Hire people who give a shit • Hacker News Board

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#211

Post by lostcolony » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

torgian wrote: post #111

Lol. You can’t work only five hours a day _and_ still “give a shit”, according to the article. Sounds like someone full of himself. I’m never going to work more than 8 hours a day for a company, preferably less even. I still get more stuff done in those hours that I do work. I care a lot about what I do, but I’m not going to destroy myself or my life for someone else’s company. Already did that for the military, neve…

Yeah; I know after about 6 hours I'm mentally exhausted and going to create more problems than I fix if I keep working. Much like physical labor at 8. I'm pretty sure research has also born that out, same as for physical labor.

Now, it's -possible- this guy means just, have you -ever-, because, sure, there have been times I've been really excited about something and spent a lot of time on it...but I don't think that's fair either. Even those times, for my own stuff, I did better stepping away from it and coming back the next day.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#212

Post by sgillen » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:11 AM UTC

Orou wrote: post #208

sgillen wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I never understood why they didn't just hire more people and instead preferred to work the talented people they attract half to death. I think that a small number of talented people that will work themselves to death will be much more effective than a large group willing to work reasonable hours.

Over what time frame? A year? Sure. But three years? Five? Ten? It's simply not sustainable for 95% of people. And it's unrealistic to hold everyone else to the standard of that 5% who are 1) naturally hyper-productive or 2) have little else going on in their lives. The cynic in me wonders if the attempt to turn overwork into a virtue is just to keep people busy enough that they don't stop to wonder what it's all for…

Maybe, some companies seem to adopt the strategy of “hire talented 22 year olds out of college, work them until they burn out in two-three years and move on, hire more”.

Not claiming this is necessarily effective.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#213

Post by lostcolony » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:13 AM UTC

icedchai wrote: post #172

andreilys wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing stops a founder from walking away. Plenty of founders sell their shares to investors/cofounders in order to cash out. Boards are typically stacked in the founders favor, so any reduction in pay would be the founders own decision. Which makes sense, because they want to keep the company that they have significant equity in alive.

I think you're talking about a company where things are going well. I'm talking about one where they've gone badly, and the founder has lost most control.

If the founder has lost most control, they also have way less equity. So way less reason to stick around. If things are going that badly, dump the stock, and GTFO, same as the smart employees are likely to do.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#214

Post by lostcolony » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:20 AM UTC

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #180

mettamage wrote: post #132

> 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. When I was a poker player, I learned that playing less meant earning more (per hour). Focus can only be sustained on the top-level for so long. W…

I agree with what you're saying, but not everything needs top quality focus. There are a lot of menial tasks you can do which don't require you to be super focused.

They also tend to get done very quickly. Or aren't actually worth doing.

I've yet to find a job, as an IC or manager, where I had 8 hours worth of tasks worth completing.

Oh, there's usually -work- enough for 8 hours, every day, if I want, but it's actually a negative effect to try and do so. It means I'm getting involved in decisions I don't have all the context on, am not responsible for, and am not empowered to actually change (and thus just getting frustrated and probably pissing someone off), or I'm trying to work on something that requires buy in from other people, that hasn't been prioritized for them, so is going to die on the vine anyway (and, again, frustrate me and piss them off).

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#215

Post by kmclean » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:21 AM UTC

He seems to be confusing working long hours with working hard. Those aren't the same thing. I would even argue they're in conflict with each other. Nobody does good work when they're "obsessed" with something. Obsession is a sickness. Everyone eventually learns that you need moderation (in all things) if you're going to be around for the long haul.

Most software in the world is utter trash and I at least partially blame maniacs like this guy who keep people up hacking on it until they fall asleep. I wish more people would do what most people think of as "work" from 11-4 and spend their mornings and evenings thinking about how to do that work _well_ instead of just faster.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#216

Post by MaxBarraclough » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:23 AM UTC

Schiendelman wrote: post #185

n0nc3 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are doing anything more complicated than gluing a pair of APIs together, it is very likely that the marginal value of work past 60 hours is negative. Reaping what you coded during a 3am espresso binge is rarely a happy experience. But yeah, if all you are trying to do is build out Facebook before some other social network gets there maybe it makes sense to pull 100 hour weeks.

Cut that number in half. Work over 30 hours might be negative.

What's this based on?

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#217

Post by crpatino » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:30 AM UTC

pierremenard wrote: post #170

wbronitsky wrote: post #121

This article is megalomaniacal. Insisting that your company with 200+ employees will only hire people who will work themselves to the bone without any mention of how those people will be properly compensated is wild corporate propaganda. I honestly don’t know why the tech industry continues to capitulate to leaders like this who obviously, and loudly, mistreat and dehumanize their employees by insisting that if you a…

The fact is that you need people to have this collective delusion to work really hard and care about something, before value can be created. This kind of work ethic and commitment is what virtually every company that you admire today has required to get where it is today. I personally don't think this is "dehumanizing" or unfair, since the whole point is to explicitly opt in for such a life. There are enough people o…

All great things were born out of great effort, but most great efforts do not lead to great things.

The problem with these entrepreneurs that feel entitled to demand great effort from their employees is that they often fail to provide great visions to work towards. Passion is not a commodity.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#218

Post by wolco2 » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:34 AM UTC

sgillen wrote: post #212

Orou wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over what time frame? A year? Sure. But three years? Five? Ten? It's simply not sustainable for 95% of people. And it's unrealistic to hold everyone else to the standard of that 5% who are 1) naturally hyper-productive or 2) have little else going on in their lives. The cynic in me wonders if the attempt to turn overwork into a virtue is just to keep people busy enough that they don't stop to wonder what it's all for…

Maybe, some companies seem to adopt the strategy of “hire talented 22 year olds out of college, work them until they burn out in two-three years and move on, hire more”. Not claiming this is necessarily effective.

Now that you mention this I've seen this pattern happen and it repeats. Usually all we see is the end: a medium blog telling us why they left so and so company. They always give a reason that sounds like someone is still figuring out why they left their "dream job" without ever getting to the core. This happens more with big companies like "Stripe" than we like to believe. We sell ourselves in the comments section on how great "Stripe" is to work at while employees are being crushed with 60 hour weeks.

It does show in the products. Great products like "Stripe" start out wonderful but in time slowly move away from that initial greatness into products that slowly get worse and the company lives on in a shadow of what they once were.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#219

Post by twright » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

The reception here is pretty bad and perhaps justifiably. There are some pretty scathing Glassdoor reviews that mirror the problems a lot of commenters are pointing out with this attitude. A lot of ex-employees "gave a shit" and they got severely burnt-out from it.

I care greatly about the quality and effect of my work (I hope most people do and have the privilege to) but definitely it's more important to me that my employer also "gives a shit" about me.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#220

Post by throwdour » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 2:58 AM UTC

wbronitsky wrote: post #121

This article is megalomaniacal. Insisting that your company with 200+ employees will only hire people who will work themselves to the bone without any mention of how those people will be properly compensated is wild corporate propaganda. I honestly don’t know why the tech industry continues to capitulate to leaders like this who obviously, and loudly, mistreat and dehumanize their employees by insisting that if you a…

I nearly got whiplash when the author moved the threshold from "giving a shit" to "deeply obsessed".