Actually 20 people is around a reasonable number if you have some tech/expertise leads in the mix. 2 to 4 tech leads would be more than enough. Tech leads would be responsible for the technical decisions under their respective area and course setting for the future work but they don't do people management.
Managers do not need to mentor. Actually an independent mentor is better as there would be no conflict of interest. A person can get a mentor from another team as long as both are willing. If there are more mentees seeking mentorship than mentors, you can rotate the mentors or double/triple assign them especially to those who seek to switch to management track. In reality though, there are more mentors than mentees it seems. At least that's my anecdotal observation.
20 people management is very well possible. You don't need to have 1:1 with directs every single week. If you do it bi-weekly (every two weeks), the meeting cost to the manager would be 2 sessions a day. Managers tend to join every single meeting under the sun. That's how they fill up their time and appear(!) to be busy. In reality, they can cut down the meetings down to %25 and nothing would change.
Let's look at lowest level managers. They can meet 20 directs bi-weekly for 0.5hr. Let's add 0.5hr follow up work after each 1:1, which is way generous. So that totals up to 20 x (0.5 + 0.5) / 2 = 10hr. Let's assume their own 1:1 with their own manager to take 1hr bi-weekly or 0.5hr weekly as they need to discuss both team and personal issues. They can meet with peers and their manager weekly for 2hr. They can meet with sub-teams (let's assume max 4 teams) weekly (4 x 1hr) for status and problems. And at the end of the scrum (bi-weekly), they can meet all the directs for demos and postmortem for 2hr. If there are some other technical meetings they do not need to attend unless they are absolutely needed but this shouldn't be often. Leads are perfectly capable of handling those and report back if they're hesitant, which, again, shouldn't happen often. Meeting tally up should be around 18hr. For a 40hr week that's less than half. Let's assume they're dragged into some technical meetings for 5 more hours that's still 23hr. Remaining time should be more than enough to sifting through emails, quarterly duties (e.g promos, end of quarter status, next quarter strategy/goal setting) and occasional emergencies.
For mid-level managers (generally directors), they don't have to meet with teams but we assumed their 1:1 would cost 0.5hr/week. Their follow-up should be much less though as they should be able to make decision on most of the issues on the spot. But let's add a quite generous %50 on top which would sum up to 0.5hr x 20 x 1.5 = 15hr. I think they should meet with tech leads (skip-level) too if they're one removed from the lowest level. They can meet them for 0.5hr every 8 weeks which should take at the very maximum, 20 x 4 (leads) / 8 * 0.5hr = 5hr/wk but it'll probably take less. Tally up is 24hr (if you add peer & direct meetings). Mid-level managers may get more randomized but they need to be efficient at what to get involved and what not to. Majority of the middle-managers make the mistake here. They get involved more than they can chew as they're micromanagers and/or they respond to every single demand from their own manager, practically doing the manager's job for them. This is because their promo is generally tied to their manager's attitude toward them but this should be changed. How you can change this is a separate topic I can get into, if needed but let's skip it for now.
For high level managers (generally VPs), their time would be spent less on skip-1:1s & technical meetings but more on strategy and status meetings. I believe they would have even more time at their hand than directors if they're vigilant on the time sunk on the emails.
Then you have CEO at the top or you can have SVPs if number of your ICs is above 16K. But, yes 20 people management is possible if managers are cognizant of their time and boundaries of their responsibilities and if they actually work instead of appear to be working.
But let's face it, it ain't happening because managers are
A) either people who doesn't want to work anymore but need the money so they'll just carry on until they f-up big time and then switch companies and rinse & repeat,
B) or, they overstep their boundaries,
C) or, they don't know how to do prioritization and time management,
D) or a combination of some/all above.
For what it's worth I just bought a M1 Pro 14" Macbook Pro. At Amazon, some of these are being sold as Renewed-Excellent condition. It has 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD. I paid $1380 after tax. I have prime card so I'll receive 5% cashback. It has 90 days return policy. It appears Apple waranty hasn't expired yet either (6 months) which means it was first activated 6 months ago.
Its charge cycle count was 2 and the machine itself is in excellent condition. I think M1 Pro processor is way more capable processor than M3 (non-pro). I know it is 2 year old but Macs go a long way. I'll switch to a newer laptop way before its support will end. So far I'm happy with the purchase.
I think the GPU performance is better for M1 Pro. M3 has better single core performance and a slightly better power efficiency. I don't need single core performance though as I don't do things that need burst performance on a single core. And for battery power, I think any Macbook is way beyond my needs at this point.
Also similar spec'ed Macbook Pro 14 with M3 (non-pro) is above $1900 after tax. Almost 40% more expensive. Not worth it IMHO.
Actually the board may not have acted in most professional way but in due process they kind of proved Sam Altman is unfireable for sure, even if they didn't intend to.
They did notify everyone. They did it after firing which is within their rights. They may also choose to stay silent if there is legitimate reason for it such as making the reasons known may harm the organization even more. This is speculation obviously.
In any case they didn't omit doing anything they need to and they didn't exercise a power they didn't have. The end result is that the board they choose will be impotent at the moment, for sure.
Firing Sam was within the board's rights. And 90% of the employees threatening to leave was within their rights.
All this proved is that you can't take a major action that is deeply unpopular with employees, without consulting them, and expect to still have a functioning organization. This should be obvious, but it apparently never crossed the board's mind.
A lot of these high-up tech leaders seem to forget this regularly. They sit on their thrones and dictate wild swings, and are used to having people obey. They get all the praise and adulation when things go well, and when things don't go well they golden parachute into some other organization who hires based on resume titles rather than leadership and technical ability. It doesn't surprise me at all that they were caught off guard by this.
Not sure how much of the employees leaving have to do with negotiating Sam back, must be a big factor but not all, during the table talk Emmett, Angelo and Ilya must have decided that it wasn’t a good firing and a mistake in retrospect and it is to fix it.
Getting your point, although the fact that something is within your rights, may or may not mean certainly that it's also a proper thing to do ... ?
Like, nobody is going to arrest you for spitting on the street especially if you're an old grandpa.
Nobody is going to arrest you for saying nasty things about somebody's mom.
You get my point, to some boundary both are kinda within somebody's rights, although can be suable or can be reported for misbehaving. But that's the keypoint, misbehavior.
Just because something is within your rights doesn't mean you're not misbehaving or not acting in an immature way.
To be clear, Im not denying or agreeing that the board of directors acted in an immature way. I'm just arguing against the claim that was made within your text that just because someone is acting within their rights that it's also a "right" thing to do necessary, while that is not the case always.
Of course it'll move the curve. Now companies won't be geo locked to US anymore. Yes they have offices in other countries but the salaries are adjusted according to their COL. Think of EMEA where lots of SWE would love US salary but still live there. So the net effect would be that the market will hit an equilibrium where that salary is now way lower for US SWEs than what they used to get but way higher for EMEA SWEs than what they used to get. Get ready for a big time pay cut.
Managers do not need to mentor. Actually an independent mentor is better as there would be no conflict of interest. A person can get a mentor from another team as long as both are willing. If there are more mentees seeking mentorship than mentors, you can rotate the mentors or double/triple assign them especially to those who seek to switch to management track. In reality though, there are more mentors than mentees it seems. At least that's my anecdotal observation.
20 people management is very well possible. You don't need to have 1:1 with directs every single week. If you do it bi-weekly (every two weeks), the meeting cost to the manager would be 2 sessions a day. Managers tend to join every single meeting under the sun. That's how they fill up their time and appear(!) to be busy. In reality, they can cut down the meetings down to %25 and nothing would change.
Let's look at lowest level managers. They can meet 20 directs bi-weekly for 0.5hr. Let's add 0.5hr follow up work after each 1:1, which is way generous. So that totals up to 20 x (0.5 + 0.5) / 2 = 10hr. Let's assume their own 1:1 with their own manager to take 1hr bi-weekly or 0.5hr weekly as they need to discuss both team and personal issues. They can meet with peers and their manager weekly for 2hr. They can meet with sub-teams (let's assume max 4 teams) weekly (4 x 1hr) for status and problems. And at the end of the scrum (bi-weekly), they can meet all the directs for demos and postmortem for 2hr. If there are some other technical meetings they do not need to attend unless they are absolutely needed but this shouldn't be often. Leads are perfectly capable of handling those and report back if they're hesitant, which, again, shouldn't happen often. Meeting tally up should be around 18hr. For a 40hr week that's less than half. Let's assume they're dragged into some technical meetings for 5 more hours that's still 23hr. Remaining time should be more than enough to sifting through emails, quarterly duties (e.g promos, end of quarter status, next quarter strategy/goal setting) and occasional emergencies.
For mid-level managers (generally directors), they don't have to meet with teams but we assumed their 1:1 would cost 0.5hr/week. Their follow-up should be much less though as they should be able to make decision on most of the issues on the spot. But let's add a quite generous %50 on top which would sum up to 0.5hr x 20 x 1.5 = 15hr. I think they should meet with tech leads (skip-level) too if they're one removed from the lowest level. They can meet them for 0.5hr every 8 weeks which should take at the very maximum, 20 x 4 (leads) / 8 * 0.5hr = 5hr/wk but it'll probably take less. Tally up is 24hr (if you add peer & direct meetings). Mid-level managers may get more randomized but they need to be efficient at what to get involved and what not to. Majority of the middle-managers make the mistake here. They get involved more than they can chew as they're micromanagers and/or they respond to every single demand from their own manager, practically doing the manager's job for them. This is because their promo is generally tied to their manager's attitude toward them but this should be changed. How you can change this is a separate topic I can get into, if needed but let's skip it for now.
For high level managers (generally VPs), their time would be spent less on skip-1:1s & technical meetings but more on strategy and status meetings. I believe they would have even more time at their hand than directors if they're vigilant on the time sunk on the emails.
Then you have CEO at the top or you can have SVPs if number of your ICs is above 16K. But, yes 20 people management is possible if managers are cognizant of their time and boundaries of their responsibilities and if they actually work instead of appear to be working.
But let's face it, it ain't happening because managers are A) either people who doesn't want to work anymore but need the money so they'll just carry on until they f-up big time and then switch companies and rinse & repeat, B) or, they overstep their boundaries, C) or, they don't know how to do prioritization and time management, D) or a combination of some/all above.