Comment by vlovich123

1 month ago

I think it’s naive to think engineers or managers don’t realize this or don’t think in these ways.

https://www.folklore.org/Saving_Lives.html

Is it truly naive if most engineer's careers pass and they never meet even one such manager?

For 24 years of career I've met the grand total of _two_ such. Both got fired not even 6 months after I got in the company, too.

Who's naive here?

  • I’ve met one who asked me a question like this and he’s still at Apple having been promoted several times to a fairly senior position. But the question was only half hearted because the question was “how much CO2 would we save if we made something 10% more CPU efficient” and the answer even at Apple’s current scale of billions of iPhones was insignificant.

    So now you and I both have come across such a manager. Why would you make the claim most engineer’s don’t come across such people?

    • It turns out iPhones are not actually a huge contributor to worldwide carbon emissions. Data centers, on the other hand…

    • Anecdotal evidence and all such, but in my environment actually good managers were rarer than UFO sightings.

      Environments and local markets matter a huge amount.

      I believe the better question here would be: why would the reverse be claimed at all? Many people in the USA, and a lot of them are over-represented here on HN, are privileged and this is not obvious to them, leading to cringe-worthy reactions like "just find a better company".

      I guess I am barking up the wrong tree. I do dislike how over-represented certain perspectives are on HN. It's a very classic filter bubble, and the fact that it's about privileged people makes this even worse.