4 ms·

stack ranking != ranking. Even at El Goog, 50% of the headcount is performing below average.

• robocat 8y ago
  > 50% Only if the average equals the median. There is a low probability that they are equal if you randomly pick a distribution from the set of all possible distributions (and round the percentages to the nearest integer). Edit: I am not a statistician so maybe the above is totally incorrect. The myth half of a sample is below the average triggers me every time!! Sorry.
  • kurtisc 8y ago
    But then you're falling for the myth that average is synonymous with mean. Median is an average, too.
  • hnzix 8y ago
    That's my point - it's a misleading statistic. If you have a cohort of geniuses, half of them are still going to be very smart. The premise of stack ranking is you fire the bottom tier.
• alecbenzer 8y ago
  Huh, interesting, I don't believe that's consistent with Google's use of the term from what I remember, but that does seem to be the meaning I'm finding now. So yeah, fair enough, I do just mean "ranking" I guess.