I'd caution against memo culture, actually. I only have a sample size of 2, but in two organizations I've been in that tried to adopt something similar, this is what happened:
In the first org, there was a lot of pressure that any such memos had to be highly researched and data driven (also borrowed from Amazon, I imagine). In reality what this meant is that drafting a memo even for the smallest decisions or ideas became a large laborious effort, which nobody wanted to do and/or didn't have time to do it. The result was that everyone procrastinated on decision making, if they even participated in it in the first place, and I knew a fair share of colleagues who didn't even bother to pitch their ideas because of hating the memo system.
In the second org, it was the opposite problem: in an attempt to make memos "painless", there was much less pressure on making the memos "high quality". The result: every "memo" was a hastily scrawled together draft of random notes that didn't make much sense, and we had to spend most time in meetings going over the "memo" to decipher it and have the author explain it anyway.
I know how HN works, but thanks for explaining it. New comments are only given the top spot for a small time period. My comment was at the top long after said time period, because it previously had more than enough upvotes to stay at the top (in fact, it actually had been knocked down to middle-ish of the thread, and then garnered enough upvotes to again be the top). As soon as dang commented, it suddenly was at the bottom.
It's disingenuous to frame my comment as a "sneer", and censoring (via pushing this comment down, when it was previously the top comment of this thread) mentions of community self-introspection is doing this community a disservice. If it truly is not a bubble, then my post would not have been upvoted to the top comment of the thread. Clearly it was something that people wanted to discuss prior to your intervention. Living within an echo chamber is a bad thing, both for the community and for society in general, and HN should be able to discuss that without your intervention.
Nice hypothesis, but incorrect. This is at a company that has always had a large remote workforce, and if you do want to work remote, it's always been an option, and there is an actual culture to support it (and in fact, all of our internal tooling is built with remote work in mind. All meetings happen via Zoom even if you are in an office (partly because of lack of meeting rooms, but also because we don't want to disadvantage remote workers)). We've been trying to grow our remote work force because of lack of office space, but filling these remote roles has actually been hard. It turns out that there's a reason that most of our people choose to not be in those remote roles. They genuinely do not enjoy it.
It's amusing reading all of the HN comments that insist that any attempts to not work remote must be some ploy by "the suits" and act like remote work is some panacea for all the problems in the world.
My very large tech company did a survey this summer about remote working conditions. Out of tens of thousands of respondents, less than one third said they wanted to continue working 100% remote. Nearly half said that their work/life balance was worse when working remotely. Over one third said they are less productive.
HN lives in a bubble of pro-remote talking points. In reality, most of the tech workforce (to say nothing of the non-tech workforce, which I assure you is much more anti-remote) does not enjoy it.
I understand what you're saying and I see the confusion. To be more clear, I agree with you and BMI is a terrible measure of "overweight"/"obesity".
As someone who is 5'7" and 160 pounds, I'm considered "overweight", but if you saw me in person I'm almost certain you wouldn't think of me that way because I look quite fit. In reality, I have a decent amount of muscle mass from being physically active, but the BMI measure doesn't take into consideration muscle vs fat, and thus I am technically "overweight".
My point was not that everyone who is technically "overweight" is "fat" or "unhealthy", but rather that the COVID-19 reporting statistics that use those words are also using that "terrible measure" of BMI, and according to BMI, even typically-seen-as-healthy people fall under that "high risk" category, and people should be aware of that rather than assuming they are safe from COVID just because they are "fit".
You're completely missing the point. These studies don't give a damn about your adipose, or how much weight you need to lose. These studies are about whether or not you are classified as overwight, which is based solely on BMI, and nothing else.
Someone 5'6" and 155 lbs is overweight and thus is considered a high risk COVID individual, regardless of their waist size. If that person were to die of COVID, they would be reported as "had high-risk underlying health conditions".
That's what we're talking about in this context. Everything else you are talking about is completely irrelevant.
Responding to your above edit (which you now have removed):
>I agree many people underestimate their own adiposity, but the given example of 31 inch waist at 5’6” and 155 pounds indicates a trim, fit person.
This statement just highlights the entire point. You think it means "trim, fit person", as do most others. But the medical definitions do not agree with you. According to the medical definition, that person is overweight. That's the bottom line.
>But you’re talking as though such a person with a 31 inch waist should actually lose weight.
No, I'm not. I never said such a thing and I have no idea why you're building such a strawman.
Waist measure has nothing to do with this story. This story is about COVID-19 comorbidities, of which being overweight (which is medically measured using BMI, not waist measures) is one. BMI is all that matters in this context.
If you are 5'6" and 155 lbs, you are classified as overweight and thus are considered a high-risk person for COVID-19. That has nothing to do with "you should/should not lose weight".
And the broader point is this: if you see any stats saying "most COVID-19 deaths were overweight people", you shouldn't feel any sense of "safety" because you think "well I'm not overweight, I wear size small!", because there's a good chance that a lot of those COVID deaths wore smalls, too.
People downplay it because even when presented with these stats, they picture "overweight/obese" as a stereotypical "fat person" wearing size 55 pants and using a scooter to get around the grocery store. And they think "well I'm not fat, so I don't have anything to worry about."
In reality, a significant portion of the people reading this comment probably are "overweight" without even realizing it. "Overweight" is classified by your BMI, and the threshold for "overweight" is much lower than most expect.
If you are 5'6" and weigh 155 lbs, you are medically overweight. That's someone who wears size 31 pants and size small t-shirts. Not even close to your stereotypical "fat" person, but according to the statistics: overweight.
edit to clarify: I intentionally put "overweight" in quotes to indicate that I am using the medical definition of "overweight", and I am not saying that someone who is 5'6" and 155 lbs is unhealthy, fat, or needs to lose weight. Someone who is 5'6" and 155 lbs is, IMO, on the fitter side of the spectrum, but according to the statistics, still "overweight".
What are you talking about? AWS has an absurd amount of government contracts, JEDI notwithstanding. A quick Google estimates that ~20% of AWS revenue comes from govcloud, and I don't think that even includes the secret contracts AWS supposedly has with the three letter agencies.
I disagree completely. This is how you fight corruption. You don't just throw up your hands and say "welp the system is rigged, guess we will give up". Would you say the same thing in a civil rights case? Should we just give up all anti-racism efforts because "well we've already tried for a year but didn't make any progress"? Do you think it also reflects poorly on the ACLU or EFF for continuing their fights even after years of unproductive legal proceedings?
If the process is corrupt (and based on all public knowledge of JEDI, it absolutely seems like the award was given based on Trump's personal idealogies) then I believe it reflects extremely positively on Amazon to finally stand up to this type of bullshit, rather than rolling over and saying "well that's just how govt contracting is".
In the first org, there was a lot of pressure that any such memos had to be highly researched and data driven (also borrowed from Amazon, I imagine). In reality what this meant is that drafting a memo even for the smallest decisions or ideas became a large laborious effort, which nobody wanted to do and/or didn't have time to do it. The result was that everyone procrastinated on decision making, if they even participated in it in the first place, and I knew a fair share of colleagues who didn't even bother to pitch their ideas because of hating the memo system.
In the second org, it was the opposite problem: in an attempt to make memos "painless", there was much less pressure on making the memos "high quality". The result: every "memo" was a hastily scrawled together draft of random notes that didn't make much sense, and we had to spend most time in meetings going over the "memo" to decipher it and have the author explain it anyway.