At least the techies among you have already read Steve Yegge’s rant about Amazon, which is quite a ranty rant, even compared to Yegge’s standards, and halfway through it, is this bit:
> Bezos assigned a couple of Chief Bulldogs to oversee the effort and ensure forward progress, headed up by Uber-Chief Bear Bulldog Rick Dalzell. Rick is an ex-Armgy Ranger, West Point Academy graduate, ex-boxer, ex-Chief Torturer slash CIO at Wal*Mart, and is a big genial scary man who used the word "hardened interface" a lot. Rick was a walking, talking hardened interface himself, so needless to say, everyone made LOTS of forward progress and made sure Rick knew about it.
I see this a lot - these “elite unit” army types in senior roles in companies. I had previously assumed this was either because the company caters to military/govt and wants people from the inside, or perhaps because the particular guy was just a great techie as well as being a soldier. But perhaps their real value is their unbending discipline and training to impose that on others in a mechanistic way?
Oh, the rant is here: http://steverant.pen.io/.
—ravi