It may seem glib, but if there are good ones out there, they're not typically "private-equity backed portfolio SaaS companies". IME (3 times now) this is where good companies go to die. I'll reluctantly take the naked (but aligned) greed of the VC startup over PE from here on out; it's one thing to implode on the launch pad but I can't watch PE destroy real value any longer.
Goodwill almost always raises concern with authorities and audits, so I'd imagine so sort of quid pro quo version is equivalent to loudly yelling to be audited!
I do some IRL activities where many of the participants use social media apps to coordinate and plan sessions. I don't have any of these accounts so while I do miss out on some of the casual things, I just show up and still get 80% or more of the interaction and all of thething I'm after in the first place: doing stuff.
Either your dates or experiences are off, because I've been working in software since 1999 and the easiest time to get a job was quite recent, in the back-half of COVID. The early 2000's were decent, but I didn't experience - or know anyone who did - any sort of "free jobs' period. Also pay was relatively decent but much less than what you saw even 5 years ago. It's only the in the past year or so that the world has appeared to be ending for developers, and I think that pronouncement is premature.
this is def. the #1 use case, and it's why we can't have nice things. I use the internet to go to places I already know most of the time; when I use a search engine to try and find something it's a complete failure - often because of all the LLM generated astroturfing.
let's be clear: Google is a titan because they successfully sold ads to people who sold to you. We were never the target market beyond building a monopoly on eyeballs, and it's questionable if their ad empire continues. Outside of that they've had very few successes, and while traditionally the hardware is high quality, the bundled services and level of enshitification now is a no-go for my family. If you're buying into the single vendor for the rest of your life, the choice is currently Apple IMO, because they're "least bad".
You right, but there is a very real coordination problem above the team when you're doing bigger things. I've recently experienced an organization with approx. 25 teams of 5-8, and because of their organization they had way too many concurrent initiatives. It was very hard to effectively swarm multiple teams on fewer (bigger) projects.
I think I am a better manager than engineer, not because I'm a shitty engineer but because I recognize the superior strength in my team and do waht I can to leverage the basic principle that if someone is better than you in many things, they should still specialize in the thing they are best at.
I've experienced this as well. I call it the "better safe than sorry" strategy, and the issue is it ignores the very real cost of all the extra effort and work, from the literal costs to the slow releases to the loss of people who just can't take it anymore.
They're still going to have upwards of 5 levels in their hierarchy, so this is obviously for the plebs who are front-line managers, not the several layers above them, as (for example) I'm not sure what a strong player-coach VP of Engineering would exactly look like. I got to Director and quit because it was impossible to be a true contributor at that level or higher. You can see this when you're in critical mode like downtime or a breach; senior management is useless.
this is what apple products did as well. They turned something that took some effort and desire (i.e. using a computer) into streamlined entertainment. Watch someone use their phone; it's passive, one-way consumption.
or every time you click a YT link in firefox on android it asks "do you want to open this in the YT App?" where you're options are Yes (with an always use app checkbox) and "Cancel" to open in the browser. Like "Cancel" means "no, get out of the way and do what I want before you injected yourself in this flow"
It is beyond naive, and I don't know how it can be anything but disingenuous to pretend that the top priorities of "Windows Insiders" are sensible defaults, a calm discoverability feed and how AI works in notepad. The reality is this guy obviously got promoted and assigned "win-back OS users" task, in the face of an organization that overwhelming wants to leverage Windows for short-term, user-hostile bumps in AI usage, advert impressions and questionable engagement scores. He's not going to be allowed to mess with things like the marketing strategy or sales targets, and you see that in these "highlights". Your target audience asked for things like "let me manage my machine locally" and you're delivering "a more muted and polished consumer experience". It's lipstick on a pig, only the pig is dead, and actually a pile of garbage.
Even if you do "get it", you ain't going to be allowed to deliver it.