
Peter Thiel's New Man in the Defense Department - apsec112
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/07/peter-thiels-new-man-defense-department/166851/
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mark_l_watson
As a liberal democrat, my first feeling was outrage.

Then I saw how quickly he rose in Peter Thiel's organization which is
impressive.

I started my career working in the defense industry (an early employee at
SAIC, which much later changed its name to Leidos). I saw this scenario at
least twice working in that industry: someone young and without the "right
kind of degree" would get hired. They had great people and organizational
skills and ended up being very valuable just because they got stuff organized,
then done.

Kratsios may be a lacky, or a skilled organization-person. Or both.

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timsally
For those curious, the full position name is Under Secretary of Defense for
Research and Engineering USD(R&E), a position in its first conception held by
Vannevar Bush.

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PeterStuer
From decades of experience, his is what I came to believe:

The best managers I met tended to be those that if the circumstance required
it, could do the job of those two levels below. So they could actually do the
job of the people that are managed by those they manage.

~~~
dragonwriter
If you can't do the job of the people up to about three levels down the org
chart at least at a basic level, you probably can't effectively manage the
organization they are part of, either.

Now, it's true that there are _lots_ of managers that have that problem even
at one level down, but incompetent management is a widespread problem
(especially because managers are often chosen by incompetent managers that
believe that management is an independent and sufficient skill set without
domain knowledge, either because they think you don't ever need domain
knowledge because you can get by with generic management skills or because
they think domain knowledge is easy to pick up by osmosis. The latter is true
for a small minority of people—basically, the same people that, if they
started with domain knowledge, management skills would be trivial to pick
up—but neither is generally true.)

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coliveira
This is now a republic of oligarchs. They're dividing the government as they
see please.

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contemporary343
How far we have fallen from the era of Vannevar Bush to.. whatever this is.

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azinman2
That’s exactly right. With zero track record of vision (especially compared to
Bush), why would anyone expect this guy to be the right fit?

The Russian collusion may or may not be true, but it certainly seems like
they’d be getting what they’d have wanted by constantly putting lackluster
candidates with in all these positions.

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aj7
Serious security risk. When he falls out of favor, likely in six months, what
he knows becomes part of his “business portfolio.” If you think this has low
probability, remember it’s probability * consequences that matters.

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rubyn00bie
Holy shit. This is some absolutely astonishing levels of idiocy. Everyone want
to know why a 33-year old was chosen? Because he can be controlled. Full stop.

I know this because it was something that became apparent to me when I was a
young CTO. Any fully-qualified person, with experience, in their 40s-50s will
not take enormous amounts of shit without throwing it right back. Younger,
less experienced folks, will not jeopardize their "opportunity" and instead
will shovel the shit down the latter. Young people will not push back and
instead will seek to make their "sponsor" happy.

While it once hurt my ego to say it, I've come to terms with it, talent has
shit all to do with opportunity, most of it is, if not all, is luck.

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mmhsieh
This agrees with everything I have seen over my career, and adds yet another
powerful reason for why age discrimination exists in tech.

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burrows
Why is it surprising that hiring managers consider candidate age?

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exolymph
It's not surprising. It is, however, illegal.

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burrows
Which point are you making?

* It’s illegal and therefore people shouldn’t do it.

* It’s illegal because people shouldn’t do it.

* It’s illegal which raises the cost of doing it.

* Other?

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exolymph
I was making the point, it's illegal. The person I was responding to did not
seem aware.

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burrows
You responded to me.

In what specific way is its legality relevant? The bare observation that it’s
illegal doesn’t mean anything.

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js2
This kind of cronyism and disdain for expertise is going to destroy America.

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quonn
I‘m sure many will rush to defend him, because after all there are also
bootcamps.

But no - we shouldn‘t. Sure there a people who obtain a PhD and haven‘t
learned much. And there are those who are great engineers and have no formal
education.

But in those cases, they have shown beyond doubt that they can study by
themselves and they have also put in the work which is needed for a deep
understanding of anything complex.

Now of course there are engineers who lack leadership or social skills. But
there are also those who have that as well. And those should be picked. In a
country of that size which easily produces them.

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yalogin
How does a 33 yr old have that kind of connections? What did he do prior to
this? He must have done something right.

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krm01
A degree doesn’t properly define the skills level of a person. Having some
kind of a track record is a lot more helpful. Neither seem to be present (at
the surface at least). The only thing that is present is a solid network.

Then again. That does seem to be the single most important asset one can have
to get where they want to be.

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Threeve303
> The development, however, is good news for “the Peter Thiel portion of
> Silicon Valley,” the former official said.

Just out of curiosity, what else comprises the Peter Thiel portion of Silicon
Valley?

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agustif
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal_Mafia)

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MrBuddyCasino
> Thiel has made a variety of enemies in the tech world and beyond; for
> example, he has slammed Google as being too accommodating to China.

You can tell the smart guys from the smart-sounding ones by looking closely at
how good of an understanding of the real world they have, measured by how many
true non-obvious predictions they make.

Paul Graham, Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Peter Thiel score high. To grow ones
understanding of the world one must be open, look closely, _read_ those
interviews and books, form your own opinion, without prejudice or partisan
filters.

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Barrin92
If you have the connections to send a 33 year old without a science background
to head research and engineering at the pentagon things coming true isn't a
function of being smart or predicting anything but just being close to money
and power.

Making things true by pulling your wallet or smartphone out of the pocket
isn't exactly a good proxy for intellect.

Also ironically Taleb's most salient observation is that smart people should
be very aware of the fact that the things that actually matter can't really be
predicted at all.

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tmpz22
The fact that Palantir wasn't stapled front and center as the catalyst for
huge amounts of police abuse and corruption during the BLM protests is a
testament to Thiel's position in the military industrial complex.

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coderintherye
An engineering degree does not a good CTO make.

It really depends on the role and the organization and where Kratsios is a
degree in Political Science is going to be valuable. The role of CTO is not to
be the most technical person in the room, but rather to _lead_ the most
technical people in the organization. This requires technical acumen, but more
so requires good communication and leadership skills.

~~~
awinder
“ The person he’s replacing, Michael Griffin, holds a Ph.D. in aerospace
engineering and served as a NASA administrator. Indeed, Kratsios will be less
academically credentialled than most of the program-managers he oversees. So
how did he get here?”

It’s a big problem when you take people who shouldn’t be in a position and put
them in it. It’s an even bigger problem when you do it in a place with a long
history of pedigree. If I’m a director who was hired into the culture when
that mattered, and now I’m several steps under a boss who flouts that, that’s
a huge upsetting culture change.

Now luckily, he’s only going to be in this job for a few months so the damage
will be largely mitigated, but still. This is an idiots game and it doesn’t
make us smarter for trying to nit it to being acceptable. It’s not.

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mmhsieh
Assuming Kratsios does not have experience already in doing so at Clarium: the
problem will be -- when there is a dispute of opinion at the pentagon and two
Ph.D.s with decades of experience come in with vast amounts of experience, but
opposing and irreconcilable opinions -- how will Kratsios decide? If he does
not know, he will need staffers; how will he judge the quality of the staff
and their competence? Repeat this for the dozens of very big decisions he will
be making, and the many dilemmas he will resolve.

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ncmncm
Believing he has responsibility or competence to decide would be his biggest
mistake. It wouldn't matter if he actually did have credentials, it's not the
role of an executive to decide technical disputes.

Having independent knowledge and skills would enable him to discover when he
is being lied to, and usually prevent the attempt.

But he has been installed to direct budget to certain parties outside
government, and can probably succeed at that. He might have been installed to
commit the DoD to continue delivering budget to those parties long after he
has been dismissed.

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hansthehorse
If this was done 3.5 years ago it could really mess a lot of things up. He has
6 months to do as he's told and it's over.

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Animats
3.5 months.

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washicalendar
That’s until the election. The current administration remains until January
20.

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Animats
If Trump loses the election, he will be likely be ignored during his lame-duck
period.

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neonate
[https://archive.is/7nDfr](https://archive.is/7nDfr)

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walleeee
What's "quantum science"?

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m0zg
Thiel himself is a lawyer. Seems to be doing OK innovation-wise.

