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I've been thinking about the shitshow that is DOGE, and I see two kinds of professionalized arrogance: tech and MBAs. A thread!
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Both computers and finance are pervasive technologies. So much of our society makes use of both of those, and much else can easily be cast into those terms. That can easily make those skills seem universal.

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I think that's made worse by our education systems. If you get a CS degree or an MBA, you can expect to jump into a wide variety of jobs with no industry-specific training or experience.

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That's something I've benefited hugely from as a techie. I've gotten to work in so many different industries: education, finance, publishing, government, non-profits, and more. It has been a huge joy to dive in and learn about another slice of the world. Another set of people and their industry-specific language and culture.

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But I think it's very easy for people with both CS and MBA degrees to start out thinking a broadly applicable skill means they don't have to learn anything. When in my experience, it's the opposite: if you want to be truly effective, you have to dig in and get up to speed pronto. And you'll have to develop a lot of respect for people who know the domain, and for the complexities they've taken years to understand.

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But what if you don't care about being truly effective? What if you're goal is quick nominal wins or self aggrandizement or just extracting a bunch of cash and moving on? In that case, arrogance and ignorance aren't problems, they're tools.
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@williampietri I was eating lunch with a business associate from another company in a different industry visiting from another state when he stated that whatever one thinks of the current DOGE episode, no one can deny that Elon is a smart man. Here in the valley, I've seen a bunch of idiots in Elon's mold, with no intelligence but a simple behavior pattern that benefits their success at the detriment to their organizations and everybody else in them.

William Pietri

@tsrams For sure. Musk is good at *performing* genius. And I'll grant that he's a talented hype man. But I'm happy to deny that he's a smart man. There's such a long list of examples otherwise!

@williampietri @tsrams I'd say the evidence is that every time Musk puts his finger in the pie his companies lose value.