> Reminds me of one of my managers who said, “Sometimes, you have to let people fail.”

I often say "Sometimes, you have to let the manager fail."

Some managers don't like being told their ideas won't work. If you refuse or argue, you are seen as the reason his idea failed. I've found what works best with them is to proceed with the work, but keep them informed very frequently, so they can see how things evolve, and will be able to see the failure you had anticipated a long time ago before it is too late.

Then you're seen in a positive light, and he'll separate you from the project failure.

Letting people fail and letting projects fail seem fairly different to me (at least for large projects).

There have been a bunch of times in my career where I've allowed people under me to "fail". Often times, an individual failing at something is just not that expensive; while being highly educational. Sometimes, it turns out that there approach actually worked, and we as a group gained a new bit of institutional knowledge.

Letting people learn the hard way is a risky endeavour because you have to trust they’re aware of themselves, and they’re not coasting on your support.

Gotta accept that a likely outcome is that they do fail and they don’t learn and you have to let them go. But if you tried to support them beforehand, did what you could, at least you can have a clear conscience.

> Reminds me of one of my managers who said, “Sometimes, you have to let people fail.”

Yup -- I've learned a lot from my failures. Far be it for me to deny others that experience. Assuming their failures won't result in the company imploding or other serious harm, of course.

I’ve never worked in big tech, but I have seen the same dynamics play out in much smaller orgs.

If you’re constantly nitpicking and expressing concerns, you become “that person” who’s constantly negative about other people’s ideas. After a while people tune out; they already know that you’ll find “problems.” We all know these people. No one really likes working with them. Thus they’re _not effective_ at what they’re trying to do.

Ultimately you mostly get credit for shipping things that work, and only rarely for preventing the mistakes of other people.

At its core, what the blog post is saying is: keep your powder dry for when it matters. Not every problem is going to make the company insolvent. Not every concern will prove correct. Pick your battles strategically.

It’s good advice no matter the size or nature of the org.

It depends on the context. If you're with a small organization and you're interacting with the project early in the development, it could well be your duty to explain your misgivings and why you think they should do things differently. If you're with a large organization and the project is already underway, it's going to take a lot of time and effort to redirect the project. That's time and effort that could probably be spent more productively elsewhere.

> If I see something heading toward failure, I let people know they may want to consider a different approach.

This is what I do as well, in writing. Then I drop it. Professionalism demands that I say something. That's part of what I'm being paid to do. But experience has taught me that it's almost certainly not going to change anything, so I just do my duty and move on.

The point the author is making is somewhat maligned by the title "... let bad projects fail".

The point the author makes is that sometimes you are not in control of those projects. Therefore "letting them fail" seems a false choice constructed by the author.

A better title "You don't know what other people are doing and you don't know why unless it is your job to do so."

I think this is the best take. If you know better speak up (assuming you don't get penalized for that). But anytime you feel the pain, refrain. Don't carry the weight of the world upon your shoulders. You spoke up and if they did not heed your advice that's not your problem.

How well has that worked? Has it backfired?

I think you both are right in different ways.

you can do your best to play it smart. perhaps following this direct advice isn't wise but something tweaked to your own understnading of it is likely the option. I agree with the post. a way id reword it is "don't get too deep into politics, take a step back instead and assess the trade-offs of being involved or not"

>If I see something heading toward failure, I let people know they may want to consider a different approach. That’s it. There’s no need to be harsh or belabor the point but it’s better to speak up than to quietly watch a train wreck unfold.

Yes, it seems cruel and also counter to ensuring the org succeeds. Your perceived ability as an engineer might go up if your colleagues fail, but your colleagues failing when you knew a possible way for things to go better is harmful to your org's goals and culture. It only takes a small few failures for the bar to be lowered to the point that you yourself may not want to work there.

Even sometimes when other people's projects are NOT your problem and they aren't seeking feedback, sometimes you SHOULD make their flaws your problem if it is of crucial importance to your org. Knowing when you should expend your energy on an initiative like that is in itself a mark of seniority.

The blog itself mentions this a bit.

Humans think this way. This isn't a cultural thing, it's human nature. We like positive people and dislike negative people. Ignoring the fact that political capital is a thing won't make it go away.

Even in startups, sometimes you’ve just got to let the consequences of the things you’ve warned about happen.

I’ve lost too much sleep and fought too many battles and lost too much clout over the years trying to make sure bad things didn’t happen. “Nobody could have foreseen this” is still said, even if there’s a ton of evidence, recommendations, pleading, etc, to keep it from happening.

Not always. I had to learn early in my career that sometimes when the founder says they want your honest opinion on something, your expertise, they're lying and just what you to affirm their ideas. You don't, they get mad, and eventually they have to do a layoff or fire you, simply for disagreeing

Everyone likes to pretend it doesn't happen. But ask around and you'll find many people have experienced it

No I'm not. Because the people who need this mentality shift are also people who won't listen anyway and have a negative attitude. And the people who already understand this don't need to see this article.

Allowing people to bet against projects creates some perverse incentives, like encouraging someone to actively sabotage a project. It can create some very toxic conflict within an organization.

brb taking out a 10:1 bet on a new project which will print money and then rm -rf'ing all the code so i get a payout

Not sure if I read this the same way you did. At least, this didn't read at all to me as "talking shit," but rather sharing their professional opinion on the (un)likely success of the project. Keeping thoughts to yourself isn't professional, it's avoidant. Especially when it has the chance to directly affect you.

If someone shits on the floor, sometimes you have to let it sit and stink until someone else makes them clean it up.

If you clean it up, you're taking responsibility for it that might not be yours to take, and in an organization with many managers, that can permanently wreck your chances for advancement if those above you perceived your involvement as intruding on their territory, or trying to make them look bad, or trying to make the culprit look bad, and so on, and so forth.

Rarely is it "wow, there was a problem and they fixed it, without even being asked!"

Organizations that are rational and have good management let people take responsibility like that, and it's a good thing. Most organizations are not like that, and the bigger they get, the more likely it is you'll have an adversarial, territorial, hyper-political environment with saccharine smiles and backstabbing, and doing anything that even hints at negatively framing a manager, even just in their own minds, is sufficient reason to make it not your problem.

If you have good reasons to fix it, or if it's your problem for reasons that make management look good, you have the opportunity to fix an issue and be appreciated for it. Otherwise, it's just not worth jumping on other teams' grenades.

It'd be nice if everyone was rational and competent and secure and anti-fragile, but humans kinda suck in groups.

Having worked with both kinds, I have generally preferred three-dimensional human beings to cut-outs from a compliance training manual. Being fundamentally kind and collaborative is prerequisite, of course. But so is having a modicum of spite, misanthropy, pettiness, irony, and dark humor. An appreciation for the tragic sense of life. How do you get through the day if all you get from your coworkers are patriotic slogans?

The entire post devolved into a treatise on playing politics and trading political capital in a specific corporate culture.

I’ve seen people who played the game well at Google or Amazon fall completely flat on their ass at a different company, thinking the game hasn’t changed (or that there even is a game), barely lasting a few months on the C suite before being softly moved along.

If you read his article he said he is from Google.

What shit did he talk about the team's leader? "That project is going to fail" is talking shit? Nothing could be more objective than that.

unfortunately this is the reality of politics esp in big tech companies

I wonder if they really learned that, at least in a durable way. They probably learned "oh this geoblock thing isn't as simple as we thought." But consultation is dilution of decision-making power, and that's what upper management lives for.

> Not your company not your problem.

Simple as that. You can offer people your opinion on the matter but that's it. Some people invest way too much on what is essentially someone else's business. You are a replaceable cog, never forget that.

I don't understand this point of view. Most of the people aren't wasting their time. They're getting paid for the effort. The business is taking a risk, and pays people to realize their vision. Some visions are bad.

Getting personally attached and emotionally invested in work you get paid for is a risk too. There's nothing wrong with that. But there's also nothing wrong putting your time in and churning out requirements if that's what you want.

You can voice your concerns, but should not go fighting, especially at personal cost. It could be that you may be wrong in your assessment, and the project turns out to be successful, or it could be that you may have been right for the wrong reasons, or it could be that you were right all along. In any case, you are part of a company, and that means recognizing that yours is only one of many opinions driving strategy and allocating resources. If you find your self often needing to stand up against others for your beliefs, then you are probably not in the right company.

There’s also the possibility that you’re not omniscient and the project succeeds.

> A bunch of people wasting years of their life, not to mention all the resources, is a tragedy worth avoiding.

Is it? We live in a world in which social safety nets are eroding; an economically-divided one in which the middle class is rapidly disappearing.

These things (e.g. bullshit projects/jobs) are a form of "white collar welfare", no?

That's not bad. It's not like we're actually going to fix the underlying problem.

Perhaps another bored patent clerk will use his downtime to change the world.

Honestly, I don’t even know that letting it die is self serving except at big companies which can suffer repeated failures.

Depending on scale, a couple large train wrecks may take the company out and leave you unemployed.

> it's more ethical to stand up for what's right even at personal cost.

Employment is a business transaction not a transaction based on ethics viewpoints

How do you know it's right? You can't run the same experiment of life twice so you only get one shot