Hacker Bits, April 2016
HACKER BITS is the monthly magazine that gives you the hottest technology and startup stories crowdsources by the readers of Hacker News. We select from the top voted stories for you and publish them in an easy-to-read magazine format. Get HACKER BITS delivered to your inbox every month! For more, visit http://hackerbits.com.
HACKER BITS is the monthly magazine that gives you the hottest technology and startup stories crowdsources by the readers of Hacker News. We select from the top voted stories for you and publish them in an easy-to-read magazine format.
Get HACKER BITS delivered to your inbox every month! For more, visit http://hackerbits.com.
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One of the most common<br />
pieces of advice you'll get<br />
as a startup is this:<br />
Only hire the best. The<br />
quality of the people that<br />
work at your company<br />
will be one of the biggest<br />
factors in your success – or<br />
failure.<br />
I've heard this advice over<br />
and over and over at startup<br />
events, to the point that I got a<br />
little sick of hearing it. It's not<br />
wrong. Putting aside the fact<br />
that every single other startup in<br />
the world who heard this same<br />
advice before you is already out<br />
there frantically doing everything<br />
they can to hire all the<br />
best people out from under you<br />
and everyone else, it is superficially<br />
true. A company staffed<br />
by a bunch of people who don't<br />
care about their work and aren't<br />
good at their jobs isn't exactly<br />
poised for success. But in a<br />
room full of people giving advice<br />
to startups, nobody wants to<br />
talk about the elephant in that<br />
room:<br />
It doesn't matter how<br />
good the people are at<br />
your company when you<br />
happen to be working on<br />
the wrong problem, at<br />
the wrong time, using the<br />
wrong approach.<br />
Most startups, statistically<br />
speaking, are going to fail.<br />
And they will fail regardless<br />
of whether they hired "the best"<br />
due to circumstances largely<br />
beyond their control. So in that<br />
context does maximizing for the<br />
best possible hires really make<br />
sense?<br />
Given the risks, I think maybe<br />
"hire the nuttiest risk junkie<br />
adrenaline addicted has-ideas-<br />
so-crazy-they-will-never-work<br />
people you can find" might<br />
actually be more practical startup<br />
advice. (Actually, now that I<br />
think about it, if that describes<br />
you, and you have serious Linux,<br />
Ruby, and JavaScript chops, perhaps<br />
you should email me.)<br />
Okay, the goal is to increase<br />
your chance of success, however<br />
small it may be, therefore you<br />
should strive to hire the best.<br />
Seems reasonable, even noble<br />
in its way. But this pursuit of the<br />
best unfortunately comes with<br />
a serious dark side. Can anyone<br />
even tell me what "best" is? By<br />
what metrics? Judged by which<br />
results? How do we measure<br />
this? Who among us is suitable<br />
to judge others as the best at…<br />
what, exactly? Best is an extreme.<br />
Not pretty good, not very<br />
good, not excellent, but aiming<br />
for the crème de la crème, the<br />
top 1% in the industry.<br />
The real trouble with<br />
using a lot of mediocre<br />
programmers instead of a<br />
couple of good ones is that<br />
no matter how long they<br />
work, they never produce<br />
something as good as what<br />
the great programmers<br />
can produce.<br />
Pursuit of this extreme means<br />
hiring anyone less than the best<br />
becomes unacceptable, even<br />
harmful:<br />
Credit: www.cbinsights.com<br />
hacker bits<br />
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