3 ms·

if something happens comprehensively across fields, it's likely to be a good idea. the idea that one guy who interviewed people "properly" could assemble a team

• godelski 2y ago
  > if something happens comprehensively across fields, it's likely to be a good idea. I don't have high confidence that this is likely. I've seen a lot of bad habits happen simply because "that's how X does it." Which often misses a lot of context. Those things matter, and often matter a lot. Not to mention that information is always passed via a game of telephone [0]. This is related to "trust, but verify". If a big player is doing something it is worth looking at to see if it's a good idea for you. Same with when something is popular. But you have to be careful too. It's easy to miss context or small details that make a big difference. As an example, Google has a surplus of high quality candidates. Any arbitrary filter is helpful to them as they just need to down select. So a highly noisy process (i.e. random with a small bias) will yield good results for them. You'll even MEASURE positive results! This isn't necessarily (might be, might not be) true for anyone who isn't big tech or highly bureaucratic. (Same is true for college admissions) It's important to remember that big players don't maintain their status simply because no other can out innovate. Rather momentum is a bitch. It can make up for a lack of innovation and still out compete. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_game