4 ms·

Some of us have enough money that we just don't care. If you want people to tiptoe around your feelings I suggest messaging some broke new grads.

Avalaxy 8y ago
Why are you even applying to work for someone else's company then if you're so super rich? If you're gonna be arrogant you can expect many companies to shut the door for you.
- Hermitian909 8y ago
  Not OP: Good software engineers have options, if they're not working somewhere that offers FAANG money it's probably because they value things other than money such as a good mission, small team work environment, good management, etc. As a rule, your company can't pay FAANG salaries, so if you want good engineers you need to sell them on the other aspects of working with/for you. There's simply no reason for them to take a bigger risk than they feel comfortable with on your company given the current market for strong engineers. You may not like that, that's fair, but other CEOs will answer these questions and they're competing with you for that talent.
- b_t_s 8y ago
  There's a whole spectrum between super rich and broke. In the middle of that spectrum we may still have to work for a living, but we have a job an we have savings and if we need to pass up several offers from toxic and/or doomed companies then thats totally OK. That's not arrogant, that's experienced. We have seen the failure modes of management and business models, and want to do a little due diligence before we make a significant investment of time and energy. It's way better to burn a few hours in interviews and even get rejected occasionally for "arrogance" than to jump ship from a decent job to a quagmire. Not that we're accusing you of being a quagmire, but we gotta kick the tires and pop the hood. We've all heard the trope about how costly one bad hire can be. I'd argue that it's much more true in the other direction. Imagine moving from a 40 hour a week job in a clean codebase with good coworkers and management to a dumpster fire where everyone's working 80 hour weeks and the company is loosing money and goes bankrupt 6 months after you get hired. Not a such a big problem in SF, but say you moved your wife and kids to some medium sized city for this job, bought a house there, and the local job market is mediocre. Now you've go serious problems, all because you didn't spend 10 minutes asking "hard" questions.
- baoha 8y ago
  I can see you're not from a hot job market for software engineer. Here (Bay Area) people usually don't apply for jobs, specially jobs at startups, unless they're really into the products/team/tech/... Even old-school walking-dead companies like Cisco/IBM/HPE pay way better than most startups in term of cash compensation. And given the high risk of failure, startup should sell itself hard to attract talents. I also found those questions are normal, far from being arrogant.
  - Avalaxy 8y ago
    I must say that I am indeed not in the SV bubble. I come from a CS background and I now find myself in a position where I'm hiring people for my own company. This means I totally understand both sides. I'm mostly recruiting in the Amsterdam area though, and software engineers are not seen as rockstars here so it's a big cultural difference.
    - krageon 8y ago
      In the Amsterdam area the done thing is to treat software engineers as disposable trash, unworthy of a proper salary. This is an important piece of context when considering your attitude towards them, which to me personally doesn't speak of a large capacity for patience when it comes to the kind of questions meant to give people peace of mind.
    - b_t_s 8y ago
      Yea this is a location thing. Im no rockstar ninja wizard, nor have I ever lived in a 1st tier tech hub like SV. I'm a competent professional with 2 decades of experience, but not particularly remarkable in any way. Here in the US there is a good market for competent professional software developers, and not just in the SV bubble. Any competent professional with 5 or 10 years experience can get 100k USD or more a year job with a 40 hour work week at a stable(non-startup) company in almost any medium or large city in the US. It may not be their very first job offer, but with a little work they can definitely find one. Thats one reason why maybe 10 to 15% of my US based coworkers are Europeans who have come here in large part for the better job opportunities.

Avalaxy 8y ago

Why are you even applying to work for someone else's company then if you're so super rich? If you're gonna be arrogant you can expect many companies to shut the door for you.

Hermitian909 8y ago
Not OP: Good software engineers have options, if they're not working somewhere that offers FAANG money it's probably because they value things other than money such as a good mission, small team work environment, good management, etc. As a rule, your company can't pay FAANG salaries, so if you want good engineers you need to sell them on the other aspects of working with/for you. There's simply no reason for them to take a bigger risk than they feel comfortable with on your company given the current market for strong engineers. You may not like that, that's fair, but other CEOs will answer these questions and they're competing with you for that talent.
b_t_s 8y ago
There's a whole spectrum between super rich and broke. In the middle of that spectrum we may still have to work for a living, but we have a job an we have savings and if we need to pass up several offers from toxic and/or doomed companies then thats totally OK. That's not arrogant, that's experienced. We have seen the failure modes of management and business models, and want to do a little due diligence before we make a significant investment of time and energy. It's way better to burn a few hours in interviews and even get rejected occasionally for "arrogance" than to jump ship from a decent job to a quagmire. Not that we're accusing you of being a quagmire, but we gotta kick the tires and pop the hood. We've all heard the trope about how costly one bad hire can be. I'd argue that it's much more true in the other direction. Imagine moving from a 40 hour a week job in a clean codebase with good coworkers and management to a dumpster fire where everyone's working 80 hour weeks and the company is loosing money and goes bankrupt 6 months after you get hired. Not a such a big problem in SF, but say you moved your wife and kids to some medium sized city for this job, bought a house there, and the local job market is mediocre. Now you've go serious problems, all because you didn't spend 10 minutes asking "hard" questions.
baoha 8y ago
I can see you're not from a hot job market for software engineer. Here (Bay Area) people usually don't apply for jobs, specially jobs at startups, unless they're really into the products/team/tech/... Even old-school walking-dead companies like Cisco/IBM/HPE pay way better than most startups in term of cash compensation. And given the high risk of failure, startup should sell itself hard to attract talents. I also found those questions are normal, far from being arrogant.
- Avalaxy 8y ago
  I must say that I am indeed not in the SV bubble. I come from a CS background and I now find myself in a position where I'm hiring people for my own company. This means I totally understand both sides. I'm mostly recruiting in the Amsterdam area though, and software engineers are not seen as rockstars here so it's a big cultural difference.
  - krageon 8y ago
    In the Amsterdam area the done thing is to treat software engineers as disposable trash, unworthy of a proper salary. This is an important piece of context when considering your attitude towards them, which to me personally doesn't speak of a large capacity for patience when it comes to the kind of questions meant to give people peace of mind.
  - b_t_s 8y ago
    Yea this is a location thing. Im no rockstar ninja wizard, nor have I ever lived in a 1st tier tech hub like SV. I'm a competent professional with 2 decades of experience, but not particularly remarkable in any way. Here in the US there is a good market for competent professional software developers, and not just in the SV bubble. Any competent professional with 5 or 10 years experience can get 100k USD or more a year job with a 40 hour work week at a stable(non-startup) company in almost any medium or large city in the US. It may not be their very first job offer, but with a little work they can definitely find one. Thats one reason why maybe 10 to 15% of my US based coworkers are Europeans who have come here in large part for the better job opportunities.