Was Jason Calacanis' original comment a swipe at Evan Culver?
Which comment are you referring to?
I think he means the original tweet: http://twitter.com/Jason/status/12621363849 (Not that you want to see that again...)
Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
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Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#82While the metrics behind his assertions are short-sighted, specifically ( years in workforce / number of jobs ) = job-hopping likelyhood, I think he left out the most absolutely critical reason why I and other hiring managers look at the duration of employ at previous establishments.
I've reviewed hundreds of resumes, hired great people, and hired some not great people. Sometimes they leave because of you and your company, sometimes they don't. In my experience, a history of short employment can mean one of two things:
1. This candidate is extremely talented, independent, and a self-starter. Hire these people. Now. 2. This candidate leaves before he or she is truly accountable for the code they write.
2 is very dangerous. You don't want to hire an engineer who will write a subscription billing platform and quit the week after launch. It's often tough to determine the difference between 1 and 2, and it takes many pointed questions to figure it out.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#83"Look at some of the uber-successful icons of Silicon Valley / Technology: Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry/Sergey, Eric Schmidt, Andy Groves, John Doerr. Not job hoppers." That's because they're founders and CEO's. If you're hiring me, by definition I'm not the founder (but if I have lots of equity and am treated as an equal partner maybe we'll split the difference on that one). Are you hiring me to be C…
Actually, Eric Schmidt has had quite a few roles over the years. Hardly a "job hopper", but it's not like he founded one of the majors and stayed there forever (like Gates, Ellison etc.).
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Particularly since this seems to be precipitated by a Calacanis tweet, the guy who fires people for any or no reason. Not exactly an example of loyalty. I'm guessing the reason for the entire post is actually that while Calacanis is okay firing someone, he gets angry if anyone leaves his company for a better position. There was a kerfluffle over that yesterday in various parts of the net (someone from his company sen…
anecdotally, ironically, I interviewed with mahalo.com (Calacanis' company), while I was working for a startup in an office about 2 blocks away in Santa Monica. They offered me a job, but I declined, as it was a 15% pay cut or so from my current position.
Exactly. Nobody wants to work for a) peanuts or b) evil spammers. Life's too short. I suspect it's probably happened to Calcanis before, which is why he's going nutso on Twitter.
Solution: If you want people to stay at your company, then pay them reasonable amounts and don't be a dickhead.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I realize you probably didn't mean this, but the thought that went through my mind reading it is "What kind of psychopath would take such a position?" Actually, I know what kind of psychopath: the kind who ran the only startup I ever joined. He once told me, "I am at war, and if one of my men can't keep up, I will shoot him." A remarkably similar sentiment to yours! He also used to phone people up and yell at them if…
If you read my other comments in this discussion, you will surely see that I am in fact very pro-employee. I also am, however, very pro truth. Anyone who tells you he can have employees with low or zero productivity, for whatever reason, as select members of a small, highly leveraged startup - is either lying to you, or will fail unless he's extremely lucky not to have such employees. If your team consists of 3 senio…
Who said anything about low productivity? The issue at stake is whether you should hire "job hoppers".
If I need to launch a complex product in 6 months or die, I don't care whether my senior developer had his entire family die from serial dysentery.
Yeah, yeah - really respectful and caring.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
anecdotally, ironically, I interviewed with mahalo.com (Calacanis' company), while I was working for a startup in an office about 2 blocks away in Santa Monica. They offered me a job, but I declined, as it was a 15% pay cut or so from my current position.
Exactly. Nobody wants to work for a) peanuts or b) evil spammers. Life's too short. I suspect it's probably happened to Calcanis before, which is why he's going nutso on Twitter. Solution: If you want people to stay at your company, then pay them reasonable amounts and don't be a dickhead.
Yeah, anecdotally, I've found that if your company is doing things that the general public (or at least, the peers of your employees) considers vaguely sketchy, it's best to counter it by getting a reputation as a great place to work. Zynga is a decent example: there is plenty of negative press about it, but none of the negative press is about working there, since by all accounts they treat their employees very well.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#87well all i can say is "if you want loyalty, go buy a cocker-spaniel..."
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#88what a fucking pompous blowhard. I find it patently offensive when employers try to posture their employee culture as anything other than what it is, business. "We're all family here..." Fuck you, you are not my Mother or my Father & I resent that implication. Loyalty...please. If Im in on the ground floor, then that might be different, but in that scenario, loyalty swings both ways.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well if you want to be a startup loyal to your employees you wouldn't back yourself into this kind of corner in the first place, if I was applying for a job at a startup like you mentioned I wouldn't expect much job security and expect to be compensated accordingly.
What "corner"? Having to launch a very successful product, very fast, or die - is what startups are all about. Certainly all the VC backed ones. And yes, anyone expecting any kind of job security at a startup, especially a VC backed one, is simply fooling himself.
Well an unrealistic timeline, if your idea is solid enough you shouldn't have to promise the world in a couple of months to get VC backing. There is the slowly building up a startup or leveraging big VC money in an all or nothing approach, one which you don't take if your goal is employee loyalty.
Re: Never hire job hoppers. Never. They make terrible employees.
#90at last years startup school this became a bit of a topic, zappos talked about how they wanted employees to work there and feel valued for life. mark zuckerberg talked about how he was happy creating a culture where great people should be able to come in, start being effective immediately, and move along after a year or so. paul buckheit mentioned his reason for quitting google, it was basically, because you need to…
Most of us here have probably heard of one of Zappos' unique offers to their new employees: $1000 to quit right after training. At least in Zappos case that would help minimize #1 and #3 listed at the bottom of the post.
It's actually $2000 now.