1 00:00:02,800 --> 00:00:07,000 Speaker 1: Zone Media. Hello, will welcome to Better Offline. I'm your 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:21,320 Speaker 1: host ed Zitron, and welcome to the Business Idiot Trilogy. 3 00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:25,120 Speaker 1: What that means will supercome obvious. So on May fifteenth, 4 00:00:25,160 --> 00:00:28,560 Speaker 1: Bloomberg profile Microsoft CEO Sacha and Nedella, revealing that on 5 00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:31,600 Speaker 1: some level, Sacha Nadella is kind of a fucking idiot. 6 00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:34,640 Speaker 1: The article revealed that, assuming we believe him, and this 7 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:37,960 Speaker 1: wasn't a thinly veiled ad for Microsoft's AI, the Copilot 8 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:41,200 Speaker 1: consumes Nadello's life outside the office as well as at work. 9 00:00:41,520 --> 00:00:44,400 Speaker 1: He likes podcasts, but instead of listening to them with 10 00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:47,440 Speaker 1: his ears, he loads transcripts into the Copilot app on 11 00:00:47,440 --> 00:00:49,360 Speaker 1: his phone so that he can chat with the voice 12 00:00:49,360 --> 00:00:52,120 Speaker 1: assistant about the content of an episode in the car 13 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:55,200 Speaker 1: as he commutes to Redmond at the office, he relies 14 00:00:55,200 --> 00:00:57,880 Speaker 1: on Copilot to deliver summaries of messages he receives in 15 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:01,880 Speaker 1: Outlook and teams and toggles among allegedly at least ten 16 00:01:01,960 --> 00:01:04,840 Speaker 1: custom agents from Copilot Studio. Now the article does not 17 00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:08,440 Speaker 1: say what they do, doesn't seem like they bother to ask, 18 00:01:08,560 --> 00:01:12,040 Speaker 1: but he allegedly views them as his AI chiefs of staff, 19 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:16,000 Speaker 1: delegating meeting prep, research, and other tasks, again unnamed to 20 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:19,320 Speaker 1: the bots, and to quote such and Adella in this article, 21 00:01:19,319 --> 00:01:22,520 Speaker 1: he says, I'm an email typist, and he jokes about this, 22 00:01:22,640 --> 00:01:26,479 Speaker 1: noting that Copilot is thankfully very good at triaging his messages. 23 00:01:27,560 --> 00:01:29,959 Speaker 1: None of these tasks are things that require you to 24 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:33,399 Speaker 1: use AI. You can read your messages on Outlook and 25 00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:35,720 Speaker 1: teams without having them summarized, and I argue that a 26 00:01:35,720 --> 00:01:38,120 Speaker 1: well written email is one that doesn't require a summary. 27 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:42,000 Speaker 1: Podcasts are not there to be chatted too or about 28 00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:45,680 Speaker 1: with an AI. Preparing for meetings isn't something that requires AI, 29 00:01:45,800 --> 00:01:48,200 Speaker 1: nor as research, unless, of course, you don't really give 30 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:50,960 Speaker 1: a shit about the actual content of what you're reading, 31 00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:52,920 Speaker 1: of what you're saying, just that you are seeing the 32 00:01:53,000 --> 00:01:57,120 Speaker 1: right thing and that you know the facts of some kind. 33 00:01:57,320 --> 00:02:00,320 Speaker 1: To be clear, I'm deeply unconvinced that Nadella actually runs 34 00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:02,160 Speaker 1: his life in this way. But if he does, Microsoft 35 00:02:02,280 --> 00:02:05,520 Speaker 1: borgered fire him immediately. It's a mission of negligence, akin 36 00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:07,840 Speaker 1: to a taxi driver admitting easwallows a couple of glugs 37 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:11,200 Speaker 1: of cram Royale before he starts a shift. In any case, 38 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:14,160 Speaker 1: this article is rambling. It's cloying, and it ignores Microsoft 39 00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:17,640 Speaker 1: AICEO most of our soule man's documented history of abusing 40 00:02:17,680 --> 00:02:20,520 Speaker 1: his workers ten customer agents to do. What what do 41 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:24,000 Speaker 1: you mean by other toss? Why are these questions never asked? 42 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:26,280 Speaker 1: Is it because the reporters know they won't get an answer? 43 00:02:26,680 --> 00:02:28,640 Speaker 1: Is it because the reporters are too polite to ours 44 00:02:28,720 --> 00:02:31,200 Speaker 1: probe in questions, knowing that these anecdotes are likely entirely 45 00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:33,239 Speaker 1: made up as a means to promote a flagging AI 46 00:02:33,240 --> 00:02:36,200 Speaker 1: ecosystem that costs billions to construct, but that doesn't seem 47 00:02:36,240 --> 00:02:38,040 Speaker 1: to do anything, and the reporter in question doesn't want 48 00:02:38,040 --> 00:02:39,600 Speaker 1: to force Sature to build a bigger has off cuts 49 00:02:39,600 --> 00:02:45,720 Speaker 1: a sorry, sorry, I'm in my new studio all I'm 50 00:02:45,720 --> 00:02:48,040 Speaker 1: all fired up and this is a bloody long one. 51 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:51,280 Speaker 1: But really, is it because we as a society do 52 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:54,040 Speaker 1: not want to look too closely at the powerful? Is 53 00:02:54,040 --> 00:02:56,120 Speaker 1: it because we've handed our economy to men that get 54 00:02:56,200 --> 00:02:58,280 Speaker 1: paid seventy nine million dollars a year to do a 55 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:01,600 Speaker 1: job they can't seem to describe, even that they would 56 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:05,400 Speaker 1: sooner offload to a bunch of unreliable AI models they 57 00:03:05,480 --> 00:03:08,080 Speaker 1: nactually do the very small amounts of things they have 58 00:03:08,160 --> 00:03:10,640 Speaker 1: to do. Look, we live in an era of the 59 00:03:10,720 --> 00:03:14,160 Speaker 1: symbolic executive, when being good at stuff matters far less 60 00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:17,120 Speaker 1: than the appearance of doing stuff, where what's useful is 61 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:19,919 Speaker 1: dictated not by outputs or metrics that one can measure, 62 00:03:19,919 --> 00:03:22,959 Speaker 1: but rather the vibes pass between managers and executives that 63 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:25,360 Speaker 1: have worked their entire careers to escape the world of work. 64 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:28,799 Speaker 1: Our economy is run by people that don't participate in it, 65 00:03:28,880 --> 00:03:31,120 Speaker 1: and our tech companies are directed by people that don't 66 00:03:31,120 --> 00:03:33,680 Speaker 1: experience the problems they alleged to solve for their customers. 67 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:35,960 Speaker 1: As the modern executive is no longer a person with 68 00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:39,840 Speaker 1: demands or responsibilities beyond their allegiance to shareholder value, something 69 00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:42,240 Speaker 1: I went through in their Shareholder Supremacy series you can 70 00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:44,160 Speaker 1: go back to if you want, in another extremely long 71 00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:47,720 Speaker 1: series of episodes. They're bloody good though, and they're free now. 72 00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:50,560 Speaker 1: This three part series examines the phenomenon of something I 73 00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:53,360 Speaker 1: call the business idio, looking at the root causes of 74 00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:56,400 Speaker 1: the idioc and our economy itself, how they're ruining our world, 75 00:03:56,400 --> 00:03:59,440 Speaker 1: and how these idiots are enabled by an embarrassingly deferential media. 76 00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:01,400 Speaker 1: It's too afraid to say that the emperor as is 77 00:04:01,440 --> 00:04:04,360 Speaker 1: dick out, it's it's going to be long. I'll take 78 00:04:04,400 --> 00:04:06,320 Speaker 1: you on tangents, and I'll probably say fuck more than 79 00:04:06,360 --> 00:04:09,080 Speaker 1: I usually do, which I admit is a lot. But 80 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:12,840 Speaker 1: business idiots are a problem. They deserve our scrutiny and 81 00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:16,960 Speaker 1: are discussed. I, however, believe the problem of the business 82 00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:19,640 Speaker 1: idiot runs a little deeper than just the economy. Whether 83 00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:21,680 Speaker 1: things we see are merely a symptom of a bigger, 84 00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:24,920 Speaker 1: more virulent and treatment resistant plague that's infected the minds 85 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:27,719 Speaker 1: of those currently twigging at the levels of power, and 86 00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:31,640 Speaker 1: really the only levels that actually matter, the incentives behind 87 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:36,640 Speaker 1: everything we do have been broken by decades of neoliberal thinking, 88 00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:39,359 Speaker 1: where the idea of a company an entity created to 89 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:41,800 Speaker 1: do a thing in exchange for money, has been drained 90 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:44,520 Speaker 1: of all meaning beyond the continued domination and extraction of 91 00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:47,359 Speaker 1: everything around it, with their leaders now focusing heavily on 92 00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:49,600 Speaker 1: short term gains and growth at all costs. You know, 93 00:04:50,120 --> 00:04:51,760 Speaker 1: I've been over that a little bit, and I'll get 94 00:04:51,760 --> 00:04:53,919 Speaker 1: back to it in the second, aren't I. In doing so, 95 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:56,239 Speaker 1: the definition of what a good business is has changed 96 00:04:56,279 --> 00:04:58,440 Speaker 1: from one that makes good products at a fair price 97 00:04:58,480 --> 00:05:00,840 Speaker 1: with a sustainable and loyal market to one that can 98 00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:03,400 Speaker 1: display the most stock price growth from quarter to quarter. 99 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:06,880 Speaker 1: This is the rot economy, which is my useful description 100 00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:09,839 Speaker 1: of how tech companies have voluntarily degraded their core products 101 00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:13,600 Speaker 1: in order to plicate shareholders, transforming useful and sometimes beloved 102 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:16,560 Speaker 1: services into a hollow shell of their former selves as 103 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:19,279 Speaker 1: a means of expressing growth to the markets. When a 104 00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:21,600 Speaker 1: social network hides things that you want to see because 105 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:24,360 Speaker 1: they want to juce their metrics, that's the rot economy. 106 00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:27,960 Speaker 1: But it's worth noting that this transformation isn't constrained to 107 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:30,480 Speaker 1: the tech industry, nor was it a phenomena that occurred 108 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:33,680 Speaker 1: when the tech industry into its current VC fuel publicly 109 00:05:33,680 --> 00:05:37,599 Speaker 1: traded incarnation. We simply notice it more in tech because 110 00:05:37,600 --> 00:05:39,719 Speaker 1: we use tech in our personal and professional lives, and 111 00:05:39,760 --> 00:05:42,080 Speaker 1: thus it affects everyone in a way that's kind of 112 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:45,680 Speaker 1: impossible to ignore. In the shareholder Supremacy, I drew a 113 00:05:45,720 --> 00:05:48,679 Speaker 1: line from the early twentieth century court ruling which opened 114 00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:51,760 Speaker 1: that Ford must put shareholder value ahead of the interests 115 00:05:51,760 --> 00:05:54,279 Speaker 1: of its employees, though it was a bita dicta, meaning 116 00:05:54,279 --> 00:05:56,640 Speaker 1: it was just literally said by the judge, but a 117 00:05:56,640 --> 00:05:59,279 Speaker 1: lot of people ever since have taken it literally. And 118 00:05:59,320 --> 00:06:02,400 Speaker 1: then I went to a course former GES CEO Jack 119 00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:04,800 Speaker 1: Welch to the current tech industry. But there's one figure 120 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:07,400 Speaker 1: I didn't really pay that much attention to, and I 121 00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:11,800 Speaker 1: regrettably now have to do so. Famed Chicago School economists 122 00:06:11,839 --> 00:06:14,599 Speaker 1: and dweller of Hell, Milton Friedman once argued in his 123 00:06:14,680 --> 00:06:17,440 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy doctrine No literally, that's what it was called 124 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:19,600 Speaker 1: when it was published, of course in the New York Times, 125 00:06:20,120 --> 00:06:22,320 Speaker 1: which is an incredible act of hubris when you think 126 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:25,280 Speaker 1: about it, that those who didn't focus on shareholder value 127 00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:28,320 Speaker 1: were unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been 128 00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:32,440 Speaker 1: undermining the basis of free society these past decades. Acting 129 00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:36,320 Speaker 1: with social responsibility, say, treating work as well. Doing anything 130 00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,960 Speaker 1: other than focusing on shareholder value is tantamount to an 131 00:06:38,960 --> 00:06:41,880 Speaker 1: executive taxing as shareholders buy and I quote, spending their 132 00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:46,279 Speaker 1: money on their own personal beliefs, said Freedman. Freedman was 133 00:06:46,279 --> 00:06:49,640 Speaker 1: a fundamentalist when it came to unrestricted, unfettered capitalism, and 134 00:06:49,680 --> 00:06:53,080 Speaker 1: this zelatory surpassed any sense of basic human morality. If 135 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:57,560 Speaker 1: he had any for example, in his book Capitalism and Freedom, 136 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:00,000 Speaker 1: he argued that companies should be allowed to discriminate our 137 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:02,680 Speaker 1: racial grounds because the owner might suffer should they be 138 00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:05,640 Speaker 1: required to hire an equally or better qualified black person. 139 00:07:06,200 --> 00:07:07,840 Speaker 1: Bear in mind, this was written at the height of 140 00:07:07,880 --> 00:07:10,440 Speaker 1: the Civil rights movement, just six years before the assassination 141 00:07:10,520 --> 00:07:13,760 Speaker 1: of Martin Luther King, and when America was rapidly waking 142 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:16,720 Speaker 1: up to the evils of racism and segregation, a process 143 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:20,520 Speaker 1: I add that's ongoing, sadly not complete, and people still 144 00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:23,520 Speaker 1: don't seem super happy with. I'm not going to read 145 00:07:23,520 --> 00:07:25,120 Speaker 1: the full quote because I've already got a lot of 146 00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:28,200 Speaker 1: talking and not much time, and also there are some 147 00:07:28,360 --> 00:07:30,640 Speaker 1: words that i really don't want to say, but you 148 00:07:30,680 --> 00:07:32,680 Speaker 1: can see it in Falling in its original context on 149 00:07:32,720 --> 00:07:34,640 Speaker 1: the newsletter version of this episode that I'll share in 150 00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:37,000 Speaker 1: the episode notes and as a special tree I'll actually 151 00:07:37,080 --> 00:07:40,800 Speaker 1: update them. Freedom was really grotesque. Though I'm not religious, 152 00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:42,680 Speaker 1: but I really do hope that hell exists only for 153 00:07:42,800 --> 00:07:46,320 Speaker 1: him and Margaret Thatcher and Robert Reagan actually quite a 154 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:48,920 Speaker 1: few people. Anyway. The broader point I'm trying to make 155 00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:51,880 Speaker 1: is that neoliberalism is inherently selfish and it believes that 156 00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:55,400 Speaker 1: the free market should reign supreme, bereft of government intervention, regulation, 157 00:07:55,480 --> 00:07:58,920 Speaker 1: or interference, thinking that somehow these terms will enable freedom 158 00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:03,360 Speaker 1: rather than the kind of market dominated, quasi authoritarian dictatorship 159 00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:05,520 Speaker 1: thing where our entire lives are dominated by the whims 160 00:08:05,520 --> 00:08:07,760 Speaker 1: of the affluent, and that there's no institution that could 161 00:08:07,760 --> 00:08:10,800 Speaker 1: possibly push back against them. Of course, there's no example 162 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:14,280 Speaker 1: in current politics like that now. Friedman himself makes this 163 00:08:14,400 --> 00:08:16,960 Speaker 1: kind of facile argument that economic freedom, which he says 164 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:20,320 Speaker 1: is synonymous with unfettered capitalism, is a necessary condition of 165 00:08:20,440 --> 00:08:24,400 Speaker 1: unfettered political freedom. Obviously, that's bollocks, although it's an argument 166 00:08:24,440 --> 00:08:26,640 Speaker 1: that's proven persuasive with a certain class of people that 167 00:08:26,760 --> 00:08:29,560 Speaker 1: either intellectually or morally hollow or both, or run the 168 00:08:29,600 --> 00:08:33,000 Speaker 1: New York Times op ed page. Neoliberalism also represents a 169 00:08:33,080 --> 00:08:36,120 Speaker 1: kind of modern day feudalism, dividing society based on whether 170 00:08:36,160 --> 00:08:38,800 Speaker 1: somebody is a shareholder or not, with the former taking 171 00:08:38,840 --> 00:08:42,160 Speaker 1: precedents and the latter seeming irrelevant the best or disposable 172 00:08:42,160 --> 00:08:45,560 Speaker 1: at worse. It's curious that Friedman saw economic freedom, a 173 00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:48,760 Speaker 1: state that is non interventionist in economic matters, as essential 174 00:08:48,800 --> 00:08:52,120 Speaker 1: for political freedom. While also failing to see equality is 175 00:08:52,200 --> 00:08:54,720 Speaker 1: the same. I realize all this is kind of clunky 176 00:08:54,720 --> 00:08:56,480 Speaker 1: and big, but I want you to understand how these 177 00:08:56,480 --> 00:09:00,400 Speaker 1: incentives have fundamentally changed everything, and why they're respond for 178 00:09:00,440 --> 00:09:02,520 Speaker 1: the rot we see in our society and our workplaces, 179 00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:04,160 Speaker 1: and our tech industry and a bunch of other shit. 180 00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:18,640 Speaker 1: When your only incentive is shareholder value, and you raise 181 00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:22,760 Speaker 1: shareholder value as a platonic ideal, everything else is secondary, 182 00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:27,199 Speaker 1: including the customer you are selling something too. Friedman himself 183 00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:30,840 Speaker 1: makes a moral case for discrimination because shareholder value, in 184 00:09:31,120 --> 00:09:35,080 Speaker 1: his example, the store owner matters more than racial equality. 185 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:38,880 Speaker 1: At its most basic level. When you care only about 186 00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:41,600 Speaker 1: shareholder value, the only job you have is to promote 187 00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:44,880 Speaker 1: further exploitation and dominance, not to have happy customers, not 188 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:47,000 Speaker 1: to make your company a good place to work, not 189 00:09:47,120 --> 00:09:48,480 Speaker 1: to make a good product, and not to make a 190 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:52,240 Speaker 1: difference or contribute anything to the world other than further growth. 191 00:09:52,920 --> 00:09:54,880 Speaker 1: While this is, to anyone with a vapor of an 192 00:09:54,920 --> 00:09:59,040 Speaker 1: intellectual or moral dimension, absolutely fucking stupid, It's an idea 193 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:02,440 Speaker 1: that's proven depressed, singly endemic among the managerial ely in 194 00:10:02,480 --> 00:10:04,800 Speaker 1: part because it's entered the culture and because it is 195 00:10:04,840 --> 00:10:07,640 Speaker 1: hammered again and again across in MBA classes and corporate 196 00:10:07,640 --> 00:10:12,120 Speaker 1: training seminars. Is simpler terms, modern business theory trains executives 197 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:13,600 Speaker 1: not to be good at something or to make a 198 00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:16,080 Speaker 1: company based on their particular skills, but to find a 199 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:19,880 Speaker 1: market opportunity and exploit it. The chief executive who makes 200 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:22,560 Speaker 1: over three hundred times more than their average worker is 201 00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:25,240 Speaker 1: no longer a leadership position, but the kind of figurehead 202 00:10:25,240 --> 00:10:28,080 Speaker 1: measured on their ability to continually grow the market capitalization 203 00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:31,040 Speaker 1: of their company or the theoretical valuation before they flog 204 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:34,439 Speaker 1: it to a public company or they take it public themselves. 205 00:10:35,040 --> 00:10:37,760 Speaker 1: It's a position inherently defined by its lack of labor, 206 00:10:37,800 --> 00:10:40,040 Speaker 1: the amorphousness of its purpose, and the lack of any 207 00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:43,439 Speaker 1: clear responsibility other than making sure the money goes up 208 00:10:43,440 --> 00:10:46,920 Speaker 1: to them. While CEOs do get fired when things go badly, 209 00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:49,560 Speaker 1: it's often after a prolonged period of decline and stagnancy 210 00:10:49,760 --> 00:10:51,880 Speaker 1: and almost always comes with some kind of payoff. And 211 00:10:51,920 --> 00:10:53,800 Speaker 1: when I say badly, I mean that growth is slow 212 00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:56,480 Speaker 1: to the point that even firing masses of people doesn't 213 00:10:56,480 --> 00:10:59,480 Speaker 1: seem to make things better. We have, as a society 214 00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:03,360 Speaker 1: reframe all business leadership, which is increasingly broad, consisting of 215 00:11:03,400 --> 00:11:06,079 Speaker 1: all management from the C suite down to the equivalent 216 00:11:06,080 --> 00:11:08,679 Speaker 1: of Paul Blant mallcop a person that exists to make 217 00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:11,240 Speaker 1: sure people are working without having any real accountability for 218 00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:14,199 Speaker 1: the work themselves or to even understand the work itself. 219 00:11:14,760 --> 00:11:17,800 Speaker 1: And I must apologize to mister Blant. He worked hard, 220 00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:20,720 Speaker 1: he stopped some criminals in that movie. Really should respect 221 00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:23,320 Speaker 1: his service. But when the leader of a company doesn't 222 00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:25,960 Speaker 1: participate in or respect the production of the goods that 223 00:11:26,080 --> 00:11:29,200 Speaker 1: enrich them, it creates a culture that enables similarly vacuous 224 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:33,160 Speaker 1: leaders on all levels. Management as a concept no longer 225 00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:37,120 Speaker 1: means doing work, or even managing work so the output 226 00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:41,120 Speaker 1: of that work is better. You know, management, No, it's 227 00:11:41,160 --> 00:11:44,719 Speaker 1: become about establishing cultures of dominance and value extraction. A 228 00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:47,360 Speaker 1: CEO isn't measured on happy customers or even how good 229 00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:49,720 Speaker 1: the revenue is today, but how good revenue might be 230 00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:53,280 Speaker 1: tomorrow and whether those customers are paying them more. A manager, 231 00:11:53,440 --> 00:11:55,240 Speaker 1: much like a CEO, is no longer a position with 232 00:11:55,280 --> 00:11:58,240 Speaker 1: any real responsibility. They're there to make sure that you're working, 233 00:11:58,280 --> 00:12:00,240 Speaker 1: to know enough about your work they can sort tell 234 00:12:00,280 --> 00:12:02,160 Speaker 1: you what to do but somehow the job of telling 235 00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:04,120 Speaker 1: you what to do doesn't come with any actual work 236 00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:06,480 Speaker 1: of their own, and instructions don't need to be useful 237 00:12:06,559 --> 00:12:09,679 Speaker 1: or meaningful or impart any great wisdom. Now, if you're 238 00:12:09,679 --> 00:12:11,920 Speaker 1: a manager hearing this, you're really not going to like 239 00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:14,200 Speaker 1: these episodes. These episodes are really going to dig at 240 00:12:14,200 --> 00:12:16,960 Speaker 1: your heart. Now. I've heard from a few managers when 241 00:12:16,960 --> 00:12:19,320 Speaker 1: I've had a dalliance with this in the past, and 242 00:12:19,640 --> 00:12:22,280 Speaker 1: usually fifty to fifty to fifty percent people saying like, Hey, 243 00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:25,520 Speaker 1: I get it. I'm a manager too, and like, I 244 00:12:25,559 --> 00:12:28,520 Speaker 1: think you're right about management. Great managers move stuff out 245 00:12:28,520 --> 00:12:30,520 Speaker 1: the way. They get people the resources they need, They 246 00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:33,360 Speaker 1: understand and respect the labor that they're working with, and 247 00:12:33,400 --> 00:12:36,360 Speaker 1: they help them do their work. They make sure they're 248 00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:39,480 Speaker 1: on tasks, they get the people, get business idiots out 249 00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:42,480 Speaker 1: of their way. Then the other fifty percent get real 250 00:12:42,520 --> 00:12:45,560 Speaker 1: but her. If you're butt hurt hearing this, go cry, 251 00:12:46,040 --> 00:12:48,200 Speaker 1: but go cry outside. Nobody likes you. 252 00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:48,840 Speaker 2: Now. 253 00:12:48,880 --> 00:12:52,000 Speaker 1: Decades of direct erosion of the very concept of leadership 254 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:54,160 Speaker 1: means that the people running companies have been selected not 255 00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:57,439 Speaker 1: based on their actual efficacy, especially as the position became 256 00:12:57,480 --> 00:12:59,760 Speaker 1: defined by a lack of actual production, but on whether 257 00:12:59,760 --> 00:13:02,000 Speaker 1: they zamble what a manager or executive is meant to 258 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:04,439 Speaker 1: look like based on the work that somebody else did once. 259 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:08,000 Speaker 1: That's how somebody like David Zaslav, a lawyer by trade 260 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:10,920 Speaker 1: and arguably the worst CEO in the entertainment industry, managed 261 00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:13,280 Speaker 1: to become the head of Warner Brothers. That he kissed 262 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:15,320 Speaker 1: up to Jack Welch of GE who he called a 263 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:17,800 Speaker 1: big brother that picked him up like a friend. Jack 264 00:13:17,840 --> 00:13:21,120 Speaker 1: Welch fired like over one hundred thousand people over his tenure. 265 00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:24,080 Speaker 1: Real piece of fucking shit, talking to pieces as shit. 266 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:27,760 Speaker 1: It's how Carly Fiery fi a arena Fia arena not 267 00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:30,200 Speaker 1: going to fix that. An NBA by trade, went on 268 00:13:30,240 --> 00:13:31,920 Speaker 1: to become the head of HPO, and he drive the 269 00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:34,319 Speaker 1: company into a ditch where it stopped innovating and largely 270 00:13:34,360 --> 00:13:37,400 Speaker 1: missed the biggest opportunities of the early Internet era. The 271 00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:40,920 Speaker 1: three CEOs that followed her at HP Mark Hurd was 272 00:13:40,960 --> 00:13:43,360 Speaker 1: ousted after fudging expense reports to send money to a 273 00:13:43,400 --> 00:13:45,560 Speaker 1: love interest and still got tens of millions of dollars 274 00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:48,199 Speaker 1: in severance. Leo of Pothaka, who in The New York 275 00:13:48,240 --> 00:13:51,360 Speaker 1: Times suggests may have been worse than Fiorina and Meg Whitman, 276 00:13:51,480 --> 00:13:54,320 Speaker 1: famous for being both a terrible CEO HP and co 277 00:13:54,400 --> 00:13:58,320 Speaker 1: founding the doomed video start up Quibi. Well, they all 278 00:13:58,360 --> 00:14:00,720 Speaker 1: similarly came from a non take background and similarly did 279 00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:03,079 Speaker 1: a shitty fucking job, in part because they didn't understand 280 00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:05,080 Speaker 1: the company, or the products or the customers. Are really 281 00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:07,560 Speaker 1: give a shit about anything other than getting paid. Hey, 282 00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:09,520 Speaker 1: you know where Meg Whitman now is. She's on the 283 00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:12,280 Speaker 1: board of fucking Core Weave. I swear to god history 284 00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:16,760 Speaker 1: is driving me insane. Management has over the course of 285 00:14:16,760 --> 00:14:20,400 Speaker 1: the past few decades eroded the very fabric of corporate America, 286 00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:22,360 Speaker 1: and I'd argue it's done much the same to other 287 00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:25,960 Speaker 1: multiple other Western economies too. I'd also argue that this 288 00:14:26,080 --> 00:14:28,960 Speaker 1: kind of dumb management thinking also infected the highest echelons 289 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:31,280 Speaker 1: of politics across the world, and especially in the UK, 290 00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:33,120 Speaker 1: my country of birth and where I lived until two 291 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:36,320 Speaker 1: thousand and eight, delivering the same kind of disastrous effects, 292 00:14:36,360 --> 00:14:38,480 Speaker 1: but at a macro level, as they impacted not a 293 00:14:38,560 --> 00:14:42,320 Speaker 1: single corporate entity, but the very institutions of the state. Now, 294 00:14:42,320 --> 00:14:45,240 Speaker 1: the UK has never been an egalitarian society, is demonstrated 295 00:14:45,240 --> 00:14:47,800 Speaker 1: by the fact that one fee paying school produced twenty 296 00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:50,080 Speaker 1: of our fifty five prime ministers, and that twenty percent 297 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:52,720 Speaker 1: of the current MPs went to either Cambridge or Oxford University. 298 00:14:53,040 --> 00:14:55,800 Speaker 1: And yet things have changed markedly in the past few decades. 299 00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:57,920 Speaker 1: You can kind of use the Thatcher years as the 300 00:14:57,920 --> 00:15:01,320 Speaker 1: epoch when that political culture shifted. I was born in 301 00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:03,440 Speaker 1: the midst of the Thatcher government. My formative years were 302 00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:07,040 Speaker 1: spent as British society tried to recover after her reforms, 303 00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:11,160 Speaker 1: which is itself a comfortable euphemism for the reckless shedding 304 00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:14,680 Speaker 1: of the state, and pushed towards an American style individualism. Thatcher, 305 00:15:14,760 --> 00:15:18,560 Speaker 1: who fucking loved Readman's thinking, once famously quipped that there 306 00:15:18,640 --> 00:15:22,560 Speaker 1: was no such thing as a society. Jesus Christ, It's 307 00:15:22,600 --> 00:15:27,800 Speaker 1: like sub jokearean thinking. She didn't understand how things work, 308 00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:29,920 Speaker 1: but was nonetheless completely convinced that the power of the 309 00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:32,640 Speaker 1: market to handle what was the functions of the state, 310 00:15:32,720 --> 00:15:35,200 Speaker 1: from housing to energy to water And if you know 311 00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:37,760 Speaker 1: how things going with Thames water, what do you think? 312 00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:40,960 Speaker 1: The end result of this political and cultural shift was, 313 00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:44,560 Speaker 1: in the long run pretty bad. The UK is the 314 00:15:44,560 --> 00:15:47,520 Speaker 1: smallest houses in the OECD, the smallest housing stock of 315 00:15:47,560 --> 00:15:50,320 Speaker 1: any developed country and some of the worst affordability. The 316 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:53,240 Speaker 1: privatization of the UK's water infrastructure meant that money that 317 00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:56,360 Speaker 1: would previously go towards infrastructure upgrades was instead funneled to 318 00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:59,400 Speaker 1: shareholders in the form of dividends. As a result, Britain 319 00:15:59,440 --> 00:16:02,960 Speaker 1: is literally unable to process human waste and is actively 320 00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:06,440 Speaker 1: dumping millions of liters of human sewerage into its waterways 321 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:09,960 Speaker 1: and coastline. When Britain privatized its energy companies, the new 322 00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: management sold or closed the vast majority of its gas 323 00:16:12,280 --> 00:16:16,640 Speaker 1: storage infrastructure. As a result, when the Ukraine War sparked 324 00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:19,040 Speaker 1: and natural gas prices surged, Britain had some of the 325 00:16:19,040 --> 00:16:21,800 Speaker 1: smallest reserves of any country in Europe and was forced 326 00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:24,360 Speaker 1: to buy gas at market prices which were several times 327 00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:27,280 Speaker 1: higher than their pre war levels, thus sending household and 328 00:16:27,400 --> 00:16:46,640 Speaker 1: energy builds through the fucking roof. I'm no fan of Thatcher, 329 00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:49,360 Speaker 1: and like Freedman, I hope she fucking burns and it hurts. 330 00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:51,120 Speaker 1: The reason that brought her up was to stress the 331 00:16:51,160 --> 00:16:54,360 Speaker 1: consequences of this kind of clueless managerial thinking on a 332 00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:57,000 Speaker 1: macro level, where the impacts aren't just declining tech products 333 00:16:57,040 --> 00:16:59,640 Speaker 1: or white collar layoffs, but rather the emergence of generational 334 00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:03,280 Speaker 1: christ of housing and energy in the environment. These crisis 335 00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:06,720 Speaker 1: were obvious consequences of decisions made by someone whose belief 336 00:17:06,720 --> 00:17:09,760 Speaker 1: in the free market was almost absolute, and whose fundamentalist 337 00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:13,159 Speaker 1: beliefs surpassed the actual, informed understanding of those working in energy, 338 00:17:13,359 --> 00:17:18,400 Speaker 1: housing a water. As the legendary advertiser Stanley Pollet once said, 339 00:17:18,440 --> 00:17:21,439 Speaker 1: bullshit baffles brains. The sweeping changes we've seen both in 340 00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:24,640 Speaker 1: our economy and our societies led them to an unprecedented 341 00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:27,520 Speaker 1: gilded age of bullshit, where nothing matters and things things 342 00:17:27,520 --> 00:17:31,280 Speaker 1: of actual substance only matter even less. We live in 343 00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:34,080 Speaker 1: a symbolic economy where we apply for jobs, writing cvs 344 00:17:34,119 --> 00:17:36,080 Speaker 1: and cover letters that will resemble a certain kind of 345 00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:38,439 Speaker 1: higher with our resume read by someone who doesn't do 346 00:17:38,600 --> 00:17:41,920 Speaker 1: or understand our job, but is somehow responsible for determining 347 00:17:41,920 --> 00:17:43,800 Speaker 1: whether we're worthy of going up to the next step 348 00:17:43,840 --> 00:17:48,000 Speaker 1: of the eighty seven point hiring process. All this so 349 00:17:48,040 --> 00:17:49,840 Speaker 1: that we can get an interview with a manager or 350 00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:52,120 Speaker 1: an executive who will decide whether they think we can 351 00:17:52,160 --> 00:17:55,159 Speaker 1: do it. We're managed by people whose job is implicitly 352 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,200 Speaker 1: not to do work, but to oversee it, which doesn't 353 00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:01,840 Speaker 1: necessarily mean they understand. We are, as children and young 354 00:18:01,840 --> 00:18:05,440 Speaker 1: adults encouraged to aspire to become a manager or an executive, 355 00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:07,679 Speaker 1: or to own our own business, to have people that 356 00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:10,360 Speaker 1: work for us, and the terms of our society are 357 00:18:10,520 --> 00:18:13,160 Speaker 1: by default that management is not a role you work 358 00:18:13,240 --> 00:18:15,480 Speaker 1: at so much as a position you hold a figurehead 359 00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:17,560 Speaker 1: that passes the bug and makes far more of them 360 00:18:17,600 --> 00:18:20,520 Speaker 1: than you ever will. This problem, i believe, is poison 361 00:18:20,560 --> 00:18:23,760 Speaker 1: the fabric of almost every part of modern business, elevating 362 00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:26,160 Speaker 1: people that don't do work to oversee companies that make 363 00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:29,399 Speaker 1: things that they don't understand, creating substrates of management that 364 00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,040 Speaker 1: do not do anything but create further distance from doing 365 00:18:32,160 --> 00:18:35,080 Speaker 1: actual work. While some of you might automatically think and 366 00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:38,040 Speaker 1: email me again and again that I'm talking about Graver's 367 00:18:38,080 --> 00:18:40,280 Speaker 1: concept of bullshit jobs, and I've linked to it in 368 00:18:40,320 --> 00:18:42,760 Speaker 1: the show notes, what I'm talking about is far, far, 369 00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:46,040 Speaker 1: far bigger. The system as it stands selects people at 370 00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:49,320 Speaker 1: all levels of management, specifically because they resemble this kind 371 00:18:49,359 --> 00:18:53,160 Speaker 1: of specious worker verse dollar that runs seemingly every company. 372 00:18:53,320 --> 00:18:55,240 Speaker 1: A person built to go from meeting to meeting with 373 00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:57,919 Speaker 1: the vague consternation of someone who may or may not 374 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:00,840 Speaker 1: be busy that suggests I don't know that they're hard 375 00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:04,080 Speaker 1: at work and they're important, and that you should respect them. 376 00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:07,240 Speaker 1: As a result, the higher you get up in an organization, 377 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:09,800 Speaker 1: the further you get from the customer the problem you're 378 00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:12,000 Speaker 1: solving really any of the actual work, and the higher 379 00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:14,280 Speaker 1: up you get, the more power you have to change 380 00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:16,760 Speaker 1: the conditions of the business and the ways in which 381 00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:20,560 Speaker 1: you actually make money. On some level, modern corporate power 382 00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:23,280 Speaker 1: structures are a giant game of telephone where vibes beget 383 00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:26,320 Speaker 1: further vibes, where managers only kind of sort of understand 384 00:19:26,320 --> 00:19:28,960 Speaker 1: what's going on, and the more vague ones understanding is 385 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:31,280 Speaker 1: the more likely you are to lean toward what's good 386 00:19:31,359 --> 00:19:34,040 Speaker 1: or easy or makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. 387 00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:37,520 Speaker 1: The system selects for people comfortable in these roles, creating 388 00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:39,920 Speaker 1: all charts full of people that become harder and harder 389 00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:42,159 Speaker 1: to justify other than they've been here a while and 390 00:19:42,200 --> 00:19:45,280 Speaker 1: they're nice. Even if they're not, they do not do 391 00:19:45,520 --> 00:19:48,800 Speaker 1: work on the product, and their answer as to why 392 00:19:48,960 --> 00:19:50,920 Speaker 1: would be what am I meant to do? Go down 393 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:53,320 Speaker 1: to the line and use a machine, or am I 394 00:19:53,359 --> 00:19:55,560 Speaker 1: meant to call a customer and make a sale? And 395 00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:59,160 Speaker 1: the answer is yes, you lazy, fucking piece of shit. 396 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:01,720 Speaker 1: You would do that once in a while, or at 397 00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:03,760 Speaker 1: the very least go down and watch the well, listen 398 00:20:03,800 --> 00:20:06,360 Speaker 1: to somebody else doing so, and do so regularly. Why 399 00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:08,480 Speaker 1: are you? Why do you look down on the things 400 00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:12,360 Speaker 1: that make you rich? You piece of shit? But that's 401 00:20:12,359 --> 00:20:15,760 Speaker 1: not what a manager does, right, Ashman isn't isn't work. 402 00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:19,760 Speaker 1: It's about thinking really hard and telling people what to do. 403 00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:23,640 Speaker 1: It's about making the cause. It's about managing people, and 404 00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:27,280 Speaker 1: that can mean just about anything, but often means taking 405 00:20:27,400 --> 00:20:30,080 Speaker 1: credit from some ort or passing blame to someone else. 406 00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:33,040 Speaker 1: Because modern management has been stripped of all meaning other 407 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:36,600 Speaker 1: than continually reinforcing power structures for the next manager up. 408 00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:40,120 Speaker 1: The system creates products for these people because these people 409 00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:42,680 Speaker 1: are more often than not, the ones in power. They're 410 00:20:42,760 --> 00:20:45,920 Speaker 1: your boss, your boss's boss, and their boss too. Big 411 00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:49,480 Speaker 1: companies build products sold by species executives or manager to 412 00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:53,119 Speaker 1: other species executives and managers, and thus the products themselves 413 00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:56,120 Speaker 1: stop resembling things that solve problems so much as they 414 00:20:56,359 --> 00:20:59,800 Speaker 1: resemble a solution. After all, the person buying it at least, 415 00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:02,600 Speaker 1: that the scale of a public or large company isn't 416 00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,159 Speaker 1: necessarily the fun or recipient or user of the product, 417 00:21:05,240 --> 00:21:07,280 Speaker 1: so they too are trained and selected to make calls 418 00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:10,320 Speaker 1: based on vibes. I believe the scale of this problem 419 00:21:10,359 --> 00:21:12,320 Speaker 1: is society wide, and it is at its core a 420 00:21:12,359 --> 00:21:14,439 Speaker 1: destruction of what it means to be a leader and 421 00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:18,360 Speaker 1: a valorization of a kind of selfish, isolation ish thinking, 422 00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,280 Speaker 1: turning labor into a faceless resource, which naturally leads to 423 00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:24,720 Speaker 1: seeing customers in an equally faceless way. Their problems generalize, 424 00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:27,360 Speaker 1: their paid points viewed as parts of a PowerPoint rather 425 00:21:27,400 --> 00:21:30,080 Speaker 1: than anything that your company earnestly tries to solve or 426 00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,120 Speaker 1: even really thinks about. And that sumes that said pain 427 00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:36,320 Speaker 1: points are even considered to begin with, or not ignored 428 00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:39,199 Speaker 1: in favor of fictitious and purely hypothetical pain points that 429 00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:43,280 Speaker 1: sound better in presentations. People, be they the ones you're 430 00:21:43,280 --> 00:21:46,760 Speaker 1: paying or paying you, become numbers. We've created and elevated 431 00:21:46,760 --> 00:21:50,639 Speaker 1: an entirely new class of person, the nebulous manager, and 432 00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:53,119 Speaker 1: told decades worth of children that that's what they should 433 00:21:53,119 --> 00:21:54,960 Speaker 1: aspire to, and that the next step from doing a 434 00:21:55,040 --> 00:21:56,760 Speaker 1: job is for us to tell other people to do 435 00:21:56,800 --> 00:21:59,200 Speaker 1: a job, until we're one day able to tell those 436 00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:01,600 Speaker 1: people how to do their job, with each rung on 437 00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:05,200 Speaker 1: the corporate ladder, further distancing ourselves from anything that actually 438 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:09,320 Speaker 1: interacts with reality. The real breaking point is fairly simple. 439 00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:11,720 Speaker 1: The higher up you got a company, the further you 440 00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:15,480 Speaker 1: are from problems or purpose. Everything's abstract, the people that 441 00:22:15,560 --> 00:22:17,120 Speaker 1: work for you, the people you work for, and even 442 00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:19,800 Speaker 1: the tasks that you do. We train people from a 443 00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:23,680 Speaker 1: young age to generalize and distance oneselves from other people 444 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:26,960 Speaker 1: and actual tasks, to aspire to do managerial work because 445 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:29,880 Speaker 1: managers are well paid and know what's going on, even 446 00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:31,919 Speaker 1: if they haven't actually known what was going on for 447 00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,760 Speaker 1: years if they ever did so. This phenomena has led 448 00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:37,120 Speaker 1: to a stigmatization of blue collar work and the subsequent 449 00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:40,359 Speaker 1: evisceration of practical trade and technical education across most of 450 00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:44,040 Speaker 1: the developed world in favor of universities. Society respects an 451 00:22:44,119 --> 00:22:46,280 Speaker 1: mba more than a plumber, even though the latter benefits 452 00:22:46,320 --> 00:22:48,760 Speaker 1: society more. Though I can see that both roles involve 453 00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:50,520 Speaker 1: on some level a lot of shit, with the plummer 454 00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:52,879 Speaker 1: on blocking it in the NBA while finding new places 455 00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:55,560 Speaker 1: to put in. I should also add I have nothing 456 00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:59,080 Speaker 1: against universities in general. I'm just saying that our university 457 00:22:59,119 --> 00:23:02,359 Speaker 1: system is out of work with the working world except 458 00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:04,920 Speaker 1: in the specialist fields, and we have a problem there. 459 00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:08,120 Speaker 1: We also have many other problems there. But one example 460 00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:10,119 Speaker 1: I'll talk about in the next episode is the push 461 00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:12,240 Speaker 1: to return to the office. Have you noticed how all 462 00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:15,000 Speaker 1: those calls have come from people who occupy managerial roles 463 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:18,399 Speaker 1: and not those who do actual jobs. Isn't that fucking weird? 464 00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:20,880 Speaker 1: Because if you go back and look, and by the way, 465 00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:25,440 Speaker 1: Kevin Russ March twenty twenty, Kevin Roos of a hard 466 00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:28,240 Speaker 1: fork podcast in The New York Times had a story 467 00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:30,840 Speaker 1: saying that working from home is not as good March 468 00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:35,040 Speaker 1: twenty twenty, the fucking lockdown hadn't even begun yet. This 469 00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:37,480 Speaker 1: man was so ahead of the terms of what the 470 00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,720 Speaker 1: powerful wanted him to tell people. I actually kind of 471 00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:43,960 Speaker 1: admire it. I wonder if I could do that. I 472 00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,800 Speaker 1: could just every week just wake up and just go 473 00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:49,480 Speaker 1: to Microsoft dot com and be like, that's my work 474 00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:51,919 Speaker 1: for the week. Fellas pardon me, sorry, I apologize to 475 00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:55,199 Speaker 1: mister Russ. I would go to anthropic dot com and 476 00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:57,679 Speaker 1: I find out what they're doing. Oh, Heedgy's such a 477 00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:00,399 Speaker 1: petty bitch. But I digress. I believe that all of 478 00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:02,760 Speaker 1: this stuff I'm talking about, this process has created, like 479 00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,720 Speaker 1: I said, a symbolic society, one where people are elevated 480 00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:07,680 Speaker 1: not by an ability to do something or knowledge they 481 00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:09,480 Speaker 1: may have, but by the ability to make the right 482 00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:11,919 Speaker 1: noises and honks and look the right way to get ahead. 483 00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:16,360 Speaker 1: And yeah, usually a white guy, but increasingly getting all 484 00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:20,520 Speaker 1: sorts of races of guys who get these roles. The 485 00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:23,880 Speaker 1: power structures of modern society are run by business idiots, 486 00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:26,160 Speaker 1: people that have learned enough to impress the people above 487 00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,679 Speaker 1: them and around them. Because the business idiots have been 488 00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:32,080 Speaker 1: in power for decades, they bread out true meritocracy or 489 00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:35,199 Speaker 1: achievement or value creation in favor of this symbolic growth 490 00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:38,679 Speaker 1: and superficial intelligence because real work is hard, and there 491 00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:40,520 Speaker 1: are so many of them in power that they've all 492 00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:42,919 Speaker 1: found a way to work together that do fucking nothing. 493 00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:46,520 Speaker 1: And I need you to understand how widespread this problem is, 494 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:50,840 Speaker 1: because it's why everything feels fucking wrong. And the next 495 00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:52,840 Speaker 1: episode will pick up from where we left off here 496 00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:55,320 Speaker 1: and it's going to be three straight days of episode 497 00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:58,080 Speaker 1: a crazy thing. No monologue this week, unless you consider 498 00:24:58,119 --> 00:24:59,640 Speaker 1: me just talking on my own for a while. I'm 499 00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:01,879 Speaker 1: onnolog and you're going to say that's the definition of 500 00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,320 Speaker 1: a monologue, and in which I'll say, shut up, that's rude. 501 00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:07,199 Speaker 1: I really do have more to say about business idiots, 502 00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:08,879 Speaker 1: though in the abstract, because I feel as though this 503 00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,280 Speaker 1: phenomenon is complex and multifaceted, and when you can identify 504 00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,360 Speaker 1: the traits of the business idiot, you start seeing them everywhere. 505 00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:19,480 Speaker 1: It's like they live but with management consultants. You see 506 00:25:19,520 --> 00:25:21,359 Speaker 1: them in your own life, in your own boss. Are 507 00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:23,480 Speaker 1: the people running the biggest and most powerful companies in 508 00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:25,959 Speaker 1: the world, and even some of the people you know 509 00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:29,479 Speaker 1: in real life, people that don't seem to do real jobs, 510 00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:33,400 Speaker 1: not even email jobs. They're everywhere. They can manage stores, 511 00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,840 Speaker 1: they can be your boss, they can be your friend's boss. Shit, 512 00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:39,880 Speaker 1: they can run their own consultancy, they can do all 513 00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,840 Speaker 1: sorts of things. You run into these people everywhere, and 514 00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,359 Speaker 1: this three part series is both about the history and 515 00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,800 Speaker 1: helping you understand where the business idiot in your life is. 516 00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:59,800 Speaker 1: Catch you on the next episode. Thank you for listening 517 00:25:59,800 --> 00:26:00,680 Speaker 1: to Offline. 518 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,360 Speaker 2: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song 519 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:06,080 Speaker 2: is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music 520 00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:09,760 Speaker 2: and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T 521 00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:14,240 Speaker 2: T O S O W s ki dot com. You 522 00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,760 Speaker 2: can email me at easy at Better offline dot com 523 00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,160 Speaker 2: or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast 524 00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:22,560 Speaker 2: links and of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend 525 00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:24,520 Speaker 2: you go to chat dot where's youreaed dot at to 526 00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:27,400 Speaker 2: visit the discord, and go to our slash Better Offline 527 00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:30,639 Speaker 2: to check out our reddit. Thank you so much for listening. 528 00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:33,920 Speaker 1: Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. 529 00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:36,960 Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool 530 00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:38,919 Speaker 2: Zonemedia dot com, or check us 531 00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:41,919 Speaker 1: Out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 532 00:26:42,000 --> 00:27:04,720 Speaker 1: get your podcasts.