Stealing the Corner Office

What Hacker News says

1. anonreeeeplorJan 2024
   The books that have helped me the most have been about office politics and how and why people get jealous and who does well and why.

   The best book I ever read was “stealing the corner office.”

   I know people who are naturally intuitive and empathetic. They look at another person and go: “oh she is angry because her cat is sick.”

   And I go “how the fuxk did you know that?”

   More normal people have a sense sort of like this. I do not have this at all. The behavior and emotions of people are this continuous mystery.

   If some VP is super angry, I can’t understand why.

   Someone with more normal understand goes: yeah he is under a lot of pressure so that is normal just be more relaxed etc.

   Corporations are confusing.

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2. phendrenad2Apr 2022
   I've never met a 10x engineer. (Does that make me the 10x engineer? I doubt it).

   Personally I believe that the myth of the 10x engineer comes from the very real and very visible fact that often times, one engineer will be 10x as productive as someone sitting in the next desk over. Why is this? There are numerous factors, and certainly innate skill and programming practice come into play. But I think that only gets you to, at maximum, 2x the average. To get to the perceived "10x" you need luck, the right mindset, and a the buy-in from management to push others aside and take on the most juicy projects (which is self-reinforcing once management sees you as a "10x engineer"). "Stealing the Corner Office" is a good book on such tactics (although it ostensibly applies to middle-managers).

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3. chris_jDec 2020
   Stealing The Corner Office by Brandon Reid was very useful for me. The premise of the book is that there are certain behaviours that you need to exhibit in order to get ahead at work (other than actually doing a good job and producing for your employer) and that you'd better know what they are so that someone else doesn't get ahead at your expense.
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4. kamaalFeb 2019
   Robert Greene's books: The 48 Laws of Power, The Art of Seduction, The 33 Strategies of War, The 50th Law, and The Laws of Human Nature.

   Stealing the Corner office by Brendan Reid

   Assorted works of Niccolo Machiavelli and Balatazar Gracian.

   It will be hard to impossible to make transition even after reading these books, but at least you can detect and avoid problems at work. Or at best set up a firewall around you.

   Lastly expecting goodness from people is wrong. The fact of the matter is people are bad and do what is good in their interests even if it hurts the whole world, be prepared, be ready and have means to take care of yourself.

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5. dangroverNov 2018
   Aside from Dale Carnegie, I found "Stealing the Corner Office" very useful (despite the cornball title).
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6. tenpoundhammerSep 2018
   This is an excellent general framework for upping your game in software development within the context of a decent sized software engineering organization. I've stumbled my way into much of this advice over the past 2-3 years.

   One caveat is that much of the advice is predicated on having a supportive environment.

   For Example, > Application development is a team sport. Period. Full stop.

   What if you work in an environment where people primarily work on their own? I have done a lot of that in the past.

   > For many, the best way to learn is to teach.

   What if there aren't feasible opportunities to teach or your management pushes a pace that makes it not plausible?

   > Create side projects

   There are managers that support the idea of doing side project but not the execution.

   I'm sure you can find more examples of suggestions that aren't plausible in your environment.

   Here is my answer to these examples, I wasn't just complaining. If you don't have opportunities to fulfill sections of this framework that you feel you are lacking in, do it anyway. If your manager tells you not to spend time learning and improving ignore them. Do it anyway.

   You might say, "that's fine for you Mr. internet commenter, but I'm the one that has to take the risk". Well, that's true but I've already done it. Here were my results.

   Did exactly what my management asked me to do for two straight years. All reviews for two years were "Meets expectations" with a long list of things I should improve.

   One year ago, I read a book with an abhorrent title but good information "stealing the corner office"

   I stopped listening to what my manager told me to do and instead I picked up random side projects with little to no perceived business value for my team, spent 10x more time reading code and made commits in projects I shouldn't be working on, and started spending a lot more time understanding basic fundamentals of software engineering.

   Have had "exceeds expectations" on every review since and glowing praise.

   It's counter-intuitive but, don't give the people what they ask for, give them what they want!

   Note: I got a bit carried away on this comment, I should have mentioned that in reality I spend 10 - 20 % of my time working rogue, and the rest of my time doing what my boss tells me.

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