

You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss, But It Helps... - blackswan
http://www.noop.nl/2008/11/you-werent-meant-to-have-a-boss-but-it-helps.html

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startingup
PG overstated the case IMO. Having good bosses helps many people, and being
independent helps a (I believe a smaller number of) other people.

One of the problem with managers today is the MBA and the management ideology
that it has spread. The average MBA makes a lousy manager, in my observation.

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meterplech
This is certainly interesting. I think the more tailored view is that there
are many people who have the necessary risk threshold, creativity, and
ambition to undergo the challenge of working at or running a start-up.
However, for everyone else, including brilliant people seeking greater
financial security working at a large company can have many benefits.

Also, large companies like Google can give their employees freedom of action
(20% of their time in fact), as well as the resources to actually see their
ideas put in action.

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swombat
This is even worse than the "pseudo science based on anecdotes". This is
pseudo science based on the shoddiest "statistics" (if it's worth calling it
that) possible - pseudo science based on pseudo scientific data.

"Here's a very small sample of data. Let's draw totally arbitrary conclusions
from the data and then extrapolate wildly about extremely complex systems and
patterns of behaviour. Tada! I can haz argument!"

How much lower can we go?

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auston
and yet, I can't seem to recall a single fact or statistic with supporting
information from Paul Graham's essay.

I'm not siding with the author, I agree in part with Graham's theory, but
you're attacking someone for taking a contrary point of view supported with
(what may be a best effort in self-conducted) research.

~~~
swombat
Two wrongs don't make a right... And I still maintain that this is even worse.

Paul Graham's article was certainly one of his weakest (though not quite as
bad as <http://paulgraham.com/prcmc.html> imho), but at least he doesn't claim
to be scientific while thumbing his nose at any sort of scientific rigour.
Claiming to be scientific while being the opposite is worse than just being
non-scientific.

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stcredzero
A problem with the central analogy: he's not really talking about bosses in
particular. He's talking about environments. Poachers are a problem for
current-day Africa, hence active management is needed. They weren't a problem
before, however, and they were not needed. A good boss makes a healthy
environment for innovators. Other healthy environments exist.

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ars
"Unfortunately, Paul's analogy is as far away removed from being accurate, as
my mother is from being Yahoo's next CEO."

I wonder if his mother is insulted.

You know you don't _have_ to make an comparison - you can just say "Paul's
analogy is inaccurate". I don't know anything about your mother (except that
you think she's incapable of running yahoo), so putting that in does not help
anything.

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DenisM

      good managers have only motivated people working with them.
      Bad managers have both motivated and unmotivated people. 
      It turns out that good managers really make a difference!
    

Well, either that or bad managers can really demotivate otherwise normal
people, while good bosses just stay out of the way. Ta-da! I drew opposite
conclusion form his data.

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tptacek
How are these two ideas even in conflict? The first thing Jeremy and I did
when we started our company was to hire Dave as our boss. Easily our best
decision.

