Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days • Hacker News Board

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#161

Post by tptacek » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 3:34 AM UTC

larrys wrote: post #157

tptacek wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nicest thing Patrick McKenzie ever said about us was: If I were looking for a day job, I wouldn't be looking for a day job any more: they're friendly, happy people who get social license to join the Dark Side, do smart stuff all day, and then go home while it is still light out. I have a set of things I need to get done. It is my job as a company owner to help constrain and groom the subset of what's getting done…

"please consider dropping us a note" People in the startupsphere (who in many cases have been doing things since, what, 2007?) fail to understand the amount of capable accomplished people there are that have never read HN or know who Arrington or Wilson or Graham are. In their mind these people simply aren't cut from the right bolt of cloth to work at a startup. I mean they don't know what the word pivot means and go…

Yup. Give those people 2 days to learn a new instruction set for an architecture that's only ever synthesized onto an FPGA, then reverse firmware compiled to that architecture back to an exploitable overflow. They'll do it. And they won't even use Mongodb to do it.

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#162

Post by tomflack » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 3:53 AM UTC

ktizo wrote: post #153

jaxn wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he is really saying: Yahoo employees, we are hiring right NOW. NOW is the time to send us your resume. Did I mention we are hiring?

And, if we haven't found the right people in 60 days time, we might very well be screwed. Who are Yammer by the way? Should I know about them? [googles] ahh, is a twitintraweb. Well, I suppose those fortune 500 media budgets have to be spent somewhere.

The university I work at, without any kind of official direction, has had the entire staff body move from the internal mailing list to Yammer for staff chat. It is brilliant.

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#163

Post by ktizo » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 4:04 AM UTC

tomflack wrote: post #162

ktizo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, if we haven't found the right people in 60 days time, we might very well be screwed. Who are Yammer by the way? Should I know about them? [googles] ahh, is a twitintraweb. Well, I suppose those fortune 500 media budgets have to be spent somewhere.

The university I work at, without any kind of official direction, has had the entire staff body move from the internal mailing list to Yammer for staff chat. It is brilliant.

I'll look at it a bit closer then.

Was just being annoyed by the 60 day thing really, purely as I am not sure I would want to hire someone who jumped someone else's ship just because I set a deadline.

I shouldn't really extend my annoyance to being snarky about their products as I admittedly know little about them.

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#164

Post by mmatants » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 4:26 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #146

subwindow wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't want to hire the person you describe. This is simply a more visible indicator that a person doesn't care about the company they work for. That's fine for giant corporations, but amazingly deadly for startups.

The nicest thing Patrick McKenzie ever said about us was: If I were looking for a day job, I wouldn't be looking for a day job any more: they're friendly, happy people who get social license to join the Dark Side, do smart stuff all day, and then go home while it is still light out. I have a set of things I need to get done. It is my job as a company owner to help constrain and groom the subset of what's getting done…

As a developer, it's fantastic to read your perspective on this: I am glad there are entrepreneurs out there who don't buy into the cargo-cult of startup geek burnout.

If anything, I'd be wary of someone who is too into their craft - they might consider actual results a lower priority. Nobody likes a "star programmer".

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#165

Post by sakopov » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 4:35 AM UTC

I only wonder what everyone's opinion on someone who goes to work from 9-5 to do the job they love, then come back home to live the life they love, which doesn't involve reading about the company they work for or reading tech news or doing anything to do with their professional life. I enjoy fishing in my spare time and fixing my rusty, dingy boat, not blogging, working on project or running a startup. I know you probably think i'm terrible engineer and wouldn't want to hire me for your startup, and that's your choice. I love engineering and building stuff but I absolutely refuse to be caught up in my professional life 24/7. I may have a wife and kids. An older parent to take care of. It doesn't matter. What matters is i try to live a life and i only got 1 shot at it. I can imagine there are some folks at Yahoo! who have the same stance on their job/life.

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#166

Post by jaxn » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 4:36 AM UTC

ktizo wrote: post #163

tomflack wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The university I work at, without any kind of official direction, has had the entire staff body move from the internal mailing list to Yammer for staff chat. It is brilliant.

I'll look at it a bit closer then. Was just being annoyed by the 60 day thing really, purely as I am not sure I would want to hire someone who jumped someone else's ship just because I set a deadline. I shouldn't really extend my annoyance to being snarky about their products as I admittedly know little about them.

They are pretty cool for mid-size groups. They won TechCrunch 50 (or were a finalist) the year I went.

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#167

Post by rit » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 4:41 AM UTC

Isn't this at least partly discriminatory? It seems likely if not Federal, there may be some kind of California law which may cover this.

It seems to me that making a public statement about this could burn them in the future.

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#168

Post by wavephorm » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 4:54 AM UTC

cageyjames wrote: post #19

untog wrote: post #3

While his stance is perhaps extreme, I think it forms part of a larger rejection of Yahoo by the tech community. Sadly, that's going to hurt everyone- Yahoo has some phenomenal tech going on, but most of it generates no revenue. So, we stop using it, Yahoo just fires the developers and continues on it's "content portal" path. Sad.

If you can't overreact on the Internet, where can you overreact?

The dinner table was my family's place of choice.

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#169

Post by sgwizdak » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 5:08 AM UTC

neilk wrote: post #121

pbreit wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No he's not. The patent move isn't the only reason to frown on Yahoo employees. The company has been moving sideways for quite some time which is when good employees tend to leave for better opportunities.

There are a lot of good people toiling away at Yahoo for one reason or another. In particular, work visas can tie you to the company for a good portion of a decade. Just to take one example I'm familiar with, Flickr still has a lot of top-notch people.

And then there is Yahoo Research, who do produce quality work...

Re: Yammer CEO won't hire anyone from Yahoo who doesn't quit in next 60 days

#170

Post by notJim » Thu, Mar 15, 2012, 5:08 AM UTC

dlss wrote: post #151

brown9-2 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re #1, that is not what TFA says: After some backlash, Sacks is considering modifying his proposal to only extend to executives and lawyers, but he still feels all employees should take some ownership.

No, no, it is. From the paragraph after the one you are quoting: “People were telling me I need to think of the Yahoo rank and file, folks who have families, but the talent market in Silicon Valley is so hot right now, the only folks staying at Yahoo are the ones who have stopped caring,” (Emphasis on were added. Unless janitors are in hot demand in the valley this confirms the statement as is)

You're actually twisting the words a little bit.

In his original statement, the CEO clearly meant anyone at the company (we can assume he didn't mean janitors and such, but he certainly meant engineers.)

Later on, he decided to clarify it only to people with control: executives and lawyers. This would not seem to include engineers.

You're making the statement that you think this should include engineers.