21–30 of 39 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed - but this is what happens when a 20 yr old is the CEO. Could MSFT have been started by contractors? I don't think so. Also, quickbooks online is 10X better, get those contractors working!
Bill Gates was 19 when he and Paul Allen incorporated Microsoft.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree with Ted. I've heard so many horror stories from people who thought this way in the beginning. Yishan Wong, would give you good stories about, how zuck tried the contracting route when Accel funded them and very soon pressed the hard revert button. Jessica - I'm a YC founder too, and most people have strong opinions on this. ( http://bit.ly/9uDFfe ); Maybe, you should ask pg, what he thinks.
Not to mention the issue that in many US states the enforcement of misclassification laws are on the rise and the penalties are stiff. So unless you can make a good case why a contractor should not be an employee--the main allowed reason being they're performing a task outside of your business's competency--don't outsource to a contractor based in your own state.
I mean, I am small enough to dodge the 'wrongful termination' bullet, but I still have to pay unemployment insurance, and really, I think it's just fair to be up front and clear with people about where they stand. I mean, that part can be done verbally, but it would be good to hear what the 'correct' way to do it would be.
> Someone who can do business deals, write code, and do user interface design, is 5X more valuable to us than a typical backend engineer. Absolutely.... If you can find someone who is _equally_ good at all of those. Very rarely (I personally have never) you will see someone _equally_ apt (and good) at both left (Writing programming logic, Solving tough technical problems etc. ) and right ( designing User Interactions…
There are people who really are good at everything; but those people are as useful as they are rare, which makes them expensive. Usually, if you want a generalist, you are right, you take a skill hit vs. paying the same money to a specialist with large weaknesses in other areas.
I come from a retail management background, so I'm a newbie to the tech industry. The guys who taught me retail management put extreme emphasis on training. Training and knowledge dissemination was a top priority for the management teams I worked with. Once I was managing my own stores, I adopted this world view and had great success. Coming from this background I'm sometimes surprised there aren't more articles abou…
Your UNIX folks will informally organize themselves around the best people, regardless of the org chart you try to impose from above. Part of the job of being the senior person is mentoring the newer people. This is done informally, but fairly consistently across most places I've worked.
The bit about hiring contractors, especially for vital functions such as infrastructure and support is bad advice. A high quality contractor charges a very high hourly rate (it also usually isn't feasible to give them a sizable equity grant in its place), so you're left hiring people who would prefer a full time job but can't get one. This creates a poisonous and unpleasant atmosphere, which makes you even less likel…
Isn't this the same as the generalists she recommends hiring?
The bit about hiring contractors, especially for vital functions such as infrastructure and support is bad advice. A high quality contractor charges a very high hourly rate (it also usually isn't feasible to give them a sizable equity grant in its place), so you're left hiring people who would prefer a full time job but can't get one. This creates a poisonous and unpleasant atmosphere, which makes you even less likel…
"...and instead look for engineers who are interested in business and product design/development." Isn't this the same as the generalists she recommends hiring?
Generally heavy complaints of "it's impossible to hire engineers" comes from a dissonance between engineers you're trying to hire and the engineers you actually need to hire (or at least the engineers that are interested in your product).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed - but this is what happens when a 20 yr old is the CEO. Could MSFT have been started by contractors? I don't think so. Also, quickbooks online is 10X better, get those contractors working!
Bill Gates was 19 when he and Paul Allen incorporated Microsoft.
The bit about hiring contractors, especially for vital functions such as infrastructure and support is bad advice. A high quality contractor charges a very high hourly rate (it also usually isn't feasible to give them a sizable equity grant in its place), so you're left hiring people who would prefer a full time job but can't get one. This creates a poisonous and unpleasant atmosphere, which makes you even less likel…
My age and relative lack of typical corporate experience may of course give me a bad vision of the market. Maybe most contractors are not working the way I do, which would make the advice Jessica gives a bad one. But even in this case, generalization may prevent you from working with interesting people.
Disclaimer: I'm working as a self employed engineer, mostly doing jobs with my team, and far from being someone "who would prefer a fulltime job but can't get one".