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Comment by marginalia_nu | Hacker News Reader

"AI is the Vietnam of product management" is a blog post that almost writes itself. Not really my field so if anyone wants to take it for a spin, go ham.

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Is AI the Vietnam of Product Management in the same way that Object-Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science?

https://web.archive.org/web/20220823105749/http://blogs.tedn...

Yeah that's what I was alluding to.

A classic of its era, thanks! And there's something enduring about the basic issue of integrating systems that are fundamentally misaligned.

Have ChatGPT write it

This isn’t AI specific though. The whole industry runs this way because thoughtful decision making doesn’t scale easily. KPIs are easier.

Kinda weird though, like with many things in the industry we seem to be doing things that are far from optimal, but for some reasons organizations that do things differently aren't winning the competition.

Ostensibly most successful software is written in languages that aren't very good, with development methodologies that aren't very good, in organizational structures that aren't very good. Where is the existence proof? Why isn't software written in a good language, using a good methodology with sane management winning the race?

because quality has never been the driver of survival. It has always survival. The race is a race of endurance, it's not a competition on merits. Humans would undoubtedly be better without scars, but the same anomaly that gave us scar tissue, gave us faster wound healing. Increasing survival. But scars don't go away, when it'd be better if they did. There's no selection pressure there because it's good enough. IBM still exists despite it's inability to make good decisions, it makes decisions that allow it to survive. It could just as easily make different decisions, and I would have named a different company. Not because it made different decisions, but because it survived. Why do companies that survive make these weird decisions? They don't, there is no back pressure. Decisions don't matter, survival does.

The race isn't a competition, it's a death march. If you want to 'win' the death march, prioritize survival above everything else, especially quality and correctness.

(I don't strictly follow this philosophy myself, a good engineer will always ask, why not both. Just make sure you identify endurance as the most important strategy)

This seems like an orthogonal concern. I don't see why quality and correctness would anti-correlate with survivability. I'll ask the same question again, out of all the highly survivable businesses, why are so many seemingly dysfunctional.

That orthogonalality is my exact point. I believe you're correct; quality and correctness aren't negative pressures to survival. If anything, the should support survival, and I'd assume should also have a slight positive pressure on adoption/growth.

But I'd hope you'd admit quality and correctness aren't free attributes? They do have a cost. I can churn out low quality code way faster than I can produce code I'm proud of. If I attach myself to the quality of the code, and get stumped by some bug, become frustrated, and take a break from project_a, to work on something else, and while working on project_b to "clear my mind", I fall in love with project_b, or it gets more popular, or whatever that "pressure" happens to be... project_a has no remaining developers, and it is still dead now. Thus, quality has had a negative impact on it's survival.

Suitability has a tenuous connection and dependence on quality and correctness. (which I believe are synonyms for the same core idea?)

But why are so many businesses (the ones that still survive) so demoralizingly dysfunctional? Because they're run by individuals who don't value quality and correctness above [other attribute]. When given the choice to increase money (which is effectively the exact same thing as market share, and when talking about survival popularity is the same thing as suitability), or increase quality. They will always make the decision that ensures their survival, (by chance, no by intent, that's the orthogonality). Eventually, they'll turn that knob too far, degrade their quality enough and create an ecological niche for someone else to take over. (A competitor that maybe they acquire before it causes a real risk to it's survival/popularity, again choosing to make money/survive, over a decision targeting quality)

Would *you* rather make money, or write something high quality? I use and love marginalia, so I think I can guess the answer. (Thank you so much for building something that actually meaningfully improves the internet btw!) Are there decisions you could make that would trade the quality to become more popular, or make more money? Yes, I'm sure, but you don't seem to be trying to become the next google.

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