What are red flags that signal you should walk away from a startup job?

Post by bandushrew » Mon, May 25, 2015, 4:08 AM UTC

saalweachter wrote: post #25

morgo wrote: post #14

One thing that really turns me off is when people talk really negatively about former employees. I met a CTO of a company in Toronto who told me how his predecessor had set up MySQL all wrong. I pressed him for details, and it was not setup any differently to how I would have. This was not in the context of an interview, but it left a very lasting negative impression.

One of the things I eventually realized was that -- maybe not for everyone, for all programs, but certainly for a lot of people -- the programs we write are very incomplete. There's a portion that we write down, that the machine runs, and then there's a portion that's only in our head. When you've got both portions, everything is awesome. I'd worth with a guy for years, and never had a problem with them. If I was wor…

That is a really insightful comment, thanks.

Post by IanCal » Mon, May 25, 2015, 10:19 AM UTC

mreiland wrote: post #70

IanCal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that cognitive biases (like anchoring, for example) don't have any evidence for them? Do you disagree that humans have high false positive rates when looking for patterns (like the classic gamblers fallacy)?

I think you're asking questions so you can find an answer to attack. It's an old and boring way to argue on the internet. The truth is nothing is perfect, the reason these discussions don't go anywhere is because you're going to insist on finding the imperfections and then try to exploit that to win. That is your right, but I explained both what it is, and why it's often correct. I'm just too old to let myself get pu…

I'm sorry you feel that way, I'm just trying to find out where we might disagree. Those two questions where the ones I thought would be key points on which we might disagree and would get us closer to understanding where we both stand rather than stopping because I found someone that disagreed with me. I don't want to ignore opportunities to find out I'm wrong, or find another side to things I'd not considered.

The ways in which we respond to things instinctively is a topic I find both fascinating and incredibly important. Personally I think there is enough evidence to suggest we should be highly wary of ways in which we think that we don't carefully analyse. If I'm wrong I could be ignoring a very powerful way of quickly responding to things. I think that people who rely on gut instinct are putting themselves at risk of making worse decisions on important issues, or trusting others that operate in the same way.

I'm not going to keep poking, because there's no joy in talking to someone that doesn't want to respond, and certainly no joy in talking to someone who thinks that a discussion or debate is either something to be won or something where neither person should expect to come out with a different opinion.

Re: What are red flags that signal you should walk away from a startup job?

Re: What are red flags that signal you should walk away from a startup job?