This isn't really just a big company problem, lots of start-ups fail too. It plays out a bit differently at big companies, as those failures tend to be more public but also done in a way that lets the company shuffle people around to the next project. There were lots of start-up companies that tried to build social networks or ERP systems or map applications that most people don't hear about.
Sure, in all cases, acquiring knowledge of what the (potential) customers want is difficult. The point of the article is that vendors of layer N tend to think they know what it takes to succeed at layer N+1, but they don't, because that customer base (N+2) is different.
The other (more important, maybe) thing the article points out is that building layer N-1 turns out to be easier, because layer N is the customer and understands those needs already.
With other engineers I mentor, I often give similar advice: break the promotion into two steps. The one everyone talks about is when the email goes out. The one that probably matters more is when your manager says: "I'm going to start treating you like <target promotion role>." A lot less attention goes into that step, particularly at bigger companies that have more formal promotion processes.
> The strength of conviction people have about this policy–almost either way, but certainly among those against–seems to scale with distance from the city.
Writing this from mid-town Manhattan. There are a lot of strong feelings about congestion pricing. It was a common topic in the local media. The stronger voices tend to be those who drive and are affected by it. For Manhattan that is a relatively low percent of the population.
There are some people who are pro-congestion pricing, but as often has with these things the benefits are distributed whereas the costs are concentrated, leading to certain behavior.
Mostly because of the Maker's Schedule vs. Manager's Schedule (https://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html) issue. It's really hard to be in a role that deals with a lot of randomization and then sit and focus for 4 hours straight on something.
The Last Viking - a biography of explorer Roald Amundsen
The Wager- a book about a ship by the same name which wrecked in the Drake Passage.
Eccentric Orbits - about the Iridium constellation.
The Great Bridge by David McCullough - goes into a pretty good amount of detail in the engineering and sub-problems of construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
There is a story in Hitchhikers about a nightclub full of robots. No real people. Just loud music and bots trying to get the attention of non-existent human customers. Adams predicted the current state of twitter long before even the internet was a thing.
Yes, the case would be stronger with specific examples. However, I did not find it alienating, as examples of these 6 myths readily come to mind. We see people appeal to expertise all the time, rather than using their expertise to explain. There are lots of examples of people trying to "solve" economics problems rather than, as Thomas Sowell puts it, realizing that there are no solutions but only trade-offs.
I work at a FAANG (and obviously, I'm not a company spokesperson, just sharing my own experience). Those who are passionate about interviewing internally all seem to agree on not asking leetcode questions. I know leetcode questions get asked anyway, but there's pretty clear internal guidance and training for interviewers saying not to use them.
At least part of the problem is that leetcode questions are easy to ask, and most interviewers don't want to go through the hassle of coming up a question that scales well to the candidate's experience and knowledge.
> “We should phase in new energy sources and technologies when they are genuinely ready, economically competitive and with the right infrastructure,”
On the one hand, that seems like a reasonable approach. On the other hand, if we only have on the order of decades of known oil reserves, we'll have to phase out of oil use at some point (likely in most of our lifetimes), no?
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