product/market fit, they know what they have to do, they just have to do it, and the correct 10,000 characters of code input into a computer would solve all their business problems. There's often a lot of handwringing about why they're failing: the process is wrong; communication is wrong; something or other. But the largest reason they're failing is that they're insufficiently good at technology. You know who'd be really good at fixing that? A team of Alices.
I think Alices get too much flak. Bob is genuinely a toxic character. But if your only fault is telling the truth, which offends people, and you're otherwise excellent at your job--- there's a huge opportunity for twenty Alices to get together, bypass the inefficiencies of being offended, and win big. Tech has an obvious historical example.
Edit: I reread the description of Alice. All right, maybe don't browbeat your point into others.
Alice is so vaguely portrayed here that I think it's impossible to draw conclusions, let alone call her a brilliant jerk.
As you mention, pointing out when things are wrong isn't being a jerk, it's doing your damn job. "Having little empathy for others" isn't describing behavior, so it's meaningless here. OK, "browbeating" might be bad, but what does that mean anyway? Is she repeating the issue a month later after the problem got ignored, or is she micromanaging it, or what? There's no indication here. Whatever it means, Equifax could have used some browbeating on security issues.
There's no indication about why people try to avoid working with her. Does that refer to other developers, or does HR try to avoid her they go around asking for donations for girl scouts or something? I don't see a real problem with the latter. If somebody had reputation for pointing out problems in code, I wouldn't be avoiding her, I'd be seeking her out.
>They've found product/market fit, they know what they have to do, they just have to do it, and the correct 10,000 characters of code input into a computer would solve all their business problems.
Or they can get a huge team of pleasant and great-looking people that will leave a very good impression and raise tons of capital to keep burning through cash for years without fixing any of those problems. As long as the investors are OK with this, people will keep on using it.
I think we're conflating is and ought here. It's probably a fact of reality that most people aren't happy to be told they're wrong. But arguably people ought to accept the consequences of being wrong, e.g. feeling bad when they're told.
I've talked to lots of startups in San Francisco. Most are failing, just due to the nature of startups, but can survive if they reach a finite set of straightforward goals. They've found product/market fit, they know what they have to do, they just have to do it, and the correct 10,000 characters of code input into a computer would solve all their business problems. There's often a lot of handwringing about why they're failing: the process is wrong; communication is wrong; something or other. But the largest reason they're failing is that they're insufficiently good at technology. You know who'd be really good at fixing that? A team of Alices.
I think Alices get too much flak. Bob is genuinely a toxic character. But if your only fault is telling the truth, which offends people, and you're otherwise excellent at your job--- there's a huge opportunity for twenty Alices to get together, bypass the inefficiencies of being offended, and win big. Tech has an obvious historical example.
Edit: I reread the description of Alice. All right, maybe don't browbeat your point into others.