Musings are just random scribbles—short pieces that haven’t been seriously pondered or polished, spur-of-the-moment thoughts and trivial daydreams.
Some technical posts demand definitions, background, and context, growing long, tiring to write, and time-consuming.
Shorter technical notes will also be placed here, minus most of the background; everything in the musing section is meant to be relaxing.
Reading
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Game Theory
OKR Pitfalls and Boons
OKR Pitfalls and Boons
In 2009, Harvard Business School published a paper titled Goals Gone Wild. Using a series of examples, it explained “the destructive side of over-pursuing goals”: the Ford Pinto’s exploding gas tank, Sears Auto Centers’ rampant overcharging, Enron’s wildly inflated sales targets, and the 1996 Mount Everest disaster that killed eight people. The authors warn that goals are “a prescription drug that must be handled with care and monitored closely.” They even state: “Because of excessive focus, unethical behavior, greater risk taking and decreased cooperation and intrinsic motivation, goals create systematic problems inside organizations.” The downsides of goal-setting may cancel out the benefits—that was the thesis.
Reading “Measure What Matters”
I practiced OKRs for three years at my previous company; coincidentally my current company is embracing OKRs as well, and our boss recommended this book Measure What Matters.
It took me two weeks to finish it off and on. Below are some brief, purely subjective impressions before I’ve thought them through.
OKR, originally “Objectives and Key Results,” translates literally to objectives and key results.
Under Google’s OKR model, objectives break into two types: committed objectives and aspirational objectives. Each type is assessed differently. Thoughtful wording of objectives matters; you can refer to the last-chapter appendix Google Internal OKR Template or this link.
Key results also require careful crafting. Think of a key result as a milestone; every advance moves you toward the nearest milestone, ultimately reaching the objective. Each milestone should be quantifiable so you can tell whether you’ve met it and analyze any gaps.
Because key results still advise using numbers, how do they differ from KPIs? KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. Clearly KPIs have no explicit objective.
When an organization blindly issues numerical targets while ignoring objectives, many cases show real harm; the book cites several.
Beyond explaining and “selling” OKRs, another important late-chapter tool is continuous performance management, accomplished via CFR—Conversations, Feedback, Recognition—i.e., conversation, feedback, recognition.
The book mainly describes managers holding one-on-ones, gathering feedback, and recognizing employees’ efforts. While it sounds pleasant, real contexts are riddled with partial knowledge, misunderstandings, and self-importance. The authors therefore advocate “more” conversations, without specifying what “more” means. How to prevent “conversation” from becoming “pressure,” “feedback” from degenerating into “complaints,” or “recognition” from mutating into “gaslighting” requires both parties to possess communication skills.
The second half of the book treats continuous performance management, which on the surface seems even closer to traditional performance management. Yet the book repeatedly stresses that OKR completion should never be tied to compensation—otherwise the numbers go stale and we retrace the KPI path that hurts companies.
After practicing OKRs, what metrics do influence pay? The book offers no answer. My own inference: since OKRs add the objective dimension to performance, perhaps the closer the objective aligns with overall company interests, the more it helps personal advancement. Therefore when setting objectives, consider company benefits and frame them to maximize those benefits; avoid objectives that serve only personal interests—such as earning a certificate, getting fitter, or work–life balance. Preposterous as it sounds, I’ve seen many folks pick the wrong path.
Brutal performance management hurts companies—a predictable outcome. What puzzles me is why so many firms clung to KPIs for years and what their current shape is. Many decisions don’t withstand close scrutiny; with a few logical minds talking openly, better choices emerge more often.
Summary
By my usual standard, examples should clarify ideas, not prove them—at most they can dis-prove a point.
This book has flaws:
It cites cases of KPI failures but cannot show KPI is worthless, nor that replacing KPI with OKR guarantees success.
To prove OKR works, it lists selective correct moves by successful companies; yet plenty of OKR-using companies still fail. If failures are attributed to “half-hearted practice,” OKR becomes mere mysticism.
Corporate success hinges on many factors—financial health, employee performance, customer satisfaction, client support—no single element is decisive.
The book makes assertions without solid proof; isolated cases, successful or not, prove little, making it not especially rigorous.
Although the book isn’t rigorous, I still gained something—perhaps ideas I already held: collaborators need more conversation, transparency as a cultural norm helps pull everyone together, thereby drawing the “human harmony” card.
Wuhan's crayfish vendors now offer on-site processing
Wuhan’s crayfish market has started offering processing services. After you buy your crayfish, there’s a free wash-and-prep station right next to the stall, staffed by three people working in tandem.
The first vendors to roll out this perk gain an immediate advantage: more customers. It’s a textbook example of the “something nobody else offers” type of premium service.
The barrier to entry, however, is low—any vendor can hire three people tomorrow—and the cost is high: three full-time laborers dedicated solely to prep. If the player can’t seize enough market share, the service will eventually cost more than it brings in.
For anyone selling crayfish all summer, the day inevitably comes when this service becomes a pure loss generator. Yet they can’t cancel it, because it’s become their main selling point. Customers are now accustomed to it; the moment you take it away, they’ll shop elsewhere. You can choose never to offer free processing in the first place, but once you do, clawing it back is almost impossible.
Some entrepreneurs swear by the “give a little extra” philosophy. Consumers naturally prefer a vendor who is more generous over one who is stingy. But the invisible price is higher operating costs, pushing everyone into low-value, low-throat-clearing competition until no one profits and the whole sector wilts. That raises an unsettling question: do certain industries decline because service is too bad—or because service is too good?
Large corporations engage in similar money-losing spectacle-making, with the end goal of monopoly. Once there’s only one ride-hailing platform or one group-buying behemoth left, the harvest begins. Yet we notice they are in no rush to cash in. Instead, they use algorithms to skim selectively. They reap supernormal profits from their pricing power while simultaneously subsidizing new product lines to undercut any newcomer and fend off every potential competitor. These firms already constitute de facto monopolies—whether they decide to “cut the leeks” is merely a scheduling matter.
At work we meet plenty of “grind-kings.” It’s hard to say whether they create more value, but they can demonstrably stay at their desks thirty minutes longer than anyone else. Once two grind-kings lock horns, their escalating “give a little extra” soon blankets the entire office in its shadow. By peddling low-quality toil, they squeeze out those who simply do an honest day’s work. They’re not competing on innovation or output; they’re competing on sheer doggedness, and inexplicably that wins the boss’s favor—a textbook case of unhealthy ruinous competition.
Back to the crayfish market: someone can monopolize pricing and name their own numbers, someone else can monopolize supply and cater exclusively to the high end. So tell me—who can monopolize the act of laboring itself so thoroughly that others volunteer to labor for them?
Stop and Go
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An Attempt at an Objective Review of Huawei
After working at Huawei for three years, I left for personal reasons and gained a bit of insight into its culture. Here, I simply share some of my shallow reflections.
Leadership Traits
Many Huawei leaders come from a technical background, but I don’t consider them purely technical people—rather, they behave more like politicians. It’s hard to judge whether that’s good or bad, but if you’re a “pure” engineer, working at Huawei may leave you feeling slighted somewhat.
Understanding human nature and technology is needed to rise to leadership, which might seem reasonable, but you must be careful not to become a sacrificial pawn — someone whose hard-earned fruits of labor are simply plucked by others.
Operating Style
Huawei’s overall operating style is results-oriented, savage, undignified, indifferent to rules, and often unconcerned with industry conventions.
You have to admit that savagery can indeed be a powerful force. The moment you decide to stay at Huawei, you must also become savage.
I slowly came to realize that you must enter a kind of egoless state, ignoring superficial harmony with others. For your parents, spouse, and children; for staying in a first-tier city; for changing your own fate—you need to fight for every yuan you can possibly obtain.
Being cautious or humble is almost a death sentence; you must pound your chest and promise you can deliver. If you ultimately cannot, there’s still plenty of wiggle room. Talking big brings you many benefits and few downsides; the worst that happens is you utter, “It’s really hard.”
If you’re savvy, you can wrap things in all sorts of packaging. Set a huge goal, grind like crazy, then deliver a medium outcome. Huawei’s culture will still grant rewards, but whether it’s viewed as slightly above or slightly below average depends on Huawei’s gray culture, and you must find someone to speak up for you.
Under this corporate culture, talking big may even be seen as daring to fight, nudging the company closer to a Great Leap Forward, with the doers bearing the costs. It’s not that engineers are left to “hang,” but rather they’re kept away from their families, toiling for years, sacrificing youth and health, and possibly ending up with far less money than expected while others take partial credit for the results. As I said at the start, Huawei exudes a strong “political” flavor: sacrifice one group’s interests to bolster another, consolidating power and profit.
I felt that the wheels of the Huawei war machine advance over the souls of both those riding atop it and those crushed beneath. Some profit, others never receive what they deserve. If, like me, you’ve failed Huawei’s personality tests several times, don’t bother hunting down answers just to force your way in.
Storming the Battlefield
Huawei enters many industries—usually as a latecomer—few industries were truly innovated and pioneered by Huawei from scratch. It will select a hugely profitable direction, mimic (or some would say copy) the leader while carefully avoiding legal risk. For example, early command-line interfaces were not legally considered plagiarism—only identical code counts—so Huawei never lost the key lawsuits.
Once inside an industry, Huawei unleashes its core competitiveness: the “wolf culture.” Even in markets where Huawei is already the dominant player, employee bonuses aren’t that large. Huawei distributes money based on market incremental growth; if a new business loses less this year than last, employees still get decent bonuses.
How does a newcomer win orders when overtaking every technical dimension up front is impossible? Huawei secures clients through excellent service attitudes and preferential policies. From this I learned a lesson: many customers don’t care if your technology is leading-edge—remember the essence of “good enough.” Huawei assigns its full-time employees to clients as quasi-outsourced labor; a single two-hour meeting can cost tens of thousands in engineer salaries. Whether everyone present actually participates is another story, but at least the staff list looks complete. Twenty-plus engineers on a video call solving the client’s problems is the part employees rant about most, yet it fills clients with confidence and experience. Is the money you pay for the product, or for the experience? I’m no sales expert—you decide.
Burning out engineers to buy service quality is expensive but an area to optimize later. Once products stabilize, those 20-people meetings get trimmed, costs fall, and headcount shrinks. Inside Huawei, hardly anyone can “lie back” after “arduous struggle” and still make money. If you want to earn, you must head for the industries still locked in fierce competition.
Afterward Huawei will incrementally improve product competitiveness in priority order and gradually conquer the market. Its pricing across various products is actually rather scientific; despite the controversy, the pricing model may simply be elementary-school arithmetic.
Huawei Field Notes: An Insider's Reading of Organisational DNA
Based on three years’ experience, this article systematically analyses Huawei’s corporate culture, management model and market strategy to paint a three-dimensional portrait of the tech giant.
After three years at Huawei I left for personal reasons, leaving me with a distinct feel for its culture. I now attempt, with several concrete cases, to give an insider’s structured rundown of the company’s characteristics.
1. Management DNA: the fusion of technical genes and commercial acumen
Huawei’s leadership pipeline shows a unique hybrid profile:
Technical grounding: core managers nearly all have R&D backgrounds, their genes shape decision logic and technology road-maps.
Managerial evolution: as the organisation grew, leaders gradually transformed from technical specialists into strategists, creating an “engineer-style management philosophy”.
Dialectical tension: purely technical talents must leap from deep expertise to system-level oversight, so career transformation demands twin up-skills.
2. Execution culture: organisational efficiency under high pressure
Huawei’s outcome-oriented execution system is a double-edged sword.
Innovation dilemma: short-term goals may squeeze long R&D.
Talent fit gap: non-linear thinkers struggle.
3. Expansion logic: late-mover systemic practice
Huawei’s market expansion follows a reproducible methodology.
3.1 Phase-evolution model
Benchmark period: reverse-engineering to catch up.
Solution innovation: rebuild offerings around client scenarios.
Ecosystem phase: open platforms, value networks.
3.2 Strategic traits
Pressure-point principle: pile resources at critical breakthroughs.
Echelon rollout: multi-generation product matrix.
Contrarian investment: boost basics during industry troughs.
4. Organisational evolution through a dialectical lens
Every management model mirrors its era and growth stage. Huawei’s architecture reflects survival wisdom in fierce competition and universal laws for scaling tech firms. Advantageous at a particular stage, it also needs constant evolution for new business climates.
4.1 Model fitness
Advantage continuity: 5G and cloud still need heavy bets.
Transition pains: from follower to first-mover calls for new mind-sets.
“Fit-for-use” technology rule: focus on core need fulfilment.
Service redundancy: over-staff engineers as insurance.
Cost-transference model
Make market expansion the main incentive pool.
Dynamic resource allocation (elastic manpower between projects).
5.3 Management tips & practice advice
Dimension
Start-up reference tactics
Mature-firm tuning
Tech spend
Reverse-engineer + fast iterations
Forward innovation + standard setting
Service model
Resource-heavy investment
Smart-service displacement
Incentives
Marginal incremental gains
Long-term value alignment
Movies & Watching
layout:blogtitle:Characteristics of Formal Logic and Dialectical LogiclinkTitle:Characteristics of Formal Logic and Dialectical Logiccategories:Uncategorizedtags:[Uncategorized, Logic]date:2023-05-30 17:27:52 +0800draft:truetoc:truetoc_hide:falsemath:falsecomments:falsegiscus_comments:truehide_summary:falsehide_feedback:falsedescription:weight:100
Characteristics of Formal Logic and Dialectical Logic
I’m often amazed at the lack of dialectical logic in some people, yet upon reflection, formal logic has its own distinctive traits and strengths. Those adept at dialectical thinking, through both contemplation and programming, can set a benchmark—or a model—for individuals strong in formal logic; working in concert brings out the best of both approaches.