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Comment by michaelchisari | Hacker News Reader

It's not about the companies that actually hire the 1%, it's a matter of how many companies claim to hire the 1%.

And more importantly, how come those who claim to hire the 1% never pay anywhere near what might be considered 1% salaries?

I've had small startups talk highly of how they only hire the best, the 1%, the 10xers, etc., then put me through five or six interviews, including the ever-so-common 8 hour white board algorithm test, only to make an offer only marginally higher than I could make as a highly skilled blue collar tradesman.

It's fine if a very select few companies with lots of money decide to have insanely high standards. The problem is when the industry thinks they all deserve to emulate those companies hiring processes.

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There are certainly places that will pay top dollars to hire the absolute top talent, think Putnam or acm winners. It just won't be a startup. It should be obvious why: startups don't have the capital or need to hire absolute best. It will more likely be a hedge fund.

As a whole these startups with ridiculous expectations will have to face reality or suffer the consequences of slow hiring. They will lose in the long run.

Most likely they will. Maybe they won't, because part of the process is a certain indoctrination that their employees are more than just talented or clever, but are actually special. And you can convince an employee of a lot of things if you start by convincing them that they're special.

Mostly, though, I worry about the ripple effect that's been on the industry. I have friends who are in the medical field, dealing directly with surgeries, childbirth, life-saving (or potentially ending) drugs, and they're taken aback by the kind of interview requirements that so many tech companies have. A Nurse Practitioner can get a job in an ER in a heartbeat, but a front-end developer building React components needs a collective two full days of interviews? Something about that just doesn't make sense to me.

A big difference is the amount of formal certification.

A diploma from a med school and associated residency is sufficient to expect that the person knows their speciality and is able to treat people from day one.

A CS diploma and related working experience is some indication, but (sadly) often doesn't ensure that the candidate is able to code their way out of a wet paper bag and will be able to perform reasonably well (not 10x well but 1x or even 80%) after a month or two of on-site adaptation.

Our industry, unlike many others, doesn't have a good (centralized?) way to approve qualifications, so each company has to verify on their own, which takes quite a lot of time and expense.

I agree, that's a big difference.

That said, the dangers of hiring a medical professional who screws up, versus an app/front-end/back-end developer whose code is sub-optimal, means that our industry should hire a lot more easily than it does, and simply let go the employees which underperform.

I think the problem actually doesn't start with hiring, it starts with the kind of "workplace-as-family-and-friends" culture that makes firing so taboo.

Firing is a very important skill for any line manager or business owner. It's not pleasant, and it's complicated in various ways, but not doing it properly, not doing it as soon as appropriate or even not doing it at all is a very expensive failure that hurts everyone involved. You either learn to do it somewhat properly and timely, or you're not qualified for the job yourself.

Your comment reminded me of cperciva's thread where he introduced Tarsnap - at one point someone challenged him about his braggadocio - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079

Also, it's neat to see Drew Houston comment in that thread, who as far as I know didn't win the Putnam, with ~ a billion net worth, and cperciva still working away in relative obscurity.

"Relative obscurity" is a matter of perspective. Within my fields, I'm far better known than Drew.

And that's the key difference here -- we have both been very successful in doing what we want to do. We just want to do different things, that's all.

I'm not trying to throw any shade on you, it's just one of the most memorable threads in HN history in my opinion and interesting to look back at. Cheers!

I doubt I'll ever get an opportunity for such a comeback again. But I do regret that I let my irritation at ivankirigin suggesting that I had a 90% probability of failure carry me away in that thread. I hope I've kept my patience better on HN over the past 8 years.

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