I gave them 11 claps. I've never done that before.
Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
51–60 of 93 posts
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#52Per the parable, there is a altered version in which the business man, sensing the fisher man is not open to ventures, strikes up a similar conversation with another fisherman who does agrees to expand fishing to better provide for his family and community. As a result the original fisherman finds his fish stocks are sapped by the growing fisher man's venture, and, unable to afford a boat to go into deeper water, fin…
It sort of seems to me that the story continues to have a clear villain, the business man, and a clear victim, the other fisherman who will spend 20 years scaling before he gets back to the life he wanted—and so the right plan is for the original fisherman to treat the businessman and his American ideas as a threat to the community. Tell the other fishermen that if they go along with the businessman's plan to destroy…
Well, you can always modify it as the fisherman being unable to compete with the influx of capital to a competitor and ends up having to work for them.
That the community would be hit by a natural disaster but the prospering fisherman provides the influx of cash for emergency relief whereas doing nothing meant no means of recovery.
The story of preservation/destruction of habitat, the community improving/declining, the prospering fisherman rising but still (not) finding time to enjoy chatting with friends, and other dramatic flairs to help sell whatever flavor of capitalism you believe in.
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#53Who will be the first to hack into this now unhireable fortress and get a job with them? They have just made getting hired there a quest for every rails developer in the world. Changing the hiring and recruiting process, turning it on its head.
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#54Revenue?
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#55Even if you don't read the article, you should read this story[0] that it links to. Which explains the mindset behind the decision. It's only like 200 words. [0]: http://renewablewealth.com/the-parable-of-the-mexican-fisher...
Same story with an alternate ending [0]. It's a more realistic story for a capitalist society.
[0] http://jameszol.com/stories/infamous-fisherman-parable-now-w...
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt that anyone on the business side considers it uncool to build a small but profitable company. It's definitely cooler than having a VC shove you along the path to an acquisition by BigCorp Ltd. Engineers sometimes consider those companies uncool, but that's just because they usually can't pay market rate for the best engineers.
I just mean it seems to be the path-more-taken. I'm basing it on my limited experience and my reading about running a business (which a did a bunch of but certainly never did an in depth study). A lot of companies I look at while looking for employment either want to sell or trying to grow to a mammoth size. Don't get me wrong--there is nothing wrong with that! It's just that I personally prefer to take the paycut an…
Its definitely not. VC funded startups are 0.1% of the global businesses out there. For every VC company there are 100k small businesses working on being productive and profitable.
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#57It's insane how making a profit seems to considered "uncool" in the business world. Basecamp and particularly Jason Fried's writings (I realize this is particular article is by DHH) are super inspirational. I wish that building a solid, profitable business as opposed to being so focused on growth and finding more investors was more of the norm. I want to work at Basecamp even more now, haha.
Not sure which business world you're referring to. The only place where it may be uncool is in the heady realm of start up culture. Most other business only survive by being in the black.
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#58It's insane how making a profit seems to considered "uncool" in the business world. Basecamp and particularly Jason Fried's writings (I realize this is particular article is by DHH) are super inspirational. I wish that building a solid, profitable business as opposed to being so focused on growth and finding more investors was more of the norm. I want to work at Basecamp even more now, haha.
shrug VCs seem to prefer 1 hypergrowth startup and 20 failures in their portfolio to 17 solid, growing, profitable startups without hypergrowth and 4 failures.
How can you predict a profitable company in the first place? If you could do that then you would just have all hypergrowth companies and make even more.
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
shrug VCs seem to prefer 1 hypergrowth startup and 20 failures in their portfolio to 17 solid, growing, profitable startups without hypergrowth and 4 failures.
This is because the portfolio strategy (1 hypergrowth + 20 failures) is the best strategy from the VC perspective. It's nearly impossible to know which startups will succeed (high uncertainty decision making), and very difficult to know how big the successful ones could be (open ended results). If it were simply as easy as building 17 solid startups to just 4 failures, I'm sure there would be more investment in that…
They also want that billion dollar startup.
Having 20x small, profitable companies netting say 1-5M/year isn't their modus operandi.
Re: Things are going so well we’re doing a hiring freeze
#60I would love to work at a company like Basecamp. Are there any other companies like them? - Less is more. Jason Fried is such a minimalist, https://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/the-way-i-work-jason-f... - Few formal meetings. - No full-time managers. - In fact, just about everything in their books Getting Real, https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real , and Rework. They do things that I've always felt are right but c…
Why join? Start your own, run it like you want it to be run, and not only will you have the reward of working at a healthy place, you'll also have the reward of enabling dozens of employees to live fulfilling lives.
I like to think that Jason Fried/DHH went to the bother of writing all these books and blog posts because they legitimately want to see more businesses run like theirs in the world.