I’ve been thinking recently that a lot of the pathologies in tech work culture come from the fact that a lot of the most successful tech executives are “wunderkinds” - people who have an extremely rare combination of incredible talent AND incredible drive - who want to only work with people like themselves.
The upside of this is that if you are such a person, as an employee you’ll be amply rewarded. I’ve worked with a number of such people at several of the big tech firms and they are recognized and compensated like the unicorns they are (such people could easily go start their own businesses if they wanted to be entrepreneurs, so they have to be rewarded lavishly to keep them as employees).
But most people aren’t Elon Musks or Jeff Bezoses or the like. Most of the people I have worked with are talented and motivated but not nearly so far out on the right hand long tail.
And motivation waxes and wanes for most people; most people have balanced lives that include lots of time spent not working for someone else.
When I see pathologies such as RTO (which is always combines with making the offices more shitty with hoteling and such), and performance management practices reminiscent of Roman decimations, I see wunderkinds who are unable to accept that most people aren’t like them.
The upside of this is that if you are such a person, as an employee you’ll be amply rewarded. I’ve worked with a number of such people at several of the big tech firms and they are recognized and compensated like the unicorns they are (such people could easily go start their own businesses if they wanted to be entrepreneurs, so they have to be rewarded lavishly to keep them as employees).
But most people aren’t Elon Musks or Jeff Bezoses or the like. Most of the people I have worked with are talented and motivated but not nearly so far out on the right hand long tail.
And motivation waxes and wanes for most people; most people have balanced lives that include lots of time spent not working for someone else.
When I see pathologies such as RTO (which is always combines with making the offices more shitty with hoteling and such), and performance management practices reminiscent of Roman decimations, I see wunderkinds who are unable to accept that most people aren’t like them.