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by sensanaty·2y ago·view on hn ↗
Loyalty died because the C-suite are comically greedy idiots and don't care to keep the good workers by recognizing their worth. Mind you, they never really did, but people just realize it a bit more now, plus things have gotten worse in that regard.

I can't tell you the amount of good colleagues I've seen leave because management was too stubborn to give them a 7% raise. The most baffling thing is that they'll have no qualms (or perhaps no choice) to subsequently replace them with someone else for at minimum double of whatever 7% would've cost them. This causes a cascading issue where people are annoyed that new hires get such a big boost while the current staff have to fight for every measly percentage increase, so the older employees slowly trickle out.

I've had it happen myself too. A place I really enjoyed working at, I found the work great and had a great relationship... But the CTO stubbornly refused to give me a 9% raise. I referred my friend and started looking elsewhere. I got a roughly 30% paybump, and my friend got hired to replace me for roughly 20% more than what I asked for.

So why on earth would I be loyal? The people running the show are hilariously short-sighted and can only see the beacon emanating from their VC buddies shoveling money their way, so whatever, I don't care ultimately if something I worked on dies or not.

2 comments
Yes C-suite is very greedy so they let people leave instead of giving them a 7% raise, and turn around and hire someone for a minimum of 14% more.

They are either greedy or stupid. You have to pick one.

Why do you think greed and stupidity are mutually exclusive?
Because to be successful being greedy you have to be smart. Like on a long term basis. You can't make big stuff without a smart strategy.
"keep flogging the same shitty technology while bribing gub'mnt officials to ban new stuff" is not especially smart. no need for an advanced degree for that.

but boy howdy does it work, and make a lot of money.

> Because to be successful being greedy you have to be smart

There are plenty of people who are greedy and not smart. I'm not sure what basis this statement has. Plenty are greedy and not smart for their entire lives.

This just perpetuates the bullshit narrative.

They are not smart. For many stupid would be an understatement.

The amount of stupid people who fail upwards is far larger than the few and far between who get there on merit.

My direct boss at the moment is one of the smartest people I've ever met. The people running the plant are some of the stupidest I've ever seen. Constant mistakes, short-sightedness, asking questions anyone who works at the plant should know in their first week, etc.

Best part is it's a relatively small city, so everyone knows everyone kinda. Our plant manager (top guy on site) was in a middle management role at his old plant (the worst in the city), where he was fired for incompetence. He wound up with us and within the year was the highest role.

We have lost countless years of experience due to people leaving over this guy and his cronies. He has no formal education, hasnt been in the plant life long enough to know anything, constantly makes idiotic decisions, etc.

These are the people who wont get out of the way of the people doing the actual work, and make their lives/work measurably worse due to their stupidity, greed, and incompetence.

A tale as old as time, yet for some reason we keep letting it happen.

> They are either greedy or stupid. You have to pick one.

Nah. Some people are definitely both, and it's the "stupid" bit that causes the "greed" thing to be applied blindly therefore achieving the opposite of what they wanted.

ie they make poor decisions and lose money instead

"Penny wise and pound foolish" is a real thing

Greedy but too much short term thinking is stupid.

They are too greedy and stupid to give 7% raise for retaining talent when market price is 20% raise.

Talent has to be hired at market price or why would they join your org?

They're greedy, so they refuse a small pay bump to keep the current people happy.

Their bet is that they won't actually leave if they get rejected on the raise. This is where the stupidity comes in, they actually think people would be loyal and stay despite requesting a tiny raise.

What happens instead is that people are, obviously, annoyed and start looking elsewhere, where they'll get a much larger pay bump anyway. Now the idiots are forced to look for new people at much above what they could've paid to keep the old person, because no one is going to accept a new job below market rate.

So yes, stupid and greedy.

Isn't it also possible that this sequence of decisions is "game theory optimal"?
Maybe, but running your business purely based on game theory is in itself pretty stupid.
You'd have to define "stupid".
Paying more for worse staff is stupid. In some cases the employee is good at their job but has languished for so long they’ve burnt too many bridges to be promoted. The only response for these people is work to retirement or job hop.
Some of it is greedy incompetence but a lot of it is just incentives structures.

It is easier to make the justification in a lot of orgs that you need to go out and hire someone to replace someone who left at "market rate", than that you need to pay someone x% more, based on work that is probably nebulous to whoever you need to make the case to.

I don't think there has ever been a time where this has not been the case outside of very small companies or niche operations. The same sort of incentives are endemic in a business of any scale, because ultimately org structures end up as pyramids and people will intrinsically compete to be at the top

That's no kind of answer! The system made me do it is not an answer! Recall the incentive structures are made by management. So who in hell is in charge here? Management or the paperwork? People or the small 'c' culture of the company? There's no way to double talk or tap dance you're way out: management blew it. 9% is less than the new guy's pay. The old guy is pissed which is why he wrote post. And the rest of us have recorded one more reason "vaunted" American management is stuck on stupid.

(Note I am American and work for American companies. I've had good experiences and terrible in the ol' USA. We have the fundamentals here but damn it too many management people just don't listen to it.)

> Recall the incentive structures are made by management.

I think more incentive structures naturally emerge over time. Managers have other managers who have other managers... etc who have some different set of incentives. There are also shareholders

A lot of time the right smart thing is done anyway, but usually that's luck in having a couple of good smart people in your org chart chain, or just the rising tide of the economy making it easier for generosity to prevail

Management "blew it", but there were probably no negative consequences to them in the case. There are negative consequences for the shareholders when this sort of stuff happens over time in the aggregate... which I believe you get to call the "Principal Agent Problem" if you earn an Economics degree or understand game theory or something...

I hear you ... and in fact you make a good point re: couple of smart guys (or ladies - sometimes the guys are the problem). It's essential to have people with enough self awareness and security and medium to long term thinking to not bow to as I perjoriatively labeled it small 'c' culture (as opposed to the good cap 'C' culture). Culture like political parties are only as good as the fundamentals they hold up long term.

Part of that skill is knowing what can go wrong. And to that end there's no better short read than Ishikawa's tqm the japanese way.

I also agree with your other point: defects are often seen in aggregate when unfortunately the damage is done and cynasysm and infighting are almost unstoppable.