From what I understood, they are talking about the author’s complaint that he doesn’t get to spend 100% of his workday coding/testing/documenting. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the companies were poorly run - larger enterprises with more projects, teams and customers are going to require more meetings.

Maybe he worked at poorly managed companies, who knows. The fact that he was asked to participate in meetings instead of only being assigned purely code-related tasks isn’t very compelling evidence of a company being a “joke”.

> the author’s complaint that he doesn’t get to spend 100% of his workday coding/testing/documenting

The author's complaint was that he only gets to spend 12-25% of his time on these tasks on a good day.

I tend to find that where the PO/product job doesnt have to be shared with developers the velocity and quality of the product improves considerably.

I dont think that relatively speaking companies that dont do this are horribly run since it seems to be the norm but I can see why somebody who isnt used to it would rant.

In general larger companies do everything inefficiently. It's to be expected. Small companies wouldnt exist otherwise.

In my view the most effective organizations are made up of mini CEOs.

When you read about organizations which were highly effective there is usually a common theme of management by objective and giving people ownership. “The HP Way” and this speech by Rickhover are two such examples: https://govleaders.org/rickover.htm

An excellent illustration of the difference between a professional and an employee.