The first example read like the employee was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so we fired him. Ouch. Try to be supportive and help at least once. Then reconsider. Else, the jerk is on you.
How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
21–30 of 51 posts
Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#22Jesus Christ, is that top picture of a hellish working environment typical? I have a panic attack just looking at it. Does anyone happen to know what company that is so I know to avoid them like the plague? EDIT: OK, figured it out, it is Pivotal[0]. I have absolutely no idea what they actually _do_ based on their website, exactly as I would expect for the kind of company that would have that sort of office. [0]: htt…
it looks familiar to me- I think it's Pivotal. edit: you edited while I was writing my reply. :) edit 2: if you didn't see this, is related- http://www.wired.com/2013/11/pivotal-one/
Thanks for the link. Yup, that is anathema to me, you couldn't pay me enough to ever consider working there.
>As each pair works, neither engineer is permitted to send email or text chat — much less surf the web
>The engineers don’t go onto their laptops unless it’s absolutely necessary. They don’t use their phone unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Anyway I will try to avoid buying whatever their product is, I don't want to support companies that would do this type of stuff. This is also why I refuse to move or work in America- I am dead serious, your employment law and corporate culture scares me.
Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#23Why do we need senior people at all? The short answer is time. Hiring someone who has already done what you are trying to do can radically speed up time to success. But won’t they just ruin the culture? This question must be taken seriously. However, bringing in the right kind of experience at the right time can mean the difference between bankruptcy and glory. Wow, that's offensive.
I'm not even sure why that's part of the article at all. The piece is originally about dealing with smart jerks and suddenly the author switches to talking about bringing in older employees?
The article is "[a]dapted and excerpted from The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz." Seems like the editors did a clumsy job when combining two sections [1] of Ben's book.
[1] I "looked inside" the book at Amazon. The article is made up of two sections from the book, and rewrites/reorders the paragraphs a bit.
Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#24Didn't Ben Horowitz basically publish this already as Old People? http://www.bhorowitz.com/old_people
Wow, that one is even worse, pure ageism. He might as well write about "when to hire female people" etc. Somewhat sad that "culture" is mostly a meaningless buzzword these days, used mainly to exclude people you don't like.
And yet people will listen to this guy because he is a VC and will create cargo cult leadership to hang off his every word.
Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#25The good argument against hiring experienced people is that they will be highly opinionated about how they did things before. (Plus, the purely practical concerns around cost and availability) I don't think this closely correlates to age -- a 45 year old consultant who has done short engagements at hundreds of small companies (qsa or something like that) has entirely different characteristics than someone who ran a specific function at one successful company right out of college and nothing else. I'd actually argue the 45yo in that case is less likely to be an "old person" than the 24yo! In a less pathological case, certain roles are probably more likely to make people into jerks (or select for jerks to retain) than other roles.
The argument for is time, and that you might really want those opinions. It just doesn't mesh well with "everyone is equal, we are doing something new, so everyone contributes ideas" way of thinking at the earliest stages, and it is possible the conventional wisdom (or at least the version embodied in the experienced employee) will either be wrong in general, or at least wrong for your specific case now. It is probably more important that "experienced" people be polite and reasonable than that "brilliant" people be polite and reasonable, actually.
The biggest jerks seem to be people who have had one or two early successes and little or no failure.
Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#26The first example read like the employee was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so we fired him . Ouch. Try to be supportive and help at least once. Then reconsider. Else, the jerk is on you.
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Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#27Why do we need senior people at all? The short answer is time. Hiring someone who has already done what you are trying to do can radically speed up time to success. But won’t they just ruin the culture? This question must be taken seriously. However, bringing in the right kind of experience at the right time can mean the difference between bankruptcy and glory. Wow, that's offensive.
Seriously. Even as a young person, that stung.
Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#28Holy shit. I would never work with/for this writer.
In example one, the writer refuses to take responsibility for the fact that they had unrealistic expectations and encouraged unhealthy behavior. If a guy works for 72 hours straight, you don't reward him for that, you tell him to take 3 days off and get some sleep, because nobody can be productive at a pace like that. At the very least it's incredibly unhealthy for the employee.
In the second example the writer basically is suggesting that you should fire people who speak out against the company. What a ridiculous notion! If your culture is so bad you're producing "heretics", you should probably take a serious review at what you're doing to cause such behavior, and why you couldn't detect and rein it in before they "went public" with their concerns.
In the third example, again, before the "jerk" can "destroy" communication "across the team", why didn't somebody notice and maybe have a talk with this chap? Why not work out counseling, or find new ways to work with the person? There are a lot of avenues available to improve communication between employees. "The pound" is a failure to deal with the communication issue.
The ageism of the rest of his post is just the nail in the coffin. Instead of adapting your culture to support different viewpoints, he suggests filtering out anyone who doesn't think the same. Instead of providing a facility for all employees to come to consensus and work together productively, he suggests you should simply be cautious that the old person could be more politically-savvy than you - essentially, to be 'on your guard' around them. And the idea that an old person has some specific knowledge you need is not only irrational, it ignores the real reason 'old' people have an advantage: they may not have specific knowledge you need, but they have [probably] failed more, which gives them the experience of knowing what doesn't work (in their experience), and to a smaller extent, what does.
Dealing with "geniuses" should be the same as dealing with regular people. If you take an active role in caring about your employees and their experience in your company, you'll find out before problems come to a head, and be able to work out solutions that help everyone. (Or you could just fire anyone that causes you problems, which seems to be his suggestion)
Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#29Why do we need senior people at all? The short answer is time. Hiring someone who has already done what you are trying to do can radically speed up time to success. But won’t they just ruin the culture? This question must be taken seriously. However, bringing in the right kind of experience at the right time can mean the difference between bankruptcy and glory. Wow, that's offensive.
Well, he did have a harder time justifying why not to hire older people, compared to drug addicts.
Re: How to Deal With Brilliant Jerks You Work With
#30The first example read like the employee was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so we fired him . Ouch. Try to be supportive and help at least once. Then reconsider. Else, the jerk is on you.
Not only that, but bipolar disorder is a protected class under the ADA. Drug addiction not so much. But that's why your company has mental health included in its health plan.
It does, doesn't it?
Sheesh.