#advicetomanagement

The last Dell engineering cheerleader ran away with his tail between his legs. He still hasn't figured out that it's not about fast ingestion times or legacy on-prem dedup ratios. Those days are long gone. It's about - and always has been about - instantaneous recovery.

Anyone else want to try to defend his ignorant, legacy claims? This is why Dell fails at software development - unskilled, uneducated, inexperienced engineers.

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​1. Flash-Optimized Storage vs. Hydration Bottlenecks

​Claim: "Modern Dell PowerProtect DD appliances are fully flash-optimized..."

​The Reality: Slapping NVMe SSDs into a legacy architecture as a cache tier or storage layer does not turn a deduplication engine into a high-performance distributed file system.

​The "Dehydration/Hydration" Problem: DD Boost achieves its high compression ratios by fragmenting data into tiny, variable-length chunks. While this is effective for inline ingestion, when you attempt to restore or live-mount workloads, the CPU must reassemble (hydrate) millions of non-contiguous chunks on the fly.
​NVMe storage speeds cannot overcome a sequential reconstruction pipeline. Flash-native architectures (like Rubrik or Cohesity) don't just put flash in front of a legacy algorithm; their underlying file systems (e.g., Iris, Spacetime) maintain metadata structures explicitly designed to expose uncompressed/hydrated blocks instantly without CPU reconstruction stalls.

​2. The Concurrent Stream & Mass Restore Fallacy

​Claim: "Our latest Data Domain supports 1,850 concurrent streams... PPDM and DD can restore 200 VMs simultaneously."

​The Reality: High stream counts on paper do not equal high restore throughput. Data Domain’s internal specs confirm that while write streams are high, read stream capacity is drastically lower (often a fraction of write streams) because reading deduplicated data requires massive IOPS overhead to resolve chunk pointers.

​Concurrently booting 200 VMs directly off a Data Domain target introduces severe I/O degradation because every VM read request triggers metadata pointer lookups across a single target controller. Modern distributed platforms scale compute and IOPS linearly across a cluster of nodes, eliminating single-controller metadata bottlenecks during mass-restore operations.

​3. Deduplication Ratios vs. Cloud Economics (DDVE)

​Claim: "DDVE reduces cloud storage consumption by up to 90%+... writing raw data forces massive cloud bills."

​The Reality: High deduplication ratios on object storage come with a hidden operational tax: excessive metadata disk overhead and API costs.

​The DDVE Metadata Trap: Running DDVE in public cloud requires mounting massive, high-cost block storage volumes (AWS EBS / Azure Managed Disks) solely to hold the DDVE metadata index needed to track millions of micro-chunks. As data grows, the cost of running high-IOPS block storage to host Data Domain's metadata offset the savings on object storage.
​Furthermore, during a Cloud Disaster Recovery event, assembling data out of millions of tiny GET requests to object storage incurs massive cloud API request fees and latency, whereas cloud-native backup engines stream optimized, sequential object chunks.

​4. "Data Lake" Repurposing vs. Storage Utility

​Claim: "Turning your backup repository into a data lake consumes massive IOPS and degrades backup windows."

​The Reality: This claim assumes an architecture that cannot isolate workloads. Distributed software-defined storage (SDS) utilizes QoS (Quality of Service) controls to dynamically prioritize backup/restore ingestion over secondary workloads.

​In legacy Data Domain, running secondary workloads does ki-l performance because the controller is already redlining CPU utilization just to perform inline deduplication. Modern systems separate background indexing tasks, allowing organizations to run automated malware scans, compliance searches, and dev/test validation directly against backup data without degrading backup windows or creating full-copy storage bloat.

​5. Ransomware & Zero Trust: Air-Gaps vs. Logical Immutability

​Claim: "PowerProtect DD is the gold standard via Cyber Recovery Vault... competing storage sits on the same network."

​The Reality: A physical air-gap or dedicated isolated vault is a perimeter defense, but it is a reactive mechanism built to compensate for non-immutable core architectures.

​Layered Defense: Modern platforms do not rely on "network isolation" alone. They implement native WORM (Write Once, Read Many) immutability at the storage kernel level, strictly enforcing Time-Based Retention Locks, Multi-Party Authorization (MPA), and platform RBAC.

​If a compromised domain admin gains access to a modern software-defined backup cluster, the underlying file system kernel physically blocks any API command attempting to modify, truncate, or delete snapshot chunks prior to their expiration date. Dell's vault model treats the symptom (network exposure) rather than building security directly into every layer of the storage fabric.

​Summary

​"Bragging about 1,850 write streams and 90:1 deduplication ratios is like boasting about how tightly you can pack boxes into a warehouse, while completely ignoring how long it takes to find and unpack a specific box when the building is on fire. Data protection is no longer just about cheap ingestion; it is about instant operational recovery, API-driven automation, and cloud flexibility—areas where legacy deduplication appliances continue to struggle."

Can anyone explain how a 3 year ban on working for Skydance after a buyout serves the best interest of the company? It seems like they wouldn't offer you work unless they needed your skills. So why would they impose this ban?

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is demanding answers about what Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) alleges may be retaliation by leading pharmacy benefit managers against supporters of PBM legislation.

https://www.modernhealthcare.com/insurance/mh-optum-rx-express-scripts-cvs-caremark-house-probe/

Yann LeCun could replace Amazon's ENTIRE AGI division with agents. Think about it... Swami has only been doing AI for the past 9 years with a limited academic background in AI. And AI still hasn't delivered on its promises!

Just leave the company alone. They are already hurting on advisors leaving.

In the UK, we’ve been told we need to complete AI endorsement.

Who’s been brave enough to give it a go?

How did you find it? Any tips or advice before the rest of us take the plunge?

Um, when John?

You’ve been making this claim for a decade.

Maybe it’s not the market. Maybe it’s you.

Retire. Please. For the love of God.

This may get posted on LinkedIn in soon as well.

Arguments for Restricting or Banning Stock Buybacks
Critics, including several progressive lawmakers and economic research groups like the Roosevelt Institute, contend that share repurchases harm long-term corporate health.

• it furthers the income disparity between senior managers of public companies and the wages of average workers;
• senior executives may use buybacks to manipulate triggers for overly generous executive compensation payments; and

• curtailing stock buybacks would cause public companies to spend more of their resources on better pay for workers or for investments in research and development.

• Prioritizing Executives Over Workers: Opponents argue that buybacks artificially inflate share prices and earnings per share (EPS) metrics. This dynamic often triggers performance-based bonuses for senior executives while diverting profits away from employee compensation, benefits, and workplace safety.

• Stifling Innovation: Critics assert that capital allocated toward purchasing existing shares represents residual cash that would be better utilized for capital investments, long-term corporate research and development (R&D), and sustainable economic growth.
• Market Manipulation Concerns:Historically, large-scale repurchases were heavily restricted as a form of stock manipulation until the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) established a regulatory "safe harbor" under Rule 10b-18 in 1982. Critics argue that the current rules contain loopholes allowing corporate insiders to sell their personal shares shortly after announcing a buyback program to maximize personal profit.

Legislative Proposals and Action in Congress
Rather than pursuing an outright ban, recent legislative efforts in Congress have focused on taxation and targeted restrictions:

• Increased Taxation: In June 2026, Senate Democrats introduced the Stock Buyback Accountability Act of 2026, a bill designed to quadruple the existing stock buyback excise tax from 1% to 4% while narrowing corporate loopholes.
• Industry-Specific Restrictions:Bipartisan proposals, such as the Prioritizing the Warfighter in Defense Contracting Act of 2026, seek to limit repurchases specifically for companies receiving taxpayer funds, such as federal defense contractors.

Disclaimer: All of the above information is public information that can be found on the internet by anyone with basic browser search capabilities.

Full Disclosure: I am actually a Republican and pro-Capitalist. However, unfortunately, what I am seeing from an economic standpoint and how today’s corporations are abusing capitalism, which when (capitalism) done correctly is a wonderful thing. But I am starting to see “pure unadulterated” Capitalism turn into crony capitalism or a corporatocracy, which then leads to inequality, market failure, damage to the environment, short-termism, excess materialism and bo-m and bust economic cycles. Therefore, please know that some of the below articles have certain congressional persons that I normally totally disagree with on almost every political viewpoint. But when it comes to Stock Buybacks, I am in agreement that those should be abolished with a congressional bill.

THERE'S A REASON WHY STOCK BUYBACKS USED TO BE ILLEGAL
https://casten.house.gov/media/in-the-news/theres-a-reason-why-stock-buybacks-used-to-be-illegal

Should Congress or the SEC ‘Do Something’ About Stock Buybacks?
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/business-law-today/2021-april/should-congress-or-the-sec-do-something/

Problems of Capitalism
https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/77/economics/problems-of-capitalism/

Active employee here - I usually don't post here but I'm tired of all the lyes from TA the new x heads are worse than the old heads, and at least one generation behind, but to see TA there with King LP lying about a product they know won't sell and won't launch for a year is a whole new level of dumpster fire. If they listened they could spin off my ff core for at least 300m that would allow for further automation investments. Outside of my ff nothing really matters that's what everyone in vegas and Nashville were really talking about ty.

Its literally just a vendor solution that they wrapped around Copilot.

Its a joke.

The fact that our leaders think that this Pixel cr-p will lead us to the promised land where Codex and Claude Code couldnt is wild. Shows how incompetent they are, and that no one is checking their work, even if they waste BILLIONS of dollars.

What are you gonna do about it. The client loves me and keeps extending me. And, yet, no more $$$ or bennies for me. What to do? You gotta change something. You get rewarded when you hit financial goals and your customer (the shareholder) is happy, I just want Tata to treat me the same way. Peace out.

We need more Verizon VP+ posting pictures of their teams and how we won a JD award. OR maybe, a public post from a particular VP giving praise to a particular team member.

The bubble Verizon lives in and the executives who think they are silicon valley CEO's is embarrassing - wake up call is needed.

There are capable people here who could solve problems if management would let them. Instead, decisions keep getting pulled away from the people who understand the work.

It’s funny how every year we have to take COBC training about not accepting kickbacks or incentives from outside companies for personal gain. Yet somehow ADs and DOSs are making $3K+ a month in incentives from Asurion while putting nonstop pressure on stores to sell HTP.

RSMs and ASMs are getting daily calls, threatened with accountability and even termination over HTP, all while upper leadership is bragging about the thousands of dollars they’re making off these sales. Then when employees get caught slamming HTP onto customer accounts, the same ADs suddenly act clueless. “Wow, I had no idea this was happening.” Really?

AT&T keeps turning a blind eye to what’s going on, but eventually all this HTP fraud is going to catch up with the company. And when the lawsuits start coming, I’m sure the same leadership pushing these numbers will pretend they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

I thought we worked for AT&T selling wireless service, but at this point it feels like we work for Asurion.

And here’s what really makes no sense. If the same ADs and DOSs keep having RSMs and ASMs fired or disciplined over fraudulent HTP sales, wouldn’t common sense tell you to start looking at the leadership above them? How is it that the same upper leadership keeps somehow hiring, developing and promoting people who end up involved in the exact same issues?

At what point does AT&T stop blaming the people at the store level and start questioning the people creating the pressure in the first place?

You can only play d-mb so many times before people start realizing you’re not as clueless as you pretend to be.

I heard that Mike actully reads emails or letters sent to him, even from anonymous source. We shall just email him or write letters to him directly.

I am still optimistic that real changes are coming.

Fortune by Nick Lichtenberg, September 30, 2026

At this week’s Ford Pro Accelerate event, Verizon CEO Dan Schulman discussed AI’s rapid advancement and workforce implications, predicting AGI within 18 months and a century’s technological progress unfolding over the next decade. Schulman urged corporate leaders and government to prepare for difficult scenarios rather than assume the labor market will naturally adjust.

Verizon last week announced a $70 million initiative offering free AI training to American workers across the country and working with local organizations on career development. “Our responsibility is to think about what might go wrong; what might we need to address; what might the disruption look like; and how do we put guardrails, training, programs in place to minimize that risk,” Schulman advised.

Current Tax associate account Manager:

Corporates UK will underpay you, overwork you, and then get rid of you with no valid reason when the numbers don't add up.

The targets are extreme and disconnected from reality, especially when you're selling products that are failing and don't do what customers were promised. Instead of fixing the product, leadership keeps hiring more reps, so territories get thinner and the pressure keeps rising. Meanwhile there's plenty of dead weight: people who do very little and stay protected while strong performers get pushed out.

There's no real career progression. You can hit your numbers year after year and still be told to wait, while the few opportunities that do come up go to favourites. Loyalty means nothing, and results count for less than who you're friendly with.

Leadership is robotic, with no human element at all. Everything is a number on a dashboard, and you're treated as a headcount rather than a person. Nobody asks how you're doing unless your pipeline is down, and even then it isn't about you. Management cares mainly about protecting itself.

The culture at the top is the worst part. I personally witnessed senior leaders taking dr-gs with reps on nights out into the early hours, and it was treated as normal rather than as a serious problem. When the people deciding your career behave like that, it's no surprise that fairness and professionalism mean so little in the day job.

Advice to management
Set targets that reflect the product you're actually selling, and stop hiring your way out of a product problem. Build clear, fair progression paths and reward results rather than relationships. Treat your people like people, not numbers. Hold senior leaders to at least the same standards you hold your reps to.

Can you please change your One Talk team, or at least move some members to other teams and bring in some new people? Today, AR stopped working and business is severely impacted, and still they have no clue.

What does the testing team do and why are they not able to find and fix this? It is a waste of money.

Verizon's worst product. They are charging us to pay these managers who don't want to work.

Below are comments from TIAA employees about their failing partnership w/ACN. This is right from our sister board at The Layoff. A true harbinger of things to come.

@rk you need to have the concept of quality to implement quality control, something both Offshore and and Accenture team assigned to TIAA lack. Accenture is not this bad with other clients so TIAA got the worst of the lot, mostly because TIAA offshore running a lot of this has an extremely low bar. TIAA is going to lose in the long run just save some money now. His can the CEO/CTO NOT SEE THIS! SAD!!
12h ago by T is Bad
7 reactions (+7/-0) | Reply
Post ID: @ry+1m327nxmv
 +7 

•••
@jp never seen a partnership deal)this bad. Whoever orchestrated this atrocity should be fired..both at TIAA Management side and accentuare discovery team. Terrible, all the good TIAA employees and contractors left or did not consent to join Accenture, Accenture got the bad leftovers. I also heard that they are cutting hourly rates for contractors, that means more good ones are going to jump ships, reducing SLAs, quality even further.
1d ago by Anonymous
6 reactions (+5/-1) | Reply
Post ID: @md+1m327nxmv
 +4 

@gb it’s terrible. The ACN teams don’t even work in alignment and you join a call and it’s a new group of ACN teams that are clueless to what is being handed off to them. They give absolutely ridiculous timelines even after showing them the processes and testing requirements. They just throw out dates and demand you fill out their status tracker spreadsheets. They bang on the desk to try and show they are busy. Completely worthless partnership that is holding us back.
1d ago by Anonymous
13 reactions (+13/-0) | Reply
Post ID: @jp+1m327nxmv
 +13 

Yes, Ameriprise has experienced some high-profile advisor departures and industry attrition, though the firm maintains it has strong overall retention and a robust recruiting pipeline

It seems like there are senior leaders that peruse this site. If they were to ask your feedback about the upcoming org changes and layoffs what would be your recommendations?

Well, it’s here.

DO NOT TAKE THIS SURVEY.

And don’t reply to this with dimwitted comments about how you’re going to hammer them. They don’t care about your comments or your ratings. Couldn’t give less of a flying flip.

ALL THEY CARE ABOUT IS WHETHER YOU TAKE IT OR NOT. DON’T GIVE THEM THE WIN ON THIS.

Before the end of next week,you and the rest of your group will start receiving emails from your AD, Director, and VP urging your participation. Do not cave. Despite what you read here, they cannot tell who has and who has not completed the survey. They get a roll up report showing the percentage of their team that has participated.

I know many bootlickers will take the survey and leave glowing comments. I know many dimwits will still think their low ratings and scathing comments matter, and will take it.

I am just hoping for the lowest participation numbers ever.

the world is moving so fast, especially at AI? why work for a wireless company who claimed they can do a PC. Look what the FU.

A piece of advice to those looking for another job: find yourself a boss that is proficient in the job you’ll be doing. This is based on my experience in N&T where we would get a boss after every reshuffle that had not much experience in the department they were taking over. They may have been a hard worker that did well in their previous position but that’s not enough to take on a completely different function. Amateur hour just doesn’t cut it and it creates a very awkward situation where you have to correct your boss or watch them make stupid decisions because they don’t know any better.

A boss that’s proficient in the job you’ll be doing can also provide guidance and help make correct decisions when there are multiple ways to skin the cat. I could never get a clear answer from my boss when I would present two valid options with the pros and cons of each. I would get a non-answer like “We have to do what’s right!” Like duh! Thanks for that enlightening answer!

To XOM managers: I do not care who put you in those positions or how you got them. Just follow three basic rules, keep three zippers closed: your pocket, your mouth, your pants. Simple.

Penny said (and I’m paraphrasing) “We are in the business of serving clients, and trust is our currency.” Well, guess what? That applies in the Field as it does in the Home Office. And the thing about trust is… it’s hard to gain, easy to lose. How does one lose trust? By over promising, under delivering, by saying you will do something and don’t do it, by putting your faith in things that aren’t real. And we are in a critical point in the firm’s history, where this currency matters more than ever. Don’t be dazzled by pretty slides. There’s a common saying in the consulting world … “death by a thousand slides”. Why does this phrase exist? Slides will not bring you the clarity you need. Nor CoPilot. Only by asking the right questions to trustworthy people, who love you and the firm enough to tell you the truth, not necessarily what you want to hear. Go and see how work is actually being done. Don’t assume your (implicit) assumptions are right. That’s how initiatives fail and organizations walk off a cliff. Read the book “Confronting Reality”. I don’t want us to end up in that book in a future edition. Learn how organizations fail in their transformational efforts…. Blockbuster, Kmart, BlackBerry… In some cases, the fall came swiftly. Blockbuster was successfully, until suddenly it’s not. In other cases, these organizations are a shadow of their formal self. Think BlackBerry. Not because they don’t have smart people. They all do, incredibly smart people. It’s because the smart people assume they’re right, and they stopped listening to the people closest to the work. It’s because they’re planning in ivory towers, completely ignoring the battlefield below. And the people bringing them the “news” so they can make adjustments to their strategies are n steps removed from the field. Watered down intel, like the telephone game we played as a kid. And guess what? It’s all entirely predictable.

HR is obviously there to protect the company, not me, so I am trying to figure out if I should go straight to senior leadership or if I have to go through my manager first and risk getting shut down before I even get heard. I'm avoiding saying what the subject is for anonymity purposes.

DO NOT take the engagement survey starting next week. Most companies (truist included) care more about low participation than low scores. Most companies believe that any response to these surveys indicates that you still believe your voice is heard and cared about. This is well documented online and I’ve seen it personally.

A manager of mine a few years ago (who was terrible and eventually fired for misconduct) had very high engagement scores. Much higher than the company average. And that’s because only ONE person on a team of over 20 people took the survey (I personally think the only teammate that took the survey was the one the manager was sleeping with, but I could be wrong). HR and higher management got involved specifically because of low participation and our concerns were finally addressed.

The participation rate has been steadily going down throughout Truist for years. Make it plummet and they’ll actually start taking notice. That’s why we get emails saying “hey guys we still only have xx% of people who have taken the survey. It’s available to take for a couple more days. Make sure to take it and make your voice heard blah blah blah.”

Silence is the sound of dissent and dissatisfaction, and that makes people in charge VERY nervous.

Obviously things are good in the US with this many hires last month yet Dell is in another major canning spree...

We continue to do great numbers too quarter after quarter. Makes no sense other than MD getting bad advice from JC to cut cut cut.

I highly doubt either of them know whats actually happening in the trenches.

If we have to pre-submit questions, it's not an AMA. That last A stands for "anything", meaning your filtering of submitted questions removes the "anything" from the "Ask Me".

There is no better way to communicate to employees that you DGAF about employee-relevant questions.

I am amazed that host governments are letting ExxonMobil continue to do less and less in terms of local benefits. Jobs that could be local are now in India. How is this allowed?

If this does not happen, reach out to your representative

Part of the Cigna / HealthSpring acquisition here. Over at Cigna part of the business strategy was buying companies and quickly incorporating them into our BO operations. On the other hand, HCSC seems like a kid in fourth grade trying to figure out a college level manual. How are we still waiting on decisions here almost two years in? When will Igor come up with a definitive direction around AI? The townhall where he said "100 years ago, people didn't know they wanted a car, they just wanted faster horses" was a fancy little tidbit. Well, Igor, using your own analogy, we don't want a car or a horse, we just want to start moving. When are you going to get out of the way and let the team race forward?

We were at 245 summer st. The room was vp’s on up. Lots of mba, egghead types. We were talking about updates to a platform, to include new offerings. I had spent 8 years on the phones and got a new gig. I felt like I could adequately describe and represent the associates who are on the front lines.

The conversation was about logical progression and workflow of a call. I insisted that not all calls flow a logical progression but many times clients get emotional. I cited several examples and case studies to make my points. The discussion became difficult, especially for this one svp bonehead who’s claim to fame was he was smarter than everyone. By the end of the meeting, because of time, the decisions made were to not change a single thing because the logic was good and the back office would just need to get more efficient.

These eggheads do not know what they’re talking about and think they’re superior to the associates.

They want to hire a “confident attorney” to be the enemy of the employees. Yep, they aren’t kidding when they say they hate us. Instead of hiring for an “Employee Advocate”, they want another yes-man who will protect corrupt executives.

https://external-canoncareers.icims.com/jobs/34803/employment-counsel/job

If Verizon actually rebadges this group, that would be a wild decision 😂

How are you going to hand the keys to your network over to a vendor and expect that to end well?

Dan or any Verizon executives lurking in here might want to take a few notes from what happened to Sprint when Ericsson was running their network. We all saw how that story played out. 😂

But hey… I’m sure outsourcing the people who actually know and maintain the network will really help with that whole “delighting the customer” thing. 🤡📶

To ensure fair and objective decisions, review system/login data for attendance, leave, WFH, and actual work activity. Use verified records and job impact rather than assumptions or personal relationships.

...and please, please, stop using the above phrase in modern emails. With respect; I get it, it was once a common phrase. Those years are long over.

Peace.

A group of prominent British actors, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cu----g, and Benedict Wong, have penned an op-ed urging the UK government to oppose the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. They express concerns that the consolidation of power could negatively impact independent film financing, news publishing, and the livelihoods of British film and television workers. The actors have formally requested that the UK Culture Minister investigate the potential consequences of the deal. While the European Commission has approved the merger with restrictions, it faces ongoing scrutiny in the United States. The UK minister has indicated a willingness to engage with the matter.

London, United Kingdom

https://www.netflixjunkie.com/hollywood-news-benedict-cumberbatch-alan-cu----g-and-benedict-wong-lead-opposition-to-paramount-warner-bros-merger

Is there an avenue to file a class action lawsuit against EchoStar on behalf of all the affected since 2025? Something Charlie wouldn’t expect would be a smoking g-n, and hit him where it hurts: the spectrum money he has stashed?

Like, some ominous but effective case. Example: in this film The Firm, the whistleblower simply filed “wire fraud” as the case.

Let’s start the talk here. I believe these are the types of billionaires that are meant to fall from the sky. Charlie is a mean, egomaniacal person who enjoys rising above while watching people below him suffer.

Let’s align and discuss possibilities here.