“Accenture tells us we have 50% more middle managers than our peers” or “Bain tells us our customers don’t like us despite the internal CSAT scoring”

It doesn’t have to be this way. Other working cultures have adopted committees as the top. Is is the dominant form in US shareholder capitalism.

The original post is surely satire.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929919

Points: 5

# Comments: 3

Having AI and an army of consultants is the market standard today. This is because it works.

IBM slapped Watson on everything, and claimed a ton of revenue. In reality they had a bunch of customers who hated them for decades of broken promises.

1 - IBM audits your company’s software usage.

2 - They find a couple servers that someone forgot to turn off a decade ago that nobody uses.

3 - Since it was found in an audit “you’ll lose the 90% discount” and they present the CFO with a $20 million bill.

4 - “It pains us to have to enforce this MSA that your predecessors signed 20 years ago. In the spirit of partnership we can make this go away with a $2 million Watson purchase.”

5 - You get the Watson subscription which you don’t dare turn on.

6 - IBM touts the growth of AI to Wall Street [0] and fires a bunch of old people [1].

Of course this wasn’t going to end well.

[0] https://www.constellationr.com/insights/news/ibm-q4-better-e...

[1] https://www.publicjustice.net/federal-court-boston-ibm-age-d...

Think of it this way… let’s say two identical companies are going to IPO. Company one you can sell the shares for a profit later if you like. Company two you can only sell for the price you bought.

Which will have the higher IPO price?

1 - IBM audits your company’s software usage.

2 - They find a couple servers that someone forgot to turn off a decade ago that nobody uses.

3 - Since it was found in an audit “you’ll lose the 90% discount” and they present the CFO with a $20 million bill.

4 - “It pains us to have to enforce this MSA that your predecessors signed 20 years ago. In the spirit of partnership we can make this go away with a $2 million Watson purchase.”

5 - You get the Watson subscription which you don’t dare turn on.

6 - IBM touts the growth of AI to Wall Street [0] and fires a bunch of old people [1].

Of course this wasn’t going to end well.

[0] https://www.constellationr.com/insights/news/ibm-q4-better-e...

[1] https://www.publicjustice.net/federal-court-boston-ibm-age-d...

1 - I’m more likely to buy a ticket or pay a higher price if there’s a chance of turning a profit if I can’t go.

2 - Speculators are more likely to buy unused inventory if they can turn a profit. This increases total tickets sold. (Scalpers get paid for taking risk)

I’m not defending this. I’ve given up on concerts for my favorite larger bands due to sticker shock.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48914549

Points: 9

# Comments: 2

Very interesting that he seems to be in the camp of “It’s ok if the machines prove it as long as we can understand and formally verify it after.”

It doesn’t take long for the cracks to show:

- Not enough program/project management.

- An intuition that service dropped but no good metrics.

- Retrain the outsourcers after the first team quit.

- Inability to size new projects.

- Shadow IT departments form in the business units.

- The outsourcers don’t care about things like vendor consolidation or holding other vendors feet to the fire.

All of this might still be worth it if it’s done strategically to improve a chronically underperforming IT department. It’s rarely effective when rushed to cover up poor performance of the core business.

They could also use it to change the capital structure buying back shares. This simultaneously increases risk and share price, unless the reissue more shares.

In both cases, if they can’t pay the interest payments, the company gets handed over to the creditors. Not an issue for Google, but a lot of startups struggle with venture debt.

If there’s any financial risk then it may not be worth the potential loss of control.

And I am grateful for not working on a farm, it’s hard work!