[TUHS] how (not) to manage engineers (was: End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference))

[Larry McVoy]

On Sun, Jul 20, 2025 at 08:47:54AM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > Allow me to tell you how I describe managing engineers.  Suppose we
> > were artists, there were 4 of us.  Someone brought us a photograph and
> > said "I want a painting of that".  OK, split it into quarters and go
> > do it.  What do we get back?
> > 
> > Well, artist #1 likes oil paints so that's what s/he did.  Artist #2
> > likes charcoal so that's what they did.  Artist #3 likes pen and ink.
> > Artist #4 likes water color.
> > 
> > Is that a painting?  Maybe if you like a mish mash of stuff that
> > doesn't go together.  Most people would call it garbage and refuse to
> > pay.
> 
> Yeah.  I think your analogy is facile and superficial and therefore
> characteristic of of Silicon Valley executive culture.  Here's why.

I really doubt you know the first thing about how actual Silicon Valley
execs, good ones, work.  Have you been one?  I doubt it.  Have you worked
closely with any good ones?  I doubt it.  You looked down your nose at
Steve Jobs, and while I agree he wasn't a nice person, he knew what people
wanted before people knew what they wanted.  That's a rare talent.

I read the rest of your rant and nothing in it gave me any hope that you
understand what a good exec does.  You are foccused on the fluff pieces
that talk about crappy executives.  You appear to have no knowledge
about how running a company works, your comments about specifications
nicely highlight that.  Classic engineer blinders.

I got paid to argue with Suns execs for 6 months.  Didn't win the
argument.  But I learned how they worked and it is NOTHING like how an
engineer works.

You want your specifications, everything carefully thought through,
fully researched, not a flaw to be found.  You move forward when you are
sure you have the right answer, there is no way anyone will find fault
with your reasoning.

Real execs don't have that luxury.  While you move forward when you are
100% sure you are correct, you've done the work to be sure, they can't
afford that.

What I learned, in my brief but long enough stint with execs, is they
have to, over and over again, make a decision with about 10% of the
info that you, Brandon, would be comfortable with.  Why?  Because all
of their competition is doing the same thing.  Any CEO who waits long
enough to know that they have the right answer has missed their market,
someone else guessed earlier and beat them to it.

I found it pretty horrifying and a miserable way to make a living.

You, Brandon, sitting here and passing judgement on people making those
calls is insulting.  You don't have that experience, you don't know how
shitty it is to be forced to guess, and guess correctly, with not enough
information.