You are being downvoted but only a few years ago Google contemplated whether to kill GCP altogether because of lack of traction in the market or revenue goals.
There are some exceptional executives out there with strong vision, ability to execute and build. Those are rare. The rest are just a bunch of people who had risen to the position because of whatever. They often don't have any special knowledge or skills and succeed mostly because of how the system works. For instance, I can't imagine what one would need to do to fuck up in a company like Coca-Cola. It's super well established, supply chains are golden, everything works,etc. So does success in such a company really mean the executive is some sort of visionary genius? Absolutely no.
If a ceo can disappear for months and still return into a company that isn't on fire,it means they have a functional company. It means there are processes and people in right places to run things in a continuous manner. This isn't as common as people might think. I've seen many companies where people can't survive for a few days without ceo because the position is tied to a million things( often unnecessarily). There's an old saying about owning a business: if you leave and it still runs it means you have a business, otherwise it's just a job
I had a few company events that could easily become the foundation for one of those films where the main characters wake up in the morning in some random Asian country. No matter how crazy people go in these parties, there's always someone watching it and taking mental notes. I stopped getting too drunk in these events since I got into more senior Nowadays my aim is usually to rescue my colleagues and get them home safely:)
At risk of sounding like a grump, once I started at a company where almost everyone is partnered up and has kids, and almost everyone basically has nothing to talk about except their partners and kids, I had the perfect incentive to stay away from almost all social events. Or stick around for an hour at most because of how boring it is.
It became pretty clear that drinking culture in a lot of places develops around people having a lot in common, and certainly becomes worse when one of those things in common is 'enjoying drinking'.
I don't mind this. I had all of my 20s and most of my 30s for drinking after work. Now it's not really something I care about.
Me, I've embraced occupational pubgoing as a childless person in my forties because unlike other social activities, it is a way to avoid boring people with children. At least in my country, those men get forced to stay at home, the missus won't allow them to go out socially into the evening.
I'm yet to meet anyone even remotely associated with tech ( let's call it all IT) that is good and only cares about money. Debugging code at for 8 hours straight is most people's hell on earth but some people love it and that love doesn't come through paycheck alone.
I also happen to really enjoy computers, systems, etc. I enjoyed most of the jobs I've had, but the reason why I was there doing the job, as opposed to being at home nerding out for my benefit alone, was always the need to pay bills.
Everyone perceives the world differently. For example, I like to look for mistakes and I spot them (in a text while editing), but I have a friend who’s hopeless at that. On the other hand, he’s good at seeing projects through to the end, which is something I’m not good at.
So it really is good to find people who are a good fit for a specific position - and who, in the worst-case scenario, would do the work even for free or without anyone supervising them.
The question is whether the younger generation has grown up with the motto “money first and at any cost”… Not everyone, of course, but when I see how everything everywhere is reduced just to monetary value, it makes me feel a little down sometimes.
To be fair, my perfect job is third level teaching, but that wouldn't support me buying a house where I live, so I'm a data scientist (which I also enjoy).
Housing in particular is a driver of people optimizing for cash.
Based on their actions, virtually all successful high level executives in tech only care about money and they don't care about making good products, etc.
I did study for my undergraduate degree( design & business) full time whilst also working full time. Graduated when I was almost 30. It took me 10 years until I wanted to study anything again.
Now I'm studying part time for my masters degree( cybersec) whilst also working full time, only this time the job is very mentally draining.
Over the last couple of years I went to a few events, such as ballet, classical music concert, theatre,etc. People have no manners at all when it comes to phones. They lift them all the way up, screens on full brightness and then just record for ages. Then multiply it by hundreds and it's just awful. If It was my choice, I'd ban all phones from all events
I've been using LinkedIn for years. I'm one of those cynics who loath all those "inspirational" and "leadership" posts, but there's more than that. I've met some people who tremendously boosted my career. I've met people who later became friends and our kids play together.
I did meet a lot of incredible people in various jobs who I wouldn't have met otherwise(e.g. CEOs of very large companies- I'm just not in those circles to meet people in such positions). I'm often involved in interesting and challenging discussions on various technical and other topics.
The main point is that everyone can use it in a way they want to.It's perfectly fine to become some influencer if that's what one wants. It's equally fine to have 45 connections with people who are really good in what they do and perhaps exchange 5 messages a year. It's massive platform, so it's inevitable that there will be lots of crap out there,as in any other large forum without very strong moderation.
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