Hire people who give a shit • Hacker News Board

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#241

Post by goblin89 » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 4:52 AM UTC

throwdour wrote: post #220

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".

If is possible to be deeply obsessed yet maintain work-life balance, restricting that obsession to working hours.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#242

Post by arolihas » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 4:54 AM UTC

svrma wrote: post #116

The comments here at HN are quite harsh imho and I feel bad for possibly ruining someone's day. Is there a way for me to delete the submission? I posted it on HN as I liked the points in the article. The points in the post are reasonable provided there's fair equity for the employees (which I believe is disclosed prior to joining - I have no knowledge about dilution, preference etc). I also agree with the commenters…

Leave it up. He deserves the opportunity to see what people here think.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#243

Post by heavyset_go » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 4:54 AM UTC

arolihas wrote: post #238

heavyset_go wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder's comments on the YouTube video are just so embarrassing.

Where are they? I don’t see them

One of them is a pinned comment, but they also made others.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#244

Post by preordained » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 4:59 AM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #143

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 have been shitting all over people like this for a long time and trying to get people to see the light that a job is a job and nothing more, but then I get blamed for having a “mercenary mentality” and “not a team player”. You are renting your skills to an entity that needs your skills for an agreed upon rate for a certain amount of time. If another employer offers you a better situation and your current employer d…

This seems logical, but I've yet to experience a software shop of any complexity where you can just plug people in and out with this mercenary approach. A year or two is when I notice people actually start adding significant value, and the really high value work when you get in tune with an organization's DNA maybe still years later. Companies need veterans. If it seems like someone can't even pretend to get invested, it's a waste of time. Smart people who have a rap sheet of skills a mile long are cute, but I've personally found such peoples' dominant skill is marketing themselves...which I can't blame them for, but I think articles like this are the result of people being burned by the "mercenary" mentality.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#245

Post by nowherebeen » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:01 AM UTC

ngokevin wrote: post #240

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…

This mirrors the sentiment of many people on HN are heavily against the idea of doing anything more than 9-5, and prefer to live the relaxed engineer life collecting paychecks and tending to their microbrews. Maybe the hatred stems from that there exists a large pool of engineers that are passionate about their work and are okay not measuring their work as "hours per week". And that makes the pool of engineers that d…

This is incredibly naive. Another view is that enough engineers have been burnt enough by these founders that they got smarter. Not everyone is looking to tend their microbrew as you think.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#246

Post by known » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:03 AM UTC

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the #unreasonable man" --George Bernard Shaw (b. 1856)

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#247

Post by heavyset_go » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:04 AM UTC

cheesy_luigi wrote: post #151

Scale's GlassDoor Reviews from ex-employees are fairly telling https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Scale-Reviews-E1656849.htm...

These[1][2] are telling.

[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Scale-RVW3...

[2] https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Scale-RVW3...

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#248

Post by preordained » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

maz1b wrote: post #166

Maybe my opinion is atypical compared to a lot of the comments here, but I'm of the belief that if you treat your team members not just fairly but well, invest in them, genuinely care about them, and trust/empower them, then the overall sentiment of the article makes a lot of sense. I'm not a big fan of the current state of the world where people hop careers every couple years and are always looking for new opportuni…

Said better than I could--much agreed.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#249

Post by dkersten » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

ngokevin wrote: post #240

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…

This mirrors the sentiment of many people on HN are heavily against the idea of doing anything more than 9-5, and prefer to live the relaxed engineer life collecting paychecks and tending to their microbrews. Maybe the hatred stems from that there exists a large pool of engineers that are passionate about their work and are okay not measuring their work as "hours per week". And that makes the pool of engineers that d…

I've seen many, many people (myself included) burned by putting in many extra hours (in terms of burnout, in terms of the effort going to waste because higher ups decided to change the schedule, in terms of not being appreciated when the situation reversed), while the number of times where people, in hindsight, said it was worth it has been quite few.

Its not that people aren't willing to dedicate themselves to their work, in my experience, most people do go above and beyond; its that more often than not, they get nothing for it or even suffer negative consequences long term while spending their precious time and energy to enrich someone else and end up feeling exploited.

We need to stop glorifying exploitation.

Re: Hire people who give a shit

#250

Post by flapjackfritz » Sat, Nov 28, 2020, 5:12 AM UTC

People who 'give a shit' want to do it long term. They want to work on something that will stand the test of time, that they can make meaningful contributions to.

They want to be resourced enough with other workmates that they can be effective at their job without sacrificing their personal life.

The first half of the article is right - but it takes a complete nose dive when the true intent comes out. It's not people who 'give a shit' the writer want. It's people who will chase money as points, and do anything to increase their points. That's who the writer truly wants.