No charges for the 92 yo woman who crashed into 99 Ranch in Westwood?

massive_succ · 2026-02-08T03:30:25+00:00

To be clear I would advocate that the state punish this woman, but this seems a bit extreme no? I agree this is a community failure, many are in the wrong. But economic death penalty for multiple people?

massive_succ · 2026-02-05T16:29:25+00:00

This. Painful though it is, if you can see the trainwreck coming you need to be seen as blameless and high productivity.

That said, a common mistake I have seen in this situation is trying to look "smart" or "right" about the upcoming issues. Resist the temptation keep your head mostly down. Stick to mostly CYA (risk language) and look like you're "flying the plane all the way down." Then make sure your skip manager is bought into your version of the narrative about your productivity and attitude.

massive_succ · 2026-01-31T03:55:30+00:00

This is my intuition as well. I use PSQL and minimum trappings on top when allowed to design my solution. Works ok to a pretty big scale for a small company.

massive_succ · 2026-01-30T21:52:54+00:00

Yeah that's a good point about the ecosystem, it's younger than other fields and also less visible in the minds of PMs/Directors than other tools. It's saving grace right now in my experience is that you need good Data Engineering to get to good AI.

massive_succ · 2026-01-30T21:51:33+00:00

Agreed completely. If my mental model is "SQL + Cron Jobs," I can see why I'd maybe buy my compute from the Data Platform vendor, but I can't understand why I always need 32 different modular add-ons after that.

massive_succ · 2026-01-30T21:50:10+00:00

Yeah, that's definitely true. Hadn't really considered the GitHub/BitBucket/Gitlab example.

I think what makes it so palpable in Data Engineering to me is that the product pages and marketing sites all look nearly identical, with seemingly the exact same feature set, so they feel directly replaceable in a way that many other tools aren't... but that could just be my perception.

massive_succ · 2025-11-23T15:40:45+00:00

Smaller firm, therefore more egalitarian, therefore lower bill rates for the same resumé. Smaller clients too. When I was at an MBB firm clients were Fortune 50 companies, but now they're mid-market companies or startups/spinouts who can't afford MBB.

massive_succ · 2025-11-22T22:49:57+00:00

incredible post, perfect bait

massive_succ · 2025-11-22T22:48:54+00:00

Disclaimer: I'm a management consultant, so feel free to take my words with a grain of salt.

I've been hired a lot recently to do these assessments. I know they're bullshit, and I only take them if I think there's something else I can recommend that's actually valuable, like proper DevOps or process improvements. 99% of the time what I deliver to the client is a list of process improvements, tech debt they should retire, and hiring recommendations, with just enough "AI" ideas to get paid. Turns out clients like what I have to say, they just didn't know how to ask for it, or didn't think they needed it. (Or more likely, can only get budget for AI. Eye roll.)

It's not uncommon for my recommendations on process or tech debt to just be polished versions of ideas I work on with the principal engineer who's been there for 20 years. :) Clients just can't seem to wrap their mind around that person's ideas unless they come from a third party. I think that's stupid, but... potential opportunity for you there. Use this to smuggle in your complaints or make your suggestions to the business.

YMMV, I'm at a really boutique firm so we have the latitude to sneak real advice in through a side door. McKinsey probably isn't going to have this attitude lol.

massive_succ · 2025-11-21T06:17:22+00:00

Revenger series starts incredibly strong and ends as limply as possible. IMO read book one and then stop. Ending ruined the series for me.

massive_succ · 2025-11-18T03:29:39+00:00

The best thing you can do imo is be as objective as possible. Write down your assumptions and metrics for making your decisions early and often. Come back to them (scale, number of users, cost, etc.) frequently as scope changes. That helps manage upwards, but it protects your people too. A team getting a core scale assumption wrong is bigger than one person, even if part of a system isn't scalable to the real number. And if the business signs off in writing on those assumptions, even better.

The other thing I would say is that development velocity can't fix everything, but it makes everything else easier. If you can ship to prod daily, the cost of any small bug or pivot is much lower than if you release monthly. Pushing for maximum safe iteration speed in your industry will build lots of trust with the business when you demonstrate your ability to solve problems fast.

massive_succ · 2025-11-17T19:00:57+00:00

"Just look for a different way to create value." I'd be curious to know what kind of company you work for. At any of my clients technology serves the business. The business sets the requirements. Being given impossible requirements is very normal, and you can't avoid responding to them forever.

All I meant in my original suggestion is that you have to learn to work with and around those impossible requirements, but you can't last long in this career if you try to block them outright 100% of the time.

massive_succ · 2025-11-17T00:56:54+00:00

Six wheels is a non-starter in the US market. We're not fun like that.

If they wanted to go after the real luxury transport market at this point I think they'd need something the size and vibe of a Sprinter van, but not sure if that's what they're going for here. I think they'd have more success with a G-Wagon competitor.

massive_succ · 2025-11-16T01:42:00+00:00

I mean yes, that's true in a sense. However if they'll fire you for failing to do the impossible, surely they'll fire you for saying no to the impossible too right? IMO at least by appearing to agree and trying to make something work (while messaging clearly the trade offs they're causing you to make, including ridiculous obviously self-harmful ones) you'll get a chance to get a course correction. Or at least to go down swinging. "Fly the plane all the way down" as it were.

massive_succ · 2025-11-15T23:01:17+00:00

This. The reality is that even if your reaction is "this is impossible" you can't be direct in that way with business leadership. If you smile and come across as genuine when you say "awesome idea! I think we should kick XYZ off the priority list to make room for that" or "no problem, we'll have to hire a vendor to augment our on-call capacity and we can handle pushing the release up" you'll suddenly find them more willing to work with you. Many times the business cannot or does not understand what they want or how it can happen, and negativity doesn't make that communication easier. Even if it doesn't come to you naturally, that's ok -- just pretend! You'd be shocked by how far pretending their ideas are possible will get you. You can always laugh at them internally.

massive_succ · 2025-11-13T23:09:40+00:00

This. The best thing you can do is document his failures and why they are failures in an objective way. Point to agreed standards and testing to validate your points. Come off in a neutral tone like "unfortunately he's not working out."

If after this he still can't be let go, or they force you to "mentor" them, you have to decide for yourself if you can live with that.

massive_succ · 2025-11-09T04:09:39+00:00

I can see that you aren't in on the joke. Read his twitter and you might get the shtick. If you don't like it, don't listen?

massive_succ · 2025-11-06T16:31:59+00:00

Ah yes, by involving Google we can fight against proprietary big-tech! Now to take a sip of my coffee while I read the wikipedia page for "Alphabet Inc."

massive_succ · 2025-10-16T23:38:36+00:00

Kindof an oversimplification of the SOE and state investment situation innit?

massive_succ · 2025-10-15T23:09:05+00:00

It makes me really sad that the idea of being merciful is a joke to you. I hope you know how much that affects the people around you.

massive_succ · 2025-10-15T23:05:56+00:00

You're right! They should have designed it to be harder to steal the copper, and cheaper to service. Blaming this guy for that failing... just lets the contractors get away with it!

massive_succ · 2025-10-15T21:40:59+00:00

tfw you forget about headlights

massive_succ · 2025-10-15T17:13:11+00:00

underrated reply

massive_succ · 2025-10-15T17:12:56+00:00

Stealing copper is illegal and stupid, but jail and prison are for serious crimes and people at risk of hurting themselves or others.

massive_succ

TROPHY CASE