Lutz: Pich's Brutal "Reign of Terror" Likely Cause of Diesel Scandal

There was a good video posted somewhere on the Net, maybe yahoo?, about why Jobs was such a good leader. Didn't save the link, but in the ten minute or so video, taken just after he had returned to Apple, an audience member leads off that he is obviously a bright person. He then asks Jobs to address how Java does or does not address the issues that features in OpenDoc address. Jobs delivers a brilliant explanation and apology about how sometimes good features are casualties of the product design process, but that he has learned the hard way that you have to start with what the customer wants and needs, and work back to a product, instead of building a "really cool" product and then trying to convince people that they have a need or a use for it. He seems demanding of a high standard of quality, but at the same projects a willingness to accept some failures as part of a trial and error iterative process of product development. He doesn't seem to come off as someone who tried to improve Apple by throwing his weight around and threatening people to push product out the door on schedule or else. And believe me, I have seen enough of that kind of management in my career to have a nose for the kind of manager who smiles like a shark as he terrorizes his staff into covering up problems in order to make it look like he had succeeded in delivering on time and under budget. Try for example hiring analysts and talking them into accepting coder pay, because they were supposed to be coding from specs for the next phase that had already been written. Then when the troops (we were basically the Hessians) got there, they found out that they were really hired to do high level analysis to fix fundamental design flaws during an earlier phase, and to turn in resource allocation sheets that showed we were coding the next phase. After all, the previous phase had already been reported as having been completed and delivered! I won't mention any names, but it was our tax dollars at work. Not a unique situation inside the Beltway by far, just a clearcut example. In that situation, you had two choices, either shut up and go along, or move on. Fortunately I was a contract employee and not a lifer, and I chose to move on at the first opportunity. Ironically, while trying to ponder what I should do, and looking out an office window, I saw some of the largest vultures I have ever seen (including in Mexico), sitting on the project's other building across the way. Don't know if it was a sign, but it sure seemed like it at the time. And the end project over all was finally delivered (or so it was reported) years after target, with redefined scope, and with large additional infusions of cash. I didn't mind missing the end "celebration" a bit on that project. But no, I don't think Jobs was a ham-handed manager pushing people to pretend in order to meet goals. I think that instead, that kind of deception would be one of the few things that might have caused him to get rid of someone who was a bright engineer.

Congratulations pch, at least marginally relevant. Though the fact that the guy has been gone from VW for almost twenty years would seem to indicate that he is unrelated to current events there. Unless you are arguing that he was merely a scapegoat, and that the corruption was much more widespread and entrenched. Though I don't know how we would be able to know if it is a case of that, or just two different bad top managers, twenty years apart. Got anything else that might fill in the blanks on corporate culture during that twenty year interval?