Lately, I've been going a little crazy myself. The team's sales had grown rapidly and the number of members had increased quickly. I was the first engineer in the company and was involved in hiring, I had set up the release cycle and created the structure. Things were going well. If you only look at the numbers.
But the most excruciating part was when I made a difficult personnel decision concerning someone I had recruited.
When he used to work for a fund, he was in charge of a rehabilitation project after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. He reduced the number of employees from 150 to seven. I told people about the same age as my father that they didn't have to come back tomorrow. After that experience, I knew I didn't want to be in a job that required making such personnel decisions again. But I'm doing the same thing again.
'It's capitalism, it's what it is.' That is correct. If the economy goes down, if the business tilts, shareholders' wishes, there will be fewer people. It's a natural part of the economic structure. But when you are in the field, it can't be 'inevitable'.
The engineering profession was originally founded on distancing oneself from people. A job that concentrates on thinking and working rather than communicating. To make such a difficult personnel decision in a place like that, I think it's unnatural and terrible for everyone.
People who are not familiar with AI. People who lack speed. People who were considered less efficient. Those people are removed from the list. Even though I understood it in my head, I had the feeling that my heart was breaking more and more.
It is not a question of nationality. Whether you are Western, Chinese or Japanese, I think the weight on your chest when you deliver such a decision is the same. The only difference is whether you show it or not.
In start-ups, sometimes the engineers themselves take on this 'regulator valve' role. They are caught between efficiency and capital. And what remains at the end of it all? a quiet sense of guilt and a broken sense of self-esteem.
Within this structure, probably no one will be happy. In exchange for growth, somewhere, someone bears the cost. Engineers in capitalism are, I feel that at the same speed as the chain of efficiency, they also chain unhappiness.