On the other hand, only talking to those who have been wildly successful, or giving their advice more weight, sounds like a great way to get trapped by confirmation and survivorship bias.
Good point. But if I were looking for an unsuccessful person to get advice from, I'd pick someone who looked within for mistakes/opportunities for improvement, rather than exclusively blaming external factors.
Even if they are largely external, we can't say that michaelochurch hasn't been providing suggestions for improvement. His overall message doesn't strike me as complaining just to complain, even if some of his individual posts are a bit over the top.
His overall message is how companies and management can improve -- advice for a position he's never been in and has no experience with. If he's said things that represent a serious acknowledgement of his own shortcomings as an employee -- i.e. a frank discussion of why such a high proportion of his employment experiences have been bad compared to typical HNers or engineers -- I'm not aware of them. He seems to be fairly self-congratulatory on that front, which is at odds with the results so far.
I checked your profile. One of those. Still butthurt that I exposed calibration scores and embarrassed "your" company?
His overall message is how companies and management can improve -- advice for a position he's never been in and has no experience with.
Wait, so watching idiots incinerate hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of value through horrible business decisions when I could have done their jobs better at 17 is not direct experience?
I'm good at learning from failures-- my own (I've made plenty of mistakes, despite your claim that I don't acknowledge error on my part) and other peoples'.
a frank discussion of why such a high proportion of his employment experiences have been bad compared to typical HNers or engineers
What has astonished me is to learn that my horrible experiences are not atypical. I thought I was the only person to be screwed over so badly, and found out that there are hundreds of people with similar stories.
I won't claim that it's the norm, but it's not shockingly rare. People just don't fucking admit to these experience because they internalize their losses when the reality is that most people have shitty careers not because they are human garbage (as their bosses want them to think) but simply because they have been lied-to, exploited, and fucking robbed blind by their extortionist, criminal managers who have demolished their careers through bad work allocation and political malfeasance.
I wouldn't put myself so far out there on these issues if I hadn't realized that there's a whole corrupt system whose malignancies are underreported. If it was just me having bad experiences, I wouldn't go out there and point out how awful it is. Too embarrassing, no point. Unfortunately, the abuses of talent by the well-connected criminals are commonplace and it's time to fight back. Technology is our territory by rights and we should take it back from those assholes.
I'd be lying if I claimed you did not spark my interest with your episode at my workplace. However, I am in no way upset about it, any more than I'd be upset by one of those YouTube fail videos. I was actually one of the ones who tried to help you. So, let's stick to discussion of my actual points. If I made untrue claims, it's enough to point them out, right?
Reiterating my primary point, in case it has been lost in the back-and-forth: if your approach leads to satisfaction, success, wealth, fame, or any other thing an ordinary person wants, I'd love to see some evidence of it. Does any exist? Failing evidence, I advise a novice to consider your words with a strong degree of skepticism, and to take into account your personal track record. This is healthy, no?
> so watching idiots ... [fail where] I could have done better at 17
You are like a walking, talking paragon of the Dunning-Kreuger effect. If you could do better, do it. I'd be surprised, but surprise is an emotion rationalists welcome. If I see some evidence of your extraordinary claims [1], I'll update.
And, no, backseat CEO-ing does not count as experience. Come on, that much must be obvious.
> not atypical
Hard to say if you're falling to selection bias or me. You are highly atypical among the people I know or have heard of, and your comments certainly stand out as unusual on this site.
> Technology is our territory
It is the territory of people who make things, or who lead makers, as it has always been. People who do neither of those are mere onlookers.
