8 ms·

Hiring Is Obsolete (2005)

54 points by marceee0901 7y ago

madprops 7y ago
Or maybe give people time to live before they decide to participate in "the economy". Not everything is jobs. Actually I would argue that hiring is, or should be soon, obsolete because of a gradual change on mindset that clarifies what jobs really are, schemes. There's no reason to dedicate most of your waking life working on selling products where the end product is just maintaining frivolous life styles. And if having to pay for basic things like a roof and food is the factor here, then there are bigger issues at the root level.
- faraday2211 7y ago
  To a certain extent i agree with your statement. But if young people dont’ explore and develop skills early then they will lose later in life. Instead of “living” they should probably explore wether art or tech or construction or whatever is more suitable for them personally. Then once they have a career they cam travel and live as they have the skills to support that life. If you look at instagram then you will see how many live their lives and have no skill then they complain about why they camt pay bills.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    There are few guarantees the skills you develop today will mean much to the market by the time you can afford to do any living. Ten years ago learning to drive a truck meant a long-term stable career, even if it's not the most glamourous. Today, we're discussing the short-term viability of automating that shipping system. Five years ago in Alberta, getting into a trade that was in demand in the oil industry meant a lifetime career with a pretty great salary. Today, the industry is on shaky footing and many will have to retrain. In software, while it might not be near or certain, there are plenty of discussions about automating most projects since so many of them conform to common patterns and publicly accessible, free code already existing. We don't know any better how large much of the software development industry will be in ten years time. Many of those skills might be as obsolete as some IG "celebrity". I think OP is at least correct in that you sort of have to weigh these things yourself. Sometimes that life experience in other facets will inform your future more than picking up a skill that is just enough to put you into someone else's employ. It's pretty difficult to know. You can apply any kind of probability measure you want, but the gaps in between any sound reason are just attempting to know the future before it happens.
    - faraday2211 7y ago
      That is partially correct. Developing the skill to drive a truck at an early age gives you the skills to operate vehicles at a later stage, and that is transferrable knowledge. Not to mention work place interaction skills, and time management. In terms of software, indeed repetitive tasks can be automated, but 100% of development never will be.
- bluGill 7y ago
  How does the labor to build the basic things like a roof happen? How does the labor to grow food and get it to you happen? Those are called jobs, and like it or not somebody has to do them. Society has been getting more efficient at them, but even still some amount of human labor is required! People have jobs because they need things that can only be got via human labor. This is not a bigger issue at a root level, it is a basic fact that you are trying to deny.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    The overwhelming majority of jobs in the modern economy have nothing to do with basic needs. Most of them simply exist to feed the consumerist/financial complex.
    - beckingz 7y ago
      Do not overly disregard material conditions.
    - UserIsUnused 7y ago
      That's a different issue. But consumerism is needed to provide something of value back to those that gave their time to get you food and a roof.
      - keiferski 7y ago
        Food and roofs didn't exist prior to 20th-century marketing and consumer-targeting psychology?
        UserIsUnused 7y ago
        before 20th century marketing woman would spend the whole day preparing food. And you couldn't really have a decent way of owning a home.
    - bluGill 7y ago
      The overwhelming majority of people want more than the basics. They don't just want a roof over their head, they want a nice roof - one they can stand up under, maybe with a kitchen, running water, separate rooms for their various games... They don't want to eat just rice and beans, they want more. You are one of them: if you were not you wouldn't be reading this forum.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  To me, working is just the way you participate in society and civilization. All the fantastic gifts and riches in a modern economy you enjoy were made by Someone. You need to participate in and support the system by also making things for others. > Not everything is jobs Of course not. But it's something, and it's important!
- theflyinghorse 7y ago
  > And if having to pay for basic things like a roof and food is the factor here, then there are bigger issues at the root level. It is the main factor for the vast majority of people. Anectada: I cannot nor could ever afford to 'live before participating in economy' - I needed place to stay, food to eat and some extra money to not feel like a bum. It takes wealth to enjoy life.
  - jmastrangelo 7y ago
    Don't understand why you're being downvoted. Surviving and thriving in the world requires lots of material goods. These goods are produced by the economy so of course you have to participate in it in order to live. A world where people don't have to participate in the economy would have no goods.
trump2032 7y ago
And "Microsoft is dead". And Paul Graham is a lucky blogger who just happens to have a brand and contacts. Exactly one of these 3 is true.
cryptica 7y ago
I think investing in 20 year olds is a bad idea because at that age, they haven't had the time to properly fail. This makes them arrogant and unwilling to listen to advice from older people who are smarter but not financially successful.
- onion2k 7y ago
  I think investing in 20 year olds is a bad idea because at that age, they haven't had the time to properly fail. You're right on average but investors aren't looking for average people to invest in. I was on an accelerator with a very talented founder who had started a company, built it up to something significant, and subsequently cashed out before he was 20. Some 20 year olds are on their second or third business by then. They're exceptions rather than the rule, certainly, but that's exactly who investors should be looking for. The only thing investors need to remember is that age isn't an indication of anything very interesting. People will have amazing ideas and the drive to execute them at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 80...
  - optimuspaul 7y ago
    But have they failed? The arrogance will be even stronger in someone who has had success so early. Risk is much higher with such an individual. I think that you are partially right however, age isn't an indicator but combined with other metrics is an indicator. I'll take a 20 year old who has tried and failed over a 20 year old who has tried and succeeded. My gut tells me the former has learned far more. But those are generalizations, everyone is different, the failure case could actually be ineptitude and they haven't learned anything.
    - SkyPuncher 7y ago
      Failing is merely a path to understanding what success doesn't look like. Lots of founders are extremely aware of their shortcomings and the luck involved - leading appropriately as a result.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      I'm reminded of the joke about the guy who threw away half the CVs he recieved because he didn't want to hire unlucky people.
pjc50 7y ago
Shorter PG: hiring is hard due to market informational inefficiencies, acqui-hiring is the future! > What's an especially productive 22 year old to do? One thing you can do is go over the heads of organizations, directly to the users. Any company that hires you is, economically, acting as a proxy for the customer. The rate at which they value you (though they may not consciously realize it) is an attempt to guess your value to the user. But there's a way to appeal their judgement. If you want, you can opt to be valued directly by users, by starting your own company. I wasn't expecting Paul Graham to recite orthodox Marxism. This paragraph is only missing the word "exploited", because he's effectively saying that young good workers are undervalued because a large employer makes more money from them than they are paid. > Buying larval startups solves that problem for them: the acquirer doesn't pay till the developers have proven themselves. Acquirers are protected on the downside, but still get most of the upside. The downside of this is of course that the "downside" flows to the not-chosen workers. It's effectively like doing a trial shift, except instead of just a day you have to spend six months on building a business. And during that time, how do you fund your food and rent? > The math is brutal. While perhaps 9 out of 10 startups fail, the one that succeeds will pay the founders more than 10 times what they would have made in an ordinary job. So .. what happens to everyone else? Sure, I like the message that young people should go out in the world, try things, be imaginative, and try to find an employer that will value their skills. And that it's easier than ever to disintermediate the economy. But it needs to come with a recognition of how that's actually funded on the day to day level, and which people are and aren't going to be able to succeed in that environment.
- username90 7y ago
  > I wasn't expecting Paul Graham to recite orthodox Marxism. This paragraph is only missing the word "exploited", because he's effectively saying that young good workers are undervalued because a large employer makes more money from them than they are paid. No, the point was that at a big company you get paid the average value of the work your and your peers does, while when you work for yourself you get paid the value you yourself does. This means that for strong performers going alone is better, and for weak performers going to a company is better. Nothing exploitative here, just natural consequences of scale and imperfect productivity measures.
IAmEveryone 7y ago
Hiring is alive and well, and thinks Paul Graham is obsolete... "Investing in people" wasn't even a new idea in 2005. It's totally obvious once you get over post-enlightment drivel like individuality and innate rights, and focus on what's real: people are matter, matter can be owned, ownership can be fractional, (...Ayn Rand died for our sins...)
carlsborg 7y ago
Well, it was 2005. Poll: In your opinion was is far easier to gain traction and scale in the early 2000's compared to now? Feels that way to me. For example, I had a basic website on a billion dollar industry and we were page rank 1 for years for that industry keyword with zero extra effort.
- dunkelheit 7y ago
  > In your opinion was is far easier to gain traction and scale in the early 2000's compared to now? Looks like it was but a lot of goodwill has been burned since. PG writes "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. And more to the point, nobody knows you're 22. All users care about is whether your site or software gives them what they want. They don't care if the person behind it is a high school kid." But today every sane person would ask "Why should I depend on your service? Where is the guarantee that you won't go out of business or get acquired in six months with your service sunsetted?"
  - dkersten 7y ago
    That last point makes me very wary of using a startups services these days. Too many startups fail and out of the ones that don’t, a huge amount get shutdown after acquisition. Too risky. I’ve also experienced a number of cases in my own work where pretty great services were passed over for exactly those reasons. As somebody who has founded startups in the past, this makes me sad because it means my next attempt will be much tougher (and it’s already hard), but on the other hand, I’ve also learned that I don’t really want to run a venture backed startup anymore and would rather run a smaller lifestyle business that’s in it for the long term. I suppose it comes down to how that’s communicated to the potential customers.
    - mrfusion 7y ago
      It’s counterintuitive but to counter this fear as a startup make it really simple for your customers to get their data out of your service. And advertise that fact heavily.
Jemm 7y ago
I think the article downplays the role of people with Aspergers or who are otherwise on the spectrum. These often very high functioning people can act in a way that a collection of people never could, particularly when one considers focus.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
I would say hiring is dead for a different reason: permanent employment is becoming a meaningless deal in many places. Especially in the US, you can be out on the street in 15 minutes with little or no protection against that. It's a very one sided deal where you shovel shit in exchange for a lower income. So, people treat their employers as customers and have less reservations about firing their customer. The average tenure at several of the big SFO monopolists (lets just call that out) has allegedly (I lack a good source) dropped below a year. That's what happens in a scarce market. When starting a startup, employment is also meaningless because if you are in grow fast/fail fast mode, long term employment is not a thing. Your company could end up being acquired, killed, or simply be fizzling out. A lot of companies are now relying on recruiters and agencies to supply them with what is non essential staff where the person disappearing is less of an issue. This kind of recruiting works great for no-tech startups (any kind of saas or marketplace type company). Lots of buzzwords, but mostly hiring full stack. That kind of company. All they need is generic skills. Hiring is still a problem for actual tech startups that need access to the best and brightest in their fields. You're not going to find those people through some shitty recruiter or head hunter. They are not likely to be actively looking at all, ever. You need to court them and sell them the notion of working for you. Acquihires are a thing for bigger companies but they often backfire when people simply sit out their 2-3 years while they are considering their next startup.
- bluejekyll 7y ago
  > (I lack a good source) dropped below a year. I suspect this is not true for tech jobs. It can take 6 months for engineers to become productive members of teams, especially ones with large software codebases. On top of that, almost all cliffs are set at a year for compensation packages, so I doubt people would ditch before getting that.
  - jandrese 7y ago
    This is one of those cases where taking the mean distorts your view of the market, because there are some outliers who switch jobs like they change pants who drive up the numbers for everyone. A median look at how often people switch would probably be more illustrative.

54 points by marceee0901 7y ago

Or maybe give people time to live before they decide to participate in "the economy". Not everything is jobs. Actually I would argue that hiring is, or should be soon, obsolete because of a gradual change on mindset that clarifies what jobs really are, schemes. There's no reason to dedicate most of your waking life working on selling products where the end product is just maintaining frivolous life styles. And if having to pay for basic things like a roof and food is the factor here, then there are bigger issues at the root level.

faraday2211 7y ago
To a certain extent i agree with your statement. But if young people dont’ explore and develop skills early then they will lose later in life. Instead of “living” they should probably explore wether art or tech or construction or whatever is more suitable for them personally. Then once they have a career they cam travel and live as they have the skills to support that life. If you look at instagram then you will see how many live their lives and have no skill then they complain about why they camt pay bills.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  There are few guarantees the skills you develop today will mean much to the market by the time you can afford to do any living. Ten years ago learning to drive a truck meant a long-term stable career, even if it's not the most glamourous. Today, we're discussing the short-term viability of automating that shipping system. Five years ago in Alberta, getting into a trade that was in demand in the oil industry meant a lifetime career with a pretty great salary. Today, the industry is on shaky footing and many will have to retrain. In software, while it might not be near or certain, there are plenty of discussions about automating most projects since so many of them conform to common patterns and publicly accessible, free code already existing. We don't know any better how large much of the software development industry will be in ten years time. Many of those skills might be as obsolete as some IG "celebrity". I think OP is at least correct in that you sort of have to weigh these things yourself. Sometimes that life experience in other facets will inform your future more than picking up a skill that is just enough to put you into someone else's employ. It's pretty difficult to know. You can apply any kind of probability measure you want, but the gaps in between any sound reason are just attempting to know the future before it happens.
  - faraday2211 7y ago
    That is partially correct. Developing the skill to drive a truck at an early age gives you the skills to operate vehicles at a later stage, and that is transferrable knowledge. Not to mention work place interaction skills, and time management. In terms of software, indeed repetitive tasks can be automated, but 100% of development never will be.
bluGill 7y ago
How does the labor to build the basic things like a roof happen? How does the labor to grow food and get it to you happen? Those are called jobs, and like it or not somebody has to do them. Society has been getting more efficient at them, but even still some amount of human labor is required! People have jobs because they need things that can only be got via human labor. This is not a bigger issue at a root level, it is a basic fact that you are trying to deny.
- keiferski 7y ago
  The overwhelming majority of jobs in the modern economy have nothing to do with basic needs. Most of them simply exist to feed the consumerist/financial complex.
  - beckingz 7y ago
    Do not overly disregard material conditions.
  - UserIsUnused 7y ago
    That's a different issue. But consumerism is needed to provide something of value back to those that gave their time to get you food and a roof.
    - keiferski 7y ago
      Food and roofs didn't exist prior to 20th-century marketing and consumer-targeting psychology?
      - UserIsUnused 7y ago
        before 20th century marketing woman would spend the whole day preparing food. And you couldn't really have a decent way of owning a home.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    The overwhelming majority of people want more than the basics. They don't just want a roof over their head, they want a nice roof - one they can stand up under, maybe with a kitchen, running water, separate rooms for their various games... They don't want to eat just rice and beans, they want more. You are one of them: if you were not you wouldn't be reading this forum.
BurningFrog 7y ago
To me, working is just the way you participate in society and civilization. All the fantastic gifts and riches in a modern economy you enjoy were made by Someone. You need to participate in and support the system by also making things for others. > Not everything is jobs Of course not. But it's something, and it's important!
theflyinghorse 7y ago
> And if having to pay for basic things like a roof and food is the factor here, then there are bigger issues at the root level. It is the main factor for the vast majority of people. Anectada: I cannot nor could ever afford to 'live before participating in economy' - I needed place to stay, food to eat and some extra money to not feel like a bum. It takes wealth to enjoy life.
- jmastrangelo 7y ago
  Don't understand why you're being downvoted. Surviving and thriving in the world requires lots of material goods. These goods are produced by the economy so of course you have to participate in it in order to live. A world where people don't have to participate in the economy would have no goods.

trump2032 7y ago

And "Microsoft is dead". And Paul Graham is a lucky blogger who just happens to have a brand and contacts. Exactly one of these 3 is true.

cryptica 7y ago

I think investing in 20 year olds is a bad idea because at that age, they haven't had the time to properly fail. This makes them arrogant and unwilling to listen to advice from older people who are smarter but not financially successful.

onion2k 7y ago
I think investing in 20 year olds is a bad idea because at that age, they haven't had the time to properly fail. You're right on average but investors aren't looking for average people to invest in. I was on an accelerator with a very talented founder who had started a company, built it up to something significant, and subsequently cashed out before he was 20. Some 20 year olds are on their second or third business by then. They're exceptions rather than the rule, certainly, but that's exactly who investors should be looking for. The only thing investors need to remember is that age isn't an indication of anything very interesting. People will have amazing ideas and the drive to execute them at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 80...
- optimuspaul 7y ago
  But have they failed? The arrogance will be even stronger in someone who has had success so early. Risk is much higher with such an individual. I think that you are partially right however, age isn't an indicator but combined with other metrics is an indicator. I'll take a 20 year old who has tried and failed over a 20 year old who has tried and succeeded. My gut tells me the former has learned far more. But those are generalizations, everyone is different, the failure case could actually be ineptitude and they haven't learned anything.
  - SkyPuncher 7y ago
    Failing is merely a path to understanding what success doesn't look like. Lots of founders are extremely aware of their shortcomings and the luck involved - leading appropriately as a result.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    I'm reminded of the joke about the guy who threw away half the CVs he recieved because he didn't want to hire unlucky people.

pjc50 7y ago

Shorter PG: hiring is hard due to market informational inefficiencies, acqui-hiring is the future! > What's an especially productive 22 year old to do? One thing you can do is go over the heads of organizations, directly to the users. Any company that hires you is, economically, acting as a proxy for the customer. The rate at which they value you (though they may not consciously realize it) is an attempt to guess your value to the user. But there's a way to appeal their judgement. If you want, you can opt to be valued directly by users, by starting your own company. I wasn't expecting Paul Graham to recite orthodox Marxism. This paragraph is only missing the word "exploited", because he's effectively saying that young good workers are undervalued because a large employer makes more money from them than they are paid. > Buying larval startups solves that problem for them: the acquirer doesn't pay till the developers have proven themselves. Acquirers are protected on the downside, but still get most of the upside. The downside of this is of course that the "downside" flows to the not-chosen workers. It's effectively like doing a trial shift, except instead of just a day you have to spend six months on building a business. And during that time, how do you fund your food and rent? > The math is brutal. While perhaps 9 out of 10 startups fail, the one that succeeds will pay the founders more than 10 times what they would have made in an ordinary job. So .. what happens to everyone else? Sure, I like the message that young people should go out in the world, try things, be imaginative, and try to find an employer that will value their skills. And that it's easier than ever to disintermediate the economy. But it needs to come with a recognition of how that's actually funded on the day to day level, and which people are and aren't going to be able to succeed in that environment.

username90 7y ago
> I wasn't expecting Paul Graham to recite orthodox Marxism. This paragraph is only missing the word "exploited", because he's effectively saying that young good workers are undervalued because a large employer makes more money from them than they are paid. No, the point was that at a big company you get paid the average value of the work your and your peers does, while when you work for yourself you get paid the value you yourself does. This means that for strong performers going alone is better, and for weak performers going to a company is better. Nothing exploitative here, just natural consequences of scale and imperfect productivity measures.

IAmEveryone 7y ago

Hiring is alive and well, and thinks Paul Graham is obsolete... "Investing in people" wasn't even a new idea in 2005. It's totally obvious once you get over post-enlightment drivel like individuality and innate rights, and focus on what's real: people are matter, matter can be owned, ownership can be fractional, (...Ayn Rand died for our sins...)

carlsborg 7y ago

Well, it was 2005. Poll: In your opinion was is far easier to gain traction and scale in the early 2000's compared to now? Feels that way to me. For example, I had a basic website on a billion dollar industry and we were page rank 1 for years for that industry keyword with zero extra effort.

dunkelheit 7y ago
> In your opinion was is far easier to gain traction and scale in the early 2000's compared to now? Looks like it was but a lot of goodwill has been burned since. PG writes "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. And more to the point, nobody knows you're 22. All users care about is whether your site or software gives them what they want. They don't care if the person behind it is a high school kid." But today every sane person would ask "Why should I depend on your service? Where is the guarantee that you won't go out of business or get acquired in six months with your service sunsetted?"
- dkersten 7y ago
  That last point makes me very wary of using a startups services these days. Too many startups fail and out of the ones that don’t, a huge amount get shutdown after acquisition. Too risky. I’ve also experienced a number of cases in my own work where pretty great services were passed over for exactly those reasons. As somebody who has founded startups in the past, this makes me sad because it means my next attempt will be much tougher (and it’s already hard), but on the other hand, I’ve also learned that I don’t really want to run a venture backed startup anymore and would rather run a smaller lifestyle business that’s in it for the long term. I suppose it comes down to how that’s communicated to the potential customers.
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    It’s counterintuitive but to counter this fear as a startup make it really simple for your customers to get their data out of your service. And advertise that fact heavily.

Jemm 7y ago

I think the article downplays the role of people with Aspergers or who are otherwise on the spectrum. These often very high functioning people can act in a way that a collection of people never could, particularly when one considers focus.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

I would say hiring is dead for a different reason: permanent employment is becoming a meaningless deal in many places. Especially in the US, you can be out on the street in 15 minutes with little or no protection against that. It's a very one sided deal where you shovel shit in exchange for a lower income. So, people treat their employers as customers and have less reservations about firing their customer. The average tenure at several of the big SFO monopolists (lets just call that out) has allegedly (I lack a good source) dropped below a year. That's what happens in a scarce market. When starting a startup, employment is also meaningless because if you are in grow fast/fail fast mode, long term employment is not a thing. Your company could end up being acquired, killed, or simply be fizzling out. A lot of companies are now relying on recruiters and agencies to supply them with what is non essential staff where the person disappearing is less of an issue. This kind of recruiting works great for no-tech startups (any kind of saas or marketplace type company). Lots of buzzwords, but mostly hiring full stack. That kind of company. All they need is generic skills. Hiring is still a problem for actual tech startups that need access to the best and brightest in their fields. You're not going to find those people through some shitty recruiter or head hunter. They are not likely to be actively looking at all, ever. You need to court them and sell them the notion of working for you. Acquihires are a thing for bigger companies but they often backfire when people simply sit out their 2-3 years while they are considering their next startup.

bluejekyll 7y ago
> (I lack a good source) dropped below a year. I suspect this is not true for tech jobs. It can take 6 months for engineers to become productive members of teams, especially ones with large software codebases. On top of that, almost all cliffs are set at a year for compensation packages, so I doubt people would ditch before getting that.
- jandrese 7y ago
  This is one of those cases where taking the mean distorts your view of the market, because there are some outliers who switch jobs like they change pants who drive up the numbers for everyone. A median look at how often people switch would probably be more illustrative.