4 ms·
Mediocre talent in Silicon Valley
- jokoboko 10y ago.
- neals 10y agoI don't think I can code my way out of a paper bag, actually.
- halpme 10y agoWhy do you say that?
- icantdrive55 10y agoAmerican humor
- daveguy 10y agoThis is why most of the code I write controls actuators... Just in case.
- halpme 10y agoHow do you identify people who "can't code their way out of a paper bag"? What is it about their skill level that makes them seemingly incompetent?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dannylandau 10y agoI found the article premise pretty convincing. If I want top talent, I usually try to find a software engineer from Eastern Europe.
- jpeg_hero 10y agoVery true. I hope this comment thread gets all those comments from the other thread where engineers should get paid $1m+ a year. Hahaha.
- thesimpsons1022 10y agohaha he can take the Amazon "talent". we in the bay can stick with Google, Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, and Stanford talent.
- mangahero 10y agoSurprisingly, it's pretty true. Amazon talent is pretty bad.
- biocomputation 10y agoIt is my opinion that most of us are mediocre. It's how we apply ourselves that really matters.
- kevinr 10y agoOkay, all plausible, until the last paragraph. > Instead, here in Seattle, I work with amazing people -- who came from Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft and other area startups. Hold the phone, did the author just call Microsoft, Amazon, and fucking Boeing startups?? The Valley really did get to him, didn't it.
- flukus 10y agoWell they were all startups at one point. I still think of amazon as one (get off my lawn).
- williamstein 10y agoIt's just a non-optimally worded sentence. He means people who came from Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, and -- in addition to those people -- also people who come from Seattle-area startups (such as https://www.rover.com/ https://www.rover.com/, to pick one at random).
- grobaru 10y agoMost of the people are mediocre. Just because they work in hyped companies (Uber,Google,Facebook whatever) does not mean they are the top 10%. And even being in top 10% does not directly translate into being able to create an extraordinary product. There are hundreds of thousands talented people that did not buy into hype or are not too ambitious to even attempt the amazingly tiring interviews at these companies.
- notacoward 10y agoThe most insightful comment IMO was this: > Once everything becomes “epic,” nothing less will do, so hype ends up everywhere. When everybody's special, nobody's special. In Silicon Valley, "epic" and synonyms have been so overused that they now encompass even the truly mediocre. Merely being there is considered evidence of success, being elsewhere is treated as evidence of failure. Whatever this article's particular failings might be, at least it helps to highlight the hubris that drives the endless hype.
- WalterSear 10y agoThe author is chasing 'name brand' employees. His premise is essentially that, by circular reasoning, all the good engineers are at big companies, and, since Google and Facebook are paying too much, you are better off poaching from a "downmarket" brand, like Microsoft and Amazon, instead of actually being invested in your hiring process. Or, heaven forbid, fostering development of your existing employees.
- rhizome 10y agoI've seen a lot of evidence that medium-nothing companies are either unwilling or unable to promote from within.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]