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I hire for Attitude and Aptitude. If you have a crappy attitude I can't do anything to help you there. If you have the aptitude and your attitude is positive,
by kator 11y ago
I hire for Attitude and Aptitude.
If you have a crappy attitude I can't do anything to help you there.
If you have the aptitude and your attitude is positive, can-do, willing to learn, we can teach you anything you need to know or you can learn it on the job.
I too worry that "Cultural Fit" is becoming the new "don't like them" excuse of the day. I try hard to hire people who think about problems differently than myself or other members of my team. My hope is to get as many angles as possible to see problems from so we together as a team can find solutions that might not have been obvious if each of us has a homogeneous view driven by some bogus "cultural fit".
What I know about my life is I was born with almost none of the skills I leverage every day. From the ability to walk and talk, I've had to learn it all. I feel focusing too much on fit and skills is like judging a baby on how cute it is. Basically useless.
- culturalshit 11y agoCultural Fit is, in fact, routinely used to make discriminatory choices that aren't rooted in anything related to what it takes to succeed. Worse, people like Peter Thiel and Max Levchin celebrate this and encourage other startups not to hire women and not to hire men who are even slightly different than themselves. These are influential people and they're purposefully using their influence to make the world a dramatically worse place. You might think I'm exaggerating, but I'm actually understating the amount of discrimination that they encourage. Good cultural fit is about being able to perform on the team. But most SV cultural fit is about being able to party with the team. It's a different thing. The good news for founders who aren't bigoted assholes is that this means there's less competition for diverse talent, and if you can help those folks know that they'll feel welcome in your office, they'll be knocking at your door.
- clebio 11y agoI'd possibly agree with you, but, can you give references for the allegations about Thiel and Levchin?
- jrs235 11y agoI would love to get your input on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760203
- kator 11y agoInterview them all and get as many people on your team as possible to talk to them. At the end of the day the most important decision a company can make is about hiring. The second is about firing. Do the math, which one has a better ROI?