Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
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Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
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Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#2Though one could argue if you higher smarter people you might have less "oh shit" days?
Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#3And if you are a prospective employee joining a company that is planning to have "oh shit" moments, just make sure you are being compensated with a lot of equity. There basically is no worse deal than joining a risky company at the stage where they already have some funding and employees.
Assuming you are the resilient type who is capable of founding a startup, you'd get a much better deal either founding your own company or just joining a runaway success startup and get experience and build your network while saving up dough.
Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#4Though one could argue if you higher smarter people you might have less "oh shit" days?
Not everything is about code and servers, a lot of the "oh shit" stuff comes from external factors that even a intelligent person would not be able to foresee or avoid. I think the point is to hire smart resilient people, not just smart people.
Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#5I like this concept, you're right that brains and resilience aren't always the same. Some really smart people need stability and can't handle rapid change.
However, I do think culture-fit (which is way more important than personality) is as important of a criteria, even more so for early stage start-ups. When you're building an organization, you have a vision not only for what you want that org to achieve, but what you want it to look like. In an early stage company, even one person that goes against that culture could represent 25% of the company. Their mere presence serves to undermine what you want to build, and as they say... the one rotten apple rots the rest.
I'm not saying these are bad people, a culture-mismatch at one org is a culture-fit at another org, but this is an important criteria. I recognize also that this really drags down the recruiting process. There are some ways to get around it (e.g., trial work weeks, part-time contractor positions), but these have been discussed on HN before and are not immediately relevant.
Just more food for thought.
Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#6Though one could argue if you higher smarter people you might have less "oh shit" days?
Are you saying that if we looked at companies that have indeed hired smarter people, they would be found not to ever have had "oh shit" moments?
Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#7Though one could argue if you higher smarter people you might have less "oh shit" days?
Not everything is about code and servers, a lot of the "oh shit" stuff comes from external factors that even a intelligent person would not be able to foresee or avoid. I think the point is to hire smart resilient people, not just smart people.
I agree with this comment as well as the overall theme of the article. Smart people may be able to foresee potential "oh shit" moments, but realize that multiple factors which contribute to those moments are outside of their control. Therefore, smart and resilient people will be able to take the hits and adapt as they dig themselves out of the lows.
Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#8Hire who's right for your startup, not who someone (who may have really only written this blogspam as a way to get eyeballs on job postings) tells you to hire.
These "how to hire" posts are getting so tired. Not because its a bad subject but because they are completely empty.
Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#9And if you are a prospective employee joining a company that is planning to have "oh shit" moments, just make sure you are being compensated with a lot of equity. There basically is no worse deal than joining a risky company at the stage where they already have some funding and employees. Assuming you are the resilient type who is capable of founding a startup, you'd get a much better deal either founding your own co…
I greatly second this. I'm doing a job search now and have already had to turn down three offers from early stage startups, because the compensation is delusionally low. I'm talking 40-60k below market rate, with pitiful stock options to make up for it. I often wonder who would even let themselves be taken advantage of so strongly? Why would any halfway decent engineer take 65-80k with 0.25-0.5% equity?
Either be a founding member, or join a larger already successful company who will give you market compensation. Don't get caught in the middle soup of being taken advantage of and often being part of a very poorly run companies.
Re: Hiring for startups: You're doing it wrong
#10The article seems to subtly suggest that if you do not have an advanced degree [1], you do not have "brains." As someone who has "brains" but has chosen not to pursue and advanced degree, if I were working for the author, my reaction would be to question this person's judgment on several levels:
1) Implicitly putting down those who work with him who don't have advanced degrees.
2) Susceptibility to autobiographically-based irrationality, aka too much Koolaid.
Why is this an irrational viewpoint? Sure, someone who has an advanced degree is unlikely to be dumb. But as any remotely educated person should know, it does not follow that someone who does not have an advanced degree is not smart.
I think the obsession with advanced degrees is fascinating though. Do people really believe that getting an advanced degree will make one a more productive web developer? Are the years spent getting that advanced degree remotely comparable to years of meaningful industry experience? Or comparable to using the countless online resources to educate oneself in topics that are directly applicable to web development?? Hint: no.
[1] "Brains don’t matter as much as resilience in your first couple of years as a startup. I borrowed a lot of money to put myself through one undergraduate and two masters programs so, yes, it hurts to write that."