News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers. Parent comment

Re:When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers by psunavy03 on Saturday October 07, 2023 @11:51PM (#37807738)
Are you telling me that people who worked their way up from entry-level to executive and C-suite positions don't have any domain expertise beyond "playing politics?"

Every general and flag officer started out as a junior officer or junior enlisted servicemember. There is literally no other way to get there. There are no lateral hires into the military; it's "up or out."

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers by someguydave on Sunday October 08, 2023 @12:09AM (#37807799)
Sure but it has likely been decades since they practiced their speciality. If lockheed were hiring these generals for their technical expertise why put them on the board of directors?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers by psunavy03 on Sunday October 08, 2023 @05:56PM (#37814756)
This is like claiming a law firm's named partners haven't practiced law in decades.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers by someguydave on Tuesday October 10, 2023 @04:35PM (#37837121)
Law firms and the military hierarchy are not comparable.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers by civilitty on Sunday October 08, 2023 @12:12AM (#37807812)
I’m saying it’d be a lot more plausible an argument if they actually went into roles where some other domain expertise applied. Board members is not one of those roles, especially when they’re joining the boards of companies working on cutting edge tech like AI and drone platforms.

Most of these generals also went through the military academies, not ROTC or some other pipeline. They had to convince a member of Congress to recommend them, so yes navigating politics plays heavily into their career from day one.

Plenty of other career officers go into consulting or actual leadership roles but the generals named in the article are bought off with these board seats to use their influence over military decision makers, not some other nebulous expertise.

[ Parent | on HN ]