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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

The few times I was involved in some outsourcing the outsourcing company was contractually obliged to actually be the one doing the work. Not that folks might not cheat and get away with it, but there were financial implications and a somewhat close working relationship that meant that ... it would have been hard to fake.

In this case does the original company just not care at all?

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The subcontracting situation reminds me of a news article about someone in China hiring a hitman, the hitman then subcontracted to another hitman, who then subcontracted to another, then another, then another. Each hitman was offered half the money of the upstream. The last hitman defected and informed the target.

That's very telling as far as how outsourcing changes incentives.

My experience with outsourcing has always been it becomes a contract game / poor incentives based around contract metrics and in the end a complete waste of money.

I would be surprised if the same wasn't the case here. Any half competent legal department would at least have it be part of their contract that the subcontractor can't outsource to parties with whom the contracting party is not allowed to cooperate.

But how do you verify who does the work? Contracts are nice and all, but how do you make sure they are followed?

You can put someone at your partner’s location, have a trusted third party audit them, etc. Companies don’t like to spend the money but that’s true of every safeguard against misconduct and society is almost always better off for the investment.

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