
Here's what Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said that really made me angry - Hansi
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-204754971.html
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justin_vanw
It has nothing to do with being there on Saturday. It has everything else to
do with the kind of people and their ability to invest themselves in their
goal, and showing up on Saturday is a great indicator of that.

I interview a lot of programmers, and I can tell you with about 95% precision
whether they will work out and be great based on the single question 'tell me
about the programming projects you work on for fun'. If they have some project
they work on for fun, even one, that isn't for a class at school or for their
job, then they are very very likely to be a great hire. If they don't they are
very very unlikely to be a good hire. Side projects don't magically make you
smart and capable and good at problem solving and getting things done, but it
sure seems to be fundamentally related.

And from personal experience, I've worked for 2 startups, one where people
worked all weekend and one where they didn't, and interestingly they were
doing almost the exact same thing. One had an $80MM exit, the other just
slowly went away. Small sample size, for sure.

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rahimnathwani
How do you know? I mean, how do you test for false negatives in the hiring
process? Perhaps you're rejecting lots of people without side projects, but
they go on to be successful anyway?

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justin_vanw
Sure, I mean I didn't say I actually use this test to make hiring decisions. I
can just directly test lots of things like ability to code or problem solve
(not perfectly for sure, but I do my best to evaluate directly the skills that
can be evaluated directly). I am just making the point that there are often
very highly correlated attributes that people can have, and one that is easy
to test for can give you a lot of information about the ones that are harder
to see.

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rahimnathwani
I agree their might be some correlation. What I'm saying is:

\- If you really meant you can get 95% precision in hiring from the answer to
one question, I believe you only if you're super-conservative in hiring (i.e.
will reject unless you're super-confident). In this case, your recall and
false negatives is also going to be really high, so your single-question test
isn't really helpful.

\- If you actually meant 95% accuracy (i.e. precision in the everyday sense,
not the math sense), then I don't believe you, because you probably can't
estimate your accuracy, unless you also hire some people who fail the
interview process.

There are awesome programmers and technical leads who don't have side projects
just because they are so focused on their work and being a good parent.

I'm probably over-analysing your original statement, so I'll stop here.

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justin_vanw
Right, I understand what you're saying, but even being a parent people might
put a side project on hold or not have as much time to spend on it, but that
doesn't mean they can't talk about what they have done in the past.

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pawadu
Honest questions: all the hard working Yahoo employees who worked many many
hours overtime under her instead of being with family and friends, what did
they get out of this in the end?

Marissa was paid big $, I understand she needed to work hard for that money
but everyone else, what reason did they have 20 hour days?

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ralphc
I wonder what the actual work she did at Google that would make you work up to
130 hours a week, or at the least pull one all nighter a week. Was it heads
down programming? I don't think anyone can maintain a great level of code for
long at that level. Manager stuff? Maybe. Infrastructure, did she supervise or
help set up servers? Startups don't have to do that anymore, at least in the
beginning, just spin up servers at AWS. Like the blog author says, a lot of
things that needed to be done in house back in the day can be done remotely
now.

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rezashirazian
I kinda get what she is saying. It takes a certain amount of passion and
dedication for someone to show up on weekends. They must truly believe in the
company or the idea to put in that type of effort.

This dedication and passion will also reflect itself in the product. Many
people can make a mediocre product by putting in the minimum amount required,
but for something outstanding it usually takes more. Much more. What she has
said is nothing outlandish.

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pawadu
That is just a fantasy, Reza and Marissa live in a fairy tale where working
long hours equals passion. It doesn't.

I have had co-workers who practically lived in the office. Every time
something urgent came up they would volunteer to work the weekends and late
nights. Surprisingly the same guys were also known among the developers as
people who got the least amount of work done. And while the management was
initially impressed with their hard work and "commitment", every single one of
them was let go in the very first rounds of lay offs.

~~~
pawadu
Let me also add that when you are very passionate about something you _may_
end up working long hours and weekends. You will probably also enjoy it.

But the opposite does __not __apply. When management expects you to work long
hour you will not become more passionate about your work.

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knavely
Common misconception.

Direction is more important than speed. If you are running in the wrong
direction it doesn't matter how fast, or if you come in on the weekend. _If_
you are headed in the rigt direction then speed and velocity can be important.
It's easy to want to believe that success is repeatable and due to an
observable formula...

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ralphc
Wherever company she lands at, run. Not only does she have this attitude at
rest, she's going to have a chip on her shoulder to prove she's not a failure
at whatever venture she winds up at next.

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triplesec
Her attitude comes from the privileged ideal of hard work = success, which
stems from the classic attribution error: "I'm successful therefore it must be
because I'm better than everyone else in x y or z ways", and often one of
those factors is a belief in one's own hard work pay9ing off. Which blithely
ignores all the less fortunate people working even harder at three jobs to pay
tthe bills.

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ryanobjc
The weekend work = success is hardly a new item, there was a reference to it
in Microserfs... Written in 1992. The VC/money guy said he'd invest in
biotechnology but staff didn't work weekends. And as soon as he finds one that
did he could bet the farm and retire.

As for the rest of it, same tired tropes from the author. I already knew what
he was gonna say when I realized who it was.

As.for Marissa... She's kinda right. And every current Googler is thankful
they can reap the rewards.

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JumpCrisscross
Zero attempt to find data to prove or nullify his hypothesis. Curious how the
data from co-working spaces pan out...

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outworlder
Isn't this inverting the burden of proof here?

She made the extraordinary claim that she didn't even need to know who or what
people were working on, just that they were there on weekends. She provided
zero data.

It's just as likely that the weekend working startups are the one that will
fail. Obviously by burning out, but also by losing sight of the big picture.
This seems stereotypical of hackers coding the latest greatest features with
zero customers. They could be seriously misusing their available time.

Companies (startups or not) should be able to set their own pace. People
should learn to use their time well and save their energy for when they
absolutely need to burn the midnight oil. Besides, getting burned out or sick
doesn't help anyone.

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justin_vanw
If you want to go 'slow and steady' and have great 'work/life balance' (and
work with a lot of mediocre people and play a lot of political games..) go get
a job at a big company.

Startups are not for that mentality, no startup has ever won by playing it
safe and making sure people get plenty of sleep.

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outworlder
> Startups are not for that mentality, no startup has ever won by playing it
> safe and making sure people get plenty of sleep.

Who's saying anything about playing it safe? It's all about strategically
using your resources, not squandering them. Be it time, money or sleep. It's
about engaging your afterburners when you actually need them, not when you are
flying in circles.

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justin_vanw
So what do you do when people work until 11pm every night and keep showing up
on Saturday? Tell them to go home?

There are teams where people are having more fun 'kicking ass' and getting
things done, and have a great time with the people they are there doing it
with, and frankly they would laugh you out of the building (literally) if you
even for one second referred to them as 'resources'. I have seen people wander
into the office on the weekend just because they were bored (including
myself), or were looking to hang out and hack on some stuff. It's not
something that burns you out, it's a passion for some people. The good people.

I think you have had a very limited (and limiting) work experience, to be
honest.

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exclusiv
You're assuming the parent advocates discouraging passionate team members
which isn't fair. "Resources" and "resourcing" are pretty standard terms esp.
in the agency space and with companies using contractors as an example. Not
sure why you take so much offense. Perhaps you are referring to co-founders or
equity owners that would laugh one out of the building?

The notion that everyone has to grind on weekends to build something
successful is ridiculous. Mayer is right about hard work. But she's
simplistically equating "time logged" with "hard work".

What's success in this conversation? I'd be willing to bet most the startups
that go to her husband's co-working space will fail. That's based on data and
more accurate of a statement than hers.

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justin_vanw
I'm not sure whether you even read my comments. It's not the weekend work that
makes the difference, it's having the sort of people that show up on the
weekend.

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exclusiv
Yes I read them all, but I'm not sure you read your own.

"no startup has ever won by playing it safe and making sure people get plenty
of sleep"

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jagtesh
Slightly off-topic, how did this get picked by Yahoo? Do they get enough
editorial freedom to publish something that doesn't favour their CEO? I'm
pleasantly surprised for one.

Could this also mean the editorial team believes this to be true?

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NEDM64
It's CNBC content.

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cmurf
$117 million over 5 years; $36.6 million for first six months.

But that was a 1 cent comment.

