4 ms·
> O(n) companies can’t afford to hire the absolute best talent. O(n) companies tend to have more experienced founders and engineers in my experience. This is p
by danjl 1y ago
> O(n) companies can’t afford to hire the absolute best talent.
O(n) companies tend to have more experienced founders and engineers in my experience. This is partly why they have "nice deadlines, clear SoW" and "understand their customers" enough to have PMF. The strength of their talent, experience and job networks often greatly outweighs the cash incentives, allowing them to hire top candidates. They do not just hire "to fit a job description" because, since money was tighter, they are super conservative about hiring, have always done the job they are hiring for themselves for a long time, and know exactly what they need. It is the O(n^2) companies that hire for job descriptions that fit the positions the VCs tell them they need. I think your experiential datapoints may be too sparse.
- jbmsf 1y agoAnd also, engineers who are sick of the stupidity that comes from having too much VC money and not enough wisdom to use it.
- Aurornis 1y agoIn my experience the heavily VC funded companies have a lot of very talented and experienced people, too. But they have so much money and pressure to hire that they start dipping deeper and deeper into their candidate pipeline. They start lowering their standards to keep the employee count growing. This results in a mix of talented people trying to get work done and a lot of people who are good at interviewing and stretching the truth about their experience. Every time I’ve been at a company like this, they tell themselves they’ll hire fast and fire fast to compensate. Then they never fire fast or at all, because nobody wants their little empire to shrink.
- ryandrake 1y agoThe vast, vast majority of companies don't need "the absolute best talent." Their product is a JSON interface to someone else's service. You don't need John Carmack to write that. Companies comically overestimate the level of talent they actually need, and let positions stay open for months, sometimes years, looking for that unicorn programmer they don't actually need, and passing up hundreds of candidates who would work out fine.
- ocean_moist 1y agoExperience != talent. Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that they hire the minimum needing to succeed in a well defined role. Startups aren't afforded this comfort as the roles are not well defined.