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Employee Retention

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Employee Retention

#81

Post by kabdib »

johnrob wrote: post #4

if something causes the bay area monopoly on startups to weaken in the near term, I expect it to be around retention challenges or costs. We have a fundamental problem in Silicon Valley: there are not enough places for people to live in. This manifests itself in many ways (higher rent, higher salaries, higher turnover, etc) and is probably going to be a hard limit on how big the local tech industry can get. It's a ce…

Indeed. I moved away from Silly Valley about ten years ago, and I'm never going back (to live there).

- The public schools are mostly terrible (we'd have to put our kid in private school unless we got into one of the really good school districts).

- House prices are crazy.

- The environment is just . . . bad. I didn't know how much I missed actual weather until moving away (to Seattle, if you must know -- I don't mind the rain much at all).

About the only things I miss from the Bay Area are my friends, the year-round motorcycling, and the hard-core high tech culture (though there is a lot of that here in the Seattle area).

Re: Employee Retention

#82

Post by vacri »

tarpden wrote: post #11

I think these basics are most important: * don't constantly push to have your employees stay late * if you need your employees to travel, while they're away don't pressure them to work more than their usual work day. * don't disrespect and be a jerk to your employees * provide reasonable sick and vacation benefits

don't constantly push to have your employees stay late

My favourite is 'flexible work hours' that always seems to stack in the company's favour. Work a 12-hour day yesterday? Go home an hour earlier today... if that.

Re: Employee Retention

#83

Post by [deleted] »

patmcc wrote: post #75
danielweber wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Automatically raise their pay every year. It doesn't necessarily need to keep up with market, but they need to know that they aren't being suckers by staying at the job.

Bingo. Companies should have (at least) two mechanisms for raising pay: a 1 to 3% (tied to some measure of inflation) increase everyone gets, and a variable rate tied to their performance/company success/etc.

[deleted]

Re: Employee Retention

#84

Post by pmp6701 »

staunch wrote: post #69
enraged_camel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, the main reason founders refuse acquisition offers is because they believe their startup has a great future and will be worth a lot more later. I don't think the thought process is ever, "Well, $50 million is great, but you know what? We're enjoying what we do so much that we'll turn it down even though that's the most we will realistically be able to get."

Or even more simply, their investors offer to let them to cash out a few million worth of shares as idiot insurance. This still doesn't really explain why a 22 year old Mark Zuckerberg had the cojones to turn down $1 billion. Very few people in the world would have done that.

He didn't turn it down, according to Andreesen Yahoo reduced the offer with the financial crisis to $200m http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/21/marc-andreessen...

Re: Employee Retention

#85

Post by pmp6701 »

normloman wrote: post #15

The author recommends having a mission so employees feel like they're working for a greater good. So is this why every job on Hacker News goes something like "Help us change the world of [industry]," where [industry] can be something as banal as t-shirt printing or pizza delivery? If you don't believe me, here are some examples from the jobs board: Mobile Hacker? Come work with the team that's reinventing farming Sim…

Good founders are here to make revolutions happening.

Re: Employee Retention

#86

Post by xivzgrev »

michaelochurch wrote: post #5
johnrob wrote: post #4

if something causes the bay area monopoly on startups to weaken in the near term, I expect it to be around retention challenges or costs. We have a fundamental problem in Silicon Valley: there are not enough places for people to live in. This manifests itself in many ways (higher rent, higher salaries, higher turnover, etc) and is probably going to be a hard limit on how big the local tech industry can get. It's a ce…

We have a fundamental problem in Silicon Valley: there are not enough places for people to live in. Transportation is your problem, along with NIMBY regulations (fought-for by limousine liberal hypocrites) that prevent proper growth. Silicon Valley is not Manhattan, with its daytime population density of 170k per square mile. It should not be expensive and congested. It's just badly planned, with a lot of regulatory…

No joke on poor transportation.

My g/f lives in outer Richmond and takes me over 50+ min for a bus to soma. Might as well live in Oakland...

Let's say you have a bus line with 40 stops. I wonder what it'd look like if you ran two lines with 20 stops each: you run same num of busses on same route, each bus just skips every other stop, alternating with the next bus.

Wait times at any given stop don't dramatically decrease in absolute sense. And if each stop takes 30 seconds, could shave 10 min off route.

Re: Employee Retention

#87

Post by roel_v »

Apocryphon wrote: post #71
roel_v wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that same argument goes for Bumblefuck, Arkansas, no?

What's an hour away from BMF with night life? The trip from SJ to SF may suck, especially with the Bay Area's appalling lack of a unified transportation system, but it'll still do in a pinch for SJ denizens to visit.

Well the data shows it's quite a lot, given the premium people are willing to pay for living in SF... Spending 2x5 hours (at least) per week stuck in traffic is worth quite a lot of money for many people.

Re: Employee Retention

#88

Post by kika »

DrJokepu wrote: post #35

I wonder how you get people to believe in a mission if scepticism forms an inherent part of the culture. I‘m talking about the UK specifically. I feel like it would be very difficult to get the English guys and girls on my team to take our "mission" even remotely seriously.

The best example of British hiring PR is the mythical Shackleton ad: "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success."

Despite being a fake (no one found a actual newspaper reference [0]) it obviously resonated very well. And still resonates.

[0] : http://www.antarctic-circle.org/advert.htm

Re: Employee Retention

#89

Post by tomp »

plorkyeran wrote: post #16
Apocryphon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why oh why aren't more companies returning to the South Bay, specifically San Jose? Downtown SJ is tiny compared to San Francisco's. And there are plenty of tracts for office parks in the suburbs. Sure, all of the hip young hackers want someplace cool to go to, but it's only an hour away to the north.

I have zero interest in working in San Jose because I have zero interest in living anywhere within commuting distance of San Jose (no, an hour away is not within commuting distance).

May I ask why not, and where would you like to live, and why?

I live in London, but I'm just generally curious about the SV/SF area.

Re: Employee Retention

#90

Post by danielweber »

vacri wrote: post #82
tarpden wrote: post #11

I think these basics are most important: * don't constantly push to have your employees stay late * if you need your employees to travel, while they're away don't pressure them to work more than their usual work day. * don't disrespect and be a jerk to your employees * provide reasonable sick and vacation benefits

don't constantly push to have your employees stay late My favourite is 'flexible work hours' that always seems to stack in the company's favour. Work a 12-hour day yesterday? Go home an hour earlier today... if that.

"Core hours are 8 to 5."
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