5 ms·

This article is vapid, banal at best. The author's theories are completely without substance or merit. I doubt he's ever actually hired anyone. Save yourself s

by matrix 17y ago

This article is vapid, banal at best. The author's theories are completely without substance or merit. I doubt he's ever actually hired anyone. Save yourself some time and read something else.

lanstein 17y ago
Some of this advice is actually relevant. I believe Bill Bradley vetted an assistant in one instance by seeing how good of a teammate he was. I'd cite this, but it's from some basketball book from the 60's/70's that I don't have on my desk at work :)
keefe 17y ago
I was going to write about how this article is the biggest crock of shit that I've ever seen, but you capture the point more eloquently. I'm fine with those people that enjoy sport for fun (just as I enjoy WoW) but both WoW and Sports are fucking stupid. They have nothing to do with coding ability. If you can't tell from your interview how your candidate will perform, YOU AREN'T FUCKING INTERVIEWING RIGHT. I've only participated in a few interviews, but I can have a conversation with someone and very quickly determine their coding ability, at least in broad strokes.
- evanreas 17y ago
  it is not to test "coding ability" at all! it tests, drive, passion, competitiveness, motivation... the skills that are more important in a startup than raw ability to code. the coder who tries his hardest on every second in sports, is, more likely than not, going to be the better colleague because he/she will do whatever it takes to win.
  - scott_s 17y ago
    My sport of choice is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The person who "tries his hardest on every second" is thought of as a spaz, and is inexperienced. Such people try to overcome their lack of skill with brute force. On an experienced person, it fails. Part of any sport is knowing when to push as hard as you can. In BJJ, it means using your strength when you have leverage, and not trying to force something when you don't have leverage. I think that has transfer to other areas.
    - evanreas 17y ago
      good point. it is the hollistic view of how somebody performs that should be observed.
    - d4ft 17y ago
      I've spent a bunch of years in the sport, and I do indeed try my hardest every second. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm trying to neck crank a dude from the guard, but it does mean that I am always working. If you watch some of the great practitioners of our sport, Marcelinho comes to mind, they are almost always moving, always improving. Although he's not brute forcing his way into a position, I guarantee he is trying his hardest every second. Maybe this is purely a semantic argument, but I hate when people say that as you advance you work less hard. You work just as hard, you just work in different ways.
      - scott_s 17y ago
        It's semantics. I equate "tries his hardest every second" with people who are using all of their effort all of the time. I am not doing that, yet I am always working hard. I would call that "doing the best that I can every second" to differentiate it from someone going wide-open all the time to make up for lack of skill. Knowing when and how to conserve energy is an important part of the game as well.
    - keefe 17y ago
      I think the same is true of all martial arts, based on my experience with traditional karate (I trained with a man who received his black belt from Funakoshi)
  - btilly 17y ago
    I have had committed colleagues, and competent ones. I know which I prefer to work with.
  - keefe 17y ago
    Total nonsense. I don't care about sports, I find the exercise banal, so I'm not going to be invested in it. It's even easier to determine someone's passion by talking with them than it is their coding ability.
evanreas 17y ago
ive hired people at three companies, just for context, but thanks for reading. my theories are based on observation, and working/playing with hundreds of teammates and employees over the years and how ive seen on-the-field play translate to in-company behavior.
- btilly 17y ago
  my theories are based on observation, and working/playing with hundreds of teammates and employees over the years and how ive seen on-the-field play translate to in-company behavior. No. Your theories are based on the well-known principle that we tend to fairly rapidly imprint on a certain type of candidate as being "good" and then confirm our bias at every opportunity. These people are usually like ourselves in some key way. Because of this your initial biases tend to become fixed in stone no matter how much subsequent experience you get. In this case your advice is particularly obviously wrong. For example you entirely discount people like me, who grew up in a family that doesn't play sports and who has a mild coordination problem on top of that, would have no chance at such an "interview". However my actual on the job performance has been extremely good. But you would never consider hiring me so you'll never see that. Nor would I want to work with someone like you because your desire to have people "110% committed" probably blinds you to learning how to properly manage software developers. (I'd be willing to take money on a bet that you're prone to "death march" projects.) There is one good thing about your strategy. You're selecting for a strong culture which improves the odds of a good cultural fit. But you will only accidentally select people on the basis of actual competence.
  - actf 17y ago
    > For example you entirely discount people like me, who grew up in a family that doesn't play sports and who has a mild coordination problem on top of that, would have no chance at such an "interview". However my actual on the job performance has been extremely good I obviously interpreted the article very differently than you did. I don't see the fact that you've never played sports before as a disadvantage in such a hypothetical screening process at all. You say that you have a mild coordination problem, but again I don't see that as a disadvantage. The definition of "sport" is very loosely applied these days. Even poker is considered by many people a "sport" these days (at least in North America). So replace ultimate frisbee with poker and your coordination argument is no longer meaningful. I've played sports with many people who have physical disabilities ranging from muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, to blindness or deafness and in every case I've seen it's very easy to separate those who are willing to put in effort, willing to try something new, willing to take risks, and show sportsmanship from those who aren't. I believe what the author is advocating is the use of a sport (I'll call it a competitive game to be more accurate) to screen for the ability to persevere in the face of adversity, show drive, and most importantly show willingness to learn in an unfamiliar, unexpected situation. I could easily make an argument for why each of those traits are desirable to have in an employee. > But you would never consider hiring me so you'll never see that I think the author would choose not to hire you, not based on your lack of coordination or inexperience in sports, but would do so based on your stubbornness and unwilliginess to participate in something new. I equate this to the same attitude that I occasionally see in programmers who dismiss new technologies without even giving them a fair chance. That said I can see how it would be possible to misinterpret the author's use of the word "sport" for a physically competitive game - and if that's the case then what I said above doesn't apply. Nonetheless, in my opinion even if the author had strictly meant a "sport" in terms of a physically competitive game there are some valid points that can be taken from the article.
deleted 17y ago
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by matrix 17y ago

This article is vapid, banal at best. The author's theories are completely without substance or merit. I doubt he's ever actually hired anyone. Save yourself some time and read something else.

lanstein 17y ago

Some of this advice is actually relevant. I believe Bill Bradley vetted an assistant in one instance by seeing how good of a teammate he was. I'd cite this, but it's from some basketball book from the 60's/70's that I don't have on my desk at work :)

keefe 17y ago

I was going to write about how this article is the biggest crock of shit that I've ever seen, but you capture the point more eloquently. I'm fine with those people that enjoy sport for fun (just as I enjoy WoW) but both WoW and Sports are fucking stupid. They have nothing to do with coding ability. If you can't tell from your interview how your candidate will perform, YOU AREN'T FUCKING INTERVIEWING RIGHT. I've only participated in a few interviews, but I can have a conversation with someone and very quickly determine their coding ability, at least in broad strokes.

evanreas 17y ago
it is not to test "coding ability" at all! it tests, drive, passion, competitiveness, motivation... the skills that are more important in a startup than raw ability to code. the coder who tries his hardest on every second in sports, is, more likely than not, going to be the better colleague because he/she will do whatever it takes to win.
- scott_s 17y ago
  My sport of choice is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The person who "tries his hardest on every second" is thought of as a spaz, and is inexperienced. Such people try to overcome their lack of skill with brute force. On an experienced person, it fails. Part of any sport is knowing when to push as hard as you can. In BJJ, it means using your strength when you have leverage, and not trying to force something when you don't have leverage. I think that has transfer to other areas.
  - evanreas 17y ago
    good point. it is the hollistic view of how somebody performs that should be observed.
  - d4ft 17y ago
    I've spent a bunch of years in the sport, and I do indeed try my hardest every second. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm trying to neck crank a dude from the guard, but it does mean that I am always working. If you watch some of the great practitioners of our sport, Marcelinho comes to mind, they are almost always moving, always improving. Although he's not brute forcing his way into a position, I guarantee he is trying his hardest every second. Maybe this is purely a semantic argument, but I hate when people say that as you advance you work less hard. You work just as hard, you just work in different ways.
    - scott_s 17y ago
      It's semantics. I equate "tries his hardest every second" with people who are using all of their effort all of the time. I am not doing that, yet I am always working hard. I would call that "doing the best that I can every second" to differentiate it from someone going wide-open all the time to make up for lack of skill. Knowing when and how to conserve energy is an important part of the game as well.
  - keefe 17y ago
    I think the same is true of all martial arts, based on my experience with traditional karate (I trained with a man who received his black belt from Funakoshi)
- btilly 17y ago
  I have had committed colleagues, and competent ones. I know which I prefer to work with.
- keefe 17y ago
  Total nonsense. I don't care about sports, I find the exercise banal, so I'm not going to be invested in it. It's even easier to determine someone's passion by talking with them than it is their coding ability.

evanreas 17y ago

ive hired people at three companies, just for context, but thanks for reading. my theories are based on observation, and working/playing with hundreds of teammates and employees over the years and how ive seen on-the-field play translate to in-company behavior.

btilly 17y ago
my theories are based on observation, and working/playing with hundreds of teammates and employees over the years and how ive seen on-the-field play translate to in-company behavior. No. Your theories are based on the well-known principle that we tend to fairly rapidly imprint on a certain type of candidate as being "good" and then confirm our bias at every opportunity. These people are usually like ourselves in some key way. Because of this your initial biases tend to become fixed in stone no matter how much subsequent experience you get. In this case your advice is particularly obviously wrong. For example you entirely discount people like me, who grew up in a family that doesn't play sports and who has a mild coordination problem on top of that, would have no chance at such an "interview". However my actual on the job performance has been extremely good. But you would never consider hiring me so you'll never see that. Nor would I want to work with someone like you because your desire to have people "110% committed" probably blinds you to learning how to properly manage software developers. (I'd be willing to take money on a bet that you're prone to "death march" projects.) There is one good thing about your strategy. You're selecting for a strong culture which improves the odds of a good cultural fit. But you will only accidentally select people on the basis of actual competence.
- actf 17y ago
  > For example you entirely discount people like me, who grew up in a family that doesn't play sports and who has a mild coordination problem on top of that, would have no chance at such an "interview". However my actual on the job performance has been extremely good I obviously interpreted the article very differently than you did. I don't see the fact that you've never played sports before as a disadvantage in such a hypothetical screening process at all. You say that you have a mild coordination problem, but again I don't see that as a disadvantage. The definition of "sport" is very loosely applied these days. Even poker is considered by many people a "sport" these days (at least in North America). So replace ultimate frisbee with poker and your coordination argument is no longer meaningful. I've played sports with many people who have physical disabilities ranging from muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, to blindness or deafness and in every case I've seen it's very easy to separate those who are willing to put in effort, willing to try something new, willing to take risks, and show sportsmanship from those who aren't. I believe what the author is advocating is the use of a sport (I'll call it a competitive game to be more accurate) to screen for the ability to persevere in the face of adversity, show drive, and most importantly show willingness to learn in an unfamiliar, unexpected situation. I could easily make an argument for why each of those traits are desirable to have in an employee. > But you would never consider hiring me so you'll never see that I think the author would choose not to hire you, not based on your lack of coordination or inexperience in sports, but would do so based on your stubbornness and unwilliginess to participate in something new. I equate this to the same attitude that I occasionally see in programmers who dismiss new technologies without even giving them a fair chance. That said I can see how it would be possible to misinterpret the author's use of the word "sport" for a physically competitive game - and if that's the case then what I said above doesn't apply. Nonetheless, in my opinion even if the author had strictly meant a "sport" in terms of a physically competitive game there are some valid points that can be taken from the article.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]