{"id":6414,"date":"2022-01-31T12:34:45","date_gmt":"2022-01-31T10:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/escp.eu\/thechoice\/?p=6414"},"modified":"2023-02-17T16:51:48","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T14:51:48","slug":"lab-rats-management-misery-made-in-silicon-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/escp.eu\/thechoice\/tl-dr\/lab-rats-management-misery-made-in-silicon-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Lab rats: management misery made in Silicon Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cFirst, you are lucky to be here. [\u2026] You are serving a short-term tour of duty. [\u2026] Your job will be stressful. [\u2026] You will be monitored and surveilled. We will read your emails and chat messages, and use data to measure performance. [\u2026] You may be fired for no reason at all. We do not offer a creche. We do have ping-pong. There are snacks and beer in the kitchen.\u201d Welcome to your new job!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this preamble to his latest book, Lab rats \u2013 why modern work makes people miserable<\/a>, technology analyst Dan Lyons gives us a taste of the celebrated management styles of the American West.<\/mark> In particular those of the big digital companies, which he calls the \u201csweatshops\u201d of Silicon Valley. The least we can say is that the portrait he paints of them hardly elicits the admiration we usually hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who can actually survive and thrive from it come out as diamonds.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

To do this, Lyons contrasts two sets of facts:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

–           Firstly, he mentions the arrogance and over-inflated egos of the \u201cnew oligarchs\u201d of Silicon Valley.<\/mark>
He denounces the contradictory nature of some discourses<\/strong> such as those entrepreneurs who advocate for the democratisation for the democratisation American politics, when it comes to their own business, create different classes of stock allowing them to run their empire like \u201cbenevolent dictators.\u201d

He also notes the terrible statement of Uber’s chief technical officer who, six months after the suicide of a software engineer, compared working for that company to the way diamonds are formed, by being \u201ccompressed with heat and pressure for thousands of years. Those who can actually survive and thrive from it come out as diamonds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also invalidates Netflix’s HR policy, which proclaims to be \u201ca team, not a family,\u201d<\/strong> and which, in his view, tends to ignore the psychological consequences for those who have to pack up overnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, as research by an organizational psychologist from KU Leuven<\/a> quoted by Lyons points out, \u201cjob insecurity correlates with diminished creativity, lower overall performance and productivity, and higher levels of workplace bullying.\u201d<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, he disqualifies alternative management methods which have appeared in recent years such as Agile<\/a> and Lean Startup<\/a>. Holacracy<\/a> \u201cis like a version of those things if they were put into a blender, mixed with LSD and packaged by Charles Manson.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The very people [\u2026] who say they want to make the world a better place are actually building a world that sometimes seems worse.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

–           In the face of so much hubris and self-celebration on the part of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the journalist notes that according to Gallup<\/a>, only 13 percent of workers feel \u201cengaged\u201d – meaning enthusiastic at work and committed to their companies – worldwide<\/strong>, which is, after all, very little.
He also notes that many of the large US digital companies are not particularly profitable or well run.<\/mark> According to Lyons, they are often managed by personalities who have no science of organisational behaviour, only knowing how to take their company public and how to walk away with the spoils. Tesla, Spotify, Dropbox, Snap, Docusign, all listed companies, are losing money says Lyons, sometimes in large amounts, often for a long time. Same thing with Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Slack, Pinterest or WeWork, except that they remain unlisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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