“causation” is simple, if a little metaphorical: a variable X is a cause of Y if Y “listens” to X and determines its value in response to what it hears.

— Judea Pearl and Dana Mackenzie, The Book of Why

When a manager’s prestige is determined by the number of people reporting up to her and the size of her budget, the manager will be incentivized to subdivide design tasks that in turn will be reflected in the efficiency of the technical design

— Marianne Bellotti, Kill It With Fire

In short, you should care because if you don’t put effort into building and maintaining your culture, your team will eventually be overtaken by a strong personality who cultivates his culture in your team.

— Brian W. Fitzpatrick and Ben Collins-Sussman, Team Geek

…the artist is the figure who, above all others, imposes values without discussion, opens up perspectives and invents worlds without needing to demonstrate the legitimacy of his propositions, still less to prove them by a refutation of those works which preceded his own. Like the aristocracy, the artist commands without arguing with anyone or anything…

— Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought

…a recent survey determined that 80 percent of employees feel their managers are useless and that they could do their job just as well without them.

— David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs