The response from you on that comment is not sounding right to me, and so I present counter-arguments.
>> For the kinds of problems that require document writing at Amazon, this statement simply just isn’t true.
This needs details. I can take that what you wrote after the above are those details. :-)
>> Presentations are about the presenter, often presenting as if they are the authority figure on a topic.
Not necessarily true, as I stated in my response comment.
And you haven't yet refuted my that comment. :-)
>> As a matter of fact, they share documents to get feedback and find gaps in their thinking, or seek feedback on how they evaluated alternatives, and so on.
This can apply equally well to slides as well, as I stated before. Hence it is not helping the argument you are making.
>> The document should focus on the immediate topic, trade offs, solutions while supporting evidence or technical details, design artifacts, and FAQs etc are provided in appendices. This manner of information sharing is simply not possible in any PowerPoint or presentation slide format.
Above too is a statement you've made without giving reasoning and which you repeated in the above comment too. Can you please explicitly say why "This manner of information sharing is simply not possible in any PowerPoint or presentation slide format." and why "the necessary information ... cannot be captured in a PowerPoint deck ..."? Why cannot sections like appendices be there in slides (assuming the information has been made short and crisp to fit in a slide or a few)?
>> And the simple proof to back my statements — Amazon and everything it has accomplished at what people now call “Amazon scale”. This is literally the secret sauce.
>> Amazon, an almost $2 trillion company ..., has decided that 1 pager and 5 pager documents are critical to its success. >> What more evidence would you like? (Yes, this is a rhetorical question).
There are many aspects involved contributing to Amazon's success. Well-executed meetings using document-reviews would be one of them, however, that does not counters the points I made in my original comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27551350
I am sure that you do not consider Amazon being successful itself as a proof that document-review is better than slides (that may involve fallacies like hasty generalization, post hoc fallacy, survivor bias, and even appeals to authority).
>> for the kinds of problems we solve. Now not every problem requires a document. But many problems are intrinsically hard, and they absolutely do.
As you are the one who made this statement, the onus is on you to supply the reasoning why intrinsically hard problems requires documents over slides. I am just questioning your statement. :-) And that's where I have said that the reasoning in the middle is important (for you) to cover. :-)
>> You are "trying to do" but you didn't, nor did you outline what those flaws or oversimplifications are.
>> The only reasoning provided was that slides have worked as well or even better for you (anecdotal evidence).
I did lot more than that, did I not? :-) I have given many arguments, which you are finding irrelevant, but I am claiming to be relevant. :-) Only if you supply the reasoning behind your own arguments would you see the relevance of what I am saying. :-)
>> And finally, it doesn't facilitate readers leaving comments and questions directly inline.
PowerPoint has commenting feature too. :-)
It does not have "Track Changes" feature. I would agree if you bring that as an argument for document vs. slides. :-)
>> And no matter how you try to twist the slide medium into being more like a document by forcing an appendices section or recording notes manually – it doesn't replace the document writing process. As the author writes a document, they will get stumped on certain topics or struggle to find words to articulate a problem succinctly. This exercise helps the author discover gaps in their thinking and know immediately what areas still need to be disambiguated.
Can you pls. provide the reasoning as to why the same does not apply when an author creates slides? Whether I create a document, slides, this happens. :-)
>> I think we can end the discussion here
As you wish. :-)