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A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

nytimes.com

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Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#131

Post by whamlastxmas »

SEJeff wrote: post #26

This reminds me of my last job, where the karma gods smiled upon me and not so much for another guy. I've always written my resume somewhat uniquely for SEO[1] and happen to work quite heavily in the Linux space. At the time several years ago, my resume was on the first or second page google search results for something along the lines of "linux system administrator" and variations. The stars must have aligned as som…

You sound like a huge asshole. You knew going into this you wouldn't hire him, yet you wasted his time anyway. You make it sound like he plagiarized a book you wrote and was trying to sell his own. He found people that worded their resume really well and decided to use it for his own. It's not like there's some sanctity to the wording of resumes. Get over yourself.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#132

Post by fencepost »

jonathankoren wrote: post #91
bdcravens wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Green Bay?

It is -- and can be -- the only one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc .

HN is stripping the last "." out of the URL, but it's required for the link.

The organization named is the corporate entity that owns the Packers; there are >350k share owners and it's structured such that nobody can own more than 4% of the shares. It's grandfathered into the NFL rules which for the last 30 or so years have limited ownership groups to no more than 32 people, at least one of whom must own a >30% share.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#133

Post by SEJeff »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #131
SEJeff wrote: post #26

This reminds me of my last job, where the karma gods smiled upon me and not so much for another guy. I've always written my resume somewhat uniquely for SEO[1] and happen to work quite heavily in the Linux space. At the time several years ago, my resume was on the first or second page google search results for something along the lines of "linux system administrator" and variations. The stars must have aligned as som…

You sound like a huge asshole. You knew going into this you wouldn't hire him, yet you wasted his time anyway. You make it sound like he plagiarized a book you wrote and was trying to sell his own. He found people that worded their resume really well and decided to use it for his own. It's not like there's some sanctity to the wording of resumes. Get over yourself.

Correction, he wasted my time, but interviewing for a position he wasn't remotely qualified to perform. Honestly is the most important trait in any team member. How do you not see this?

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#134

Post by whamlastxmas »

SEJeff wrote: post #133
whamlastxmas wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like a huge asshole. You knew going into this you wouldn't hire him, yet you wasted his time anyway. You make it sound like he plagiarized a book you wrote and was trying to sell his own. He found people that worded their resume really well and decided to use it for his own. It's not like there's some sanctity to the wording of resumes. Get over yourself.

Correction, he wasted my time, but interviewing for a position he wasn't remotely qualified to perform. Honestly is the most important trait in any team member. How do you not see this?

Because job listings are overwhelmingly asking for more than they mean. "10+ years experience" means "a couple years if we like you". "CS degree or similar required" may as well not be there on the listings that have it. The responsibility of figuring out whether they're qualified is yours, not the candidate's. How the hell is he supposed to know what your needs are? You should have figured this out in an email or quick phone screen.

Additionally, you're a terrible interviewer if someone is failing miserably. There is no valuable data to use from this situation. Turn it down until they stop failing, and see how far it can be pushed. I'm sure you know this, but decided to be a prick instead.

There's nothing dishonest about using wording from someone else's resume. If I did it and someone asked about it, I'd definitely say "I saw how someone else phrased it and found it really good, so I used it too" and obviously wouldn't put it down if it wasn't true. This guy probably would have said something similar if you didn't throw it in his face and make him so uncomfortable.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#135

Post by danso »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #134
SEJeff wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction, he wasted my time, but interviewing for a position he wasn't remotely qualified to perform. Honestly is the most important trait in any team member. How do you not see this?

Because job listings are overwhelmingly asking for more than they mean. "10+ years experience" means "a couple years if we like you". "CS degree or similar required" may as well not be there on the listings that have it. The responsibility of figuring out whether they're qualified is yours, not the candidate's. How the hell is he supposed to know what your needs are? You should have figured this out in an email or qu…

The unfairness of job listings -- much like the unfairness in getting published -- doesn't excuse plagiarism.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#136

Post by whamlastxmas »

danso wrote: post #135
whamlastxmas wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because job listings are overwhelmingly asking for more than they mean. "10+ years experience" means "a couple years if we like you". "CS degree or similar required" may as well not be there on the listings that have it. The responsibility of figuring out whether they're qualified is yours, not the candidate's. How the hell is he supposed to know what your needs are? You should have figured this out in an email or qu…

The unfairness of job listings -- much like the unfairness in getting published -- doesn't excuse plagiarism.

The concept of it being amoral to plagiarize a resume is laughable. He's not creating some original piece of writing or trying to demonstrating his writing abilities. He's not submitting some piece of writing as part of his job responsibilities or for any sort of publication.

He's conveying facts on a piece of paper that is handed to, at most, a few dozen people, who glance it at for about 20 seconds and then never see it again. He's not even implicitly claiming that everything on his resume is 100% unique, because more than half of resumes use the same structuring, wording, and general descriptive approaches. I thought this was common sense until your comment.

Calling this plagiarism is like saying the sentence "By using our Services, you are agreeing to these terms" in a terms of service is plagiarizing whoever wound up writing that first. It's ridiculous.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#137

Post by SEJeff »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #136
danso wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfairness of job listings -- much like the unfairness in getting published -- doesn't excuse plagiarism.

The concept of it being amoral to plagiarize a resume is laughable. He's not creating some original piece of writing or trying to demonstrating his writing abilities. He's not submitting some piece of writing as part of his job responsibilities or for any sort of publication. He's conveying facts on a piece of paper that is handed to, at most, a few dozen people, who glance it at for about 20 seconds and then never s…

Well it was my original work, that I spent a lot of time on. I found it terribly insulting that he blatantly ripped much of it off, AND that he couldn't at least back a single bit of it up. I guess you wouldn't mind if someone totally ripped off something you worked hard on and passed it off as their own? Totally cool, right?

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#138

Post by danso »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #136
danso wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The unfairness of job listings -- much like the unfairness in getting published -- doesn't excuse plagiarism.

The concept of it being amoral to plagiarize a resume is laughable. He's not creating some original piece of writing or trying to demonstrating his writing abilities. He's not submitting some piece of writing as part of his job responsibilities or for any sort of publication. He's conveying facts on a piece of paper that is handed to, at most, a few dozen people, who glance it at for about 20 seconds and then never s…

Then you have a differing opinion from me and SEJeff on what is needed to create a good résumé. If all it required were a reciting of simple facts, then presumably the candidate would not need to have copied from SEJeff. I don't have to look at other people's work when writing the school I attended or year that I graduated, or number of years that I have in some skillset.

Perhaps you think that it wasn't actual plagiarism? That it could've been coincidence, or that SEJeff's phrasing is so routine that it doesn't count as something with real investment of thought? Have you tried Googling it?

"Re-implemented the global dns/ldap setup for higher availability. Used keepalived for auto-failover"

https://www.google.com/search?q="Re-implemented+the+global+d...

There are exactly 5 results, 2 of them which originate from this current discussion. That's just one of the bulletpoints, nevermind the same 3 in the same order.

For reference's sake, the odds that Melania Trump didn't plagiarize the following sentence from Michelle Obama -- values that you work hard for what you want in life that your word is your bond and you do what you say -- is about one in a trillion [0]

[0] https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/07/19/we-ran-melania-trum...

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#139

Post by threatofrain »

SEJeff wrote: post #133
whamlastxmas wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sound like a huge asshole. You knew going into this you wouldn't hire him, yet you wasted his time anyway. You make it sound like he plagiarized a book you wrote and was trying to sell his own. He found people that worded their resume really well and decided to use it for his own. It's not like there's some sanctity to the wording of resumes. Get over yourself.

Correction, he wasted my time, but interviewing for a position he wasn't remotely qualified to perform. Honestly is the most important trait in any team member. How do you not see this?

Dialing up the interview to 11 means that you are now a confounding factor to your own hiring processes. Removal of confounding factors means an improved ability of a company to develop evidence-based hiring strategies.

It sounds like you react to dishonesty with bad faith acts of your own, since you had no interest in giving that person a standard opportunity. The way you reacted sounds emotional and personal.

Re: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

#140

Post by hkmurakami »

vinayan3 wrote: post #49
hkmurakami wrote: post #18

With the promise of great riches, come the fraudsters. Sad.

It's really sad. I grew up in the Bay Area and felt like the propensity for fraud was very low if not non-existent. I guess it's not like that anymore or maybe it never was and I've been lucky to work for and with people who don't commit fraud.

Same. Grew up in the Peninsula and I feel like things have really spiraled out of control.
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