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Comment by Thaxll | Hacker News Reader

From what I heard from ex employee working at Valve it's not what you think it is. i.e: it's very political.

I'm not surprised by that. In every company power/influence come from a mixture of politics and formal hierarchy, so it makes sense that if you remove the latter the former would take over. That said, with the right culture office politics might be a more effective meritocracy than a formal hierarchy.

I wonder if they have any internal initiatives to remove cognitive biases that causes many of the negative parts of office politics.

Any group of more than 2 people is always "political" :)

There's a reason all Olympic sports where you can interact with your opponents only have 2 teams/opponents facing off at the same time.

Cycling. Although that rather proves your point as politics are most definitely on-show there.

Does Olympic cycling have more than two teams against each other at the same time?

The Tour de France, on the other hand, like Formula 1, is very political.

Yeah absolutely it does - the omnium on the track features events, such as the elimination race, with all countries represented at the same time, as does the road race. The road race is particularly interesting as while it is officially national teams that participate, there also sometimes exist looser bonds between riders of the same pro-team.

I'm good with olimpic gold medalists in rowing and i think there isn't much politics there. Especially between teams.

It wouldn't even make sense to involve politics in sports (yes i know football, basketball and such..) as the competition is to find out who is the best and not who is the best connected.

How are you interacting with opponents in rowing? Can you hit them over the head with an oar?

By politics I mean that you can cooperate with a part of your opponents to side line some of the other opponents.

>How are you interacting with opponents in rowing? Can you hit them over the head with an oar?

Words can hurt more then an oar. :) Either way you'd have to hit them really hard for them to care (they train insanely hard).

>By politics I mean that you can cooperate with a part of your opponents to side line some of the other opponents.

I feel i can safely say that that doesn't happen in rowing. At least for the team i know i am sure that they wouldn't "take a dive" (or even think about it; same for their trainer).

> Any group of more than 2 people is always "political"

Agree with your statement on its own. In this context, "political" likely means loyalty is valued over competence.

Politics is the allocation of power. And a synonym for power is the ability to make decisions.

When you've got a limited resource (eg, the time of 300 employees), allocation of that resource is guaranteed to be political, precisely because there will be competing interests which need to be resolved. The question is whether the company comes up with healthy method for making these decisions.

On the face of it, this seems like a reasonable comment. But it has basically no relationship to reality:

    Many track cycling events
    Road cycling
    Every track event
    Marathon
    Marathon swimming
    Triathlon
    Sailing

This is a non-exhaustive list off the top of my head. They all involve tactical interaction with a group of opponents.

I'm totally in the dark here. How are you interacting (legally) with other competitors during a marathon?

Run an 800m by yourself and then with your friend who's really into running. You'll do better the second time since you'll push yourself to be as good as he/she.

I'm still kind of in the dark. Are you saying that during a marathon there will be some "sacrificial" runners (I think they're called "rabbits")? That's like playing in a team, they're not really opponents.

You can't interact with the real opponents, as far as I know.

So, there are a few things:

1. Drafting has benefits

2. Different runners have different strengths. Some have a stronger kick at the end of the race, some have a weaker kick but can maintain a higher pace.

One example of how this can play out in a marathon (and, to a greater extent, in something like the 5000) is that a runner who has a faster overall potential but a weaker finishing kick wants the pace to be run at a higher tempo. However, if the runner tries to do this unilaterally, weaker athletes may be able to draft and use the physical and mental benefits to hang on, before winning using their kick.

However, if there are multiple endurance oriented athletes, they're typically more able to enforce a higher tempo throughout the run that will drop those athletes that have a stronger kick.

You'll often notice this in the 5000, where the winning time might be well below the personal or seasonal bests of many of the participating runners. Tactics prevent them from running their optimal race, and then a stronger kicking runner wins.

rabbits are generally used for time trials/record attempts. if a runner wanted to try for a 4 minute mile, they would have a rabbit run 2 or 3 laps evenly, at slightly better than 4 minute pace (say 800 in 1:58 or 1200 in 2:57). this allows the other racers to draft off the rabbit, as well as focus on running even splits so they have as much energy as possible for the final sprints.

rabbits in marathons are pretty rare (to my knowledge?) though

for the most part a marathon is pack running, which has many aspects that you can compare to politics. for example the overall pace - if you think you can outsprint the pack, it's better to force a slower pace, and the reverse if you think you're gonna get outsprinted, force a faster pace or create separation.

in particular, if there are multiple runners from one country, they can/will take turns running in front of the other. this allows them to share the cost of breaking wind and creating draft, allowing the other to coast. if you have this kind of relationship you conserve energy which is sort of important when you need to run 26.2 ~4:40 miles in a row.

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