6 ms·

The thing to really fear is the toxic hire, the /10 or /100 worker. He'll ruin your business while deflecting blame to others, driving away your best employees

by fsk 11y ago

The thing to really fear is the toxic hire, the /10 or /100 worker. He'll ruin your business while deflecting blame to others, driving away your best employees. Don't fear the mediocre worker, fear the toxic worker.

karmajunkie 11y ago
The toxic worker is often the 10x worker. Its not enough to be good at what you do. You have to be someone other people can work with.
- ionforce 11y ago
  I'm going to disagree here, based on personal experience. I've not met a single individual whose contributions were so amazing to make up for their toxic personality. Most all of the toxic people I've worked with have had poor productivity, precisely as a function of their toxicity. Fractional (1/10) workers, at best. 10x workers, to me, are by definition non-toxic.
  - karmajunkie 11y ago
    I mean, its totally fair that that's your experience. But I personally know at least three individuals who fit the archetype of the "10x(-ish) developer" and all of whom have toxic personalities I'd never work with. They may be able to code from scratch in a couple weeks what another team would take months to do, but in terms of the organization they are a loss, because no one can work with them. Certainly, there are developers who fit the mold of what you're talking about. I'm not suggesting that all toxic developers are 10xers. But the ones to really fear hiring are the ones who produce lots of code while they corrode your organization.
    - ryandrake 11y ago
      > in terms of the organization they are a loss If that's true, then they are not "10x developers". Being super-productive, but only by yourself in a vacuum, is next to useless to any company with more than 1 employee.
      - beat 11y ago
        One reason the 10x is a myth.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - fsk 11y ago
        If you're a 5-10 person startup, don't you want to have the person who can write version 1.0 of your product by himself in a couple of weeks? Then, when you start having customers, have a bigger team and redo things cleanly. There's another important fallacy. From the viewpoint of a 10x worker, the /10 worker is toxic. From the viewpoint of a /10 worker, the 10x worker is toxic.
        ryandrake 11y ago
        Not if that person is toxic and awful to work with. I don't care if he's 10X, 20X or 100X (Not that I even believe in the myth of the "10X developer").
  - kemiller 11y ago
    10x in this context usually refers strictly to their programming ability. I've certainly known people I'd consider 10x programmers, who I'd never hire without a specific difficult task that doesn't require collaboration.
- asuffield 11y ago
  I've seen several cases that looked like this superficially, but never a case where it turned out to be true when more closely investigated. Every single time, it has turned out that the "10x worker" who "writes all the important things and knows everything" has been doing essentially nothing for a very long time. Every single time, the primary features of these people have been: * They have an opinion on every subject, and express one in every discussion ("leadership") * For any proposed task, they can give a list of plausible-sounding reasons why it should not be done ("technical expertise") * Nobody challenges them because doing anything that sounds even a little bit like a challenge results in you getting shouted at ("respected by their peers") Words in parentheses are what management sees. Every time I have seen a case where these people have persisted, it has been because a clique of them back each other up and the rest of the people in the company are essentially docile. Every competent engineer who finds themselves in this scenario then discovers that they are (a) outnumbered, and (b) able to find a better job somewhere else, so that's what happens.
  - acveilleux 11y ago
    Thank you.
- kamaal 11y ago
  I can relate to this. I once worked with two very smart people, extremely brilliant and could do amazing things. The only problem is they fought, were ill mannered and chased away every single person who every worked in the team. The manager was powerless because both of them had connections in the higher management and got anything they wanted. The net result was there was never a stable team to get anything significant done. The project never did release anything. Needless to say they blamed everybody else apart from themselves. The last I heard, they did two more projects and met the same fate.
  - fsk 11y ago
    Those weren't 10x people, they were /10 people who were good at tricking other people into thinking they were 10x.
DanielBMarkham 11y ago
And it's not either-or. You can be a 10x worker and be toxic. Sometimes those are the worst to have. You think you need them because they do X, Y, and Z beautifully, but in reality they're destroying morale and tanking everybody else's ability to do A-W. It's very, very easy in this situation to try to put a band-aid on things and hunker down, try to encourage the other folks to just give the toxic person a little more space. But it never works, and the longer you drag it out the more the A-team folks who aren't toxic will jump ship.
- amyjess 11y ago
  Yes, it's much better to hire a team of OK people who will work together as a team than it is to hire a team of superstars who's egos are too big to fit through the door.
  - ionforce 11y ago
    Exploring: Is it possible to have a 10x /team/ rather than a 10x individual?
    - jotm 11y ago
      Well, then you're just working for SpaceX :-)
    - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
      Yes. You can even have a team of 1/10 folks who, put together, work at 10x. More counter-intuitively, you can take a 10x team full of folks everybody agrees are brilliant, stick them in other teams, and have the other teams tank and folks in the other teams think those folks are losers. It's a humbling (and enlightening) thing to watch. ADD: A lot of the myth of the 10 or 100x developer is just a really, really capable guy with a supporting team that is able to meet all of their needs and clear all of their obstacles. The team (including our star) is the cool and irreplaceable part, but the "genius" or "boy wonder" gets all the good press.
      - 11y ago
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Or Napoleon's take on the matter: http://giantrobotlasers.com/post/2486135590/someone-once-asked-napoleon-how-he-decided-where http://giantrobotlasers.com/post/2486135590/someone-once-ask...
- stygiansonic 11y ago
  Similar to Warren Buffett's quote[0]: "You're looking for three things, generally, in a person," says Warren Buffett. "Intelligence, energy, and integrity. And if they don't have the last one, don't even bother with the first two." It's a favourite quote of his, mentioned in this speech[1] as well, around the 1:55 mark. 0. http://theweek.com/articles/451860/why-clever-lazy-people-make-great-leaders http://theweek.com/articles/451860/why-clever-lazy-people-ma... 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEKZI-Pka7I&t=1m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEKZI-Pka7I&t=1m55s
  - ArkyBeagle 11y ago
    This. "How do I know I am doing the right thing?" Every second of every day, you have to keep that in mind.
- oso2k 11y ago
  That's a great quote.
- mxfh 11y ago
  That sounds more like Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, probably misattributed to Napoleon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord#Classification_of_officers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord#Cla...

by fsk 11y ago

karmajunkie 11y ago

The toxic worker is often the 10x worker. Its not enough to be good at what you do. You have to be someone other people can work with.

ionforce 11y ago
I'm going to disagree here, based on personal experience. I've not met a single individual whose contributions were so amazing to make up for their toxic personality. Most all of the toxic people I've worked with have had poor productivity, precisely as a function of their toxicity. Fractional (1/10) workers, at best. 10x workers, to me, are by definition non-toxic.
- karmajunkie 11y ago
  I mean, its totally fair that that's your experience. But I personally know at least three individuals who fit the archetype of the "10x(-ish) developer" and all of whom have toxic personalities I'd never work with. They may be able to code from scratch in a couple weeks what another team would take months to do, but in terms of the organization they are a loss, because no one can work with them. Certainly, there are developers who fit the mold of what you're talking about. I'm not suggesting that all toxic developers are 10xers. But the ones to really fear hiring are the ones who produce lots of code while they corrode your organization.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    > in terms of the organization they are a loss If that's true, then they are not "10x developers". Being super-productive, but only by yourself in a vacuum, is next to useless to any company with more than 1 employee.
    - beat 11y ago
      One reason the 10x is a myth.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
    - fsk 11y ago
      If you're a 5-10 person startup, don't you want to have the person who can write version 1.0 of your product by himself in a couple of weeks? Then, when you start having customers, have a bigger team and redo things cleanly. There's another important fallacy. From the viewpoint of a 10x worker, the /10 worker is toxic. From the viewpoint of a /10 worker, the 10x worker is toxic.
      - ryandrake 11y ago
        Not if that person is toxic and awful to work with. I don't care if he's 10X, 20X or 100X (Not that I even believe in the myth of the "10X developer").
- kemiller 11y ago
  10x in this context usually refers strictly to their programming ability. I've certainly known people I'd consider 10x programmers, who I'd never hire without a specific difficult task that doesn't require collaboration.
asuffield 11y ago
I've seen several cases that looked like this superficially, but never a case where it turned out to be true when more closely investigated. Every single time, it has turned out that the "10x worker" who "writes all the important things and knows everything" has been doing essentially nothing for a very long time. Every single time, the primary features of these people have been: * They have an opinion on every subject, and express one in every discussion ("leadership") * For any proposed task, they can give a list of plausible-sounding reasons why it should not be done ("technical expertise") * Nobody challenges them because doing anything that sounds even a little bit like a challenge results in you getting shouted at ("respected by their peers") Words in parentheses are what management sees. Every time I have seen a case where these people have persisted, it has been because a clique of them back each other up and the rest of the people in the company are essentially docile. Every competent engineer who finds themselves in this scenario then discovers that they are (a) outnumbered, and (b) able to find a better job somewhere else, so that's what happens.
- acveilleux 11y ago
  Thank you.
kamaal 11y ago
I can relate to this. I once worked with two very smart people, extremely brilliant and could do amazing things. The only problem is they fought, were ill mannered and chased away every single person who every worked in the team. The manager was powerless because both of them had connections in the higher management and got anything they wanted. The net result was there was never a stable team to get anything significant done. The project never did release anything. Needless to say they blamed everybody else apart from themselves. The last I heard, they did two more projects and met the same fate.
- fsk 11y ago
  Those weren't 10x people, they were /10 people who were good at tricking other people into thinking they were 10x.

DanielBMarkham 11y ago

And it's not either-or. You can be a 10x worker and be toxic. Sometimes those are the worst to have. You think you need them because they do X, Y, and Z beautifully, but in reality they're destroying morale and tanking everybody else's ability to do A-W. It's very, very easy in this situation to try to put a band-aid on things and hunker down, try to encourage the other folks to just give the toxic person a little more space. But it never works, and the longer you drag it out the more the A-team folks who aren't toxic will jump ship.

amyjess 11y ago
Yes, it's much better to hire a team of OK people who will work together as a team than it is to hire a team of superstars who's egos are too big to fit through the door.
- ionforce 11y ago
  Exploring: Is it possible to have a 10x /team/ rather than a 10x individual?
  - jotm 11y ago
    Well, then you're just working for SpaceX :-)
  - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
    Yes. You can even have a team of 1/10 folks who, put together, work at 10x. More counter-intuitively, you can take a 10x team full of folks everybody agrees are brilliant, stick them in other teams, and have the other teams tank and folks in the other teams think those folks are losers. It's a humbling (and enlightening) thing to watch. ADD: A lot of the myth of the 10 or 100x developer is just a really, really capable guy with a supporting team that is able to meet all of their needs and clear all of their obstacles. The team (including our star) is the cool and irreplaceable part, but the "genius" or "boy wonder" gets all the good press.
    - 11y ago

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

Or Napoleon's take on the matter: http://giantrobotlasers.com/post/2486135590/someone-once-asked-napoleon-how-he-decided-where http://giantrobotlasers.com/post/2486135590/someone-once-ask...

stygiansonic 11y ago
Similar to Warren Buffett's quote[0]: "You're looking for three things, generally, in a person," says Warren Buffett. "Intelligence, energy, and integrity. And if they don't have the last one, don't even bother with the first two." It's a favourite quote of his, mentioned in this speech[1] as well, around the 1:55 mark. 0. http://theweek.com/articles/451860/why-clever-lazy-people-make-great-leaders http://theweek.com/articles/451860/why-clever-lazy-people-ma... 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEKZI-Pka7I&t=1m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEKZI-Pka7I&t=1m55s
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  This. "How do I know I am doing the right thing?" Every second of every day, you have to keep that in mind.
oso2k 11y ago
That's a great quote.
mxfh 11y ago
That sounds more like Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, probably misattributed to Napoleon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord#Classification_of_officers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord#Cla...