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smaug7

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This to me is the correct answer. A lot of times in war it's not about logic or reason, it's about emotion and feeling. Throughout Chinese history, a leader is only "legitimate" or dare I say, have the Mandate from Heaven, when they have unified the country under one banner. It is a stain on their authority that there is "rouge" state outside the CCP's control. They will do anything to unify their country for national pride.

FWIW, I saw Tim Cook in Pac Heights a few months back just walking around. There were two "guys" in plain clothes in front and behind him on that Saturday morning. I was able to say "hello" and he was nice. I imagine there are probably others monitoring his security that I couldn't see also.

This is fundamentally different. Arthur Anderson was an auditing firm and did accounting. Their selling point was to be the "source of truth" for their client's books. What's that confidence is lost, then no one would hire them for their work. McKinsey, as a management consultancy, doesn't have to be a "source of truth" and offers perspective, which can be neither right or wrong. Management makes decisions on if they want to take McKinsey's advice or not.

I used to work for Twitch and built the Custom Live notifications for streamers. It was a relatively straightforward change where we just changed the payload of what the streamers wanted the iOS, Android, email notifications to show. There were some behind-the-scenes work where there is actually a language/curse word check and decisions on if we needed to translate the copy to the receivers local language.

The measurable change was a 30-60% increase in the notification CTR and resulted in hundreds of millions of incremental hours watched.

While I don't necessarily disagree, my understanding is that engineering tends to drive more of the product decisions. I question how much power the product team actually has.

Was looking for this comment. In McNamara's reflection, a tenant he called out was to understand the enemy. US didn't understand the Viet Congs motivation for fighting the war (freedom from colonizers) whereas the US viewed the war as a larger Cold War. This is the same as what happened in Afghanistan that we didn't learn.

That's a loaded question that I can attempt to answer. The list below isn't by priority but it is the through process I go through.

1. Compensation - Would you be comfortable with that salary and can you do the things you want to do with it (vacation, hobbies, etc.).

2. Interest - Is the work that you will be doing at the company engaging to you? Are you interested in solving those problems? Would I be excited going into the office every day?

3. People - While interviewing, did you enjoy the conversations you had with your potential coworkers? Do you think similarly but do you also challenge each other to be better versions of yourself?

4. Size - Small companies don't have process and you'll have to wear many different hats. Large companies have more defined roles and your focus will be better planned by higher ups who set an overall strategy.

5. Location - The best way I thought of this is the commute. Count the minutes (hours) it takes to get to your new company. Will you be "time poor" but "financially wealthy"? Would you be okay with that?

6. Risk - Smaller companies naturally have more risk. I personally think we tend to over index on the risk (Prospect Theory) and forget about the lessons and professional development you learn at a start up.

7. Regret - This one helped me out the most. I ask myself "Would I regret not working at this company with its people and product X years from now?"