I think it is inevitable that organizational "culture" changes. The tricky part is figuring out exactly what parts need change and what parts don’t.

For example JPL used to have beauty pageants ("Miss Guided Missile"). More recently, management appears to be trying to adopt policies and procedures from some venture funded commercial space companies. It is not clear how helpful these efforts will be given that these organizations are in fundamentally different businesses.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/slice-of-history-70th-annive...

As a male scientist and engineer, I am also on antidepressants :(

I don't think having beauty pageants keep women from being depressed

Pageants were far and between and everyone knew participants had to prepare and they are not walking like fit/dressed that day to day.

Nowadays we have eternal pageant on the internet and lots faking it like they live/sleep/shower in full makeup and perfect fit.

I wonder what the fact of the matter is. It'd be rather hilarious if Humans have been shooting ourselves in the feet for the last few decades with many of our social engineering initiatives. And the reproduction rates chart is ugly.

Who wants to bring a baby onto a sinking ship?

Exactly, it's simple economics.

Modern information access seems to have led to the sinking ship feeling, across many of the most prosperous countries, and so effectively that world wars, deadlier pandemics, and thermonuclear brinkmanship can scarcely compare.

I wonder what the fact of that matter is. Are reproduction rates dropping because women aren't as pressured to bear children due to those silly 'social engineering initiatives'?

I'd bet that's part of it, so what percentage it is would be impossible to determine, which itself may be impossible to realize, for some.

What a weird thing to say.

what a weird society we've evolved into

Run off the mill MBAs are not allowed anywhere near as important as Voyager.

All the web apps, run of the mill devs are implementing are nowhere near as important as voyager.

I think we are fine ;)

It also helps that JPL is a public good and not a wealth-extraction machine

but if someone is paid $0 it must mean they are worthless, surely the excel file doesnt lie

No, you need to think like an MBA.

It means that they are the most valuable employees, because their productivity per dollar is infinite.

It also means that when you sort all the (non-executive, of course!) employees by total comp in preparation for layoffs to make the budget look better, they are at the bottom of the list.

oh yes, you are absolutely right :D

I guarantee you that a run of the mill MBA program will say something about institutional knowledge being important. You’re needlessly and unjustifiably finding an excuse to dunk on something that you know people here dislike, despite it having very little to do with the actual topic. Which…fine. But you’re also so keen to do it that you aren’t even correct. Please stop projecting every gripe you have with your boss onto this mythical “evil MBA”.