Bruce F. Webster

Another word for "Clamming Up" is "The Thermocline of Truth."

https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the-themocline-of-truth/

"Clamming Up" because of power dynamics is inherent to hierarchy. This is why relationships with co-founders and employees need to be nurtured carefully. It's the same set of dynamics that happen inside a band.

If you always want candid advice, honest feedback, and critical though unpleasant information to flow freely and undistorted, then you must remember that actions speak louder than words. If someone tried to tell you something you really need to hear, though you may not have wanted to hear it, what did you do? How did you react? It's not enough to just say that you're for honesty and openness. It's not enough to say you value someone's opinion. You have to actually do that!

Did you counter-attack? Did you order your underling to never speak of "it" again? Did you use the differential in power to just shut-up and shut-off? If you were asked to give a detailed account of what the other person had to say, would they be satisfied that you gave a full and fair account of what they were trying to convey? Would you even be able to recall such details, or would your account be sketchy and vague?

Paying your employees well and having a great environment is actually a double-edged sword, here. What happens, if one day, your early employee comes to you with something they know you don't want to hear, and you react badly? What if you…

In far too many organizations, there is something called "the thermocline of truth".

> A thermocline is a distinct temperature barrier between a surface layer of warmer water and the colder, deeper water underneath. It can exist in both lakes and oceans. A thermocline can prevent dissolved oxygen from getting to the lower layer and vital nutrients from getting to the upper layer.

> In many large or even medium-sized IT projects, there exists a thermocline of truth, a line drawn across the organizational chart that represents a barrier to accurate information regarding the project’s progress. Those below this level tend to know how well the project is actually going; those above it tend to have a more optimistic (if unrealistic) view.

In the more Machiavellian companies that I have worked for, this would be a layer on the org chart where truth stops flowing upwards. It may also affect downwards flow of information as well. The brass at the top don't know what is going on because they can't depend on the layers of management between the CxO tier and where work actually gets done.

> is it really the job of the CEO to dig that deep on technical issues

No. You - as CEO - should be able to trust the people in those layers. Maybe BillG didn't trust them. Or he didn't know how to. He was technically excellent enough to be able to do this sort of sanity check for himself. Perhaps, as CEO, you only need to do this sort of "quality control" check occasionally.

Any organization…

Still there. Contributing to OSS (golang) + studying theory I missed because I didn't do compsci at uni. Once I hit the 40/50 patch count and have good algo/os knowledge I reckon I should be better placed to be attractive job-wise. Several failed 'views have seriously hit my confidence, but I am working on fixing obvious areas of deficiency.

A lot of the problem is that the stuff you build can't necessarily happen at the place you're at - if all your place do is db frontends and your coworkers produce endless spaghetti, anything you produce is going to be subsumed by that.

Another issue which is rarely spoken about is the atmosphere of the development environment - if people are on edge/insecure/[deadsea-ers][1] things can get nasty quick, and there is nothing better at pulling down your confidence.

I have come to the conclusion that you have to build your own positive output because you love it, and let the career-enhancing aspects act as a side-effect. I adore this stuff, that's why I'm doing it.

It is often frustrating though - I am 29, 30 in September and it is difficult not to feel trapped. The negative aspects of the job make it harder to do the positive stuff necessary to get out - got to work hard to keep your head above the water.

[1]:http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/

Two of the best software engineers I've ever hired (and worked with) did not have college degrees (one only had a GED for high school). But they were both highly talented and came highly recommended from people I trusted.

No, getting a CS degree doesn't guarantee that you're talented; far from it. However, it does show that you have enough aptitude to make it through a CS program, and it lessens the chance that you'll spend my time re-inventing -- or, worse yet, ignoring -- foundational concepts in computer science and software engineering.

Here are some more of my thoughts on the subject of hiring IT engineers:

http://brucefwebster.com/2008/01/10/the-wetware-crisis-tepes/

http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/14/the-longest-yard-reorganizing-it-for-success/

(and thanks to dmv for the link to my 'Dead Sea' post, which is what led me here). ..bruce..

It's easy for old, incumbent companies to become ossified, where their internal culture and bureaucracy and processes are hilariously inefficient. At any given time, there will be some people pushing back on that, but there will always be more people there who are okay with it -- because the ones who couldn't handle the ossification left, while the people who were okay with it stayed. Survivorship bias, in other words; sometimes this is called the Dead Sea effect: https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/ (this article talks about it in terms of IT competence, but you can easily apply it to other aspects of a business' culture)

That's why it's so important for it to be easy for new entrants to start up in an economic sector. You need them to pressure the old guard, or failing that, to replace them.

They're not contradictory at all. People who present themselves as PHP developers tend to have a set of common differences from people who present themselves as Ruby or Python developers. That doesn't mean that the competent among both groups are incapable of quickly switching languages. It might mean that the percentage of competent developers is different between the two groups. It's basically the Dead Sea Effect[1], but with languages. Generally better developers will want to use better languages. That shouldn't be surprising. Hopefully we don't have to rehash the argument about the fact that some languages are better than others, since we're on HN and pg has covered that point in great depth.

[1] http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/