The weird thing is, why didn't he hire this person in a way that posed less risk to his business? Why is he handing over a gigantic check worth 140,000 of today's dollars? Isn't this person crazy, or at least a terrible businessman? Yet here we all are, listening to his advice. The longer I think about this the more I dislike it.
It sounds like just 40% of a year's severance. Not too much to walk away.
And it's a parable, not a true story. The timing was 1924 - the roaring 20s. It's a commentary against the flashy types, in defense of the folks who put their heads down and work.
Um, he's using this whole episode as an example of what not to do, not what to do. He says right out that hiring that person that way was a mistake. The whole point of the article is to help people avoid the mistakes the author made. How many articles that get to HN's front page are basically the same thing?
If I repeatedly get fucked up and crash Fords over the course of my life while having much better luck with other cars, I might start looking for a causal relationship.
Exactly: that's what the author of the piece is doing. He's had bad luck with a certain type of person while having much better luck with other types of people, and he's analyzing the reasons for that.
I agree it's a terrible hiring mistake. But this is a story about a mistake he made. Without it, there would be no story. (And hopefully he didn't make the same mistake afterward)
Exactly. The lesson isn't to not hire brilliant or average people, but to trial people more gradually. The made up story also attempts to draw a conclusion from an anecdotal level of "evidence." Doesn't seem to stick for some reason.
Risk reductions can be:
- invite people over to hang out, hack on something, or work on whatever they're working on
- start people on a contract gig
- maybe another contract or what works for them
- have an extremely informal non-interview, interview process
- trial period
- eventually FTE status in a set time-frame if both sides want it
I prefer working on contracts that are renewed every now and then. In that way my contributions are constantly evaluated and if for some reason I'm not producing results then there's not a lot of drama involved in letting me go. And I think taking pressure of of clients helps them in the long run to focus on results vs just my salary.
