The Cult of Microsoft
www.wheresyoured.at
Soundtrack: EL-P - Flyentology At the core of Microsoft, a three-trillion-dollar hardware and software company, lies a kind of social poison — an ill-defined, cult-like pseudo-scientific concept called 'The Growth Mindset" that drives company decision-making in everything from how products are sold, to how your on-the-job performance is judged. I am

Spooky stuff that helps explain a lot of the dysfunction flowing out from Microsoft.

  • o7___o7@awful.systemsEnglish
    3·
    14 minutes ago

    Excuse me, I need a lie down…

    Edit: How open is this to abuse you may ask? Imagine yourself to be an evil person, such as a chickenshit conflict-averse MBA-holding manger. If you need to get rid of an employee, feed thierConnect form through the nondeterministic bullshit machine repeatedly until it gives you an excuse. It’s the perfect accountability sink + employee disposal. Employee argues? They’re failing to apply the growth mindset.

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    12·
    11 hours ago

    I swear to Christ that corporate America is only getting worse. The best thing that could happen to just about every major corporation would be aggressive antitrust action resulting in a breakup. All the FAANG companies would be a good start, along with every media company you could name.

  • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    9 hours ago

    I’m all for criticizing large, unwieldy corporations bloated with layers of management who deliver limited value, engage in cutthroat politics, and promote slogans over real connections with people through sustained work efforts. But this article rubbed me the wrong way from the get go. The difficulty of developing a culture is never examined away from Microsoft. Most large companies have a c-suite who are so far removed from the average worker and their daily goals that they think pithy slogans are what it takes.

    But I really became skeptical when they tried to summarize the findings of growth mindset and quickly dismissing it without couching in the ongoing reproducibility issue in psychology and failing to clearly show the controversy with growth mindset, the good, the bad, and the unclear. Which large company isn’t peddling bullshit to get more out of their workers without deliver respect and wages?

    I am hard pressed to find an example of a large company where executive management isn’t oblivious to the real needs and desires of the average worker and middle management isn’t flooded with back stabbing and petty politics. The most honest will tell you it’s about market dominance and profit maximization and if happy workers help they do that as long as it doesn’t cost too much and doesn’t undermine their access to power.

    • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
      8·
      8 hours ago

      this post gave me a couple rounds of whiplash but this was the hardest turn on the rollercoaster:

      when they tried to summarize the findings of growth mindset and quickly dismissing it without couching in the ongoing reproducibility issue in psychology

      do you people come off a factory line like this?

        • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
          3·
          3 hours ago

          the poster themselves would have to answer but generally I find the answer to be no

          a rather particular form of inductive reasoning. not quite induncetive, but close