The author says, "The collaboration industry has spent a fortune obscuring a dirty truth: most complex, high-quality work is done by individuals or very small groups operating with clear authority and sharp accountability" which means collaboration can work... in the right environment and with the right people. I work in R&D and I could not imagine not working in a collaborative environment. It's not reasonable to have expertise at everything and it's understood that things have to get done no matter whose name is on the ticket/story.

I also agree on you calling out Men against Fire example as well. That's not a collaboration issue, that's a training issue (amongst other things). And that problem went away as you said.

> By 1946, the US Army had accepted Marshall’s conclusions, and the Human Resources Research Office of the US Army subsequently pioneered a revolution in combat training which eventually replaced firing at ‘bulls eye’ targets with deeply ingrained ‘conditioning’ using realistic, man-shaped ‘pop-up’ targets that fall when hit. Psychologists know that this kind of powerful ‘operant conditioning’ is the only technique which will reliably influence the primitive, mid-brain processing of a frightened human being. Fire drills condition terrified school children to respond properly during a fire. Conditioning in flight simulators enables frightened pilots to respond reflexively to emergency situations. And similar application and perfection of basic conditioning techniques increased the rate of fire to approximately 55 percent in Korea and around 95 percent in Vietnam.

I can absolutely stand by this statement after dating an avoidant. The constant push-pull drove me nuts and brought out the worst in me.

1. They exist. However, writing a piece of software is not the same thing as supporting them, especially when it comes to dealing with core HR system. This is where SaaSs and similar platform offers lot of appeal.

2. Also difficult because everyone has different needs and at some point certain features get prioritized over others. I support a platform that was built in house before I was born. The guy who wrote it is no longer with us and it is cludgy. Any product decisions evolve years of committee meetings before any decision gets made (by which the it may be incorrect or not relevant.)

Every single time I worked for a company that said let’s hiring an engineering team to build a software that is already solved by a market offering, it has never gone well. The in house product never had the same capabilities or had the same sheen.

3. Can’t answer this one other than digitization efforts.

For transparency, a single software engineer budget is $670K+.

Before we call it enshittification of the Hyatt brand as a whole, I am kinda curious for more details.

I would be very surprised if this happened on places like the Andaz or Park Hyatt but would not be surprised if it was like at a House or Place.

The author cites examples such as Linus and Margaret, but IIRC they studied CS and/or math as part of their educational upbringing... so I feel like they're almost counter examples of what the author is arguing for.

It seems like the author is really championing the "self-tinkering engineer" as the outperforming engineer.