[HN Gopher] Bureaucrat Mode
___________________________________________________________________
Bureaucrat Mode
Author : kiyanwang
Score : 43 points
Date : 2024-10-04 21:27 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (andrewchen.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (andrewchen.substack.com)
| delichon wrote:
| A demon that's attracted to people in bureaucrat mode and
| repelled by people in get-it-done mode (or visa versa) would be
| worth trillions of dollars per year to the economy and the most
| hated technology since the bomb.
| Onavo wrote:
| I think that's called a "founder" practicing "move fast and
| break things".
| shermantanktop wrote:
| People like that are rendered impotent and ejected quickly
| from any organization that they don't have last-word control
| over. Which explains why some founders love being founders,
| because power-loving people love power.
|
| If you just want to work at a startup, great, but if you want
| to work on a mission for more than a couple of years, that
| doesn't work. You have to solve the emergence of collective
| self-interest, and just yelling "I am founder" will not help
| when most people hear that as the rantings of a disconnected
| CEO.
| smitty1e wrote:
| This is why a Navy battle groups use
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_by_negation
|
| In summary, leaders of major slices of the effort run their own
| show, merely informing the HMFIC, who retains veto power,
| regarding status.
| mouse_ wrote:
| That CIA manual excerpt also explains climate policy. It also
| explains why laymen distrust experts.
|
| Remember: The powers that be forbid progress, as progress might
| disrupt the powers that be.
| hyggetrold wrote:
| _> Remember: The powers that be forbid progress, as progress
| might disrupt the powers that be._
|
| Mostly agree but would amend - what is actually forbidden is
| change. And since all progress involves change...you can fill
| out the rest.
| Alupis wrote:
| The infamous Oscar Wilde quote, "The bureaucracy is expanding
| to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy" is as true as
| ever.
|
| Every bureaucracy ends up the same - serving only itself to
| preserve itself.
| tptacek wrote:
| I think at this point it's becoming (analytically) problematic to
| take "founder mode" at face value, and I'd be careful running
| with it too far. I gather that the talk+ was an empirical case
| study, and the PG post was a first extrapolation from the talk,
| something in the actual spirit of an "essay" ("this is
| interesting, let's start writing and see where it takes from us")
| and people who were actually at the talk are bristling at the
| idea of that post being taken as received wisdom.
|
| When you're at the point of literally situating "founder mode" as
| the opposite of the CIA's strategy for disrupting activist
| groups, you're probably a step past even "received wisdom".
|
| There's an obvious failure mode for 3rd-hand analyses like these:
| for years hapless dingbat founders tried to cargo cult Jobs and
| Gates success by just deliberately being assholes. This isn't
| quite that, but you can see where the wind is blowing.
|
| + _The Graham post that kicked off "founder mode" was in part a
| report on a recent private talk about things Brian Chesky had
| done to improve AirBNB's performance._
| kjellsbells wrote:
| The tweet in the post is not quite correct. The manual is CIA
| (strictly, OSS) and intended as a sourcebook for operatives to
| share ideas with people under (Axis) occupation. To frame it as
| "CIA vs activist groups" isnt really right and adds baggage where
| there need be done.
|
| Original link:
|
| https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...
| keybored wrote:
| These founder/hacker/startup blogs of wisdom are quite shallow.
| Here's a "how to Mode" mock-list and also the idea that things
| are self-replicating. So? Anything more?
|
| I don't think the hacker/startup/founder persona is interested in
| going deeper. Because to their mind society should be very
| loosely coupled on all levels and that would just solve all such
| problems.
|
| - OSS projects are small enough to have a "BDFL"
|
| - Most things about companies are bad. But if they were small and
| not monopolistic they would be good
|
| - Problems along the way are partially solved with
| disruption/geniuses of the gaps
|
| The cooperation between all these very small entities would be
| fine. I don't know. I don't think it is often touched upon.
|
| You shouldn't hire a chess prodigy grand master to teach you
| chess. Probably. You probably want someone who is more in touch
| with what it feels like to be a beginner. Who at least has been
| there.
|
| Similarly you don't want sociological input from the
| hacker/startup/founder persona. They've already got it figured
| out. (Refer to Dilbert)
| janalsncm wrote:
| > OSS projects are small enough to have a "BDFL"
|
| Not just that, most of them are "useless". The median NPM
| package probably has zero downloads per month. That's ok, it's
| your time, so if you want to create a new terminal emulator for
| the heck of it I say go for it. But anarchy is hardly a perfect
| solution.
| fijiaarone wrote:
| If you are a big successful entrenched organization, change to
| the status quo is the last thing you want.
|
| Because the status quo is that you're a big successful entrenched
| organization.
| janalsncm wrote:
| The document the author is referencing is a CIA sabotage manual.
| It's not a prescription for how to run a bureaucracy any more
| than their section on sabotaging electrical cables is intended as
| a prescription for electricians.
|
| I think many Americans believe that because the American
| government is slow, unresponsive and generally painful that all
| governments must be this way. As a counterexample I would like to
| suggest Singapore, which has an online visa process (traveler
| visa) which was a breeze to follow and was approved in under 2
| days. Compare that to the US legal immigration system (USCIS)
| which if you ever have the misfortune of dealing with, is a
| nightmare to navigate.
|
| The government needs a UX department to streamline all of the
| painful processes it has. Make it easy to follow the law.
| derefr wrote:
| The article's implicit conceit is that a bureaucracy is just an
| attempt to abstract away what is in actuality a bunch of
| distinct _self-interested obstructionist fiefdoms_ -- that each
| do all they can to prevent the organization from
|
| 1. doing anything that would pose an existential threat to the
| fiefdom,
|
| 2. starting any project that would be the fiefdom's ultimate
| responsibility to deliver upon,
|
| 3. reorganizing in a way that would cause the the fiefdom's
| "slack", or continued underperformance (compared to the
| organization's usually-unrealistic expectations) to be made
| more legible,
|
| 4. doing anything to equalize and redistribute any special
| advantages that come with the fiefdom's existing
| responsibilities,
|
| ...and so forth.
|
| The CIA sabotage manual applies perfectly to the usual sort of
| bureaucratic organization full of such fiefdoms, as such
| fiefdoms use exactly these techniques to prevent the projects
| that would threaten them from moving forward (at anything
| beyond a glacial pace.)
| dang wrote:
| Related. Others? I'm sure there have been others...
|
| _Simple sabotage for software (2023)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40695839 - June 2024 (75
| comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual - How to Destroy Your
| Organizations_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36831946
| - July 2023 (95 comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35448090 - April 2023 (129
| comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1945)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32356038 - Aug 2022 (3
| comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States Office of
| Strategic Services_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31676964 - June 2022 (55
| comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31070624 - April 2022 (8
| comments)
|
| _Excerpt from CIA 's Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29597454 - Dec 2021 (209
| comments)
|
| _1944 OSS Manual on How to Sabotage Productivity_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28507930 - Sept 2021 (5
| comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26293804 - Feb 2021 (1
| comment)
|
| _CIA 's Declassified 1941 Simple Sabotage Field Manual_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316292 - May 2020 (1
| comment)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22322041 - Feb 2020 (89
| comments)
|
| _Spotting Field Sabotage in Meetings (2011)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16045073 - Jan 2018 (36
| comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944) [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15109771 - Aug 2017 (32
| comments)
|
| _The CIA's 1944 Simple Sabotage Field Manual (2015)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12253276 - Aug 2016 (64
| comments)
|
| _Updating classic workplace sabotage techniques_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11702267 - May 2016 (280
| comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10493881 - Nov 2015 (68
| comments)
|
| _Declassified CIA documents detail how to sabotage employers,
| annoy bosses_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10490804 -
| Nov 2015 (21 comments)
|
| _How to make sure nothing gets done at work_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10393485 - Oct 2015 (3
| comments)
|
| _Simple Sabotage Field Manual (1944)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4831363 - Nov 2012 (67
| comments)
|
| _From CIA: Timeless Tips for 'Simple Sabotage'_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4243649 - July 2012 (3
| comments)
|
| _How We Beat the Nazis with Bureaucracy_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1398103 - June 2010 (22
| comments)
|
| _WW2 "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" declassified [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=905750 - Oct 2009 (6
| comments)
|
| _OSS (pre-CIA) Simple Sabotage Field Manual_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443 - Sept 2009 (29
| comments)
| gffrd wrote:
| > The government needs a UX department to streamline all of the
| painful processes it has. Make it easy to follow the law.
|
| Sometimes the pain is a feature.
| closeparen wrote:
| And yet the incentives could not be clearer... if you want
| meaningful amounts of actual money that can house and educate
| your children, you need to let go of fanciful pursuits like
| "making stuff people want" and "solving hard technical problems"
| and instead get good at bureaucrat mode.
|
| The most charitable reading of this situation, I think, is that
| the tech people routinely underestimate the leverage of even
| mediocre social technology vs. high-end computer-touching skill.
| threeseed wrote:
| What is with these VCs always roleplaying.
|
| Based on his Linkedin profile, Andrew Chen has never worked in
| companies that are large enough to have most of the qualities. I
| have. For 20+ years now.
|
| And the reason that these companies do things like check legal,
| brand and compliance before decisions or have committees or
| create complex approval workflows is because they need to.
|
| Often they work in highly regulated environments or are in
| situations where not having the right people in the loop costs
| more and can be an existential risk to the company. And they
| always learn this the hard way. Just like Elon Musk has been
| learning every day with Twitter.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-04 23:00 UTC)