You interact with executives as if they are your coworker?
> sycophantic servant
The misunderstanding is that you believe a servant is someone held in chains and beaten with a whip. A master is someone with power and authority, and servant is someone who works for them.
Reading this thread I’m realizing maybe Americans better understand organizational politics, and this social technology is an unappreciated contributor to productivity.
I agree this kind of thing is performative, but let’s steel man the other side. You are looking for a place to spend 8 hours a day doing your most skillful craft, and you don’t want to know what the organization is trying to achieve?
Yes I understand it’s performative, but why wouldn’t you take 10 minutes to indicate you are doing that kind of serious thinking?
It’s like asking a boss for guidance without doing groundwork to make a recommendation.
> Americans tend to be enthusiastic about their company mission - in the extreme, believing that they’re saving the world
I would explain this as commitment signaling. I don’t know if they really believe it, but they want to show they are part of the team and the talking points.
Adults use language in a less literal way than introverted engineers may be comfortable with.
Did you do the few hundred problems before that build up the techniques and theorems?
> given so many competing priorities,
Undoubtedly, the best time to do this was when you were young. The second best time is now. Pick a book and work on a problem or 2 every day. It will likely take 6 months or so but you will learn the material. This is an incredible way to level up in a technical area.
No it hasn’t? C++ type system has hardly changed (until concepts) and is one of the most powerful available.
A certain generation of devs thought types were academic nonsense and then relearned the existence of those features in other languages. Now they are zealots about using them.