> I've never seen anything like it for a technically optional tool

Cloud had a very similar vibe when it was really running advertising to CIO/CTOs hard. Everything had to be jammed into the cloud, even if it made absolutely no sense for it to be run there.

This seems to come pretty frequently from visionless tech execs. They need to justify their existence to their boss, and thus try to show how innovative and/or cost cutting they can be.

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aquariusDue 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

That and microservices in lieu of a monolith. Or how about being the odd one out a few years ago when suggesting a MPA instead of a SPA when it made sense. I like to think where at the point of everybody is rebuilding their portfolio website with Angular 1 but this time it's Claude Code and a SaaS instead.

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rurp 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I agree with you but man the absurdity of aggressively pushing cloud or AI adoption as a cost cutting move is off the charts.

	▲	HolyLampshade 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Easier to justify monthly costs than big capital asks (even if your infra is depreciated at a normal rate) is where I think many saw (incorrectly) cost savings. It’s also a bit of these execs mortgaging the future, banking on either being out of their role when the real cost comes due or that people will have incredibly short memories (not a wild assumption).

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genthree 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think this is the result of a c-suite that has never actually done the work of the businesses they're running. The MBAificiation of management. Of course they constantly do brain-dead shit, they literally don't have a clue how anything actually works in "their" own business.

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stackbutterflow 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

They've been vibe-driving businesses long before we've started vibe-coding software.

	▲	gopher_space 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		There weren't really any failure states for the ZIRP "lifestyle CEO". If you remember old black and white movies about pigeons from psych 101 it's been that level of conditioning for how many years now? If your CEO doesn't look like a taxi dispatcher he's just moving his wings around waiting for a food pellet.

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HolyLampshade 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I was trying to think of a way to word this exact argument. I think it’s especially easy when your business technology is not your primary means of revenue generation. Having these execs understand how things work is significantly less critical in these scenarios, so it becomes much easier to hire for alternative characteristics (golf game, pedigree, gender, whatever).

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bee_rider 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

“Cloud” seems like a better comparison than stuff like cryptocurrency. AI seems totally over-hyped but with some obvious sensible use-cases.

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_doctor_love 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Cloud had a very similar vibe when it was really running advertising to CIO/CTOs hard. Everything had to be jammed into the cloud, even if it made absolutely no sense for it to be run there.

100% accurate - some of us are old enough to have lived through a few of the mini-revolutions in between the mega-revolutions of Internet/Web in the 1990s and now AI/LLM in the 2020s.

We are in the "stupid phase" of adoption still. C-level people have to follow the herd and they are being evaluated on keeping up with everyone else. Idiotic mandates are a way to cause things to happen short-term even though everyone knows long-term it will have to be re-done.

Consultants gonna make a looooooooot of money this coming decade.

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johnnyanmac 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think the feel bad moment here is how impersonal everything got in 3 decades. During the dotcom bust you still had to meet and talk to people to get interviews started.

Now you can make a perfectly tailored resume, apply to 50 jobs in a day, and it's not unexpected to not get any response from those in 2 weeks. You don't know if it's your resume, the company, or the economy. And no one wants to admit the latter two are problems.

Not to mention the utter disrespect these days. There's no decorum in many of these "professional" settings, when normally you want your interview process to show off your best face.

	▲	oro44 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		"And no one wants to admit the latter two are problems." Im working on building something to address this. That's all I'll say lol.