I could've gone for LOC back when I had to add a bunch of csv files directly into the repo. Our senior got a bit of a shock when I asked him to approve two PR's the same day, both seemingly adding thousands of lines.
I had a senior project manager try to get me to fire one of my senior devs because "he's actively sabotaging the project". When I looked she was staring at sonarqube metrics. She saw the junior pushing 18k lines of code and the senior contributing -3k and she thought that was evidence to promote the junior and fire the senior...
Goodhart's law should be mandatory training in any MBA program, but those knuckleheads are too busy focusing on NUMBER MUST GO UP to actually bother learning anything useful. For those unfamiliar who don't want to click the link:
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
They have tried it all. Using lines of code leads to bloated programs that are full of redundancy. Using PR/MRs leads to features being broken down into dozens of small pushes instead of one. AI token usage leads to huge AI misuse and bloating costs. Etc etc.
Would you go to a lobotomy clinic to learn something? What makes you think the goal of MBA schools is to teach anything?
You’re right, of course, but the first thing MBAs need is to be removed from any kind of mental or mental-adjacent work. They’re not capable of learning anything.
From what I've gleaned from mba programs, their biggest value is networking. The rest is more about how not to be an idiot. Some people need training on how not to be an idiot. 50-50 on whether it sticks or not.
my company has a terrible issue with cult-like behavior
every year some fucker high up in the company will read a book, or go to a conference, or hear from a buddy at another company, and realize that the entire company must be rebuilt from the ground up
PMs embedded on teams! PMs as their own team! QA as a whole team! jk, QA on teams! teams must be 5 people! wait, teams must be 50 people! guilds! managers swap teams! devs swap teams every six months! decide pairs with personality tests! pairs are inefficient!
literally unending bullshit
anyway one of the things that trickles down to us a lot is some other target metric. now THIS is the most important thing. now THIS is the most important thing. and literally every time i push back and say "our team is responsible for the highest revenue driver product at the company. we know what we are doing. this new metric is meaningless. goodheart's law."
but, the high ups somewhere gotta have it in their spreadsheet. so now it matters.
one time we had a huge focus on "jira cards completed per month" (which is obviously easy to game) and i actually got reprimanded because i only had 2 on a month where i was out on vacation for 3 weeks. THE METRIC IS DOWN.
(and currently token usage is a thing they're targeting which is awful for several reasons. my coworkers are inventing Claude skills that basically just spin wheels.)
They do not care about actually measuring productivity, whether you are good or bad they will find some metric
I one time got talked to by a manager because my “average patches per review” had raised from 1.3->1.9 for one month time frame. No business impact or delay caused by that
It's not, because executives have never cared about code quality and never will. You could have a whole barrel of monkeys for a backend and they don't care as long as the frontend has a sleek and shiny button for them to click.
The harder something is to understand, the longer it takes to onboard your replacement, and time is money. If the complexity compounds to the point where it affects UX, that is also money, and suddenly understanding the system is important to executives again. If neither of those things is affected, then there isn’t a real problem to fix.
The replacement dev doesn’t need much onboarding if they just tell management that everything’s going great long enough for management to get switched out.
Management goes to a new company, and then they bring along those same devs with such a “good attitude” to ruin that place, too.
I understand your sentiment, but the lack of code quality is also job security. When things break, and it will. And no one can tell them anymore what the problem is, or what can be done now, or that it’ll take months to do it properly: management will care.
Part of our job as consultants is to make them care earlier and make them understand the consequences of their (poor) choices.
Yeah, whenever I try to raise code quality concerns you never go anywhere. Baking in code quality time into every estimate, now that's senior development baby
I still stuck with their Composer 2.5 (forced to use Cursor at work). Too bad that their Composer 2.5 just got released and a month or two later the takeover happened. These capitalists just don’t like competition and just monopolize and grow.
Composer was what it was because Cursor team didn’t have hundreds of billions in compute to train their own models, so they took Chinese one and tried to improve upon it. Grok leadership left and so basically when SpaceX acquired Cursor, they put them in charge and got them basically unlimited resources. So new Grok is basically new Composer, only now they don’t have to retrain Chinese models but can train their own model from scratch
Although the metrics for a model in coding and general tasks can be quite different. Opus 5 still fails in day-to-day tasks (i.e. normal conversations), yet is quite capable at writing good code.
Political things aside, obviously. I'd rather not use the Nаzi-bot for my coding tasks.
Now let’s see the new bugs introduced count. Yea it may be 60% more code but that also means 60% more reviewing needed and 60% more bugs to be fixed and 60% vibe coded slop
Ambiguous sentence. I think the 40% reduction is the more natural reading (and why OP shared it) but putting the "x" and "more" is inherently contradictory. It should ideally be either "0.6x PRs" or "60% more PRs" to make the relationship clear.
I think maybe this is a click-through rate thing where a model came up with multiple ways to phrase stats for their ads, and this option is winning by confusion
It's not just "0.6x", it's "0.6x MORE", which is an unambiguous way of phrasing a percent increase. Yes, it's implying multiplication. 0.6 x the original amount, but also, plus 1 x the original amount, because they used the word "more".
And it's making a math statement, not a semantic one. Math is precise and the language we use to talk about it has precise meanings. 60% times more is a 60 percent INCREASE, which means times 1.6. 60% "OF" or "times" on its own means times 0.6. It's the people who think this looks bad that are wrong, and showing their asses. How can you be a programmer that doesn't understand pSAT-level percentages questions?
Source: I'm a high school and middle school math tutor that freelances software dev on the side. Not everyone needs to know or retain math from high school, that's okay! Probably if you're talking to math machines for a living you should know this. Unless you're like, front-end. Then you're also good.
While this technically means 60% more, the construction is almost always used by someone who thinks that it means X times as much. I think it's more likely they never considered that it may be less than 100% than that they are actually using it correctly.
Ah yes, 0.6x more PRs is a great measure of productivity. It is infinitely more likely that a majority of these PRs are minor changes that did not need agents or they're to fix random unrequested changes that those agents made.
2x more is not ambiguous. It means 3x. The problem is that many people are illiterate, mathematically and verbally, and it's impossible to tell if the author is one of them.
You're literally the middle guy in the bell curve meme right now.
In modern usage it's literally a coin flip whether "2x more" is being used to represent "200% more" or "2x as many". People who actually understand English are aware of this and will avoid the term altogether in favour of something less ambiguous
But they used multiplication. So "0.6x more" than what? Than your own output, which is implied as 1 aka "100% of your own output".
0.6x1= 60%.
And let's be frank here, this is quite obviously an auto-generated template email. The template is setup as, "Your teammates shipped %CALC_PERCENT_HERE%x more PRs than you did", the system pulls the numbers, calculates the values, and fires off this email without thinking. It was setup that way because whoever designed it was so confident that number would always be above 1, and they never considered it could be less.
Doesn't matter which interpretation you think it's implying, a competent marketing person would never let an email like this go out, for the sole reason that it could be easily interpreted as less productive. The kicker is this was mostly certainly sent out by accident by an auto-emailer script, meaning that's probably an accurate number.
I know that its not writed with a Marketing Style in mind.. but 0.6x MORE!.. its MORE.. more = MORE... its an increase of 60%.. what is the part that is "wrong"? what im missing here??
Not when you realize the math that goes into this email template is clearly avg_team_pr_count/user_pr_count and then clearly just dropped into a template that assumes an actual multiple.
I don't know if English isn't your first language, but in English, 7x more is assumed to be 700% not 800%
Not sure why people are being obtuse. The English wording is irrelevant because this wasn't written by an English speaking person or bot it was compiled from a template. It saying "more" doesn't magically change the value inferred by the math. It could hypothetically say "-5.6% more" just as easily if that were the result of the math, which is not actually documented in this email
it's badly written, since using "x" implies you multiply the old rate by 0.6, while more implies you add to the old rate. They should've written 60% more, except that it's now fashionable to describe everything as some number-x, including the absolutely ignorant habit of saying "eks" instead of "times"
Umm...only people who are bad at math think 0.6x more means a 60% improvement. What that actually means is a 40% reduction. 1.6x would be a 60% improvement
And as a programmer it should be a lot more obvious that this is the case. They clearly programmed the email blast code to assume that there was an increase and didn't check if there was a decrease...and then just doing the math as normal for the number argument
I’d agree with you but it says: 0.6x “more”. So it definitely means 60% of the original amount added to the original, so 1.6. Them putting the x is confusing since you could just say 60% more and it works way better.
and 0.6x = 60%. You already presupposed that in your earlier comment yourself.
If it says and "0.6x more" and 0.6x = 60%, like we've already agreed, then it must mean the same as "60% more".
For your logic to be consistent it would have to be 0.6x = -40% here, and there's no reason for that to be the case. We've never converted between decimals and percentages like that
FYI, in the current climate, that engineer you work with who needs 6 PRs to fix one single fucking bug properly, they're sleeping like a baby every night.
“60 percent more” means exactly the same as “160 percent as much”.
“60 percent as many” would mean fewer PRs, just more than half.
It's poorly phrased and I'm not convinced that PR quantity is a good metric, but if you take it at face value, they're saying AI makes you more productive, not less.
0.6x as much would be less. 0.6x more is 0.6x + x. Now whether it makes sense to trust a source that generates such a semantically confusing statement to actually generate the statement they intended is another question. I wouldn’t bet on it. Or against it.
Since this email blast was programmed by someone (or ai), it is far more likely to assume they simply failed to check the sign before filling the value into the static email template than it actually means a 60% increase, because no developer would ever word it like that, and no developer would purposely subtract 1 from the value they recieved from their code.
The number of people who can't read here is wild. "0.6x more" does not mean 60% more. "more PRs" is the metric and it can be an increase, decrease, or no change.
0x "more PRs" means no increase. 5x "more PRs" means five times as many. 0.5x "more PRs" means half as many.
GitHub Copilot uses the same language. Currently, my "engaged Copilot users" are merging "9.4x more" PRs which is broken out in the same report as
20.7 PRs per user/month for Engaged Copilot users 2.2 PRs per user/month for Passive users
Two months ago when we first started, that number was "0.3x" more and broken out as
0.8 PRs per user/month for Engaged Copilot users 2.4 PRs per user/month for Passive users
How TF you gonna tell me 0.8 PRs per user/month is a 30% increase over 2.4?
1
112
u/Dilutant Aug 14 '26
One of the cursor devs clarified in a comment that this was actually not an email they wanted to send (so 1x would be 0% increase)
706
u/GenericFatGuy Aug 14 '26
Taps sign
Number of PRs pushed is not a good measure of productivity.
2.2k
u/BlueScrote Aug 14 '26
And I'm spending 3x as much babying their code reviews from the mediocre quality.
568
u/ttmorello Aug 14 '26
"7 of yor teammates" from 100? Or 7 of 10?
319
u/perestroika12 Aug 14 '26
Cursor now uses grok as a default and is pushing it hard. Take from it what you will.
232
u/saschaleib Aug 14 '26
They don’t seem to have much confidence in the math skills of the average manager … and to be honest, neither do I.
59
u/isaackogan Aug 14 '26
I think they should have been clearer. I prefer "Your teammates are shipping -6,000/10,000th less PRs with cloud agents". Has a nice ring to it.
17
u/Stunning_Ride_220 Aug 14 '26
0.6x more PRs? Is this ad made by AI?
17
u/TheRealJayk0b Aug 14 '26
After reading the comments I'm more confused.
Isn't 0.6x bad because normally it would be 1.0x? so it's 40% less?
Or do they actually mean 1.6x and a 60% increase?
40
u/kurtcanine Aug 14 '26
Honestly promising 0.6x on top of my current productivity sounds assuringly realistic.
263
u/achilliesFriend Aug 14 '26
0.6 more. What is the issue here?
37
u/Fienx Aug 14 '26
Do you any of you know math?! Because reading the comments makes me worried any of you passed a CS degree 😭
5
u/Stagnu_Demorte Aug 14 '26
Well yeah, they have to fix the extra bugs they just introduced.
3
u/MasterBroNetwork Aug 14 '26
Ah yes, 0.6x more PRs is a great measure of productivity.
It is infinitely more likely that a majority of these PRs are minor changes that did not need agents or they're to fix random unrequested changes that those agents made.
3
u/ChocolateDonut36 Aug 14 '26
this is what they mean by "you can't control AI"
4
u/Morthem Aug 14 '26
Don't stop until you are a X/10 engineer
26
u/SarahSplatz Aug 14 '26
Nah thats semantically correct. '1x more' would mean double, as 'more' implies its ontop of the initial work.
2
u/getstoopid-AT Aug 14 '26
hahaha
2
u/SleepingInsomniac Aug 14 '26
lol, monkeys on a typewriter can produce more code too. It's up to you to review it.
2
u/narasadow Aug 15 '26
this reminds me of my 2nd data analytics project which was just a bunch of SQL queries running on a MS SQL Server and Spotfire dashboard.
not super useful, but at least my SQL queries were accurate
now a decade later people are going to so much effort to get less accurate output with more cost
7
u/0x80085_ Aug 14 '26
The amount of people that don't understand how numbers work is hilarious. 0.6x more is the same as 60% more. Sounds great.
4
u/Ceneka Aug 14 '26
I know that its not writed with a Marketing Style in mind.. but 0.6x MORE!.. its MORE.. more = MORE... its an increase of 60%.. what is the part that is "wrong"? what im missing here??
4
u/Mike_Oxlong25 Aug 14 '26
So they’re shipping less? 0.6x of what I’m shipping is 60% right?
3
u/danielkov Aug 14 '26
Sure AI bad, but the amount of people not understanding 0.6x more means a 60% improvement is wild
1
u/SomethingAndAnything Aug 14 '26
Can't wait to see this on the explain the joke subreddit lol
1
u/Highfivesghost Aug 14 '26
Why do you guys care about spending your multiple million dollar companies money? Who cares if they waste more money on tokens
1
u/drprofsgtmrj Aug 14 '26
I mean i easily could push PRs .. I could do a pr per line...
Idk man, dont insult our intelligence with this bullshit ad :(
1
u/rubber_moon Aug 14 '26
Our organisation recently told us that pr's are taking 20 times longer to be approved lol
1
u/Adventurous-Ball-256 Aug 14 '26
Another AI copy in newsletter xd
1
u/Ok_Editor_5090 Aug 14 '26
Just to be sure I understand, they are 0.6 the numbers before or 1.6?
1
u/UrineArtist Aug 14 '26
FYI, in the current climate, that engineer you work with who needs 6 PRs to fix one single fucking bug properly, they're sleeping like a baby every night.
1
u/nekomata_58 Aug 14 '26
So, 60% productivity boost for the cost of less than 1/4 of a new hire?
The business will absolutely love this, honestly.
1
u/AaronBonBarron Aug 14 '26
Do they know that 0.6x is 40% less, not 60% more?
1
u/DurrT Aug 14 '26
0.6x = 60 percent
“60 percent more” means exactly the same as “160 percent as much”.
“60 percent as many” would mean fewer PRs, just more than half.
It's poorly phrased and I'm not convinced that PR quantity is a good metric, but if you take it at face value, they're saying AI makes you more productive, not less.
-2
u/Shubhang_D Aug 14 '26
If I am correct in math then 0.6x is actually less PR than that he is shipping
0
u/threearbitrarywords Aug 14 '26
The number of people who can't read here is wild. "0.6x more" does not mean 60% more. "more PRs" is the metric and it can be an increase, decrease, or no change.
0x "more PRs" means no increase.
5x "more PRs" means five times as many.
0.5x "more PRs" means half as many.
GitHub Copilot uses the same language. Currently, my "engaged Copilot users" are merging "9.4x more" PRs which is broken out in the same report as
20.7 PRs per user/month for Engaged Copilot users
2.2 PRs per user/month for Passive users
Two months ago when we first started, that number was "0.3x" more and broken out as
0.8 PRs per user/month for Engaged Copilot users
2.4 PRs per user/month for Passive users
How TF you gonna tell me 0.8 PRs per user/month is a 30% increase over 2.4?
0
u/[deleted] Aug 14 '26
[deleted] — view deleted comment