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Quote Meritocracy Unquote

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Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#11

Post by rainsford »

pcalloway wrote: post #7

Something relevant to note, is that YC's two biggest successes got into YC at least in part because of personal relationships. IIRC, Dropbox was recommended by former roommates and friends from MIT (Xobni guys?). Airbnb was recommended by Michael Seibel from Justin.tv, perhaps others. In both cases it's possible that YC wouldn't have interviewed or perhaps accepted one or both of these companies if not for those reco…

Even in a meritocracy, those making the decisions need some way to both gather and screen candidates. Properly utilized personal relationships (as opposed to nepotism style situations) can be a good way to do both.

Maybe Dropbox and Airbnb wouldn't have succeeded without those recommendations, but those recommendations could certainly have led to a MORE merit based process. When it comes to judging quality, it can sometime be hard to beat a personal opinion from someone you trust. That may narrow the field a little bit (nobody has personally experienced all the alternatives) but it may also improve your decision.

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#12

Post by tokenadult »

A very thoughtful post. I especially like the discussion of the difference between sensitivity and specificity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity

(the post uses other words) or in other words the difference between type I and type II errors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors

There are so many interesting ways to think about this. Some of us may have Venn diagrams in our minds' eyes, thinking about the set of {all highly competent programmers} and {speakers invited to programming conferences} and just how those sets overlap.

Of course the important policy point here is that we have no idea how much more flourishing of human developed talent there could be if only all young learners had full opportunity to develop their abilities. I think there are probably a lot of diamonds in the rough in communities all over the world that never get picked up, much less polished. Programming communities can thrive by being welcoming to people who are other than the usual suspects just like current programmers. Props to the author for reminding us not to neglect anyone.

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#13

Post by coolsunglasses »

steveklabnik wrote: post #4
coolsunglasses wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Don't let your own notions of use-value blind you to what the market cares about: exchange value. This has been the key lesson of my career as a programmer and entrepreneur. Reading Marx made me a better capitalist. I tell people that ask for book recommendations to read Marx all the time and they sneer at me even though they know I'm not a Marxist.

I'm aware of the existence of a business school which was until recently was majorly staffed by Marxists. That was basically their response as well. "We know capitalism better than anyone, all we do is study it." I've found that it's a bit better to recommend "Value, Price, and Profit"[1] rather than Capital I because it gives you the gist of the most important part (the first three chapters) while being much smaller…

Thanks for the suggestion! I usually recommended the Oxford abridgement of Das Kapital to ease the pain. I'll start recommending this one instead. :)

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#14

Post by steveklabnik »

coolsunglasses wrote: post #13
steveklabnik wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm aware of the existence of a business school which was until recently was majorly staffed by Marxists. That was basically their response as well. "We know capitalism better than anyone, all we do is study it." I've found that it's a bit better to recommend "Value, Price, and Profit"[1] rather than Capital I because it gives you the gist of the most important part (the first three chapters) while being much smaller…

Thanks for the suggestion! I usually recommended the Oxford abridgement of Das Kapital to ease the pain. I'll start recommending this one instead. :)

Reading Capital is still totally worthwhile. I've read volume I four or five times at this point, and I always find new things that are relevant to today... that said, it is difficult for a new reader.

When you decide to climb that mountain, you could do much worse than have David Harvey as a companion: http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#15

Post by coolsunglasses »

steveklabnik wrote: post #14
coolsunglasses wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the suggestion! I usually recommended the Oxford abridgement of Das Kapital to ease the pain. I'll start recommending this one instead. :)

Reading Capital is still totally worthwhile. I've read volume I four or five times at this point, and I always find new things that are relevant to today... that said, it is difficult for a new reader. When you decide to climb that mountain, you could do much worse than have David Harvey as a companion: http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/

Harvey was how I went through it.

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#16

Post by raganwald »

tokenadult wrote: post #12

A very thoughtful post. I especially like the discussion of the difference between sensitivity and specificity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity (the post uses other words) or in other words the difference between type I and type II errors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors There are so many interesting ways to think about this. Some of us may have Venn diagrams in our mind…

Duly noted, thank you. Email me if you'd care to have your name and/or URL I can credit.

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#17

Post by [deleted] »

rainsford wrote: post #11
pcalloway wrote: post #7

Something relevant to note, is that YC's two biggest successes got into YC at least in part because of personal relationships. IIRC, Dropbox was recommended by former roommates and friends from MIT (Xobni guys?). Airbnb was recommended by Michael Seibel from Justin.tv, perhaps others. In both cases it's possible that YC wouldn't have interviewed or perhaps accepted one or both of these companies if not for those reco…

Even in a meritocracy, those making the decisions need some way to both gather and screen candidates. Properly utilized personal relationships (as opposed to nepotism style situations) can be a good way to do both. Maybe Dropbox and Airbnb wouldn't have succeeded without those recommendations, but those recommendations could certainly have led to a MORE merit based process. When it comes to judging quality, it can so…

[deleted]

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#18

Post by milfot »

tokenadult wrote: post #12

A very thoughtful post. I especially like the discussion of the difference between sensitivity and specificity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitivity_and_specificity (the post uses other words) or in other words the difference between type I and type II errors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors There are so many interesting ways to think about this. Some of us may have Venn diagrams in our mind…

"Of course the important policy point here is that we have no idea how much more flourishing of human developed talent there could be if only all young learners had full opportunity to develop their abilities."

This is a very positive way of looking at this. I would argue that we have a fairly good sense of how much more (a lot) and that this informs the tendency for entrenched meritocracies to restrict access rather than open the floodgates, so to speak. People are generally overprotective of their position or status, the past and what they have built for themselves.

I wholly agree that "communities can thrive", and I believe gain a lot more, by being open and welcoming to people not (just) on the basis of merit, but on the basis of curiosity / interest / engagement.

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#19

Post by asalazar »

Meritocracies are great sometimes but they have the nasty side affect of promoting people into jobs they suck at. Just because you're the best at being an individual contributor, it doesn't mean you're going to be a good manager, and being a good manager doesn't mean you're going to be a good executive or entrepreneur. In organizations that value meritocracies absolutely, you end up losing your best people if they don't scale.

Re: Quote Meritocracy Unquote

#20

Post by spikels »

This is a strawman argument. Forget about Donald Trump as some model of success. Despite his head start he almost went bankrupt - twice. He is much less respected as a real estate developer in the world of real estate than you think. His success has been in PR and celebrity. There are thousands real estate investors who actually are good at it and started with nothing (e.g. Sam Zell).

Don't like "meritocracy" then how how should we choose our leaders?

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