February 9, 2026
Bluffing your way to a promo?
Game Theory Patterns at Work (2016)
Office power plays decoded: “2016” or AI-era hype? Plus… font frenzy
TLDR: A workplace playbook says incentives—not intentions—decide who wins, urging leaders to design fair rules and avoid toxic rivalries. Commenters split between doubting the 2016 timestamp due to AI mentions and obsessing over the font, while many praise it as practical survival tips for office politics.
The internet took one look at this workplace game-theory guide and went full detective mode. One camp is shouting, “Is this really from 2016?”, pointing to mentions of AI in hiring. Another camp is blissfully distracted, asking about the gorgeous font like it’s the real hero. Meanwhile, fans are calling it the best cheat sheet for office politics—a plain-English breakdown of why incentives beat intentions, why promotions can turn zero-sum, and why the only winning move in the Prisoner’s Dilemma is not playing that game at all. Cue the memes: “Prisoner’s Dilemma? More like Office Lunch Dilemma,” and jokes about treating Slack like social media. The piece’s big mood is: design rules that reward real impact, not flashy presentations. Some readers cheer that as the antidote to “superchicken” culture—yes, the viral TED talk—while others squint at the timeline like CSI: LinkedIn. In classic internet style, it’s half philosophy of work, half typography thirst. But the hottest take? People don’t fail at work—they play the game they’re given. If the rules prize optics and complexity, don’t be shocked when the winners are PowerPoint pros with very busy dashboards.
Key Points
- •Organizational outcomes depend on interdependent strategies; game theory helps recognize workplace traps.
- •Behavior follows incentives and rules; leaders should design mechanisms where consequences are unavoidable.
- •The Prisoner’s Dilemma illustrates how rational defection harms all parties; the best remedy is to avoid such structures.
- •Misaligned incentives can make promotions favor presentation over impact, creating cultural problems at scale.
- •Zero-sum promotion dynamics foster competition, information hiding, and sabotage; rewarding impact and quality is crucial.