Pretty decent chance it doesn’t scale! I am not choosing the principles for Lightcone based on what I expect to scale to hundreds of people. Larger organizations probably need different principles.
That said, in my experience when I look into competent companies, this holds surprisingly true. The best executives are very strong generalists, and the best managers are chosen to be strong performers in the task that they are managing other people to do. Elon is widely known to be a strong engineer, as well as a strong designer, and spends much of his time arguing details of that kind of work with his reports. Mark Zuckerberg is known to do similarly. Executives at their companies are also selected to be strong generalists capable of performing (to an acceptable standard) a large fraction of the work going on in the organization.
And they are spending all their time doing things they do not know how to do
I don’t know where you picked this up. In my experience getting to a point where you can perform a task at a basic level takes maybe a few days, and it’s rare that you need to add a whole modality of tasks to your domain of management. I do spend a lot of my time learning new skills and figuring out how to do things I’ve never done before, but it’s like 20% of my time, not more than that.
In my experience most people just suck at learning new things, and vastly overestimate the depth of expertise. It doesn’t take that long to learn how to do a thing. I have never written a song (without AI assistance) in my life, but I am sure I could learn within a week. I don’t know how to draw, but I know I could become adequate for any specific task I am trying to achieve within a week. I have never made a 3D prototype in CAD and then used a 3D printer to print it, but I am sure I could learn within a few days.
And those are three of the more complicated tasks that I am tracking as bigger holes in my skillset! Learning how to clean a room to hotel standards, or learning how to fix most issues with a broken toilet, or how to set up a podcast studio, or learn a new programming language, or put up a wall, are much simpler and can be learned in a few hours. Lightcone as an organization works on a very wide range of projects, and I’ve had no issues achieving basic competence at all the kinds of things we do. I don’t see any particular issue for why not at least my executives should not be able to do the same for things in their purview.
I’m not sure how a bet could be formulated, and it’s possible that the process of formulating it would show we aren’t in disagreement.
However, I wonder if you are looking at the successful outcomes without considering the unsuccessful outcomes?
A great engineering manager is likely great at engineering. However a great engineer is unlikely to be a great engineering manager—dealing with code all day is different to dealing with people all day. Of course, some can do both (and here you see a great engineering manager who is also a great engineer). My contention is that a minority of engineers (main focus is code) are suited to be engineering managers (main focus is people).
This is essentially the Peter principle. Peter is great at something, and keeps getting promoted until he reaches the level of mediocrity, where he stops getting promoted. Peter is clearly great at position n-1, but not great at position n.
Pretty decent chance it doesn’t scale! I am not choosing the principles for Lightcone based on what I expect to scale to hundreds of people. Larger organizations probably need different principles.
That said, in my experience when I look into competent companies, this holds surprisingly true. The best executives are very strong generalists, and the best managers are chosen to be strong performers in the task that they are managing other people to do. Elon is widely known to be a strong engineer, as well as a strong designer, and spends much of his time arguing details of that kind of work with his reports. Mark Zuckerberg is known to do similarly. Executives at their companies are also selected to be strong generalists capable of performing (to an acceptable standard) a large fraction of the work going on in the organization.
I don’t know where you picked this up. In my experience getting to a point where you can perform a task at a basic level takes maybe a few days, and it’s rare that you need to add a whole modality of tasks to your domain of management. I do spend a lot of my time learning new skills and figuring out how to do things I’ve never done before, but it’s like 20% of my time, not more than that.
In my experience most people just suck at learning new things, and vastly overestimate the depth of expertise. It doesn’t take that long to learn how to do a thing. I have never written a song (without AI assistance) in my life, but I am sure I could learn within a week. I don’t know how to draw, but I know I could become adequate for any specific task I am trying to achieve within a week. I have never made a 3D prototype in CAD and then used a 3D printer to print it, but I am sure I could learn within a few days.
And those are three of the more complicated tasks that I am tracking as bigger holes in my skillset! Learning how to clean a room to hotel standards, or learning how to fix most issues with a broken toilet, or how to set up a podcast studio, or learn a new programming language, or put up a wall, are much simpler and can be learned in a few hours. Lightcone as an organization works on a very wide range of projects, and I’ve had no issues achieving basic competence at all the kinds of things we do. I don’t see any particular issue for why not at least my executives should not be able to do the same for things in their purview.
The opposite is true in most situations, for example a great salespeople will often make a bad sales manager. This is Very Common. Eg https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/micromanagers-in-the-making-why-salespeople-struggle-to-lead.
Doing the task and managing the people doing the task are separate skills, and the existence of one doesn’t imply the existence of the other.
I will take bets at high odds that there is a huge enormous correlation here. It also doesn’t align with advice from the sources I trust here.
I’m not sure how a bet could be formulated, and it’s possible that the process of formulating it would show we aren’t in disagreement.
However, I wonder if you are looking at the successful outcomes without considering the unsuccessful outcomes?
A great engineering manager is likely great at engineering. However a great engineer is unlikely to be a great engineering manager—dealing with code all day is different to dealing with people all day. Of course, some can do both (and here you see a great engineering manager who is also a great engineer). My contention is that a minority of engineers (main focus is code) are suited to be engineering managers (main focus is people).
This is essentially the Peter principle. Peter is great at something, and keeps getting promoted until he reaches the level of mediocrity, where he stops getting promoted. Peter is clearly great at position n-1, but not great at position n.