Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are:
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I would call it "being taken over by bureaucracy", but I basically agree.
At private companies the bureaucracy is constrained by market pressures (unless the company finds a particularly juicy spot at the government trough), but for colleges and universities these pressures have been largely absent. Until now.
I expect the next decade to be pretty painful for, um, institutions of higher learning.
I disagree- you'd be amazed how inefficient you can be and still be profitable. Lots of very large companies are being strangled by their bureaucracy even while remaining at least somewhat profitable (generally the existence of a huge company is all-in-itself a barrier to entry for competitors). I've worked for a surprising number of companies that have the basic problem of "I used to be very profitable, but now I find I'm slightly less profitable despite selling more products... (read more)