Outside of ignoring problems until they get worse?
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The VP tier is largely occupied by leaders from a pre-Java era whose engineering skills peaked in the 1990s. born in 1960-70's. They climbed the corporate ladder early via pure management gymnastics rather than technical innovation. Put any of them through a modern system design or LeetCode Hard interview, and they would instantly fail. They couldn't land an engineering leadership role at a modern San Francisco tech firm if they tried.
Instead, they survive by we-ponizing hierarchical politics, micromanagement, and driving fear into their subordinates. Their technical pride lies in having coded in COBOL, Pascal, or LISP decades ago. They hide behind the excuse of, "We don't need to know the tech; we just hire people to build it." Consequently, they are fundamentally incapable of leading Oracle into a dominant position in AI, Fusion, or modern Cloud infrastructure.
The Director Layer: Play the Game or Get Left Behind (Ages 45–50)
Born in the 1970s and educated in the 1990s, the directors are technically closer to modern systems than the VPs. However, to survive and advance, they are forced to play the exact same political games as the higher-ups. If you don't kiss the ring of the VP, you don't make director. It’s a closed loop of loyalty over merit.
Why This Ki-ls Engineering Growth
Contrast this with Meta, Google, or X. In modern Big Tech, you see vibrant, brilliant VPs and Directors in their late 30s or early 40s. They are technically sharp, execute at high velocity, understand exactly what their teams are building, and foster environments where young talent thrives on merit.
At Oracle, the layer of "old guard" management creates a massive bottleneck:
The 15-Year Wait: To get a meaningful promotion, you either have to wait 15 years for someone to retire or secure the rare personal "blessing" of a VP.
Zero Influence: ICs (Individual Contributors) have almost no way to truly innovate, influence product direction, or make a name for themselves.
The "Rest and Vest" Reality: If your goal is to coast, do minimal work, and collect a steady paycheck, Oracle is a goldmine. If you want to build cutting-edge tech and scale your career, look elsewhere.
Just look at the stock growth from 2000 to 2026 compared to true Big Tech peers. The chart speaks for itself. It’s a holding company managed by politicians, not a tech company run by engineers.
Blaming employees, and firing them was low on Oracle, they should have asked VP's to retire like MSFT did.
They are all getting culled across every company. Unless you have a real engineering or CS degree, 5-10 years of coding, and etc you are sh*t out of luck because those are now mandatory for most roles. If you just manage managing of management, you will be obsolete by the end of 2027
@e8 man. This is so spot on!
"Experts at managing perception rather than producing outcomes."
Thre are SEVERAL M6's that simplly take up air, waste time, energy and space. They hide behind politics, position themselves as experts while manging up the chain politically. If you're one of those - and you know who you are - how do you look yourself in the mirror? Be ashamed and embarrassed. Want more: Here's my top phrases and a list: Enjoy.
Professional Pretenders
Political Opportunists
Self-Promoting Nonperformers
Power Without Production
Status Over Substance
Experts in Self-Preservation
Masters of Managing Up
The Competence Illusion
Organizational Parasites
Corporate Actors
Empty Suits
Political Air Consumers
Leadership Impersonators
Productivity Vampires
The Cult of Self-Importance
Mediocrity and protected
Professional Oxygen Thieves
Passengers on the Payroll
OP, what do you do? I would be willing to bet that it is not as important as you think and that you can be easily replaced.
We mandate:
Close Plans
Account Plans
Deal Notes
POD Calls
Forecast Numbers
Consumption Forecast
AI Customer TCOs
Just so we can promote up the chain !!!!
We managers spend our time in meetings to schedule further meetings to get our reports to do the things we should be doing then take the credit. Duh...
Make spreadsheets with ai.
Excuse me. We also fill a seat and draw a paycheck. Thank you for you attention to this matter.
they create the problems
all of them are in a meeting right now