Congratulations You’ve Been Fired • Hacker News Board

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#431

Post by bduerst » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 7:45 PM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #127

golergka wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Race does not impact perfomance, but there's a correlation between race and education, for example (because ages of institutial discrimination, of course). Do you think people should take this correlation into consideration when talking about others?

I highly recommend double-checking your work on this line of thinking.

They're pointing out the flaws in the logic of biasing based on characteristics, of both race and age.

Obviously nobody is going to discount a manager because of their race, but on that same coin people shouldn't discount the same individual because of their age.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#432

Post by iamcurious » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

intended wrote: post #278

blazespin wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty simple.. Improved productivity from this new era of employment at will should lead to wealth which provides guaranteed basic incomes.

Basic income is welfare 2.0. It's not going to lead to human happiness. The economy itself is an "actor" on this stage. It's going to make choices about who can afford what. It's going to reward those who reduce inefficiency, those who find new growth paths, and if not that, it will build reserves to help it through lean times. In that system, people who don't "add value" are a carrying cost, and the system will try…

I'm not sure I follow, what are the reserves? If we are talking about the entire economy as an actor, a number in some magnetic tape can't be. Neither can be food or infrastructure unless it is properly preserved. So my guess is that the right reserve would be a people. People that aren't adding value today, are excess capacity that can be used during bad times. Guaranteed income is one way of maintaining that extra capacity.

Also, I'm not sure that anthropomorphizing the economy, while interesting, is the right level to think about this.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#433

Post by argonaut » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 9:05 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #249

argonaut wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is Dan Lyons we're talking about. Not some naive fresh-out-of-school CS grad. Dan Lyons spent more than a decade and a half as a journalist and editor covering tech, business, and startups.

I'm genuinely curious how this is relevant.

The grandparent said: "I'm really surprised how shocked people are when they join startups and aren't happy. What did you expect?"

The parent said: "You seem to be unrelentingly "blaming the victims."

I'm pointing out that some degree of "blaming Dan Lyons" is in order. He's a sophisticated tech insider.

It's as if a professional investor lost all his/her money on a private company that claimed to be a great company in its press releases, after which the investor complains about getting screwed. Yes, the investment is partly to blame for being so shitty. But the professional investor is a "sophisticated investor" and is also partly to blame for his/her own loss.

I would be more sympathetic to someone getting screwed by HubSpot if they were a fresh college grad who got misled and didn't know better.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#434

Post by loup-vaillant » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 10:32 PM UTC

chrisyeh wrote: post #428

loup-vaillant wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that re-training may not be enough, if structural unemployment is still significant. To describe this problem, I like the analogy of feeding dogs in a desert island: 1 desert island with nothing to eat, 100 dogs. Every day, a chopper comes in and drop 95 pieces of meat. 95 dogs can eat, the 5 slowest are left starving. A dog trainer sees that, and decides to train the slower dogs so they can eat. And they do. No…

I think the realization of this reality is one of the things driving the basic income movement. I will be very curious to see if that experiment works out. I honestly don't know if it will or won't.

While we're at it, there are 2 kinds of proposal for guaranteed income:

Basic income tends to postulates that humans have needs they deserve to satisfy (food, shelter…), even if they don't have any marketable skills. Basic income is a kind of charity.

Salary for Life tends to postulate people are productive, even if no money is involved. An elder couple looking over their grandchildren do something useful, even though they're explicitly paid for it. Unemployed people don't just slack off, they often work for free. Work deserves income, and that's what Salary for Life is: not charity, but the recognition of one's worth to society.

There are also practical differences: Basic income tends to be financed with income tax. Salary for Life proposes to be financed with "Non-wage labour costs" (yuck, what a crappy name).

Finally, basic income is mostly compatible with capitalism, and can only increase as much as the need for labour decreases. Salary for Life on the other hand is inherently socialist, and mostly needs the abolition of lucrative property (you can still own your house and your stuff, but you can't rent a house or own a factory).

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#435

Post by dang » Mon, Apr 11, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

neurobuddha wrote: post #63

I have to wonder how many anti-Lyons comments in this thread are HubSpot employees in stealth mode. Doesn't HubSpot do 'Sentiment Analysis' and that sort of stuff?

It's against HN's rules to accuse other users of astroturfing or shilling without evidence. If you're worried about it, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data and investigate (which we always do). But it's not ok to turn threads in that direction based on nothing more than opposing views. Few things are more destructive of civil discourse, and it's nearly always the case that opposing views are honestly held.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#436

Post by martin1975 » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 12:58 AM UTC

ageofwant wrote: post #374

sokoloff wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ages ago, I probably was. I no longer am, but that's largely irrelevant and I'm more than happy to hold my own union or not. Where do you think the "significant raise" will come from? What tactics will a union employ to cause that happen and if successful, what will the side effects be? Programming is already an incredibly high leverage and highly lucrative field. If you don't have leverage now, will you really have…

Balance of power. Employers have it, employees do not. If companies and employers treated their workers with dignity and respect no unions would be necessary. * I'm sure you are familiar with how collective bargaining power works and how it can be used for good or ill. It is because of the actions of worker unions that people today enjoy many rights that they take for granted. You, personally, have benefited greatly…

That's exactly the gist of unionization. Balance. No one is saying keep deadbeats around, nor can any enterprise be sustained by heroic efforts of a few very talented and hardworking individuals from within. It is an endless game of punishing greed while rewarding individual effort. Promulgating a win/lose attitude inevitably ends with the kind of status quo we have today in some, but hopefully not all companies US and worldwide.

I don't know when or where this inflection point is yet, but by the looks of it, it's already present.

Best thing an individual can do for now is draw up boundaries you aren't willing to cross... or have crossed, and never draw these in isolation of your kin. Talk, share, organize and roll with the punches... The cavalry isn't coming and sure as hell your momma isn't gonna do it for you.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#437

Post by T2_t2 » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 1:17 AM UTC

ec109685 wrote: post #230

T2_t2 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Dan Lyons misrepresents your ideas, but rather I think more fundamentally he doesn't share your vocabulary, worldview nor expectations. The reverse is also true, and your arguments in return don't use worldview or definitions he would understand nor recognise. The modern world seems to be a constant case of vocabulary misunderstanding, where we all say "widget", and I mean thing and you mean "an element…

Do you have a cite for being the 70's paradigm: "the business will employ you no matter what you do or how bad you are" - the classic 1970s Union paradigm No Union protects employees no matter how bad they are.

Nope, not even a tiny bit.

There's a difference between the rigor required for an online discussion, and the rigor required for a formal paper. I knew some of my post would miss the mark - and by a very WIDE margin - because using very simplistic, stereotypical cultural lingua franca makes the general point easier to make, but lacks pretty much any rigor.

Viewing it more as a starting point for discussion - and trying to see past the many bad parts - is all I hoped for.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#438

Post by free2rhyme214 » Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 3:17 AM UTC

braythwayt wrote: post #220

free2rhyme214 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chris you're right Dan misconstrues your ideas and that's disappointing. The real issue with his article is that he was lying to himself before he even joined Hubspot. I'm really surprised how shocked people are when they join startups and aren't happy. What did you expect? Hubspot is not Salesforce. Uber is not Google. DoorDash is not Groupon. The maturity of companies at different stages varies significantly. I rea…

> he was lying to himself > delude themselves about how awesome startups are > people continue to write articles about this nonsense every month You seem to be unrelentingly "blaming the victims." Obviously, it is to people's benefit to have the most realistic expectations possible about companies they join. But does that in any way absolve employers of making realistic representations of what employees can expect? D…

Do you honestly think employers care? They provide jobs and expect results. That's it. If you're not happy with your job, go work somewhere else but don't post online how "surprised" you were about it. Go complain on Glassdoor if you want some people to read it but don't expect your life to change. When you delude yourself about reality what do you expect?

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#439

Post by chrisyeh » Wed, Apr 13, 2016, 8:31 PM UTC

loup-vaillant wrote: post #434

chrisyeh wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the realization of this reality is one of the things driving the basic income movement. I will be very curious to see if that experiment works out. I honestly don't know if it will or won't.

While we're at it, there are 2 kinds of proposal for guaranteed income: Basic income tends to postulates that humans have needs they deserve to satisfy (food, shelter…), even if they don't have any marketable skills. Basic income is a kind of charity. Salary for Life tends to postulate people are productive, even if no money is involved. An elder couple looking over their grandchildren do something useful, even thoug…

I'm going to have to check out Salary for Life. I can see that there are nuanced differences.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#440

Post by chrisyeh » Wed, Apr 13, 2016, 8:35 PM UTC

ageofwant wrote: post #313

bigiain wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - there's definitely some of that. There may also be some distrusting "Why is my manager encouraging me to leave? I'd better dig myself in and make sure I don't fuck anything up" thoughts (although I'd like to think I'm not thought of as "that guy"). But I also see cases that are closer to a reverse Dunning Kruger effect, people who just don't realise (or admit to themselves) how good they are compared to their…

> (Sometimes at an astonishing penalty to their earnings...) Which is the primary reason why earnings are typically kept secret. Company policy almost certainly prohibits you from saying: "John makes 110k/y Joe, you are three times as good as John and you make 90k/y, we most certainly are not going to pay you 330k/y, but maybe you should ask for a 30k raise ?"

One of the more interesting things I read about is how Salesforce.com reviewed their employees and their salaries, realized that female employees were underpaid, and increased their salaries accordingly, rather than waiting for someone to ask. I'm afraid that's rather rare, though.