There's an implicit assumption here that everyone is "doing a bad job" because of "perverse incentives".
But I'd argue that most 'computer nerds' have pretty deeply seated perfectionism flaws.
To take a simplified example, we tend to want perfect security, and like to prove that we're smarter than each other by understanding complicated attacks.
When it comes to running a business, though, a 10 person startup cannot afford to act like their threat model includes defending from hostile nation state actors willing to do Stuxnet-levels of effort to hack them. If they do that much work on security their product will never get off the ground.
The goal of most companies when it comes to security is never to have perfect security, but to have good enough security to stay out of the headlines.
It is like tradeoffs that have evolved in nature. You don't see organisms that maximize one feature at the expense of everything else. That energy always needs to go into competing concerns.
So sometimes as technical people we fetishize the perfect solution to some problem in the Enterprise, when actually doing that solution would be horrible for the Enterprise due to the costs.
(Of course the flip side is sometimes management only cares about window dressing the company so they can bailout with some golden parachutes and that has nothing to do with running a healthy company -- but not every example of a company not being perfect is due to deeply cynical and perverse incentives like that, but may be entirely rational).
> But I'd argue that most 'computer nerds' have pretty deeply seated perfectionism flaws.
My goal here absolutely was not to turn this sub-thread into a ping-pong of "but managers bad at X" and "but but but programmers bad at Y".
I am very aware of the nuance you introduced and I've been guilty of being a tech perfectionist much more times that I'd be comfortable with sharing. But finally I learned.
(Granted, many haven't and maybe never will. In this regard you do have a solid point.)
> So sometimes as technical people we fetishize the perfect solution to some problem in the Enterprise, when actually doing that solution would be horrible for the Enterprise due to the costs.
Absolutely. Not denying it. It's just that what gets me is the reaction to some of the engineers' flaws is to go to the other extreme.
Which is just as bad state of things. Both extremes are unproductive.
But I'd argue that most 'computer nerds' have pretty deeply seated perfectionism flaws.
To take a simplified example, we tend to want perfect security, and like to prove that we're smarter than each other by understanding complicated attacks.
When it comes to running a business, though, a 10 person startup cannot afford to act like their threat model includes defending from hostile nation state actors willing to do Stuxnet-levels of effort to hack them. If they do that much work on security their product will never get off the ground.
The goal of most companies when it comes to security is never to have perfect security, but to have good enough security to stay out of the headlines.
It is like tradeoffs that have evolved in nature. You don't see organisms that maximize one feature at the expense of everything else. That energy always needs to go into competing concerns.
So sometimes as technical people we fetishize the perfect solution to some problem in the Enterprise, when actually doing that solution would be horrible for the Enterprise due to the costs.
(Of course the flip side is sometimes management only cares about window dressing the company so they can bailout with some golden parachutes and that has nothing to do with running a healthy company -- but not every example of a company not being perfect is due to deeply cynical and perverse incentives like that, but may be entirely rational).