Comment by Gravityloss
2 hours ago
I think projects like Apollo are important in a way that they let extraordinary people to use their capabilities.
I feel from personal experiences as well as from many close people that often the corporate world really struggles on dealing with talent. And I don't mean autistic savants doing obscure things but relatively normal but very competent people doing actual well based comprehensive business helping work - but you have to do something in a very dumbed down way because the organization is built in a way to only accept small changes to the state of the art.
It's not just "can these organizations produce brilliant output?" but "can they produce quality output?" I think you can take a lot of pride in doing ordinary things properly and giving people good experiences.
I stayed at a major chain hotel this weekend and it was a fine stay, the staff was great, but... there were just numerous little tech problems. Like the USB chargers had bad connections so I plugged in my phone overnight and it didn't charge and the next morning I found I had to twist the connector to get it to work. And then when I tried to connect to the WiFi with a Steam Deck [1] it wanted my personal info to join their rewards program, but the complicated Javascript-based dropdown menu to pick a state barely worked and after a minute of screwing with it I was able to pick the wrong state but not pick my real state so I looked up a zip code in that state and entered it.
When I got home I got an email from "no-reply@thathotelchainfoundedbyparishiltonsgreatgrandfather.com" gushing about how they want me to have the perfect experience and how badly they want to hear from me. Like yeah, they want me to call their 800 number and give me a piece of my mind.
It bugs me because I spend my day fixing problems with Javascript apps and I know all about those overcomplicated dropdowns. I get the feeling that if a staff member screwed up they'd be held accountable but people act like technology problems are like the weather and there is nothing we can do about it.
[1] granted an unusual device BUT... I don't travel with a laptop anymore, don't need to connect my phone with WiFi in 5G country and may or may not connect my iPhone. They could have just used the <select> that comes with HTML and it would have "just worked" and today you have so many options to style those with CSS
Yeah, something like the Apollo project has an exciting and profound enough destination/vision that it acts like a forcing function that herds all the cats.
The thing I've taken away most from my multidecade career is that the hardest part is getting any group of people all marching in the same direction, of their own volition. Everyone's motivations always differ. And leadership that just tries to force one direction almost always fails to consider enough viewpoints. And the alternatives, a deliberate rhizomatic chaos, or cutthroat competition, can be entirely demoralizing.