11–20 of 74 posts
Looks like it's better to hire smart, capable people and not micromanage them - than it is to hire cheap people and tell them exactly what to do.
From what I've heard, Google does a particularly good job of taking care of reservists (there are federal laws about not firing, but good companies go beyond this). Outside of government contracting (where it makes a lot of business sense to hire reservists or former military), there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; almost more foreign-country-compulsory-service vete…
there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; Why do you/others think this is? I'm not a US citizen, so that counts me out. But even so I wouldn't become a reservest because I feel I have a lot of unique and valuable skills (engineering, thought leadership in platforms, and media technology) that wouldn't be capitalizable by the military - certainly not as a reservist. I wo…
so, have you done either of it?
From what I've heard, Google does a particularly good job of taking care of reservists (there are federal laws about not firing, but good companies go beyond this). Outside of government contracting (where it makes a lot of business sense to hire reservists or former military), there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; almost more foreign-country-compulsory-service vete…
The economically disadvantaged seem to be overrepresented in the military because of a lack of better options. Techies generally have better options (yes, there are other reasons to join the military).
I like the point he made about not giving exact instructions on taking a box from point A to B. Looks like it's better to hire smart, capable people and not micromanage them - than it is to hire cheap people and tell them exactly what to do.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/the-homemade-weapons-of-libya...
Edit: the precision is a "must-have" of a military order (and is the responsibility of the CO, dual to the responsibility of underlings to carry out the order) and must not be mistaken for micromanagment while absence of micromanagment must not be mistaken for vagueness, what is frequently happens in the non-military, especially corporate, environment where such duality of responsibilities is frequently not recognized/enforced.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As well, the military is a more diverse organization in the US than almost any tech company. Agreed. I always get irritated when I see people referring to the military as some homogeneous, white-Protestant, politically conservative institution. It's very much not the case. Dan, the subject of this article, studied at Columbia, which has an incredibly large veteran population in the undergraduate student body. From…
Regarding diversity in the military, I can only speak of my own experience, but when I was in the military I found it to be a very interesting atmosphere. Unlike the rest of the US, where race is an extremely touchy subject and anyone bringing it up walks on pins and needles, I found that the military was full of people from all kinds of backgrounds constantly needling each other with jokes, questions, and comments t…
I like the point he made about not giving exact instructions on taking a box from point A to B. Looks like it's better to hire smart, capable people and not micromanage them - than it is to hire cheap people and tell them exactly what to do.
If there's a takeaway lesson it's that even not-so-smart, cheap-to-hire people are actually surprisingly capable of doing stuff, if you create a management environment where they have to do it and know they aren't gonna get any mollycoddling from the higher-ups. Here is the task. Go do it. Come back to me when it's done.
From what I've heard, Google does a particularly good job of taking care of reservists (there are federal laws about not firing, but good companies go beyond this). Outside of government contracting (where it makes a lot of business sense to hire reservists or former military), there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; almost more foreign-country-compulsory-service vete…
there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; Why do you/others think this is? I'm not a US citizen, so that counts me out. But even so I wouldn't become a reservest because I feel I have a lot of unique and valuable skills (engineering, thought leadership in platforms, and media technology) that wouldn't be capitalizable by the military - certainly not as a reservist. I wo…
In some cases, the services (and government as a whole, and big companies) don't take advantage of pre-existing skills or aptitudes. In other cases, they do -- there are incentive/recruiting/fast-track systems for certain types of professionals. They've gotten better about this since becoming an all-volunteer force vs. draft. The big problem is that there is a "military way" to do a lot of things, largely focused on big-vendor enterprise in the IT space, and you have to work within that. Getting affiliated with a lab, DARPA, etc. is probably the way to use more interesting tech.
One problem I have personally is that they're very credential-focused; as a high school and college dropout, I'd be kind of screwed. Otherwise I'd be really interested in reserve/NG in certain specialties (psyops, civil affairs, infrastructure parts of embedded advisor teams, rotary/uav aviation, sigint, SAR, medical, diving). It would also be really difficult for a startup founder vs. an employee at a larger tech company.
For the donation/volunteer argument, rather than just donating money, my plan is to do NGO work on the side, and hopefully eventually be able to set up a specialty communications-in-conflict/disaster zones infrastructure NGO. A lot of charities ARE saddled by large numbers of unskilled volunteers (or at least without specific relevant skills), and structure their operations to be labor vs. skill intensive.
I like the point he made about not giving exact instructions on taking a box from point A to B. Looks like it's better to hire smart, capable people and not micromanage them - than it is to hire cheap people and tell them exactly what to do.
Many of the enlisted men in the military aren't all that smart, and most of 'em are pretty darn cheap. If there's a takeaway lesson it's that even not-so-smart, cheap-to-hire people are actually surprisingly capable of doing stuff, if you create a management environment where they have to do it and know they aren't gonna get any mollycoddling from the higher-ups. Here is the task. Go do it. Come back to me when it's…
I'm not sure which works better for a tech company. Clearly only the USMC process scales once you need to hire a lot of people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding diversity in the military, I can only speak of my own experience, but when I was in the military I found it to be a very interesting atmosphere. Unlike the rest of the US, where race is an extremely touchy subject and anyone bringing it up walks on pins and needles, I found that the military was full of people from all kinds of backgrounds constantly needling each other with jokes, questions, and comments t…
I think in the military people become one more so than just being from the same country. Your shared experiences and understandings bind you together in a way that transcends race. It's similar concept in science fiction where the humans on earth usually stop fighting each other once they discover intelligent life off the planet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
there don't seem to be a large number of reservists/national guard in the tech community; Why do you/others think this is? I'm not a US citizen, so that counts me out. But even so I wouldn't become a reservest because I feel I have a lot of unique and valuable skills (engineering, thought leadership in platforms, and media technology) that wouldn't be capitalizable by the military - certainly not as a reservist. I wo…
> rather than volunteer to work a day in a soup kitchen I would be able to bring far more value to a charity by just work for a day doing my normal job and then donating that day's pay to them. so, have you done either of it?