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

We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

danluu.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 420 posts

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#241

Post by tptacek »

pc86 wrote: post #222
tptacek wrote: post #201

Last night on Twitter, someone said "Nearly every entrepreneur I talk so says hiring is their biggest challenge. The world is starving for competent people with a strong work-ethic." This is of course false. The world is not starving for competent people. It's starving for high-status resumes. If those resumes are attached to people who are competent or hard workers, that's a bonus. The high-status resumes without th…

I'll be honest, it's pretty hilarious to read someone talking about taking down the rich when their company was acquired for $13 million in cash, give or take.

I think you should just watch the movie. It's really quite good. I could explain who Herman Blume is, but I'd just be ruining it for you.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#242

Post by ACow_Adonis »

fzeroracer wrote: post #224
leetrout wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I paid an attorney to review my contract and NDA... “ anything you do on your own is owned by your employer.” If you use their equipment or their office or their phones. But doing a software project at home on the weekend on your own computer is not going to be owned by the employer in the states I’ve lived and worked in (VA, GA, TN, NC). Do you have a source for a state where this has happened?

Can you afford an attorney to defend yourself in court if a company decided to push the issue? As I will keep saying it does not matter if companies follow up on their threat or not. It still has a chilling effect on people doing side projects which is the intended behavior. And a lot of people can't afford a legal battle even if they had a high chance of winning.

Have you considered doing it anonymously or not informing anyone of the projects you're working on?

Just like you can't necessarily afford to engage in the legal system, the legal system can't be engaged if they don't have a signal that there's anything there to engage with.

And in interviews you can still use the experience and talk about your contributions without releasing the product/ identity to your current employer, and your current company is incredibly unlikely to come chasing after you years later on things with no obvious connection to your real name.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#243

Post by tptacek »

TrentLarr wrote: post #240
pc86 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be honest, it's pretty hilarious to read someone talking about taking down the rich when their company was acquired for $13 million in cash, give or take.

I'm a beneficiary of the "startup lottery". I am living the dream, and I state that in this anonymous forum to provide perspective to my own feelings about The Rich. In your early thirties twenties, managed effectively, one million dollars is enough to retire on, and live care-free. Two million dollars is enough to live well. Six million dollars is enough to retire on extremely well. Ten million dollars is disgusting…

The whole company was worth whatever it was worth (I don't remember). I was just the loudest partner there.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#244

Post by busterarm »

TrentLarr wrote: post #240
pc86 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be honest, it's pretty hilarious to read someone talking about taking down the rich when their company was acquired for $13 million in cash, give or take.

I'm a beneficiary of the "startup lottery". I am living the dream, and I state that in this anonymous forum to provide perspective to my own feelings about The Rich. In your early thirties twenties, managed effectively, one million dollars is enough to retire on, and live care-free. Two million dollars is enough to live well. Six million dollars is enough to retire on extremely well. Ten million dollars is disgusting…

I guess everyone who ever had the means to create an endowment for a school is a criminal, then.

A hundred million dollars is a very powerful tool in the right hands. To suggest that having such means should be criminalized is farcical.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#245

Post by jlarocco »

eggsnbacon1 wrote: post #121
malvosenior wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses Github and OSS contribution as a strong hiring signal, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. People who do a lot of personal projects tend to be very good developers, especially when you can see a demonstrated ability to ship. This is also helpful for people who haven't worked at big name companies or don't have degrees from elite universities. I'd happily hire someone with no experience a…

This is a stupid signal. Many/most developers are prohibited from working on open source projects by their employers. In any state besides California and Illinois you will be forced to sign an IP assignment agreement to work for any medium/large companies. Open source projects will not let you contribute under such an agreement, and anything you do on your own is owned by your employer.

That's simply not true.

Anecdotally, I've worked in Colorado my entire career (17 years now, over half a dozen jobs) and have never signed an agreement like that, and have never been asked to sign one. I go out of my way to bring it up (in writing, even), because it's a deal breaker for me. Never been a problem.

And logically it doesn't make any sense. GitHub profiles can't be used as resumes if employment contracts prevent everybody from contributing to projects on GitHub.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#246

Post by ghaff »

boring_twenties wrote: post #234
throwawaymath wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more charitable to the commenter's point, that's not what's being asserted as discriminatory. They're making the claim that it's implicitly discriminatory to penalize people who don't spend time on programming outside of work, because that reasonably penalizes people who are older (i.e. more likely to have a family). They are not making the claim that choosing to hire someone better than someone else is discrim…

Why is it discriminatory? All else equal, isn't it clearly better to hire someone with no responsibilities outside of work, than someone who has to be out of the office at 5pm every day to deal with their kids?

>isn't it clearly better to hire someone with no responsibilities outside of work

Umm. No?

I see nothing "clearly better" about someone just because they don't have any responsibilities.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#247

Post by aketchum »

MS90 wrote: post #96
reaperducer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were also a few disparaging comments about the South in general Silicon Valley is all about equality and opportunity. Except when it isn't. Certain types of bigotry are not only tolerated, they're celebrated.

James Hetfield talked about that as a reason he left. "I kind of got sick of the Bay Area, the attitudes of the people there, a little bit. They talk about how diverse they are, and things like that, and it's fine if you're diverse like them. But showing up with a deer on the bumper doesn't fly in Marin County. My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs." https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/metallica-james-hetf…

> My form of eating organic doesn't vibe with theirs

I've never heard this before but I love this quote. In my opinion, hunting responsibly brings one a great appreciation for conservation efforts and increases connection to nature. Especially hunting fowl, where you are walking the whole time and working with a dog that you trained yourself from a pup for this purpose. It gives great appreciation for nature and responsibly sourced food.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#248

Post by scarface74 »

malvosenior wrote: post #60
plughs wrote: post #45

One frustration I've had recently is the number of companies encouraging or requiring code in the public sphere. They want to see open-source contributions or an active and impressive personal github page. If your employer is protective of their IP ( mine is ) and/or you are not willing to spend evenings and and weekends on pet projects, you are out of the running. Also >But if you think programmers aren't elitist, t…

As someone who uses Github and OSS contribution as a strong hiring signal, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. People who do a lot of personal projects tend to be very good developers, especially when you can see a demonstrated ability to ship. This is also helpful for people who haven't worked at big name companies or don't have degrees from elite universities. I'd happily hire someone with no experience a…

I didn’t graduate from an elite college. I graduated from a no name college over 20 years ago. Software engineering jobs are a dime a dozen. I’ve also only worked for a company that anyone has ever heard of for a couple of years.

If someone hinted that they wouldn’t hire me because when I left work, I shut down my computer and didn’t think about software development until the next day, that would be a hard pass. I would move on to any of the dozen of companies that are looking for experienced software developers - and I’m not on the west coast.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#249

Post by traderjane »

klodolph wrote: post #233
traderjane wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wearing a suit is armor for race specifically because of its association with money. Race is dangerous as opposed to merely inconvenient for some because of the association with poverty, desperation, and crime. I still remember the term super-predator when it was the hot political term. Thus any symbol of class will always be a suit of armor for race in the way you describe, including Apple hardware. But the reason w…

> But why shouldn't t-shirt be the status quo culture of the office? Any response to this question shorter than a hundred pages is going to do a disservice. Because you asked: Because people are judged unequally for wearing a T-shirt. Because this fails to delineate between work attire (and spaces, modes) and personal attire (spaces, modes). The delineation is important. Because attire communicates, among other thing…

> Because the T-shirt is a symbol of Silicon Valley technology culture, privilege, and entitlement which I reject.

Why is this that solid of a fact to you? If you had to imagine the best way to scale a workforce, and you were worried about artificial barriers, why is not the suit which reeks of gate-keeping? How is it the t-shirt, which just about every young American owns, the culprit of privilege and entitlement?

I agree that the signals of money or power is an armor against racial judgments about criminal risk. I just don't agree to sustaining the gate-keeping as the necessary moral price to pay. In fact, if this armor is to be depended on, then its quality depends on the degree of gatekeeping. We are after all saying it is problematic if there isn't a visible symbol to show you're not one of the bad ones.

Have you been to an office where the dress culture is divided into two? I find it happens even to startups the size of 30. When the executive business class meets together for lunch or causal conversations between the hours, the concentrated signal of high quality suit is really loud to me.

In such mixed dynamics I have found the suit to be the signal of executive power, and the same to be true when the company is large enough for in-house legal. That is why I question why you are so confident that it's the t-shirt that's so elite.

In such mixed dynamics, you're never going to find it's the programmers who wear suits and the executive class look like young teenagers in hoodies. Who has the power here?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#250

Post by closeparen »

mcguire wrote: post #133
plughs wrote: post #45

One frustration I've had recently is the number of companies encouraging or requiring code in the public sphere. They want to see open-source contributions or an active and impressive personal github page. If your employer is protective of their IP ( mine is ) and/or you are not willing to spend evenings and and weekends on pet projects, you are out of the running. Also >But if you think programmers aren't elitist, t…

Re: public code, don't get me wrong, I'm sympathetic, but honestly there are very few ways to separate a good programmer from a good bullshitter. The alternative is interview coding tests; suggest that and see how much love you get. (And some don't even know they're bullshitting. They honestly think that being marginally associated with a project means they did the work.) As for suits? Yeah, those are the same people…

>The alternative is interview coding tests

There are many more ways of organizing hiring, all working fine in other industries (with tradeoffs, of course). To name a few:

- Guilds with an an entry filter that guarantees competence, often associated with apprenticeship.

- Wide open hiring for short term engagements, retention of only those who fit best.

- Hiring directly based on referral from other known-competent professionals who can vouch, with no or minimal interview stage.

- Work sample tests.

There are good reasons why some of these don't fit tech so well. Software is impossible to estimate, so you can't plan short term engagements as effectively as in show business. Software is highly collaborative and context dependent, and the results are often secret, so independent work samples aren't as realistic or available as in film. Etc. But mainly we can't have these things because the community is pathologically incapable of trust. Even people who believe in each other's competence will not believe in each other's certifications of a 3rd party's competence. That particular dysfunction is not universal, and doesn't have to stay. But knowing us, it will.

Post reply on HN