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> You hire for needs in the next 12 months. That's like, your opinion, man. Why can't you hire long-term? If all you plan for is short-term, it will only work

> You hire for needs in the next 12 months. That's like, your opinion, man. Why can't you hire long-term? If all you plan for is short-term, it will only work short-term, and it should be no surprise if on the longer term you fail or you find yourself in a world of pain. > I see this as a byproduct of product development time. MVP and its associated stuff... It's all about short horizons, I think you severely misunderstand MVP... it's not at all about short horizons, on the contrary. It's about doing the right thing in the longer term. To put "MVP" in a hiring context - the right "MVP" attitude is to hire temporarily to see whether the person is right for the job - and once you determine you've got a good fit, invest massively in that person to make sure you've got a long-term employee (don't just skim him/her for short-term profit, but invest to build a long-lasting relationship). > Entire companies are built around 3-6 year horizons from cenception to exit. I've yet to see that work (and not in the sense that "lottery works" - nobody seriously suggests buying lots of lottery tickets if you want to get rich.

dalbasal 9y ago
..if all you plan for is short-term, it will only work short-term.. My point exactly, only in reverse. In industries (eg, merchant banking, corporate law, industrial engineering) where the plans are longer term, the thinking is longer term. Here you see highly involved onboarding programs with mentorship, in depth training and such. Uber, FB, snapchat, netflix or whatnot never had plans that really looked past 2-3 years into the future. Ambitions, possibly. That's different to plans. These are on the young/ADD end of the spectrum, but they have cultural influence industry-wide. I disagree about MVP. First, I don't think short horizon is bad, it's choice with advantages and disadvantages. Second, I do think MVP is part of a wider, shorter horizon planning mentality. That has certainly been my experience. The idea (IMO) is that instead of planning, you evolve. Evolution and planning are at odds with eachother, to an extent. You can make decisions early, and you get a longer term plan to work with. You can make decisions just-in-time (eg after launching an MVP), this gets you more informed decisions. That's not necessarily related to HR. You're hiring and onboarding could be unrelated to your product and engineering plans (or lack thereof). But (again, in practice), I think that mentality is influenced by these things. ^That's like, your opinion, man. ...always ;) "I've yet to see that work" ... Uber. Netflix' streaming service.... for large, famous examples. Call those lotteries if you want. They're definitely risky. You may not like high risk strategies but they are a big part of the software industry, especially on the culturally influential wing.
- virgilp 9y ago
  > Uber. Netflix' streaming service I really don't think that Uber and Netflix hired for the short term. Especially Netflix. How did you get that? Netflix in particular seems to have been playing the long game for quite a while.
  - dalbasal 9y ago
    Netflix has an unusual hr history, worth looking up if you're interested in that sort of thing.
- badpun 9y ago
  > In industries (eg, merchant banking, corporate law, industrial engineering) where the plans are longer term, the thinking is longer term I work in banking at the moment, and the thinking is anything but longer term. Management is so desperate to hire enough qualified developers that it fills a lot of the vacancies with contractors, which are, by company's definition, temporary. So, in other words, the company is already planning to let go of people who will build its vital systems. That's myopic thinking at its finest. What's interesting is that big part of enterprise market in, for example, London seems to operate like that - management pretends that people are replaceable cogs that hold no company-specific knowledge and require no ramp-up time. The stupidity of it is mind-boggling.
humanrebar 9y ago
> Why can't you hire long-term? You can, but I have never been offered a multi-year employment contract. Employers seem to prefer the flexibility of being able to terminate employment sooner than that.
- marrs 9y ago
  If someone is on a permanent contract then their employment cannot simply be terminated ever. They can be made redundant, which means that the role cannot be refilled, or they can be fired but only after going through a disciplinary procedure (In the UK these rules only comes into effect after the first 2 years of employment).
- walshemj 9y ago
  So charge the self employed contractor rates then
jamesblonde 9y ago
To be fair to the parent commenter, I think the short time horizons are based on how startups are funded. We get 12-18 months funding per round. Everything starts from that - planning, etc. If you work at a large enterprise, then interns have a different role - normally it's more like a long interview process. But for startups, I don't agree with it, but I understand why there is little mentoring.

dalbasal 9y ago

..if all you plan for is short-term, it will only work short-term.. My point exactly, only in reverse. In industries (eg, merchant banking, corporate law, industrial engineering) where the plans are longer term, the thinking is longer term. Here you see highly involved onboarding programs with mentorship, in depth training and such. Uber, FB, snapchat, netflix or whatnot never had plans that really looked past 2-3 years into the future. Ambitions, possibly. That's different to plans. These are on the young/ADD end of the spectrum, but they have cultural influence industry-wide. I disagree about MVP. First, I don't think short horizon is bad, it's choice with advantages and disadvantages. Second, I do think MVP is part of a wider, shorter horizon planning mentality. That has certainly been my experience. The idea (IMO) is that instead of planning, you evolve. Evolution and planning are at odds with eachother, to an extent. You can make decisions early, and you get a longer term plan to work with. You can make decisions just-in-time (eg after launching an MVP), this gets you more informed decisions. That's not necessarily related to HR. You're hiring and onboarding could be unrelated to your product and engineering plans (or lack thereof). But (again, in practice), I think that mentality is influenced by these things. ^That's like, your opinion, man. ...always ;) "I've yet to see that work" ... Uber. Netflix' streaming service.... for large, famous examples. Call those lotteries if you want. They're definitely risky. You may not like high risk strategies but they are a big part of the software industry, especially on the culturally influential wing.

virgilp 9y ago
> Uber. Netflix' streaming service I really don't think that Uber and Netflix hired for the short term. Especially Netflix. How did you get that? Netflix in particular seems to have been playing the long game for quite a while.
- dalbasal 9y ago
  Netflix has an unusual hr history, worth looking up if you're interested in that sort of thing.
badpun 9y ago
> In industries (eg, merchant banking, corporate law, industrial engineering) where the plans are longer term, the thinking is longer term I work in banking at the moment, and the thinking is anything but longer term. Management is so desperate to hire enough qualified developers that it fills a lot of the vacancies with contractors, which are, by company's definition, temporary. So, in other words, the company is already planning to let go of people who will build its vital systems. That's myopic thinking at its finest. What's interesting is that big part of enterprise market in, for example, London seems to operate like that - management pretends that people are replaceable cogs that hold no company-specific knowledge and require no ramp-up time. The stupidity of it is mind-boggling.

humanrebar 9y ago

> Why can't you hire long-term? You can, but I have never been offered a multi-year employment contract. Employers seem to prefer the flexibility of being able to terminate employment sooner than that.

marrs 9y ago
If someone is on a permanent contract then their employment cannot simply be terminated ever. They can be made redundant, which means that the role cannot be refilled, or they can be fired but only after going through a disciplinary procedure (In the UK these rules only comes into effect after the first 2 years of employment).
walshemj 9y ago
So charge the self employed contractor rates then

jamesblonde 9y ago

To be fair to the parent commenter, I think the short time horizons are based on how startups are funded. We get 12-18 months funding per round. Everything starts from that - planning, etc. If you work at a large enterprise, then interns have a different role - normally it's more like a long interview process. But for startups, I don't agree with it, but I understand why there is little mentoring.