Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hire Family People

37signals.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–157 of 157 posts

Re: Hire Family People

#151

Post by rms »

sabat wrote: post #148
asmosoinio wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have enjoyed the comments in this post, even if sometimes negative. For example the PG's and DHH's discussion about definition of a "startup" might seem like nitpicking when taken out of context, but I found it extremely valuable.

Extremely valuable? Why? Because DHH deigned to comment on our little forum? Can't be for any other reason: he's not saying anything interesting or useful, anything less than obvious.

Why do you care so much? It's not like DHH is going to be banned for saying things you don't love.

Re: Hire Family People

#152

Post by hacklite »

DaniFong wrote: post #87
jrockway wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the laws are kind of weird. If you say you discriminate, but don't, you've committed a crime. If you say you don't discriminate, but do, it's not a crime. (I think the reality is that everyone discriminates in favor of "people they like" anyway. It is somewhat scary that we have so many thought crimes now.)

There are certain examples of hiring discrimination which are pretty clear cut. I am not sure if the cases have been tested in court, however. See for example http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20030430-000001.... The paper is "Implicit Discrimination." Marianne Bertrand, Dolly Chugh and Sendhil Mullainathan; American Economic Review, 2005, 95(2), pp. 94-98. if you have access. Unfortunately, I don't at this…

I presume you're referring to age/gender discrimination.

At least people generally recognize that sexism is wrong. There is a lot less raised consciousness when it comes to ageism.

You start college early, and everyone says you're too young. And then later, ironically, you find when you hit 30 that the thinking has recently shifted when it comes to start-ups, so then you're too old.

Re: Hire Family People

#153

Post by crisachow14 »

jcl wrote: post #143
petercooper wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can guess someone's age within a few years at an interview if you wanted to discriminate, so blocking a mention of age is naive. You could also work it out in most cases from the dates given on the resume (unless it becomes illegal to learn about a candidate's education or work history - which wouldn't surprise me to be honest). You could see what neighborhood someone lives in because that will also be typically…

Instead, it should be law that it's optional for the candidate to ANSWER them. That opens another can of worms. Any refusal to answer implies something to hide, which would be an immediate red flag.

Well, true but how offensive is it really if you say that you would rather not say how old you are?

I mean, women do it all the time.

Re: Hire Family People

#154

Post by attack »

ivankirigin wrote: post #136
attack wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over generalization is when you generalize to a group larger than is applicable. This is the same group and a very accurate generalization on his part.

It was an over generalization because I'm an exception: further along in life and YC was a great option. It is probably true that people with more fiduciary responsibilities have more to think about when taking the plunge, but that is a tautology. People with more responsibility have more responsibility. My point is that even if you have a house, cars, kid(s), student loans, etc. you can do it. It just takes a bit of…

Keep telling yourselves what you want to hear. Morons. And don't dead me bro.

Re: Hire Family People

#155

Post by zealog »

andreyf wrote: post #98
pg wrote: post #13

Even if people with kids were more productive per hour, that's not enough in a real startup. The empirical evidence is pretty clear on that. I can't think of a successful startup whose founders didn't, in addition to being smart and determined etc, also work long hours.

that's not enough in a real startup What else is there to being successful other than productivity? I'd suggest this: DHH mentions "an amazing ability to get stuff done when the objectives are reasonably clear", but in a startup, often there is no "objective" - reasonably clear or not. Instead, there is something more like a search heuristic based on "the view form here". With time, the heuristic changes, and the obj…

I think this is an excellent point and really gets into what David was talking about in his (absolutely inspiring) Startup School presentation and how it relates to this post.

To many people, being in a startup is about selling the same thing to the same people - eyeballs to VCs or Google. That's it. There frequently isn't a lot of concern over what exactly it is that draws them there. In these situations, long hours are required (or at least mandated) because the target moves so frequently because someone has a "better idea" or needs to implement "just this one thing" to appease some VC who ends up not funding you anyway. This lack of focus and constraints leads to middle of the road products that can only be worked on by people working 14 hour days to adapt to the ongoing changes.

It's sort of like when Hollywood is out to make a "blockbuster." They buy a popular comic book character, get a dozen hack writers to work on it - even while the scenes are being shot - and they put in a bunch of crap special effects. Sure, sometimes it works, but most of the time it's a bunch of dreck that will never make back its $200 million budget. Contrast that to the lifestyle business - er, independent film - being written and directed by the guy who LOVES what he's doing and making it for himself and you get Pulp Fiction.

Me, I'd much rather make "Pulp Fiction" than "Daredevil."

Re: Hire Family People

#156

Post by asmosoinio »

sabat wrote: post #148
asmosoinio wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have enjoyed the comments in this post, even if sometimes negative. For example the PG's and DHH's discussion about definition of a "startup" might seem like nitpicking when taken out of context, but I found it extremely valuable.

Extremely valuable? Why? Because DHH deigned to comment on our little forum? Can't be for any other reason: he's not saying anything interesting or useful, anything less than obvious.

I found it extremely valuable, because I would like to know what exactly the term "startup" means. Not a dictionary definition, but how people really use the term.

Re: Hire Family People

#157

Post by mattmaroon »

pg wrote: post #35
dhh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most restaurant chains didn't start as chains, they started just as that single restaurant. Most big businesses didn't start big, they started small. But that's again off topic. I do agree that the startup term is most frequently associated with technology companies, but you do hear about startups within a fair number of other lines of business too.

Actually most chains are started as chains. Bizarrely enough I happen to know a lot about this, because the only reading material at the Chinese restaurant near my house in Cambridge is restaurant industry trade mags. Sometimes the chain guys will take a restaurant that's successful and turn it into a chain, but when they do this they usually keep nothing more than the name and a few recipes. McDonald's was a burger…

You're absolutely correct. I have a friend who works for a company that does nothing but launch franchise changes, and they've had a few monster scores. They do it in a few ways. One is by, as you mentioned, taking a pre-existing successful restaurant and using the name and some of the menu.

Some times they will simply develop concepts (often 4 or 5 at a time) start one of each, and see what sticks.

I've studied the restaurant industry quite a bit and can only think of a few chains that stumbled into it.

Post reply on HN