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>I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR. from: "The trick Max Levchin used to hire the best engineers at PayPal" Levchin realized the
by hkmurakami 13y ago
>I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR.
from: "The trick Max Levchin used to hire the best engineers at PayPal"
Levchin realized the best engineers wanted to be challenged both in their jobs and in the interview process. “We cultivated a very public culture of being incredibly hard to get in. Even though it was actually very hard to get good people to even interview, we made a point of broadcasting that it's incredibly hard to even so much as get into the door at PayPal. You have to be IQ of 190 to begin with, and then you have to be an amazing coder, and then five other requirements. The really, really smart people looked at it and said, "That's a challenge. I'm going to go interview there just to prove to these suckers that I'm better." Of course, by end of the conversation, I'm like, "Maybe you want to come get a job here because you're pretty amazing.”
http://firstround.com/article/the-trick-max-levchin-used-to-hire-the-best-engineers-at-PayPal##ixzz2WkjzibOA* http://firstround.com/article/the-trick-max-levchin-used-to-...
- skrebbel 13y agoThat does filter out the genius engineers who aren't also arrogant, doesn't it? (which might not be a problem)
- hkmurakami 13y agoearlier in the interview he talks about preferring avoiding false positives over missing out on false negatives, so this practice does fit into their philosophy.
- skrebbel 13y agoI suspected so. Still, as a super-amazingly competent genius engineer with no self esteem, I hope not many companies follow their lead.
- hkmurakami 13y agoimo such nice people do well by depending on nice friends who can introduce them to competent, well meaning teams (I know a few here and do my best to play matchmaker) Btw I noticed you like C# (from your profile) so I automatically like you haha :)
- skrebbel 13y agohah :) I wonder whether the downvote is because of the C# line.
- peterjancelis 13y agoYou see yourself as a "super-amazingly competent genius engineer" yet lack self esteem? What would stop you from applying at a company with a hiring PR strategy as described by Levchin? They aren't looking for confidence in all fields of life, just the technical job related part...
- hkmurakami 13y agothere's probably a bit of sarcasm and hyperbole in his words ;)
- mseebach 13y agoWhat's the point of hiring a super-amazingly competent genius engineer if he's going to sit in a corner and think he's wrong all the time? If you don't offer your genius to the team, you might as well not have it. And no, parceling out work for you to go and excel at on your own is likely not a good use of your skill.
- stephenhuey 13y agoI'm sure loads of amazing projects throughout history have been pulled off with great assistance from amazingly competent people who were hesitant about their abilities. It'd be interesting to find out if more teams are successful with arrogant or humble people. Perhaps you're just more likely to hear about the successes of arrogant people thanks to their loud trumpeting about themselves.
- pekk 13y agoWhat a pile of bullying bullshit. If someone is skilled, they are skilled completely apart from whether they are constantly advertising themselves and putting other people down as worse than them.
- rhizome 13y agoWhat's the point of hiring a super-amazingly competent genius engineer if he's going to sit in a corner and think he's wrong all the time? Think of it this way: someone who is concerned with not doing the wrong thing is going to be more sure that what they do come up with is the right thing, that they aren't reinventing the wheel badly.
- sliverstorm 13y agoYes, but someone who is paralyzed by fear of doing the wrong thing is never going to invent the wheel, forget about whether or not it has actually been invented yet.
- rhizome 13y agoIt seems a little extreme to jump to "paralyzed by fear." I mean, the person got the job in the first place.
- da02 13y agoThat seems to be a good thing. They get together after lots of rejections and start a sleep little company that goes on to impress the world. Either that or they stay in academia. (eg Niklaus Wirth)
- kybernetyk 13y ago> "That's a challenge. I'm going to go interview there just to prove to these suckers that I'm better." Well that, or: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- SatvikBeri 13y agoDunning Kruger does not mean that unskilled people think they do better than skilled people. On average, the more competent people at any skill will rate their abilities higher than the less competent people. See this graph[0] from the original study[1] for a better explanation. [0]: https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/p480x480/182799_538500000684_24255961_n.jpg https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/p480x... [1]: http://ttsg.org/pdfs/Dunning-Kruger%20Effect.pdf http://ttsg.org/pdfs/Dunning-Kruger%20Effect.pdf
- kybernetyk 13y agoI meant it the other way round: That some smart people won't have that "I show 'em" attitude and won't even try because they think they are too bad anyways.
- ndefinite 13y agoThe chart supports that assumption to some extent. The smartest are under estimating their percentile.
- skwirl 13y agoIt would also unfortunately filter out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
- themstheones 13y agoThere are approximately 7 people on earth with an IQ of 190 or higher, so I'm calling bullshit on that requirement.
- rollo_tommasi 13y agoThat's clearly hyperbole to illustrate the perception they wanted to create, not an actual checkbox on the hiring form.
- nostrademons 13y agoI've seen this misconception twice on the thread now, so I'm calling it out: IQ is not normally distributed. It has fat tails: the extreme ends of the distribution are much more common than a normal distribution would suggest. Some quick Googling indicated that Terman's data on high-IQ people (1921) showed IQs at 4 SDs (160ish) are about 15x more common than a Gaussian would predict, while at 5+ SDs (175-200ish) they can be up to 1000x more common than a Gaussian.
- Alex3917 13y ago> IQ is not normally distributed. IQ is actually normally distributed by definition. Actual intelligence, if such a thing exists, may not be. The reason for Terman's finding is that there aren't any IQ tests that are valid for people with extremely high IQ.
- nostrademons 13y agoThen you get into "What's the definition of IQ?" You could argue that IQ is a theoretical construct that's defined to average 100 with a standard deviation of 15 - but then, if you can't measure it with any tests, and when you do try to measure it the tests come up with different numbers, what's the point? In my physics courses, my professors were always very careful to stress that "If the theory says one thing and the data says another, it's the theory that needs to change." (Well, unless it's a student lab report that measures the speed of light as different from the commonly accepted value. ;-))
- Retric 13y agoLooking for people with high IQ's with the right background is basically a waste of time. There are plenty of ways to define IQ's but 160 is around 1 in 30,000 and there are only something like ~200 graduating highschool each year. If 5 percent of them study programming you looking a say 10 new genius programmers every year. And plenty of them avoid SV for reasons as simple as the limited dating pool. The simple truth is large companies end up with a few geniuses randomly but there rare enough to not be worth optimizing for. What companies really want are people willing to work ridiculously hard for little reason and that's what 'hard' interviews are optimized for. O your willing to put up with hours of BS on the off chance we will higher you, great let's just see how you like 60h+ weeks.
- lelandbatey 13y agoI'm pretty sure that was mostly hyperbole, with the intention being "we hire smart, clever people" however you choose to qualify that.
- killermonkeys 13y agoYes lack of dates has always been a big complaint at the Palo Alto MENSA meet ups.
- reinhardt 13y agoBazinga!
- fuzzywalrus 13y agoTo add: Genius isn't even a predictor of success. Granted, intelligence is a useful tool, its only one of many things that govern success. Sometimes "genius" can be in impediment to success. Humans are hive minded despite our best attempts to assert otherwise. A modern computer or a modern bridge can't be built from scratch by one person. A genius can certainly help raise the bar, but a cohesive unit capable of achieving the end result is going to be a better optimization strategy.
- nostrademons 13y agoIQ has fat tails: the extreme ends of the distribution are much more common than a bell curve would predict.
- ArekDymalski 13y agoThis story is a great example of what happens if you mix up employer branding with recruitment process. Attracting talent is one thing, while defining what actually "talent" means for your company (in terms of competencies required for the job) and how to measure it - now that's completely different story. In an extreme case you can end up with ultra-smart, over-qualified people who will be disappointed by the boring, uninspiring every-day tasks they're assigned to. The goal of recruitment is not to get "the best people", but to get the people who will consistently deliver business results.