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Hire for the Ability to Get Shit Done (2011)
- bob229 5y agoLol “5 page analysis of where the company should head” I’ll stick at the bank where I barely have work to fill 2 hours a day thanks
- iamdbtoo 5y agoEverything in the list of "Inability to get things done" is something someone with ADHD struggles with and can be successfully managed in the right environment, but it sounds like this person would fire that person without reflecting on the environment they've created and how that person experiences it.
- Decker87 5y agoI'd rather hire someone who doesn't struggle with those things.
- iamdbtoo 5y agoI'd rather work for someone who understands their employees are human.
- MattGaiser 5y agoI am sympathetic to both your views. Employment is increasingly a 1-2 year stint where workers are swapped in frequently and you need to get value out of them before they leave. But it really screws over people who are not known factors or who might need adjustments.
- Decker87 5y agoIt's not about being human or not. In a very early stage startup you just simply cannot always afford the investment (time and/or money) needed to create a flexible enough environment to support someone who struggles with things like staying focused or working at a fast pace. And that's okay. Startups are a little over-romanticized anyway.
- bqmjjx0kac 5y ago> someone who struggles with things like staying focused or working at a fast pace. You might be surprised by the hyper-focus abilities of folks with ADHD. Keep in mind that your perception is skewed by selection bias — you probably already know many productive coworkers that never told you they have ADHD.
- xedrac 5y agoPerhaps ADHD comes in many forms and severities. My wife has ADHD and her ability to "hyper-focus" is about as good as my ability to breath under water.
- iamdbtoo 5y agoIt absolutely does.
- bqmjjx0kac 5y agoMy experience of ADHD is that I hyperfocus on work because it's interesting. I'd basically do the same thing without medication, but I wouldn't be able to do my laundry or cook dinner at the end of the day because I'd be exhausted. ADHD symptoms are a multidimensional spectrum [citation needed], and so-called normal people lie somewhere on that spectrum. Making affordances for folks with ADHD is a win for everyone. For example: write meeting notes and assign action items, use a bug tracker, ask people if the process works for them.
- iamdbtoo 5y agoThe fact that you think it takes so much work to do that means you don’t understand how it works.
- winter_blue 5y agoThank you, I've felt the list was heavily something a person with ADHD struggles with as well. In the right environment, ADHD people can shine brilliantly and beyond any expectations.
- PragmaticPulp 5y agoEnvironment can absolutely influence people’s ability to get things done. That effect may be amplified by ADHD, but it’s not unique to ADHD. Every manager should be sympathetic to their team and try to make a reasonably accommodating environment. However, it’s still up to the employee to take ownership and be accountable for getting things done. You can’t reasonably expect managers to constantly micromanage employees to extract work from them, nor can we expect companies to create perfectly distraction-free environments. At some point, it’s the employee’s responsibility to manage their own output. It’s not just the employer who suffers when a team member is unable to complete tasks. The rest of the team has to step up and fill in the missing pieces or constantly watch over the person who can’t get things done. Eventually you start losing talent because your good employees are tired of doing a job and a half while some other employees are only delivering half of their work, and everyone suffers.
- iamdbtoo 5y agoI didn’t say the employee has no responsibility. This article makes it sound like the person is completely unwilling to work with anyone who isn’t perfect.
- floe 5y ago> Ask the candidate. I would often straight out ask people how effective they were at GSD, and how did they compare to their peers? It was surprising how honest some (very smart) people would be on this. E.g. "I am average compared to other engineers". For an early stage startup, average is not enough. lol, wait, if this line of thought works, why don't you also just ask them how good they are at coding, instead of wasting all that time doing interviews?
- TameAntelope 5y agoYou probably could, and people would volunteer that they aren't that good at coding and therefore screen themselves out (assuming you need people who are good at coding). You definitely run the risk of not hiring people who are victims of impostor syndrome, but it's the same logic, and it would for sure apply to coding.
- gHosts 5y agoTrouble is I've burnt a lot of man hours fixing shit that was done truly shitly by people who had a reputation for getting shit done... and then they move onwards and upwards to another role to create more shit that needs cleaning up before it can be really called a product and actually sold.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> I've burnt a lot of man hours fixing shit that was done truly shitly by people who had a reputation for getting shit done... IME, people who have a reputation of getting shit done tend to: (1) Have little ethics around quality of work, and (2) Have their greatest skill in self-promotion which is used to sell their lack of attention quality as a pragamtism. People who have a reputation for getting shit done well, OTOH...
- MattGaiser 5y agoI don't see this as an ethics issue, but just a trade off and given how long employees stay in a role, there is no long term. I can do both. "Do you want carefully tested code in 3 days or do you want it tomorrow?" And whenever I have put it to any non-technical product manager or business analyst, 90% of the time the answer is "tomorrow." Product Managers get a reputation for getting shit done too by encouraging this.
- genericone 5y agoExactly, I think its more like, capture 80% of the value tomorrow, or capture 0% until day 3, where it now becomes >80%, but only immeasurably so in the eyes of the program. There will be future risk to that work that was done in 1 day, and that's where the tradeoff comes into play.
- zsmi 5y agoI always thought is was more of a semantics things. For example the article, and all the comments in this thread at this time, don't define the word "done". I am pretty sure we're not all using the same criteria for "done".
- robotresearcher 5y ago"Come back in 3 days with a 1-page marketing plan for our product." Do people really do this as part of interviews?
- dantillberg 5y agoI've heard of (clever? sociopath?) executives that would do this periodically to get fresh perspectives at a cost of zero dollars. They had no intention of hiring any of the candidates.
- TigeriusKirk 5y agoI've definitely had similar experiences with companies still at the "handful of employees" stage. If I'm actually interested in what they're doing, I enjoy the exercise. If I'm not actually interested, well it was an easy way to learn that before wasting their time or mine.
- MattGaiser 5y agoI have had take home assignments like this. Amortized I still have spent far less time on them than Leetcode.
- klyrs 5y agoThere's a sucker born every minute...
- MattGaiser 5y ago> I would often straight out ask people how effective they were at GSD, and how did they compare to their peers? It was surprising how honest some (very smart) people would be on this. E.g. "I am average compared to other engineers". For an early stage startup, average is not enough. Why do you assume that people answered accurately, rather than depending on their confidence level/interview knowledge?
- codingdave 5y agoThis is my favorite one: "Did the candidate respond to every email from me quickly?" If they did, then they are living in their email, not getting shit done for their current job. Is that really the good signal that the author thinks it is?
- dragonwriter 5y agoNo, but its a very common thing for people who have a reputation for getting shit done to do. Such reputations aren't built on actually getting shit done (and especially not on getting it done well), but on knowing how to present the image of someone who gets shit done. Responsiveness, both because of the impression it creates on its own and because it provides the opportunity to instantly begin image management when a concern arises and before other input has been received, is central to that.
- Olumde 5y agoThis is why some people think software engineers are not real engineers. No one will ever ask a structural engineer to build "it" quickly and cover 95% of the failure cases. Okay, apples and oranges. It's actually okay for a team to crank out a prototype held together by duct tape, but you should move away from this mentality as soon as you prove the business idea otherwise the technical debt will sink you quick.
- iamjustoldnow 5y agoAt a big company, or in a complex market, project or ecosystem - People who “get things done” have to: 1. Eliminate all discussion, information sharing or teamwork to avoid complex conversations or communication slowdowns or pushback (Try to form silos) 2. Attempt to dramatically simplify their work so it can be streamlined and done faster, perhaps by doing a very bad job or doing everything the way they want to do it 3. Continually step on political landmines or get into a lot of fights by accidentally wandering into someone else’s area through blind execution 4. Be incredibly sneaky and underhanded and opaque and do everything in a way that seems slimy 5. Have some unusually strong managerial backing to go plow ahead and run over any obstacles or objections Startups are wonderful because there aren’t 9,000 people in the way claiming every square inch of space. At a big company, everything you do is a potential territory violation. I used to be much, much, much more aggressive when I was younger. I just ran over everyone in my way and destroyed or avoided obstacles. Turned my career into a giant heaping pile of wreckage. Get shit done at a large company turns out badly for your career I learned. This is very temporary career advice. You’ll be fine if you do this at a small startup. Medium size and up, you will get zapped like cancer for doing too much of the above.
- MattGaiser 5y agoEven at a "startup" those turf battles emerge. At one company I once had nothing to do so started to help someone on another team automate work. Set off a turf battle of resource allocation, billing, hours, and a couple cents in cloud systems. I had nothing to do, but a battle started over what I did. They fought over how to allocate time they had no use for.
- matthewfelgate 5y agoGod I hate hearing this. I once worked at a company where it wasn't allowed for 2 programmers to be at 1 computer ever. Programmers were never allowed to go to another programmers desk to work on something together or discuss something. Because it was "wasted time". It was also one of those companies that pulled the entire programming team into hour long meetings they didn't need to be in... Maybe its just me, but a 5-10 minute conversation with another programmer can save hours of wasted time trying to figure out how something already works or how to implement something.
- mrblampo 5y agoThis article describes the kind of person who launches things, meets deadlines, and is comfortable creating lots of tech debt in the process. Perhaps it _is_ a good idea to hire lots of these people at a startup, but I definitely prefer working on a team with more of a balance.
- 29athrowaway 5y agotl;dr: It doesn't work. If companies were empires, "get shit done" translates into exploitation colonialism: 1) "Recruit" large amounts of people. 2) Assign them to bruteforce tasks. Set production quotas. 3) Punish individual agency, self improvement and free thinking. We know now that exploitation colonialism is an inefficient and primitive approach to governance that fails at achieving what it was designed to do: maximize value. Instead, it just maximizes poverty and misery. The empires that used it lost and capitulated to the empires that didn't. And this happened for a reason: it's a greedy heuristic, not a real strategy, it lacks a long-term vision. The poorest countries in the world are governed either in this way or a similar one (extractivism), and are often so weakened by this form of governance that are forced to become vassal states that exist only to be bullied. It doesn't matter if you throw all your entire country's population to "get shit done" (e.g.: agriculture, mining). Maximizing value means you also have to invest in education, infrastructure, science, culture, etc. Instead of telling your employees to work mindlessly towards a goal, tell everyone to believe in themselves, and pursue their ideas if they think they have value. "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do, we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do" - Steve Jobs
- nathanvanfleet 5y ago"here's how I make sure to only hire people with a similar background and personality to myself..."
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- Rd6n6 5y agoI was told in a screening interview once that they don’t really need people who can solve problems or write maintainable code, or who understand software design. They said the tech lead will do all that. They said they just really needed people with framework experience. I was at a loss for words
- ndnxmsm 5y agoI am also at a loss of words, but I would really like to know what they were picturing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mcavoybn 5y agoMany of the replies in this thread talk about empathy, and I get where they are coming from. The problem is, if your priority when hiring was empathy you would just offer the job to everyone you interview. It's true, everyone has the ability to grow and learn on the job, and once you hire someone you should be empathetic and help them grow as best you can. But it's asinine to suggest that watching for the signs and markers described in this article during the hiring process wouldn't be helpful.
- gexla 5y agoMight you also argue that empathy is putting people into roles they would flourish in? That hiring just anyone might be placing people into situations they would ultimately be unhappy with? That you may need to remove or even fire people when that role changes and this person isn't able to change with it? That putting the wrong person in the role is an opportunity cost for a better fit being happier with that position?
- seattle_spring 5y agoIf you only hire to get shit done, then everything you get done will be shit.
- matthewfelgate 5y agoThis is the best reply.
- morelandjs 5y agoI’m always amused that people think they can just “hire great talent” by instinct and sheer force of will. Sure there is skill to hiring, but a lot of what you can hire is determined by how desirable you are as an employer. If you’re a hot company, hot employees want to talk to you. Sound familiar? IMO focus on a great employee pitch and make yourself known/visible to social circles populated by quality engineers. The match making process doesn’t need to be a coked out box checking session…
- mbank 5y agoI think this is an even bigger issue: A cultural one. We live in a (western) society where NOT getting shit done has become the norm. Often things don't get finished at all and if they do they take forever. There seem to be only few companies/founders (have to mention Elon here!) that are able to break this habit.
- xupybd 5y agoReading the authors section on culture fit I found this: "Bonus points: financial stability. This could be a low personal burn rate, or ability to take a low salary either through a past financial success, being straight out of school so living costs low, or other means. This means the person may be more willing to take a low salary in exchange for more equity, which helps the company survive longer on less." This makes me worry they have no respect for their workers and want cheap people the can bully into long hours, high workloads and low pay. I don't know if you can read that much into the comment but it would scare me away.
- taurath 5y agoIf I were working at a startup and this was the content coming out of it, I'd assume they'd be hiring competitive sociopaths and the risk of politicking and aggressive diluting of shares would go way up even if it did succeed.
- IvanaSays 5y agoSure. But every startup, no matter what stage, can benefit from mature, thoughtful people, who may take a little longer to get things done, but they will be done better. They are also the people who will ask the right questions, introduce positive paranoia, etc. There is tension with the GSDs, but it's for mutual benefit. Those very candid people who say they are average on GSD? Those would be my executives.
- Simon321 5y agoreeks of short-termism
- tpoacher 5y agoWithout wanting to take an overly generalist post and overgeneralise back: - Lack of urgency <-- wait, isn't that the manager's fault? (for failing to clearly communicate the timelines) - Easily distracted. Heavy procrastinator <-- wait, isn't that the manager's fault? (for failing to provide goal clarity) - Lazy / doesn't work hard. <-- wait, isn't that the manager's fault? (for failing to provide the right conditions and motivation) - Starts but never finishes things. <-- wait, isn't that the manager's fault? (for failing to provide task boundaries) - Lack of follow through <-- wait, isn't that the manager's fault? (for failing to clearly allocate task ownership and accountability) - Argumentative. <-- wait, isn't that the manager's fault? (for not ensuring buy-in in decisions) - Slow. (overcomplicating simple stuff) <-- wait, isn't that the manager's fault? (for failing to communicate requirements clearly) - Perfectionist. <-- wait isn't that the manager's fault? (for not communicating priorities clearly)
- matthewfelgate 5y agoYup. I've seen a lot of shitty companies like this where the programmers are expected to do the management as well as the programming.
- matthewfelgate 5y agoThis sounds a lot like lazy manager.
- flome 5y agoWow, I really appreciate all the comments here. My takeaway here is that there is no formula or framework for hiring, you just have to spend the time it takes to hire the right people for your company. Period. Some of the insights in this blog post is useful to me, some aren't. The comments here help balance me out.
- acquiremoney 5y agoI am not able to figure out if this article is parody or in a serious tone.
- perl4ever 5y ago"It was surprising how honest some (very smart) people would be on this. E.g. "I am average compared to other engineers". For an early stage startup, average is not enough." Well, they want better than average liars. Could go either way.
- aerosmile 5y agoPeople have definitely found ways to turn PG into a monster, so I am prepared for anything... but Elad Gil? That would be a first, so super excited to hear which parts rubbed you the wrong way. If possible, try to keep the context in mind (early stage startup: 5 people with less than 12 months worth of runway).
- probably_wrong 5y agoI didn't think it was satire, but I'm at the point of my career where I wouldn't want to work for a company like this. If I'm expected to make a 3-days homework exercise plus a half day live coding session, and then I'm expected to jump at their every whim too (respond email when it's convenient for them, honesty seen as a weakness, expected to be proactive but not too much or you become argumentative), I'd rather look somewhere else. This reads more like "how to screen for people who will blindly follow your orders". And sure, if you have a small startup maybe you do want people like that. But as a developer I don't think this guide has my best interests in mind.
- aerosmile 5y agoYou're absolutely right that there are many types of people and stages of careers where an early-stage startup is not a good fit.
- zebraflask 5y agoMe, neither, although I have run across people who think this way. What this is, in my view, if it is taken too seriously, is the perfect recipe for instigating employee burnout in short order.
- lax0 5y agoDoes anything capture the zeitgeist of the early 2010s as well as replacing “stuff” with “shit” whenever possible. Then putting it on a shirt for the ad agency people to wear.
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- zelias 5y agothis is nonsense when it comes to ICs, but the ability to solve large org-level problems is a key part of any leadership position
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- mdoms 5y agoHalf a day coding exercise? Mate you're not hiring the best, you're getting for people who will tolerate a lot of crap. Which it sounds like you'll need.
- MattGaiser 5y agoI would actually prefer this to studying for Leetcode. If I am going to dump two months into it anyway, I would rather not forget my actual job.
- ffhhj 5y agoI've been in one of those interviews with a person with really bad English. It's a preview of how painful working there is. I just quit the interview after hearing the first question, and a few days later got a nice well-paid job at a larger company with a 30min interview about my previous experience.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- taurath 5y agoIt’s striking how little the author thought to include even the concept of empathy, either in their employees or their disposition towards them. Code machine go brrrrrr.
- MattGaiser 5y agoEmployees are considered commodities. Never forget that.
- darkerside 5y agoPeople seem to be missing that this is targeted at an early stage startup. Honestly, an early stage startup will likely fail without people who are focused on GSD to an unreasonable and unhealthy degree.