Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#181

Post by bennyg » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 4:17 AM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #91

"The continual use of slang expressions is an evidence of mental laziness, and I will not hire a man who depends upon slang to express his meaning. It is a substitute for exact thinking." I found this to be an unusual warning. Is "proper speech" really just a proxy for class in that time period? I'm now very curious about 1920s slang, especially its frequency of use in business settings.

Ugh - everyone speaking extremely carefully, making sure to use language like they would a math proof, makes for a very boring world. Just get the fucking point across; that's effective communication. Slang can be VERY good at fulfilling that.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#182

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 4:24 AM UTC

chris_mahan wrote: post #141

sliverstorm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't really sound like the boss is providing a working prototype. It sounds like the boss provides throwaway code that is a step or two better than a screenshot or whiteboard drawing.

And what's wrong with that? Would you rather the boss commit a fully tested code? That's your job, not his.

He's frustrated that his boss is basically doing the equivalent of, "I heard about NoSQL at a conference today, all our competitors are using it, please switch us from MySQL to NoSQL. It will be great"

(Then a week after the switch is done; "Have you heard about postgresql...?")

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#183

Post by cf » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 4:49 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #146

tokenadult wrote: post #137

As mathattack has correctly pointed out in a comment an hour ago, this is a parable (a made-up story). The huge salary by that day's standards should make that clear. But the unnamed author makes his hiring methods look stupid, because he should be doing a work-sample test[1] before hiring for such an expensive contract. If he doesn't know what the worker will actually do, he shouldn't put so much money on the line.…

There's a lot of things people should have been doing in 1924, but weren't. I mean, if we're judging by modern standards, allowing women and minorities into senior roles would be one of them. How, exactly, do you do a work-sample test for a chief sales executive anyway? "Hey, can you run our global sales division for a couple of hours, then we can evaluate if your methods really bring in the sales"? Edit: to clarify…

Sell me this pen.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#184

Post by vinceguidry » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 4:53 AM UTC

bitkrieg wrote: post #160

wavefunction wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edison was not a genius. He was good at sales and marketing, however.

So a sales and marketing genius then?

He was good at it. He was no genius. Tesla turned out to be the better showman. Edison's envy of Tesla's flair for the dramatic led him directly to his ghastly practice of electrifying stray animals to portray AC as unsafe. Whereas Tesla almost managed to get a gigantic pie-in-the-sky wireless power transmission experiment funded using little more than his famous mad-scientist mystique. Edison couldn't hope to inspire that kind of patronage and had to rely on more prosaic methods.

What Edison did possess was a remarkable capacity for what he called "hard work". Making the light bulb practical was something anybody could have done, if they'd had the willingness to burn through months of time and money performing dull experiments over and over and over again.

There was still a lot of low-hanging technological fruit in Edison's day, but 'low-hanging' didn't mean 'easy'. He made a business out of working harder than anyone else did to make contraptions practical.

People pooh-pooh him as unoriginal, dull, but that's the sort of man his work needed. He was also smarter than people gave him credit for, though he didn't match the sheer brilliance of Tesla. His industrial research facility at Menlo Park was the first of its kind, he set a lot of standards in the field and had a lot of influence. It's considered by many to be his most important innovation.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#185

Post by angersock » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 4:57 AM UTC

woodchuck64 wrote: post #103

cbp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And since those qualities are so out of reach for techies they're looked down on.

I think everyone should be highly suspicious of charisma. Charisma is a skill, not a trait, and it's developed by spending a lifetime practicing on people that one thinks are largely beneath one's self.

" that one thinks are largely beneath one's self."

Mind elaborating on that?

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#186

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 5:34 AM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #137

As mathattack has correctly pointed out in a comment an hour ago, this is a parable (a made-up story). The huge salary by that day's standards should make that clear. But the unnamed author makes his hiring methods look stupid, because he should be doing a work-sample test[1] before hiring for such an expensive contract. If he doesn't know what the worker will actually do, he shouldn't put so much money on the line.…

I'm sorry, you thought that parable was about hiring? :-)

I read it as a parable about the eternal question value, that is to always ask "Is this valuable or is it expensive?"

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#187

Post by billioncents » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 5:35 AM UTC

badman_ting wrote: post #23

Alternately, this is the story of a man who hired based on word of mouth, then when that didn't work out, learned the wrong lesson.

our salary is a private arrangement between you and your employer - your time for their $s. If it's not enough, ask for more or leave. If it's enough, be happy. We are becoming like dogs, where we don't know if we're happy with our bone until we've seen every other dog's bone.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#188

Post by zacinbusiness » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 6:01 AM UTC

midas007 wrote: post #162

badman_ting wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weird thing is, why didn't he hire this person in a way that posed less risk to his business? Why is he handing over a gigantic check worth 140,000 of today's dollars? Isn't this person crazy, or at least a terrible businessman? Yet here we all are, listening to his advice. The longer I think about this the more I dislike it.

Exactly. The lesson isn't to not hire brilliant or average people, but to trial people more gradually. The made up story also attempts to draw a conclusion from an anecdotal level of "evidence." Doesn't seem to stick for some reason. Risk reductions can be: - invite people over to hang out, hack on something, or work on whatever they're working on - start people on a contract gig - maybe another contract or what work…

I prefer working on contracts that are renewed every now and then. In that way my contributions are constantly evaluated and if for some reason I'm not producing results then there's not a lot of drama involved in letting me go. And I think taking pressure of of clients helps them in the long run to focus on results vs just my salary.

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#189

Post by efuquen » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 6:11 AM UTC

woodchuck64 wrote: post #103

cbp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And since those qualities are so out of reach for techies they're looked down on.

I think everyone should be highly suspicious of charisma. Charisma is a skill, not a trait, and it's developed by spending a lifetime practicing on people that one thinks are largely beneath one's self.

That's a pretty cynical point of view. I've met plenty of charismatic people who wouldn't think they're spending "a lifetime practicing on people that one thinks are largely beneath one's self". And then I've meant charismatic people who are full of themselves as well. Charisma and egotism don't go hand in hand ...

Re: Why I Never Hire Brilliant Men (1924)

#190

Post by skyshine » Fri, Mar 21, 2014, 6:27 AM UTC

The problem with the shoe buying story is that a lot of crap is sold as 'the best' and it can be very hard to tell the truth. Shoes are a great example. I used to buy Brasher walking shoes. They were great, but then they sold out and the shoes are now an inferior quality whilst the marketing is the same and the price if anything has gone up.