4 ms·

I can imagine that for a company with a runway measured in months, immediate skills might be more important than for a well established company.

codewright 14y ago
Specific skills weren't the issue in my interviews. I was remarking more on the pettiness of the founders I talked to. That aside, both of my interviews at YC companies (two, although I've talked to a lot of YC'ers besides), had profitability so the typical runway concerns weren't predominating their conccerns I would think.
yummyfajitas 14y ago
I'm not sure about this. When I was at my startup, I hired a guy with no Django experience and minimal python. He made his first bug fix within 24 hours of showing up and was productive within a week. Maybe RoR has a much steeper learning curve, or maybe the people doing the hiring just don't get it.
- codewright 14y ago
  >When I was at my startup, I hired a guy with no Django experience and minimal python. He made his first bug fix within 24 hours of showing up and was productive within a week. I had the same experience with Django walking in with the same repertoire (minimal Python, no Django) back when I lived in NYC. I don't do Django anymore, but it taught me a lot about trusting people to pick things up on the fly. Especially with the right person and environment.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
In that case what's the cost of having the position completely unfilled for a month or two? Seems like it would be so drastically high that hiring a MVC (Minimal Viable Candidate) might be the right choice.
npsimons 14y ago
This was my first thought, although it comes from my POV where I think I am a slow learner because I can't pickup a new programming language over a weekend. I'm still exploring the dark corners of C++ after a year or two, but mostly that's due to the demands of the current and previous project. I went through the whole Python tutorial once, to never use it much again, then flubbed a Google on-site because of it. On the flipside, when given a week to work up some post-proc analysis code and the opportunity to do it Python, I was up and running in a little less than a day. It's amazing what you can do when you have access to reference materials and more than 60 minutes.

codewright 14y ago

Specific skills weren't the issue in my interviews. I was remarking more on the pettiness of the founders I talked to. That aside, both of my interviews at YC companies (two, although I've talked to a lot of YC'ers besides), had profitability so the typical runway concerns weren't predominating their conccerns I would think.

yummyfajitas 14y ago

I'm not sure about this. When I was at my startup, I hired a guy with no Django experience and minimal python. He made his first bug fix within 24 hours of showing up and was productive within a week. Maybe RoR has a much steeper learning curve, or maybe the people doing the hiring just don't get it.

codewright 14y ago
>When I was at my startup, I hired a guy with no Django experience and minimal python. He made his first bug fix within 24 hours of showing up and was productive within a week. I had the same experience with Django walking in with the same repertoire (minimal Python, no Django) back when I lived in NYC. I don't do Django anymore, but it taught me a lot about trusting people to pick things up on the fly. Especially with the right person and environment.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

In that case what's the cost of having the position completely unfilled for a month or two? Seems like it would be so drastically high that hiring a MVC (Minimal Viable Candidate) might be the right choice.

npsimons 14y ago

This was my first thought, although it comes from my POV where I think I am a slow learner because I can't pickup a new programming language over a weekend. I'm still exploring the dark corners of C++ after a year or two, but mostly that's due to the demands of the current and previous project. I went through the whole Python tutorial once, to never use it much again, then flubbed a Google on-site because of it. On the flipside, when given a week to work up some post-proc analysis code and the opportunity to do it Python, I was up and running in a little less than a day. It's amazing what you can do when you have access to reference materials and more than 60 minutes.