3 ms·

> I think most tech companies severely overestimate the cost of false positives, particularly in the USA where it’s trivially easy to fire someone who turns out

by zeveb 8y ago

> I think most tech companies severely overestimate the cost of false positives, particularly in the USA where it’s trivially easy to fire someone who turns out to be a dud. I don't think that's actually true. People who are net-negative on a team may be very personable and hence emotionally difficult to fire. And of course the U.S. does have a number of protected classes, who can be very difficult & expensive to fire for cause (because the assumption is that they were not fired for cause). I'm a member of a protected class, and I often worry that it actually makes it more difficult for me to get hired: will folks be willing to take a chance on me, knowing that were I a jerk I could make life difficult for them? I'm not a jerk (I think!), but they can hardly know that!

vonmoltke 8y ago
> People who are net-negative on a team may be very personable and hence emotionally difficult to fire. Those people are rare and generally caught by much lighter screening. > And of course the U.S. does have a number of protected classes, who can be very difficult & expensive to fire for cause (because the assumption is that they were not fired for cause). I don't think you are using "for cause" in the proper legal sense. Firing "for cause" is indeed an time-consuming and potentially expensive process because of the effects on things like unemployment benefits. Firing "without cause" is not, and is permissible in almost every state. What you are describing are potential accusations of illegal discrimination. This is largely orthogonal to cause.
Arcten 8y ago
>I'm a member of a protected class [...] Technically speaking, we all are, no? We all have genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities? Of course you probably meant that you fall into a minority group in one of those classes, but pretty much anyone could allege they were discriminated against based on their protected characteristics, even if sometimes it's not a particularly believable claim.

by zeveb 8y ago

vonmoltke 8y ago

> People who are net-negative on a team may be very personable and hence emotionally difficult to fire. Those people are rare and generally caught by much lighter screening. > And of course the U.S. does have a number of protected classes, who can be very difficult & expensive to fire for cause (because the assumption is that they were not fired for cause). I don't think you are using "for cause" in the proper legal sense. Firing "for cause" is indeed an time-consuming and potentially expensive process because of the effects on things like unemployment benefits. Firing "without cause" is not, and is permissible in almost every state. What you are describing are potential accusations of illegal discrimination. This is largely orthogonal to cause.

Arcten 8y ago

>I'm a member of a protected class [...] Technically speaking, we all are, no? We all have genders, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities? Of course you probably meant that you fall into a minority group in one of those classes, but pretty much anyone could allege they were discriminated against based on their protected characteristics, even if sometimes it's not a particularly believable claim.