
How B players hire C players (2018) - deepaksurti
http://john.freml.in/how-b-players-hire-c-players
======
pmoriarty
_" Steve Jobs is popularly quoted, `A players hire A players; B players hire C
players; and C players hire D players. It doesn't take long to get to Z
players. This trickle-down effect causes bozo explosions in companies.'"_

So who hires the B players?

~~~
simula67
An A player who thought a B player was an A player

~~~
arcturus17
So maybe the hiring A player is also a B player after all?

~~~
simula67
I think the quote is meant to convey that 'A players only want to hire A
players', 'B players only want to hire C players' and so on

------
fogetti
This is the prime example how one makes false assumptions and then build a
whole train of thoughts and arguments so to justify that inherent false cause
which is not proven in any way.

Namely: people who are CEOs and (hiring) managers are not even close to be the
best. More often than not they are instead: privileged, socially well
positioned and well educated people who have the right connections to rely on.

It seems the author have never heard of nepotism either. Or the so ubiquitous
way of hiring former institution leaders as industry lobbyists, etc.

And one more false assumption: interviewers can better judge the skills of the
candidate than the candidate itself. Where is this myth stemming from? No
clue.

Other than the ton of false assumptions it is based on it's a good read still.

------
gamblor956
People who think they're A players are almost always F players with better
marketing. B and C players are usually the most competent but aren't full of
themselves. My most successful clients were all run and staffed by B and C
execs and employees. And without fail, all the failures were run by so-called
A players.

~~~
rowanG077
That makes zero sense. If they were all failured they where not A players by
definition.

------
ntock
This article isn’t worth reading because no real conclusions are drawn and the
points made are pretty scattered.

The idea of differently tiered workplaces is obviously a popular one, with
FANG and the academic/consulting/finance/law equivalents.

------
ronilan
This can be formatted as an interview question.

Imagine a world in which:

1\. A players only hire A players;

2\. B players hire C players; and C players hire D players etc. all the way
down to Z players.

Assume that:

1\. The trickle-down effect from B to Z causes bozo explosions in companies.

2\. Bozo explosions are bad.

3\. No one knows what letter player they are.

Q: Find a hiring method.

~~~
trevyn
Wait, this is easy — have candidates _interview each other_ , and extend
offers to every pair that would hire each other.

~~~
ronilan
Smart (and good rationalization for the acquihires).

------
29athrowaway
Hiring A people does not make your company an A company.

Focusing only on hiring is cherry-picking the easy part. The harder part is to
pair them with the right opportunities, listening to them and retaining them.

Steve Jobs also said: "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell
them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do."

------
cortesoft
> If our aim is to hire the best, why do we often fail?

Umm, because there aren't enough of 'the best' to go around? Only 10% of
people are going to be in the top 10%, by definition, and everyone wants to
hire them. It is a zero sum game.

Not everyone can win.

~~~
r00fus
It gets more interesting. An A player in one company may not even be B
material in a new outfit.

Or perhaps an A player had a life change (e.g. parents experiencing medical
issues) and isn't capable of doing what (s)he used to do.

The flipside (B players becoming A players) is also possible. Have seen it
happen before.

------
praveenster
“One of the other interviewers was a famous figure in an academic branch of
engineering. The interviewee argued with the famous figure. It seemed to me
that the candidate was probably right but the interviewer was so offended we
couldn't extend an offer.”

This, to me, looks like the famous figure had too much ego. I wonder if that
makes them a B player instead of an A?

------
davesque
I've hired C players because I thought they could grow into A players. I've
passed on other C players because they didn't seem like they could grow.

------
sytelus
Whenever someone say this line, I ask them how would they go on to define "B
player". Most would think they intuitively know this but I've rarely seen
people actually able to crystallize this effectively. In fact, when people
actually put an effort to define this it would quickly become apparent how
badly they have misunderstood this fundamental. I've some thoughts on this but
I rather not bias HN crowd here :). But here's the hint:

1\. B player is not someone who doesn't know X.

2\. B player is also not someone who said in their resume that they know X but
they actually didn't knew X all that well.

Now your turn!

------
0xBA5ED
All this ABC crap is a distraction from considering the breadth of a
candidate's strengths and weaknesses from a multifaceted perspective, as well
as how they might compliment the team. I'm disappointed in you guys for
humoring this kind of subjective garbage!

~~~
bjornedstrom
This is not garbage. It's just a fact of life that some people are better than
others in a professional environment, often in multiple ways, taking
everything you say into account.

As everything else in life its priority and effort mixed in with a bit of
affinity. Not everyone want to put in the effort and time to become top tier
in their profession: those who do obviously become better than those who
don't.

~~~
0xBA5ED
It is garbage. It's an arrogant mental shortcut that has little predictive
value and encourages a dismissive attitude towards people in general. The fact
that people are better and worse at certain things is beside the point. If
you're going to categorize people, there are better ways to do it.

~~~
Reelin
I agree with you and would like to add that this sort of thinking is typical
elitism. Such simplified models utterly fail to account for all the
inconvenient complications of real life and thus do far more harm than good
when acted upon.

Consider what happens if the project being hired for is unexpectedly canceled
soon after hiring. Or internal politics and personality conflicts end up being
an issue. It doesn't take much turnover at all to completely change the
dynamics of a team, regardless of whether or not all the replacements are
equally skilled.

Teams are complex systems. Such mental shortcuts provide a false sense of
knowledge (and usually superiority) for those who otherwise fail to understand
the logistic and social complexities involved. Real life isn't an RPG with a
level system; the fact that this even needs to be pointed out to otherwise
intelligent and well educated people is outrageous.

------
MattPalmer1086
I always saw this as meaning capable people are not threatened by working with
other capable people so try to hire the best, whereas mediocre people see
people more capable than themselves as a threat, so hire below their ability.

Obviously it's a huge generalisation, and I don't know how much truth there is
in it.

------
qqqwerty
Random tangent, but the craziness around job interviews and hiring is one of
the many reasons I think we need Universal Basic Income and Universal
Healthcare. In a world where firing an employee doesn't completely upend their
life, I fell like companies would be more willing to take a chance on an
interviewee that shows promise but might not hit all their marks. Also, a UBI
would make it easier for folks to train up and prep on their own time, which
seems to be expected these days.

I think our corporate overlords are perfectly fine with the status quo, as the
lack of a safety net generally means they get the upper hand in negotiations.
But I think from a societal point of view, UBI would result in a more dynamic
and competitive business environment by rebalancing the power dynamics between
labor and capital. I also think the European socialist countries got it wrong.
A strong social safety net should be coupled with looser labor laws (to some
degree, I think health and safety regulations should always be strong, among
others). But it seems like their strict labor laws have resulted in a
stagnation of sorts, causing issues in their economy. We should let companies
hire and fire easy, and set their wages as low as they want, but we should
also provide enough of of a safety net where people are not forced to take
those jobs if they do not want to. That would restore some balance in the
economy, and I think it would be a big win from a quality of life perspective
as well.

------
quickthrower2
How do you measure someone’s player level?

~~~
r00fus
Easy - if you consider yourself an A player, then someone who's as good as or
better than you on multiple dimensions.

The problem comes with 1) classifying yourself 2) being able to classify
others who are significantly unlike you in a short window (interviewing
timeframe).

------
russellbeattie
My experience has been that B players want to hire C players because of pity
and empathy. A players don't have any, which is why they're A players. A
players see someone who is less capable and don't think, "Wow, I can totally
relate," They think, "How is it possible someone could be so incompetent?" Or
even if they do have a modicum of sympathy, it's not enough to want to help
the other person out by hiring them. By definition, B players don't have that
last little bit of knowledge, skill, talent or experience which lets them get
to the next level, so they can't see it in others either. This means they
relate to C players or D players as just others on the same path - maybe with
a little less capability, but just as good in general. A players understand
how far away other people are from being at their level almost instinctively,
and act accordingly.

------
ggm
The Harvard experience is that only recruiting geniuses is counter productive
because people fail in-role and with nobody dumber than you around, its a big
no-no.

Actually, to be less ass-hole like and not completely a-social isn't it worth
recognising that talent and input is multi-faceted, and that what _you_ rate
as A-star may be somebody else's D-star?

I think this tier of hiring is bullshit: I've hired people far smarter than
me, and less smarter than the other guy, and its normal.

Jobs was not god, and was not right all the time, and was horrendously wrong
about many things: one button mice and liver cancer to name but two.

What does Woz say about this model?

~~~
Gibbon1
I think a thing that gets lost in all this is more important than anything is
the person have a good working awareness of their limitations and enough
tenacious to finish things.

A self aware but tenacious D-star is better than a A-star with a squirrel
mentality.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
> A self aware but tenacious D-star is better than a A-star with a squirrel
> mentality.

No way. I'd rather have a D player who stays in their lane and doesn't fuck
things up than one who thinks they are improving their performance by
outputting a greater quantity of garbage work.

~~~
Gibbon1
'self-aware'

------
wirrbel
uh, there is so much questionable things in this piece I don't even know where
to start.

First the scale, "A players (top 20%), B players (70%) and C players (bottom
10%)". It assumes there is an objective metric with which people can be
ranked, and it assumes that there is a defined pool of people that you can
classify people.

I have an experience from a company restructuring. Two managers wanted to get
me into their team and were having conversations with me. Both kind of
outlined the teams they want to build and which colleagues to include (and
which colleagues they would try to keep in the other team). Funnily enough,
they were sometimes thrilled about wanting to add people to the team I knew
that were C players (my subjective ranking scale), and at times made
condascending remarks about true A players (my subjective ranking scale). It's
just that their ranking scale was different from mine. One of the rock-stars
they all wanted was a net negative person in terms of problems they created
for the company, and problems they solved for the company. Both managers held
that person in highest regards. It just wasn't as visible for managers, how
problematic the work of that person was

Conclusion: Ranking is subjective / depends on the person who ranks.
Management does not take all aspects into account.

Next simplification is, that "B players" hire "C players", while "A players"
hire "A players". Obviously this is BS, because as I just outlined, ranking
people depends on the person making the ranking. But it shows the fallacy of
the meritocracy-thinking. So consider this. The person making this statement
considers themself closely aligned to the "A player" group (if not to be part
of the A player group). They "must be", otherwise they wouldn't be in
leadership positions. So implicitly this line is about not trusting the team
to make hiring decisions. It is a rationalization of one's position.

Later on the articles goes on about interview situations and I think the
descriptions of the situations are actually quite fair. But again, I don't
believe the author draws the proper conclusions.

"Unfortunately, he wasn't enthusiastic about joining our company —
understandably. He would have been working with people much less capable" It's
not quite clear from the article whether this is a statement the applicant
made, or whether its a conclusion from the author. I believe it is the latter.
I have been in similar situations when I knew more than those who screened me
(it's so common, you don't need to be smarter or more educated, you just have
done different kind of projects over your career). Knowing more than those who
interviewed me was never a red flag, in fact, it's the common situation with a
manager who has not engineered in a while.

Oh, and isn't "One of the other interviewers was a famous figure in an
academic branch of engineering" a case of an "A player" not hiring an "A
player"?

Please spare us with these simplified meritocracy-wisdoms. Let's talk about
the interesting aspects of hiring: Hiring the right people and building good
and effective teams. How to get a diverse skill set into the team, how to
foster good communication, how to balance innovation and operations skills.

------
CoolGuySteve
I hate this style of inductive reasoning when it comes to hiring. You start
with an old-wives tale that is intuitive but not empirically verified and
probably wrong, like "B players hire C players" etc, and then extrapolate
until your behaviour is asinine. The whole time it's justified with some
bullshit about "the cost of a bad hire" (often by people who never see the
financial numbers).

So let's induce why this is ridiculous: Lets say I "only hire the best" and
send my candidate through 8 interviewers. Each interviewer has veto power.

Now I have a really good candidate. You can ask him ANYTHING about the whole
of computer science theory (because that's how we cargo cult our interview
process here at A-Player Corp) and he has a 95% chance of acing the interview
without offending the interviewer by wearing the wrong coloured shirt or
whatever. Only A players know salmon shirts are last year.

Well I've now constructed a binomial trail with a 33.7% chance of one or more
people failing the candidate.

And that's for a candidate that can pass 19/20 of these quiz interviews. Zod
help you if you're one of those dunces who can only impress 80% of these
A-player interviewers. You have an 83.2% chance of failing the day of
interviews in that case.

Each of these days interviewing is a day you have to take of work in vacation
time. 90% of the time I've gone through these interviews, when I ask what I'll
actually be doing, it's usually really dumb shit dressed up as "We solve hard
problems" OR the interviewer looks at you slyly and says "I'm not allowed to
talk about what I work on" as if he's Nerd James Bond.

At least in finance, the lower status the guy is, the more likely he is to
pull a Nerd James Bond. Market data parser writers will always pull this shit
while the chief strategist will gladly talk about all sorts of generalized
alpha signals.

The whole process is fucking broken. No other industry that I know of works
this way. So I just get jobs via people I know.

~~~
benatkin
> The whole process is fucking broken. No other industry that I know of works
> this way. So I just get jobs via people I know.

This is why articles like his get to the front page. You may be more correct
because you aren't making any claims, but I'd rather listen to an idea that's
actionable. Especially one that is more likely to cause me to err on the side
of not hiring a good candidate than it is to cause me to err on the side of
hiring a bad candidate.

If this article's correct, and I suspect it is, it's important for CTOs to
read it, because this is the sort of thing that's better to not become
official policy. If there's a team that has 75% A players, they should let the
non-A players be involved in the interview process to keep the ship running
smooth, but sneakily disregard their input.

~~~
CoolGuySteve
Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.

Homer: Oh, how does it work?

Lisa: It doesn't work.

Homer: Uh-huh.

Lisa: It's just a stupid rock.

Homer: Uh-huh.

Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?

Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

