8 ms·

Feel free to steal mine: #1 me: the candidate seemed pretty good, even if he made some mistakes. CEO: a false negative is better than a false positive! Bette

by ditonal 11y ago

Feel free to steal mine: #1 me: the candidate seemed pretty good, even if he made some mistakes. CEO: a false negative is better than a false positive! Better to reject and err on the side of caution! ...later CEO: we can't find people! There's a shortage! It's a crisis! #2 CEO: we only hire the best, smartest people in the world! me: OK I found one! He wants a high salary. CEO: welllll, average market salary is only $, but since "we're a startup" we can't even do that....

leroy_masochist 11y ago
Well, if it were actually one of the smartest people in the world then they'd understand the true value of a 0.5% equity stake vesting over four years :-/
- joezydeco 11y ago
  Which is exactly why he asked for a large cash salary. =)
- aaronem 11y ago
  Well, I'm not very smart, and even I understand that the true value of 0.5% over four years is odds-on very likely to be zero...
  - potatolicious 11y ago
    > "0.5% over four years is odds-on very likely to be zero..." More importantly, that even if you beat the odds and the company is a smashing success, 0.5% over four years is likely worth less money than the cash/stock bonuses major tech companies are handing out anyways, especially accounting for liquidation preferences and ratchets. The big lie in startup equity isn't how unlikely they are to succeed, it's how little you would walk away with even if they do.
    - paulddraper 11y ago
      Exactly. An 80% chance of zero and 20% chance of millions is different than an 80% chance of zero and 20% chance of 70k. And a lot of people fail to identify the difference.
nojvek 11y ago
CEO: We need X done Manager: That's too short of a timeframe CEO: Buy the Devs pizza every night if you need to, just get it done.
- jzwinck 11y ago
  Ah, the tried and true "We are out of time, so let's slowly kill our employees to make up for it!" If I see one more "kitchen" where everything is either fried, made of corn, or both....
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- colmvp 11y ago
  Not sure how true it is, but one of my friends who used to work at Microsoft said that's what happened with the Xbox One, specifically after the PS4 release date was announced.
  - uniformlyrandom 11y ago
    There is a slight difference with MSFT, a company that has a wee bit of cash and resourses set aside just for cases like that.
    - jonny_eh 11y ago
      No amount of money can magically produce a new console overnight. Lots of people had to work lots of hours to make it happen. Whether extra monies were given to them though, I dunno.
- megablast 11y ago
  I mean, they may need something delivered by a date. It may be impossible, but that doesn't change the fact they need it. This is where you step up and say it's impossible.
cushychicken 11y ago
Number 2 is currently one of the most infuriating parts of trying to hire people at my company right now. I don't know how our recruiting wing handles the cognitive dissonance.
- ddw 11y ago
  Yeah that one always cracks me up. Every startup says "everyone here is really smart." Everyone says that. So everyone is really smart. So it doesn't matter.
  - spinlock 11y ago
    All the programmers in silicon valley are above average.
    - _hyn3 11y ago
      All the actors in Hollywood are above average.
      - cushychicken 11y ago
        All values greater than the mean are above average.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
        norswap 11y ago
        Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
    - ddw 11y ago
      Ha, I don't live on the West Coast.
  - 11y ago
ayuvar 11y ago
I ran into a #1 where during the interview they wanted to know if I was planning on leaving for Silicon Valley anytime soon, because that's where all their employees were going. I said no and gave reassurances, they didn't hire me, the guy who did the peer-programming part of the interview (stage 4) me changed his LinkedIn to "Apple" about a week later. They've taken down that ad and reposted it about a month later three times since then.
CaptSpify 11y ago
#2 is giving me ptsd. I'm not even involved with hiring, and I hear this so often it makes me hurt. Also, I'd add: CEO: drives off in over-priced car to fly to Europe on the company dime for "business"
- tonecluster 11y ago
  CEO: "Team, we have to pull together on this one and I need all of you to work through the weekend to get this feature out the door before open of business Monday morning. I appreciate all of your hard work, and we'll all be nose to the grindstone from Friday morning all the way through to Monday morning. I know you can do it, and together we can make this a killer product and a very successful venture going forward. Team lead at 9pm on Saturday: "Hey, where's the CEO? We need him to review a few things, he wanted sign-off before we got too far." VP Product: "He's in Vale all weekend with his family, skiing. He's off the grid until late Sunday night."
kamaal 11y ago
Your #1 and #2 can be reduced to: "We hire extraordinarily productive people, who are very good at interviewing and are also ready to work for peanuts. We can't seem to find any, there is a crisis in this market"
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
besso 11y ago
Technical product manager position, responsible to develop highly distributed big data / advertising platform: CEO: "Although he was a strong candidate, he was more engineering focused than what we need right now. We need a Product focused person."

by ditonal 11y ago

leroy_masochist 11y ago

Well, if it were actually one of the smartest people in the world then they'd understand the true value of a 0.5% equity stake vesting over four years :-/

joezydeco 11y ago
Which is exactly why he asked for a large cash salary. =)
aaronem 11y ago
Well, I'm not very smart, and even I understand that the true value of 0.5% over four years is odds-on very likely to be zero...
- potatolicious 11y ago
  > "0.5% over four years is odds-on very likely to be zero..." More importantly, that even if you beat the odds and the company is a smashing success, 0.5% over four years is likely worth less money than the cash/stock bonuses major tech companies are handing out anyways, especially accounting for liquidation preferences and ratchets. The big lie in startup equity isn't how unlikely they are to succeed, it's how little you would walk away with even if they do.
  - paulddraper 11y ago
    Exactly. An 80% chance of zero and 20% chance of millions is different than an 80% chance of zero and 20% chance of 70k. And a lot of people fail to identify the difference.

nojvek 11y ago

CEO: We need X done Manager: That's too short of a timeframe CEO: Buy the Devs pizza every night if you need to, just get it done.

jzwinck 11y ago
Ah, the tried and true "We are out of time, so let's slowly kill our employees to make up for it!" If I see one more "kitchen" where everything is either fried, made of corn, or both....
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
colmvp 11y ago
Not sure how true it is, but one of my friends who used to work at Microsoft said that's what happened with the Xbox One, specifically after the PS4 release date was announced.
- uniformlyrandom 11y ago
  There is a slight difference with MSFT, a company that has a wee bit of cash and resourses set aside just for cases like that.
  - jonny_eh 11y ago
    No amount of money can magically produce a new console overnight. Lots of people had to work lots of hours to make it happen. Whether extra monies were given to them though, I dunno.
megablast 11y ago
I mean, they may need something delivered by a date. It may be impossible, but that doesn't change the fact they need it. This is where you step up and say it's impossible.

cushychicken 11y ago

Number 2 is currently one of the most infuriating parts of trying to hire people at my company right now. I don't know how our recruiting wing handles the cognitive dissonance.

ddw 11y ago
Yeah that one always cracks me up. Every startup says "everyone here is really smart." Everyone says that. So everyone is really smart. So it doesn't matter.
- spinlock 11y ago
  All the programmers in silicon valley are above average.
  - _hyn3 11y ago
    All the actors in Hollywood are above average.
    - cushychicken 11y ago
      All values greater than the mean are above average.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - norswap 11y ago
        Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
  - ddw 11y ago
    Ha, I don't live on the West Coast.
- 11y ago

ayuvar 11y ago

I ran into a #1 where during the interview they wanted to know if I was planning on leaving for Silicon Valley anytime soon, because that's where all their employees were going. I said no and gave reassurances, they didn't hire me, the guy who did the peer-programming part of the interview (stage 4) me changed his LinkedIn to "Apple" about a week later. They've taken down that ad and reposted it about a month later three times since then.

CaptSpify 11y ago

#2 is giving me ptsd. I'm not even involved with hiring, and I hear this so often it makes me hurt. Also, I'd add: CEO: drives off in over-priced car to fly to Europe on the company dime for "business"

tonecluster 11y ago
CEO: "Team, we have to pull together on this one and I need all of you to work through the weekend to get this feature out the door before open of business Monday morning. I appreciate all of your hard work, and we'll all be nose to the grindstone from Friday morning all the way through to Monday morning. I know you can do it, and together we can make this a killer product and a very successful venture going forward. Team lead at 9pm on Saturday: "Hey, where's the CEO? We need him to review a few things, he wanted sign-off before we got too far." VP Product: "He's in Vale all weekend with his family, skiing. He's off the grid until late Sunday night."

kamaal 11y ago

Your #1 and #2 can be reduced to: "We hire extraordinarily productive people, who are very good at interviewing and are also ready to work for peanuts. We can't seem to find any, there is a crisis in this market"

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

besso 11y ago

Technical product manager position, responsible to develop highly distributed big data / advertising platform: CEO: "Although he was a strong candidate, he was more engineering focused than what we need right now. We need a Product focused person."