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> Mayer disapproved of the fact that Paltrow did not graduate college. Wow , sorry but wow. Paltrow is famous,more famous than Mayer will ever be.If this thin

by aikah 12y ago

> Mayer disapproved of the fact that Paltrow did not graduate college. Wow , sorry but wow. Paltrow is famous,more famous than Mayer will ever be.If this thing is true,it tells a bit about her personality. In business,you want to associate with famous people that can drive their audience to your product.Does it matter they graduated or not?frankly?

corin_ 12y ago
Presumably they wanted her to actually do the job, not just be the face of the job, so her skills beyond "being famous" would of course matter, like hiring anybody else. Of course that doesn't mean I agree with assuming that no qualifications means can't do the job, but that's unrelated to her being a celebrity (and indeed a commonly debated question with two big groups of people on both sides).
- commandar 12y ago
  >Gwyneth Paltrow had created a best-selling cookbook and popular lifestyle blog A contributing editor job is essentially a writing position. That strongly indicates that she could do the job.
  - corin_ 12y ago
    I'm not arguing that she could (or couldn't), just that whether she could do the job was more than just "she's famous". Personally I fall in the camp of people who will judge on experience more than degrees, clearly Meyer is on the other side.
    - commandar 12y ago
      That's kind of the thing, though. Contributing editors are often brought in because of their notoriety. There's valuing a particular quality in an employee, and then there's being completely misguided in weighting that quality.
    - nerfhammer 12y ago
      Plenty of people could write as well as David Pogue, Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, etc., but the expectation is that those writers will bring the audience. They get seven figure salaries not because they can write articles really well, but that they can bring an audience wherever they go and create revenue worth what they're getting paid
- tomp 12y ago
  Given that a lot of web sales/pageviews has mainly to do with branding (i.e. the more famous you are, the more pageviews you get, making you even more famous), Paltrow's name (and the brand that it carries) is her doing her job.
  - corin_ 12y ago
    It's her doing some of the job. Maybe it's big enough that if the rest of her time was spent sleeping it would still be worth hiring her. Maybe she'd be amazing at the rest of the job, regardless of qualifications. But if you're looking to hire someone to actually run something then being famous isn't enough on its own.
    - commandar 12y ago
      >But if you're looking to hire someone to actually run something then being famous isn't enough on its own. This is what I was touching on downthread and I guess wasn't entirely clear: a contributing editor doesn't run anything. They don't copy-edit other writers' work. They don't manage anyone. They don't touch anything related to the business backend. It's a prestige title given to writers that generate an audience. That's it.
      - corin_ 12y ago
        So is your (and others) assumption that Mayer was literally making a decision based on no logic at all? The reason I made my point was that judging someone based on not having a degree can be considered foolish, judging someone on not having a degree where a degree couldn't even be related isn't foolish it's just nonsense - so I gave Mayer the benefit of the doubt. But maybe I was wrong to?
        commandar 12y ago
        That's exactly why that anecdote has gotten an incredulous reaction. If it's accurate that the position was for a contributing editor for a food blog, caring about a degree is completely nonsensical. It's certainly possible that the story is inaccurate, but it seems to have been included in the article as an intentional example of bizarre decision making.
- colechristensen 12y ago
  Paltrow is 42. Basing hiring decisions for middle aged persons on their college record is incredibly foolish.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    Mayer is 39. She probably doesn't think she's middle-aged (even if she is, and if she is, I don't want to hear about it either ;> ).
- phaus 12y ago
  >Presumably they wanted her to actually do the job, not just be the face of the job, so her skills beyond "being famous" would of course matter, like hiring anybody else. They were thinking about having her write/create content for yahoo. She has already successfully produced content for a long time on her blog. She was completely qualified for the job, but Mayer found a bullshit excuse not to hire her because she simply doesn't like Paltrow.
- smacktoward 12y ago
  Paltrow already runs a web/email publication (Goop: http://goop.com/ http://goop.com/) that's pretty successful. That's why Yahoo was interested in her. Her celebrity status helps, I'm sure, but it's not like they were hiring a clueless airhead to be the public face put on someone else's work.
jdimov 12y ago
corin_ : Companies don't hire famous people to "do the job". They hire them because they are famous. E.g. Alicia Keys at Blackberry, Rihanna at Puma, Will.I.Am at Intel. So, university degree is indeed utterly irrelevant.
- corin_ 12y ago
  Normally they do, but the fact that Mayer cared about her qualifications surely means it was about more than just the famous face. Generally speaking disqualifying someone for not having a degree is (in my opinion, and many others but plenty disagree too) foolish, but if you're only considering her for being famous then nobody would even bother finding out if she had a degree. edit: By the way, if you want to reply to a comment and don't see the reply link (presume that happened to you? ignore me if not), click "link" for that comment and take it from there
  - jdimov 12y ago
    Thanks for the reply tip!

by aikah 12y ago

corin_ 12y ago

Presumably they wanted her to actually do the job, not just be the face of the job, so her skills beyond "being famous" would of course matter, like hiring anybody else. Of course that doesn't mean I agree with assuming that no qualifications means can't do the job, but that's unrelated to her being a celebrity (and indeed a commonly debated question with two big groups of people on both sides).

commandar 12y ago
>Gwyneth Paltrow had created a best-selling cookbook and popular lifestyle blog A contributing editor job is essentially a writing position. That strongly indicates that she could do the job.
- corin_ 12y ago
  I'm not arguing that she could (or couldn't), just that whether she could do the job was more than just "she's famous". Personally I fall in the camp of people who will judge on experience more than degrees, clearly Meyer is on the other side.
  - commandar 12y ago
    That's kind of the thing, though. Contributing editors are often brought in because of their notoriety. There's valuing a particular quality in an employee, and then there's being completely misguided in weighting that quality.
  - nerfhammer 12y ago
    Plenty of people could write as well as David Pogue, Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, etc., but the expectation is that those writers will bring the audience. They get seven figure salaries not because they can write articles really well, but that they can bring an audience wherever they go and create revenue worth what they're getting paid
tomp 12y ago
Given that a lot of web sales/pageviews has mainly to do with branding (i.e. the more famous you are, the more pageviews you get, making you even more famous), Paltrow's name (and the brand that it carries) is her doing her job.
- corin_ 12y ago
  It's her doing some of the job. Maybe it's big enough that if the rest of her time was spent sleeping it would still be worth hiring her. Maybe she'd be amazing at the rest of the job, regardless of qualifications. But if you're looking to hire someone to actually run something then being famous isn't enough on its own.
  - commandar 12y ago
    >But if you're looking to hire someone to actually run something then being famous isn't enough on its own. This is what I was touching on downthread and I guess wasn't entirely clear: a contributing editor doesn't run anything. They don't copy-edit other writers' work. They don't manage anyone. They don't touch anything related to the business backend. It's a prestige title given to writers that generate an audience. That's it.
    - corin_ 12y ago
      So is your (and others) assumption that Mayer was literally making a decision based on no logic at all? The reason I made my point was that judging someone based on not having a degree can be considered foolish, judging someone on not having a degree where a degree couldn't even be related isn't foolish it's just nonsense - so I gave Mayer the benefit of the doubt. But maybe I was wrong to?
      - commandar 12y ago
        That's exactly why that anecdote has gotten an incredulous reaction. If it's accurate that the position was for a contributing editor for a food blog, caring about a degree is completely nonsensical. It's certainly possible that the story is inaccurate, but it seems to have been included in the article as an intentional example of bizarre decision making.
colechristensen 12y ago
Paltrow is 42. Basing hiring decisions for middle aged persons on their college record is incredibly foolish.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Mayer is 39. She probably doesn't think she's middle-aged (even if she is, and if she is, I don't want to hear about it either ;> ).
phaus 12y ago
>Presumably they wanted her to actually do the job, not just be the face of the job, so her skills beyond "being famous" would of course matter, like hiring anybody else. They were thinking about having her write/create content for yahoo. She has already successfully produced content for a long time on her blog. She was completely qualified for the job, but Mayer found a bullshit excuse not to hire her because she simply doesn't like Paltrow.
smacktoward 12y ago
Paltrow already runs a web/email publication (Goop: http://goop.com/ http://goop.com/) that's pretty successful. That's why Yahoo was interested in her. Her celebrity status helps, I'm sure, but it's not like they were hiring a clueless airhead to be the public face put on someone else's work.

jdimov 12y ago

corin_ : Companies don't hire famous people to "do the job". They hire them because they are famous. E.g. Alicia Keys at Blackberry, Rihanna at Puma, Will.I.Am at Intel. So, university degree is indeed utterly irrelevant.

corin_ 12y ago
Normally they do, but the fact that Mayer cared about her qualifications surely means it was about more than just the famous face. Generally speaking disqualifying someone for not having a degree is (in my opinion, and many others but plenty disagree too) foolish, but if you're only considering her for being famous then nobody would even bother finding out if she had a degree. edit: By the way, if you want to reply to a comment and don't see the reply link (presume that happened to you? ignore me if not), click "link" for that comment and take it from there
- jdimov 12y ago
  Thanks for the reply tip!