Spooky stuff that helps explain a lot of the dysfunction flowing out from Microsoft.
Where’s Ed been? Corporate philosophies are a dime a dozen in tech and they’re always just vague enough to use as a justification for management to do whatever they were already planning on doing.
Microsoft’s growth mindset is no more problematic than Amazon’s leadership principles or any of the other corporate pillars we inevitably need to phrase our accomplishments around in order to get hired/promoted. They’re all the same pseudoscientific MBA BS that’s been permeating the industry for years.
This article could have been written about just about any large tech company with the same concerns and conclusions.
It’s written about Microsoft as if this is their unique dysfunction instead of an industry-wide dysfunction. It feels out of touch and lacking the insight I typically enjoy from this newsletter.
I’m all for criticizing large, unwieldy corporations bloated with layers of management who deliver limited value, engage in cutthroat politics, and promote slogans over real connections with people through sustained work efforts. But this article rubbed me the wrong way from the get go. The difficulty of developing a culture is never examined away from Microsoft. Most large companies have a c-suite who are so far removed from the average worker and their daily goals that they think pithy slogans are what it takes.
But I really became skeptical when they tried to summarize the findings of growth mindset and quickly dismissing it without couching in the ongoing reproducibility issue in psychology and failing to clearly show the controversy with growth mindset, the good, the bad, and the unclear. Which large company isn’t peddling bullshit to get more out of their workers without deliver respect and wages?
I am hard pressed to find an example of a large company where executive management isn’t oblivious to the real needs and desires of the average worker and middle management isn’t flooded with back stabbing and petty politics. The most honest will tell you it’s about market dominance and profit maximization and if happy workers help they do that as long as it doesn’t cost too much and doesn’t undermine their access to power.
this post gave me a couple rounds of whiplash but this was the hardest turn on the rollercoaster:
when they tried to summarize the findings of growth mindset and quickly dismissing it without couching in the ongoing reproducibility issue in psychology
do you people come off a factory line like this?
I don’t know how to read this as a bad faith question, but I’ll respond with sincerity in hopes that we can have an honest discussion.
First, I’m not sure who “you people” and why my sentence is “off a factory line”. When I reference the reproducibility issue it’s the reproducibility issue in the field of psychology. Couching it in this crisis would temper the polemical tone.
So what exactly gave you whiplash?
Did they read the same article? It addresses this pretty directly I thought.
Can you cite where they reference the reproducibility issue in psychology? I thought I read it carefully and thought deeply about my criticism. I don’t expect people to agree, of course, but to engage sincerely. So I went back and scanned it again and still don’t see it mentioned.
the poster themselves would have to answer but generally I find the answer to be no
a rather particular form of inductive reasoning. not quite induncetive, but close
I swear to Christ that corporate America is only getting worse. The best thing that could happen to just about every major corporation would be aggressive antitrust action resulting in a breakup. All the FAANG companies would be a good start, along with every media company you could name.
“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.” Some corporations are criminal enterprises and should have their tax numbers revoked. Some corporate officers are criminals and should be prosecuted. Some are complicit in crimes against humanity or war crimes and should be internationally prosecuted.
It seems that happens to management at every company, at various strength. I swear there must be a source for all this shit, like Forbes or something.
A side note:
"… It’s all hallucination.”
prone to hallucination.
No, just no.
Everything generative AI produces is a hallucination.
Some may correlate with reality, but it is still a hallucination.
I think he’s underestimating the intentionality at play here. The dynamic he’s describing (and describing very well!) has been evident since the first chatbot, ELIZA. I don’t believe that Saltman and friends don’t know about this dynamic, and I’ll give them benefit of the doubt that they didn’t think we had AGI in the 80s with basic text templates.
Excuse me, I need a lie down…
Edit: How open is this to abuse you may ask? Imagine yourself to be an evil person, such as a chickenshit conflict-averse MBA-holding manger. If you need to get rid of an employee, then feed their Connect form through the nondeterministic bullshit machine repeatedly until it gives you an excuse. It’s the perfect accountability sink + employee disposal. Employee argues? They’re failing to apply the growth mindset.
