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

Hire people who give a shit

alexw.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 342 posts

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#21

Post by ceilingcorner »

I have a genuine question and I'm not trying to be snarky -- do people actually think this way in real life, or is it an elaborate social game of pretending to be more "passionate" than the next guy?

Scale seems like a cool company with an interesting product, but let's be honest, rational people here - they aren't curing cancer, creating art, or landing on Normandy Beach. This seems obvious to any self-aware person. So why all the bravado?

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#23

Post by tilolebo »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #21

I have a genuine question and I'm not trying to be snarky -- do people actually think this way in real life, or is it an elaborate social game of pretending to be more "passionate" than the next guy? Scale seems like a cool company with an interesting product, but let's be honest, rational people here - they aren't curing cancer, creating art, or landing on Normandy Beach. This seems obvious to any self-aware person.…

"Making the world a better place through ${place your product core feature here}"

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#25

Post by [deleted] »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #21

I have a genuine question and I'm not trying to be snarky -- do people actually think this way in real life, or is it an elaborate social game of pretending to be more "passionate" than the next guy? Scale seems like a cool company with an interesting product, but let's be honest, rational people here - they aren't curing cancer, creating art, or landing on Normandy Beach. This seems obvious to any self-aware person.…

[deleted]

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#26

Post by SubGenius »

I mean, if we're being honest, even I don't "give a shit" about what I'm working on beyond building something fun/cool that enables me to make a living.

I want to hire someone who is good at what they do and brutally honest that they're taking the job because they need to feed themselves and take care of their loved ones and have enough free time left to finish their instrumental guitar record or whatever.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#27

Post by j3th9n »

> The uncomfortable truth is that most people don’t give a shit. For example, it’s absolutely shocking that the common paradigm for engineers at Google is to come in at 11am and leave at 4pm. In no world can you be working 5 hours a day and be giving a shit, and so the conclusion is that very little meaningful work gets done at Google. Maybe a bit of a hyperbole, but not far from the truth. That culture is broken.

Maybe some Googler would like to comment on this?

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#29

Post by sean1524 »

tilolebo wrote: post #23
ceilingcorner wrote: post #21

I have a genuine question and I'm not trying to be snarky -- do people actually think this way in real life, or is it an elaborate social game of pretending to be more "passionate" than the next guy? Scale seems like a cool company with an interesting product, but let's be honest, rational people here - they aren't curing cancer, creating art, or landing on Normandy Beach. This seems obvious to any self-aware person.…

"Making the world a better place through ${place your product core feature here}"

Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8C5sjjhsso

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#30

Post by b212 »

Alexandr Wang is 23 years old and he became tech lead at Quora 7 years ago (?!). I assume the guy has been pulling 90 hour workweeks since age of 12 or something.

Just wait for your first RSI my young friend, and then we will talk again ;)

I'm really curious how he feels like about holidays, I assume people in Europe cant't give a shit having 4-6 weeks of holidays yearly, right?

Post reply on HN