101–110 of 178 posts
Cool change of policy. Brian Chesky says in this video that Y Combinator gave AirBNB an exploding offer back in 2009: http://youtu.be/6yPfxcqEXhE?t=53m6s
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience two days is low. 5-10 days is more common, and most companies are fairly willing to negotiate beyond that given some circumstances. It's not common to see candidates rejected if they try to accept an offer after it explodes.
Thanks. Also wondering: should more senior people be offended by exploding offers. Architects, team leads, etc?
If anything, they should be less offended. Companies are often simultaneously hiring multiple junior developers, so it's less necessary to make purely sequential offers.
Technical leads, on the other hand, are typically hired for a specific need. Given their cost, companies rarely are hiring multiple leads simultaneously. Hence, parallelism of offers is impossible. Plus, since all senior devs are in high demand, employers want to make offers to as many as possible—before someone else snaps it up.
Hence, exploding offers are a completely justifiable hiring tool.
A dear friend and excellent negotiator told me that when he gets any kind of short-term exploding offer, the first thing he does is verbally reject the deadline. And the second thing he does is ignore the deadline and offer feedback only after it has passed. I've seen him employ this many times in practice and it has always worked out. I don't want to be responsible for anyone losing a deal, but remember: when someon…
This reminds me of SharkTank where Mark Cuban would make a shot-clock offer and give 30 seconds for someone to accept the offer. Here's the thing. Mark Cuban can walk away from any deal, at anytime and not feel like he is missing out. So, while you are certainly getting the shorter end of the stick with an exploding offer...It's usually coming from a place where the person making the offer has enough leverage to be o…
Cool change of policy. Brian Chesky says in this video that Y Combinator gave AirBNB an exploding offer back in 2009: http://youtu.be/6yPfxcqEXhE?t=53m6s
When I was reading this I thought to myself "wait, didn't YC have exploding offers before"? Glad you dug this up. It was widely known back then that PG viewed it as a "intelligence test" if you didn't accept on the spot. If you didn't, he didn't want you. So I guess now the tide has turned. That all said, I'm very much against exploding offers. The person offering the deal may have a reason to do so but you should re…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This reminds me of SharkTank where Mark Cuban would make a shot-clock offer and give 30 seconds for someone to accept the offer. Here's the thing. Mark Cuban can walk away from any deal, at anytime and not feel like he is missing out. So, while you are certainly getting the shorter end of the stick with an exploding offer...It's usually coming from a place where the person making the offer has enough leverage to be o…
The one thing I've learned about negotiating is that you absolutely must know your negotiating position before evaluating your strategy. Parent post and grandparent post are both perfectly fine points, and how they apply to each of us depends entirely on our set of circumstances.
Edit: This is why getting introduced to an investor puts you in a much stronger position than soliciting them directly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's difficult to imagine a situation where it's rational to offer another rational actor an exploding offer to buy a car. Jobs sometimes need to be filled quickly. But when is selling a car today so much worse than selling one tomorrow? It sounds like the "exploding offer" another scumbag car dealer pressure tactic. Car dealers will do anything, including lying, to prevent you from negotiating efficiently.
You assume it was a dealership. A perfectly legit example of an exploding offer would be a used car with an attractive price where the deal goes to the first person to show up and claim it.
Cool change of policy. Brian Chesky says in this video that Y Combinator gave AirBNB an exploding offer back in 2009: http://youtu.be/6yPfxcqEXhE?t=53m6s
When I was reading this I thought to myself "wait, didn't YC have exploding offers before"? Glad you dug this up. It was widely known back then that PG viewed it as a "intelligence test" if you didn't accept on the spot. If you didn't, he didn't want you. So I guess now the tide has turned. That all said, I'm very much against exploding offers. The person offering the deal may have a reason to do so but you should re…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also about how many options you have for yourself. You never want to put yourself in a situation where you might get an exploding offer without something else in hand. Unfortunately I didn't follow this advice when recently buying a car.
It's difficult to imagine a situation where it's rational to offer another rational actor an exploding offer to buy a car. Jobs sometimes need to be filled quickly. But when is selling a car today so much worse than selling one tomorrow? It sounds like the "exploding offer" another scumbag car dealer pressure tactic. Car dealers will do anything, including lying, to prevent you from negotiating efficiently.
I've gotten a dealer to sell me a car under dealer price by e-mailing every car dealer in the area on the 29th of the month, saying I was looking to buy a (specific model of a) car immediately. All you have to do is find the one dealer who is 1-2 cars away from hitting their bonus target. It is rational for them to sell to you under cost because they will more than make it up in the bonus; it is rational for you because well, it's under cost.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Whenever I've offered an exploding offer in the past, it's because I had several candidates: an extremely strong candidate and several strong but somewhat weaker candidates. If you had several candidates of equal ability, would you still use an exploding offer? Otherwise, it seems to be less about "giving candidates an answer within a certain timeframe" and more about putting pressure on the candidate you really wan…
If you had several candidates of equal ability, would you still use an exploding offer? I would think you would. If you have 10 candidates but only want to hire 1, you can only issue one offer at a time regardless the fact that all 10 are equally qualified. While the first candidate would love to have all the time in the world to contemplate the offer, the employer and the other 9 candidates who are waiting in line d…
If any of them have other offers, they might appreciate _some_ extra time to decide between them.
EDIT: Nevermind the previous bit--I was still thinking in the context of multiple simultaneous offers, which I guess is not a thing.
And if not, then if the first choice turns it down, you make an exploding offer to the second (to be fair to the next 8), and again to the third (to be fair to the next 7), etc. Is there ever a situation where an exploding offer is not in everyone's best interest?
Is this a change for YC? YC previously required getting an answer the day you're accepted because "you have all the information". So this is an update to allow people time to decide, right? I always found the justification of having all the information a bit self centered. Founders have all the information... about YC, but not about other options. That said, as a YC alum, I think you should almost certainly say yes i…
only in the early years of YC did we require an answer right away. as much time as the founders want has been the unofficial policy for awhile, but i thought it was time to share it.
Am I missing something?