<story><title>Why are CEOs failing software engineers?</title><url>https://iism.org/article/why-are-ceos-failing-software-engineers-56</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway86442</author><text>Throwaway because I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if Disney retaliated because of this post.&lt;p&gt;As a person who recently joined the Disney org not by choice, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t wish Disney on my worst enemies. Seems like OP bought into Disney&amp;#x27;s propaganda hook, line, and sinker.&lt;p&gt;Take the CFO types example and dial that to 19. You can&amp;#x27;t even buy a sandwich without Disney corporate asking for the ROI of it. Want to use a different programming language? An OSS library? A SASS vendor? Please get approvals from legal and finance with ROI estimates. Nevermind the yearly dance to justify why engineers you already have should still stay on payroll. Contracts and employment are cancelled by default at the end of the year unless management makes a case on ROI for every head. Software projects to them are like movies, once it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;done&amp;quot;, the people involved can kindly fuck right off.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t just limited to the technology side, I have friends throughout the creative side in both film and parks divisions. Every hour of their time has to be accounted for and approved up the management chain, every project must be forecast with sufficient ROI before start, and will be cancelled without notice the moment it there&amp;#x27;s a hint of missing expectations.&lt;p&gt;Even getting a H1-B replacement is luxury that you have to fight for. H1-B is still more expensive than a contractor in a developing country under one of Disney&amp;#x27;s international divisions.&lt;p&gt;The magic of Disney is the boatloads of people who continue to _want_ to work for Disney despite all this.</text></item><item><author>save_ferris</author><text>Within the last 5-10 years, Disney outsourced entire technology divisions using the H1-B visa program and forced employees to train their replacements for their last 90 days or forgo severance.&lt;p&gt;A former Disney IT employee testified before Congress, at times crying while he recounted the experience of being let go and having to personally train his replacement.[0]&lt;p&gt;Whatever Walt Disney was doing back in the day doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to apply anymore, at least based on your description of what a successful creative company looks like. To me, this looks ruthless and manipulative.&lt;p&gt;0: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.computerworld.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;3038292&amp;#x2F;former-disney-it-worker-to-congress-how-can-you-allow-this.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.computerworld.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;3038292&amp;#x2F;former-disney-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jedberg</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m surprised they didn&amp;#x27;t look at Walt Disney for how to run a successful creative company.  His ideas apply equally well to software as they do to the arts.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been watching the documentaries on Disney+, particularly The Imagineering Story (great doc BTW).  They talk about the history of the creative side of Disneyland.&lt;p&gt;What you learn is that when they are simply given a budget and told &amp;quot;build&amp;quot; they thrive.  When a CFO type gets involved with Disney, suddenly their output drops, because that CEO is asking what the ROI is for everything they do.  A lot of what they do fails and has no ROI, and the people that work there start to worry about what their ROI will be before they start working.&lt;p&gt;When the CEO just says &amp;quot;We&amp;#x27;re going to spend X% on research, here is the budget&amp;quot; then they thrive again.&lt;p&gt;I think this is applicable to software.  When an engineer isn&amp;#x27;t asked to think about the ROI ahead of time, they are left free to come up with novel innovations.  But if they know they will be judged on ROI, they will take fewer risks.&lt;p&gt;This of course is all predicated on being a profitable company.  You have to already have a good cashflow to have the freedom to say &amp;quot;just go create&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AndrewUnmuted</author><text>You are very cool for speaking out like this, so I&amp;#x27;ll follow your example. A company I worked at went through the Disney Accelerator [0] and had an absolutely horrendous time of it.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The magic of Disney is the boatloads of people who continue to _want_ to work for Disney despite all this.&lt;p&gt;YES. This nails it. Disney&amp;#x27;s unique capability is its ability to churn out its &amp;quot;magical&amp;quot; content while conceiving of human capital in this dreadful way. They&amp;#x27;ve figured out how to extract beauty and precision out of people while not having to return the favor in any meaningful way. They treat their janitor the same way they treat their janitor&amp;#x27;s mop.&lt;p&gt;They seem to conceive of their customers in the same sort of way. When people buy tickets to a showing of a Disney film in theaters, how many of their customers realize they are also having their eyes tracked by Disney? [1]&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;disneyaccelerator.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;disneyaccelerator.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;
[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bizjournals.com&amp;#x2F;orlando&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;how-disney-plans-to-track-guests-eyes-to-improve.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bizjournals.com&amp;#x2F;orlando&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;how-disn...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Why are CEOs failing software engineers?</title><url>https://iism.org/article/why-are-ceos-failing-software-engineers-56</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway86442</author><text>Throwaway because I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if Disney retaliated because of this post.&lt;p&gt;As a person who recently joined the Disney org not by choice, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t wish Disney on my worst enemies. Seems like OP bought into Disney&amp;#x27;s propaganda hook, line, and sinker.&lt;p&gt;Take the CFO types example and dial that to 19. You can&amp;#x27;t even buy a sandwich without Disney corporate asking for the ROI of it. Want to use a different programming language? An OSS library? A SASS vendor? Please get approvals from legal and finance with ROI estimates. Nevermind the yearly dance to justify why engineers you already have should still stay on payroll. Contracts and employment are cancelled by default at the end of the year unless management makes a case on ROI for every head. Software projects to them are like movies, once it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;done&amp;quot;, the people involved can kindly fuck right off.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t just limited to the technology side, I have friends throughout the creative side in both film and parks divisions. Every hour of their time has to be accounted for and approved up the management chain, every project must be forecast with sufficient ROI before start, and will be cancelled without notice the moment it there&amp;#x27;s a hint of missing expectations.&lt;p&gt;Even getting a H1-B replacement is luxury that you have to fight for. H1-B is still more expensive than a contractor in a developing country under one of Disney&amp;#x27;s international divisions.&lt;p&gt;The magic of Disney is the boatloads of people who continue to _want_ to work for Disney despite all this.</text></item><item><author>save_ferris</author><text>Within the last 5-10 years, Disney outsourced entire technology divisions using the H1-B visa program and forced employees to train their replacements for their last 90 days or forgo severance.&lt;p&gt;A former Disney IT employee testified before Congress, at times crying while he recounted the experience of being let go and having to personally train his replacement.[0]&lt;p&gt;Whatever Walt Disney was doing back in the day doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to apply anymore, at least based on your description of what a successful creative company looks like. To me, this looks ruthless and manipulative.&lt;p&gt;0: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.computerworld.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;3038292&amp;#x2F;former-disney-it-worker-to-congress-how-can-you-allow-this.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.computerworld.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;3038292&amp;#x2F;former-disney-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>jedberg</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m surprised they didn&amp;#x27;t look at Walt Disney for how to run a successful creative company.  His ideas apply equally well to software as they do to the arts.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve been watching the documentaries on Disney+, particularly The Imagineering Story (great doc BTW).  They talk about the history of the creative side of Disneyland.&lt;p&gt;What you learn is that when they are simply given a budget and told &amp;quot;build&amp;quot; they thrive.  When a CFO type gets involved with Disney, suddenly their output drops, because that CEO is asking what the ROI is for everything they do.  A lot of what they do fails and has no ROI, and the people that work there start to worry about what their ROI will be before they start working.&lt;p&gt;When the CEO just says &amp;quot;We&amp;#x27;re going to spend X% on research, here is the budget&amp;quot; then they thrive again.&lt;p&gt;I think this is applicable to software.  When an engineer isn&amp;#x27;t asked to think about the ROI ahead of time, they are left free to come up with novel innovations.  But if they know they will be judged on ROI, they will take fewer risks.&lt;p&gt;This of course is all predicated on being a profitable company.  You have to already have a good cashflow to have the freedom to say &amp;quot;just go create&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rs23296008n1</author><text>This explains the recent Star Wars movies then. Well, possibly except one.&lt;p&gt;Belt tightening like that is usually the sign that the MBAs took over. This is fine up to a point except when they start running a financial services enterprise instead of ... whatever you&amp;#x27;d call they had before. Animation media entertainment company?&lt;p&gt;I wonder when the rot set in. The creativity out of Disney is now matching Hollywood baseline and that has been dropping significantly. They&amp;#x27;re buying major franchies rather than creating them. I think this strategy is biting them. Too much financial analysis. They are losing the sharp creative edge.&lt;p&gt;Or is this my view, not based on insider knowledge, and completely inaccurate?</text></comment>