Ruth — of systems & designAug 25, 2024

Eric Schmidt:

‘learned that there were people who I call “glue people”. The glue people are incredibly nice people who sit at interstitial boundaries between groups, and they assist in activity. And they are very, very loyal, and people love them, and you don’t need them at all.

[..] I kept trying to get rid of these glue people, because they were getting in the way, because they slowed everything down.’

quoted in Contempt for the Glue People by @norootcause

https://surfingcomplexity.blog/2021/08/28/contempt-for-the-glue-people/

Contempt for the glue people

The clip below is from a lecture from 2015 that then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt gave to a Stanford class. Here’s a transcript, emphasis mine. When I was at Novell, I had learned that there were …

Surfing Complexity
Show threadRuth — of systems & designAug 25, 2024

Contempt serves to self-elevate by denigrating. It is a classic power-over kind of move, for it takes personal power from.

Still. The importance of “glue people” might be better understood if we used a word that connotes cohesion rather than adhesion??

Show threadDawn AhukannaSep 11, 2024
@RuthMalan
This is contempt & monolithic, colonial exploitation mentality-monopolize political power & hold conquered societies/ppl as inferior.
I assume he is working 25 hours a day (he somehow bent time & added the extra hour), does not eat, does not sleep or do any commercially “useless” activity.
Calling people “glue” is such reductionist and linear thinking about human adaptability.
Life of living, breathing beings is like a kaleidoscope with many perspectives, not a one-eyed monocle.
Show threadDawn AhukannaSep 11, 2024
@RuthMalan
A decade & half of random, entropic activity missing the bullseye target is what happens when there’s no cohesion in thought, only executing action-“working together was such a foreign concept that management had to bribe every individual employee”-https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/a-decade-and-a-half-of-instability-the-history-of-google-messaging-apps/
See Google graveyard-https://killedbygoogle.com/
There’s a reason why speed of decision making & not only speed of execution is relevant- “Wave (insert product name) has not seen the ‘user adoption’ we would have liked."
A decade and a half of instability: The history of Google messaging apps

Sixteen years after the launch of Google Talk, Google messaging is still a mess.

Ars Technica
Show threadd@nny disc@ mc²Sep 11, 2024
@dahukanna @RuthMalan not the point but i loved wave :(
Show threadRuth — of systems & design
@hipsterelectron @dahukanna same! Had such hopes!
Sep 11, 2024 at 12:41pmWeb
Show threadDawn AhukannaSep 11, 2024

@RuthMalan @hipsterelectron

Me three! It was a communication cockpit & like all socio-technical devices e.g. cars, mobile phones, etc. needs to:
a.)teach the necessary cognitive + bio-mechanical skills & provide training materials e.g. driving lessons for cars (wave) as no one is born knowing how to drive. It’s an acquired skill.
&
b.)be designed keeping human intuition & existing practices in mind. Why & how do people use their existing communication tools? What need is the tool addressing?

Show threadd@nny disc@ mc²Sep 11, 2024
@dahukanna @RuthMalan cc @impactology