Hey there. It's Stephen Dubner. This week we wanted to share an episode from our archives

that's one of our most popular episodes. Perhaps because it talks about a problem that many of us have had.

It's called, why are there so many bad bosses?

I hope you enjoy it, and if by chance you have already listened to this episode do stick around to the end for a

career update from this person.

My name is Katie Johnson and I'm a data scientist. Johnson is 33 years old and lives in England. She

grew up near Bristol, went to university in Birmingham, and held a series of

increasingly impressive jobs at a series of companies. These are all what are known as

I see jobs. I see standing for individual contributor. Which means what?

It is someone who makes as opposed to managing people who make.

Johnson loved being an IC. She loved analyzing data and she was really good at her job. But after a while she thought it might be nice to become a boss.

Yeah, I wanted to manage more and more people.

And you wanted to manage more people because why you were just power hungry like the rest of us?

I think there's a couple of reasons. So the first is that I wanted to start getting more autonomy

over what I was working on. I would be working on stuff in my

I see role and I think this isn't the most important thing and I thought that if I

became the leader of the team then I would get to pick what I worked on.

Okay that seems sensible. then I would get to pick what I worked on.

Okay, that seems sensible.

The other reason was to have more impact

at the companies I was working at,

so you could describe this as having a seat at the table.

...