"It's hard to find good people to hire"
Oh, come on! Where is this myth coming from? I don't know about USA, but here in London there is an over-abundance of IT workforce (what else would justify the sub £60k senior dev job offers).
Inside the Mirrortocracy
31–40 of 214 posts
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
So basically you don't really believe that diversity and social mobility are important with regards to the workplace.
I am asking you why you think it is important. I am not really interested in "beliefs". It seems curious that it is automatically assumed that diversity is beneficial. As I said, maybe there is a reason why your pals are your pals and you work better together with them than with strangers. I guess I believe that a company does not have a moral obligation to foster diversity and social mobility. It is possible that a…
I am asking you why you _think_ it is important. I am not really interested in "beliefs".
Technically, asking someone why they think , is asking about their believes. Does that seem logical to you?
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not think that great programmer necessary reads a lot of what amounts to soft "programming/founder lifestyle" blogs. Especially since those two seem to be behind the peek of their fame. I do not remember their names appearing in major tech sites nor on any smaller topic/framework focused ones last years. Plus, you would discriminate against tech oriented programmers that focus more on technological side of the t…
So what blogs would a modern programmer read? I learned a lot from Joel, and I am not really aware of any blog that compares. I don't get why it is supposedly a bad thing to judge people by their preferences, either. Why shouldn't I prefer to mingle with people who like the same things as I do? By definition, I probably wouldn't like the things those other people like, which would make for awkward dinner conversation…
Are you hiring programmer or drinking buddy? I would expect him to read blogs/news sites related to technology he used in past, because it basically means he educates himself about technology he uses.
Other than that, he can read what he please. I have no reason to care whether his knowledge came from business book, programming book, Joels blog, random browsing or coursera videos, as long as that knowledge is solid (relatively to position he is taking).
There is nothing awkward about dinner conversation with a person with different preferences, unless you lived in mono-culture whole your life. Politely state that you do not like Michael Bolton and optionally specify what you like. For some reason, people always managed to find things to talk about, even as hiring managers did not cared about leisure time readings or movie preferences.
And seriously, most of your time together should be spend working, not chatting about music. If startups really focus on dinner conversations more then on product and sales, then they are as dysfunctional as big bad corporations.
I admit that there are types of personalities I had hard time to work with, but the problem was not in us reading different blogs nor using different programming language nor movies nor music.
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what blogs would a modern programmer read? I learned a lot from Joel, and I am not really aware of any blog that compares. I don't get why it is supposedly a bad thing to judge people by their preferences, either. Why shouldn't I prefer to mingle with people who like the same things as I do? By definition, I probably wouldn't like the things those other people like, which would make for awkward dinner conversation…
Are you hiring programmer or drinking buddy? I would expect him to read blogs/news sites related to technology he used in past, because it basically means he educates himself about technology he uses. Other than that, he can read what he please. I have no reason to care whether his knowledge came from business book, programming book, Joels blog, random browsing or coursera videos, as long as that knowledge is solid (…
But isn't there a basic curiosity in some people?
I have a hard time imagining somebody who truly cares about programming to learn about Joel's blog and not devouring it (I mean the earlier days, when it was still about programming). I could let it pass if they never heard about Joel, but they know lots of other interesting stuff. Or anything else, really - it is the basic difference between somebody just doing their job and somebody curious about everything. If somebody is a Java developer and only reads about Java programming, he might be a good fit for some jobs. But I am different - I constantly read about new programming languages and development trends.
Why should it be good for me to work with somebody who only cares about Java? And what would you take about during lunch - Java development?
I am not saying you should hire based on musical taste, but I am waiting for a solid argument for why you shouldn't.
More specifically: why is "hire who you know/is like you" supposed to be a bad heuristic? If you know you yourself are efficient, it seems likely somebody like you is also sufficient. At least it seems more likely than that a random stranger (or somebody who explicitly isn't like you) is efficient. Please show me data to the contrary if you disagree with that heuristic (especially, as I said in my first comment, as nobody really seems to have a clue how to hire).
Back to Joel: it seems more likely that somebody who knows Joel is a good programmer than somebody who doesn't know Joel. Would you disagree with that assessment? Look at it in reverse: how would a good programmer not know about Joel's blog?
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#35If like Rome, Silicon Valley should ever lose it's eminence, the blog post from 42Floors is a classic piece of evidence as to why it happened.
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what blogs would a modern programmer read? I learned a lot from Joel, and I am not really aware of any blog that compares. I don't get why it is supposedly a bad thing to judge people by their preferences, either. Why shouldn't I prefer to mingle with people who like the same things as I do? By definition, I probably wouldn't like the things those other people like, which would make for awkward dinner conversation…
Are you hiring programmer or drinking buddy? I would expect him to read blogs/news sites related to technology he used in past, because it basically means he educates himself about technology he uses. Other than that, he can read what he please. I have no reason to care whether his knowledge came from business book, programming book, Joels blog, random browsing or coursera videos, as long as that knowledge is solid (…
[deleted]
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you hiring programmer or drinking buddy? I would expect him to read blogs/news sites related to technology he used in past, because it basically means he educates himself about technology he uses. Other than that, he can read what he please. I have no reason to care whether his knowledge came from business book, programming book, Joels blog, random browsing or coursera videos, as long as that knowledge is solid (…
But isn't there a basic curiosity in some people? I have a hard time imagining somebody who truly cares about programming to learn about Joel's blog and not devouring it (I mean the earlier days, when it was still about programming). I could let it pass if they never heard about Joel, but they know lots of other interesting stuff. Or anything else, really - it is the basic difference between somebody just doing their…
"But isn't there a basic curiosity in some people?"
Someone who does not read the same old blog as you is not curious? That does not make any sense. I checked out Joels blog now (after years) and there does seem to be anything exceptional or different then what is on gazillion other blogs.
If anything, Java guy reading about Java could learn about map reduce, full text search, security, compilers, algorithms, sound processing, text analysis, artificial intelligence and million other things in the process. There are java libraries for all those things and when you follow java news you are primary learning about those.
Mastering full text search library in ruby is easier if you already mastered another full text search in another language. The underlying concepts are going to be similar. I get it, you care more about language itself, but that does not make you more curious nor better developer. It makes you slightly different.
"And what would you take about during lunch - Java development?"
I would try various topics until I find the one we can talk about. Plus, discussion with someone who knows different things then me is more interesting usually, I learn new stuff from it. Listening to the same ideas I read about yesterday does not make for a compelling lunch.
"I am not saying you should hire based on musical taste, but I am waiting for a solid argument for why you shouldn't."
You might as well hire on color of their eyes.
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you hiring a pal or a professional? Maybe it's useful to have someone different than you who can spot a different kind of flaws than you in the latest fad framework. Who gives a damn if it is Michael Bolton in someone else's earphones.
Some people seem to expect more from their job than just a place in a cubicle where they can do their duty for 8 hours and then go home. They want to have fun, be together with cool people and so on. If you can't bond over music, there is one fun factor less (btw Michael Bolton was a reference to the movie "Office Space"). If you manage to run your company as a factory where individuality doesn't matter, only code ou…
What if their taste in music or people changes, as their non-work social circle evolves? Do they become less desirable employees?
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people live and breathe valley culture and others don't. I have met great programmers and just generally smart people on both sides of the fence. It's not the particular cultural understanding that makes them good or bad. It is usually something else. I wouldn't hold it against you if all you did in your spare time was paint portraits but for your day job you were a programmer. In fact that kind of variety in in…
So where is the fundamental argument against monocultures? The paypal founder seems to disagree? Is it just political correctness, or is there some hard data? In theory I am all for diversity, but I can imagine that in some endeavours it helps if you get along with the people in your team. I don't think "hiring what you know" is really that much of a mistake. I would hire my friends, for example, because I already kn…
The fundamental argument is that if you hire more similar people, you will get similar results. Are you a billionaire yet? If not, maybe you should hire some different types of people in order to deliver different results.
People with different mindsets will challenge you. They will disagree with your decisions. They will think of different approaches that may be much better than what you are doing. If you let them, they may drastically improve your business.
Are your friends the best fit for the job? What if someone likes different music and whatever but is ten times as effective at that type of position? I would consider the latter far more important. You're hiring people to do a job, not socialize with.
Re: Inside the Mirrortocracy
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
So basically you don't really believe that diversity and social mobility are important with regards to the workplace.
I am asking you why you think it is important. I am not really interested in "beliefs". It seems curious that it is automatically assumed that diversity is beneficial. As I said, maybe there is a reason why your pals are your pals and you work better together with them than with strangers. I guess I believe that a company does not have a moral obligation to foster diversity and social mobility. It is possible that a…
Sounds a bit like NRx. Here's a Bell Labs story from Richard Hamming about office doors being open or closed. The metaphor is hopefully clear.
From http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html:
"Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and tomorrow, and you are more productive than most.
But 10 years later somehow you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as to what the world is and what might be important.
Now I cannot prove the cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - not much, but enough that they miss fame."