Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It's Never Too Early to Fire

a16z.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 189 posts

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#111

Post by dragonwriter »

StavrosK wrote: post #103
arethuza wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe its a US thing - here in the UK I've seen multiple people re-hired and in each case it worked out pretty well.

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge outside the US (it wasn't for me): "Fired" and "let go/laid off" don't mean the same thing. Fired means they were laid off for some gross reason, e.g. incompetence, stealing from the company, etc. Laid off means they were just let go because of reasons not very related to their performance. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

You are wrong, but in the right general direction. "Laid off" means involuntarily terminated because of a reduction-in-force / elimination of positions. "Fired" means involuntarily terminated for any other reason. Except in the case of positions with special protections, either contractual (personal or union) or legal protections of the type that apply to career civil service positions, you cannot assume firing is about either misconduct or performance; it can just be because the boss decided his nephew needed a job.

And "let go" subsumes all forms of involuntary termination, both layoff and firing.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#112

Post by _vufv »

daveguy wrote: post #108
arjie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I understand. I'm just wondering how choices were made which left many millions on the table. I didn't face any choices like that when I was younger so I'm curious.

No offense, but you don't understand. Opportunity cost means specifically you aren't leaving money on the table. It means you are grabbing the pennies when you could be pursuing a more lucrative options. When you are 20 those options don't mean a million dollar deal, they mean not taking the better job that pays about the same but lets you earn 20k more in 2-3 years because you are doing something you love and thrivi…

OP wrote "an extra couple million in the bank"; since he didn't allude to opportunity costs himself I think there are at least a couple people reading the thread that would want to know what exactly that means.

I never heard the phrase used to represent opportunity cost and it's not clear that OP intended it in that way.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#113

Post by afpx »

arjie wrote: post #80
ckaygusu wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reckon it is meant in a "opportunity cost" kind of way.

Oh, I understand. I'm just wondering how choices were made which left many millions on the table. I didn't face any choices like that when I was younger so I'm curious.

Opportunity costs and the missed investment returns

I am now in my mid 40s. I started working in tech in the mid-90s. I was ambitious and mainly only worked for or led tech startups. (I did well for myself, so can't complain too much)

When I look back on my career, had I went with my intuition at critical times, instead of what I felt was 'my duty' (or whatever justification I made to deny my intuitive senses), I would clearly be further ahead. In total, I probably wasted several years waiting for people or situations to change for the better, passing up several ultimately better opportunities.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#114

Post by jaclaz »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #2

Weirdly, I think we would all benefit quite a lot from a normalization of fast firing. Part of the reason it's hard to get a job is that companies are afraid to fire you, so they jump through all kinds of strange hoops to try to predict how good an employee you'll be based on, really, no information. This also forces companies to filter out "possibly good" candidates and only hire "probably good" candidates. If it we…

>Anyone we fire we'll sit down in the exit interview and write a plan for how they can get re-hired in a few weeks or months if they're interested.

Maybe firing means something different in your company/mindset, but I understand it as as an instantaneous cessation of reciprocal obbligations, or (allowed by the Law of course) one-sided termination of a contract, the one in which you give me money in exchange for my work, i.e. for my time.

Maybe it is just me, but I won't be sitting anywhere for no [insert strong word here] "exit interview" nor write down any "plan" the second after you have fired me, or you'll have to pay me really good money to have me sitting down for the time needed to hear your re-hiring plans and write my own ...

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#115

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

logicallee wrote: post #70

>To be provocative: No one ever fired someone too soon. how about when the board fired Steve Jobs? (Specifically, stripped him from all responsibilities, removed him from the head of the mac division, gave him an office with nothing to do). No? After all, he didn't code, was kind of a weirdo, and the board had every reason to have some doubts. Was that a "wrong" decision?

It's really hard to imagine an early-90s Apple that Jobs wouldn't have left anyway - probably with high drama - if he hadn't been fired.

But the Apple story makes the point - most CEOs are mediocre. Sculley and Amelio (and Spindler, whom almost everyone has forgotten) were all competent in their previous jobs, and usually also in subsequent jobs.

But you don't want to settle for competence in the C-suite. You want outstanding - a genuine 10X CEO.

There aren't many of those around. But there are plenty of 0.1X pretenders, and you'd better hope you don't end up hiring one, because no one will do more damage to a company.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#116

Post by phkahler »

jcadam wrote: post #101
matwood wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a senior programmer with a bit more life experience, I quit somewhere after only 2 months. They valued me, the pay was great, the tech challenges were interesting, but their processes drove me potty. I've done something similar twice, except there were no interesting technical challenges. Both were government jobs where I was lured in to do all this cool work and then get told to sit there and do nothing. The pa…

I was hired into my current position (as a contractor at a government facility) to be a 'software architect and software engineering subject matter expert.' The way the position was sold to me, it sounded like a good step-up in responsibility and an opportunity to grow. What I'm actually doing could be considered a cross between 'IT guy' and 'generic office staff' (I go to tons of meetings, write lots of system-engin…

... but the local job market is such that I'd probably spend several months unemployed if I were to just up and quit.

Just keep looking for something else. It's easiest to find a job when you already have one. That's because there is no financial pressure to take whatever comes along. You can take a little time to find a good fit. Don't feel that this reflects in any way on your attitude toward your current job. Do your best at that, but when you go home spend at least a few hours a week looking for something else. If you stay in your present job for too long (years) it will stunt your professional (and possibly personal) growth.

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#117

Post by afpx »

daveguy wrote: post #108
arjie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I understand. I'm just wondering how choices were made which left many millions on the table. I didn't face any choices like that when I was younger so I'm curious.

No offense, but you don't understand. Opportunity cost means specifically you aren't leaving money on the table. It means you are grabbing the pennies when you could be pursuing a more lucrative options. When you are 20 those options don't mean a million dollar deal, they mean not taking the better job that pays about the same but lets you earn 20k more in 2-3 years because you are doing something you love and thrivi…

You explained it, perfectly. Thanks!

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#118

Post by phkahler »

Clubber wrote: post #4

>Don’t trigger the decay model of trust — why is management tolerating this shit?! I can't reiterate this enough. Once company I worked for fired the COO that had built the operations when he had serious personal issues that bled into the working environment. I knew it was a serious company after that, I could imagine how difficult it was and he created a great operational culture and working environment before his i…

>> Fast forward a few years after an acquisition. The new owners have so many Bozo's in executive positions the place is toxic.

Someone once summarized that as "The fish rots from the head".

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#119

Post by phkahler »

horsecaptin wrote: post #33

Why would anyone work in a person or company that is known to fire quickly?

>> Why would anyone work in a person or company that is known to fire quickly?

Because Tesla and SpaceX are doing really cool things...

http://www.autonews.com/article/20151009/OEM02/151009806/tes...

Re: It's Never Too Early to Fire

#120

Post by [deleted] »

daveguy wrote: post #108
arjie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I understand. I'm just wondering how choices were made which left many millions on the table. I didn't face any choices like that when I was younger so I'm curious.

No offense, but you don't understand. Opportunity cost means specifically you aren't leaving money on the table. It means you are grabbing the pennies when you could be pursuing a more lucrative options. When you are 20 those options don't mean a million dollar deal, they mean not taking the better job that pays about the same but lets you earn 20k more in 2-3 years because you are doing something you love and thrivi…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN