

Memoirs from a Disgruntled MBA - llnimetz
http://rippleq.blogspot.com/
the rants of a Stanford social software entrepreneur
======
trussi
Wow, I read this. Tried to forget it. But it annoyed me so much I had to
respond...just so I can get it out of my mind and get back to work.

I tried to be as constructive as possible in my criticism...but reader
beware...

\-----The Constructive Part------

Let me help you find your code monkeys.

First, stop spending any time at meetups and hackathons. That would only make
sense if you were a technical person looking to recruit some talent. You're on
the wrong side of the fence to get anywhere at those types of meetings.

Second, re-evaluate your value proposition to any potential developer you are
thinking about recruiting. I bet you are either being incredibly cheap on the
compensation package you are offering (a dollar saved is a dollar earned,
right?!). Or your core business model is lame/flawed/weak/not interesting to
whomever the developer is you're pitching it to.

Third, get creative. Dress up in a monkey costume and stand outside the
Facebook/Zynga/Twitter/LinkedIn office with a sign that says something that
will get a developer's attention. Go big. Go over the top. Do NOT
underestimate the power of creativity. If you approached me with a boilerplate
MBA pitch, I would immediately discount everything you say because I'd think
you are full of shit. Now, if you were willing to humiliate yourself, make me
laugh and look like you were having fun doing it, then you'd have my
attention. Re-read the Obama-O's AirBNB story. Get creative.

Fourth, get busy building the product yourself. You don't need to be a
developer to build out business requirements. If you came to me with flushed
out wireframes and business requirements and very clear technical roadmap, I'd
be WAY more interested than if you came to me with a killer 80 page Stanford
business plan. I don't even know who Steve Blank is...neither does any other
developer. Realize that anything non-technical (i.e. marketing plans,
financial projections, org charts, etc) is all irrelevant to recruiting a
developer. All of those items are vitally important for a successful startup,
but they are all fluff. They don't (in the eyes of a developer) require much
time, effort or thought. If that's all you brought to the table, you'd be seen
as a Winklevi (i.e. I came up with this brilliant idea...here's 10 sentences
on the product...now go build it code monkey...and here's 0.5% of the
company).

\-----The Criticism Part-----

"Last week we had a big strategy and planning session, and I had to decide to
hold off on signing up any new customers or channel partners because we don’t
have the bandwidth in product development to deliver let alone improve the
platform."

So let me get this straight: you are so successful selling a real solution to
a real customer problem that customers are willing and able to pay good money
for (i.e. the hardest single thing to do in a startup) that you have to pull
back your sales efforts, but you can't figure out how to recruit technical
talent?!

I'm calling bullshit on that one.

More likely, it's a group of MBAs sitting around in their argyle sweater vests
_thinking_ they are just killing it in sales, yet they are only able to sell a
vague idea of a fictitious software product that they haven't even written
business requirements for yet. The rubber isn't even close to meeting the road
yet.

Why are you spending one second on a 'big strategy and planning session'?!
Seriously. You're biggest problem is hiring developers. And you're a software
product company. Huh?? Spend every waking hour finding technical talent. Stop
the circle-jerk planning sessions already! Go buy a bunch of bananas and find
your code monkeys!

Maybe I got a bit hot-headed, but I settled down and tried to offer some
specific advice. Hope you were able to get something from it.

~~~
kabuks
I have to chime in here and say that I know Lloyd personally and am intimate
with some of the details of RippleQ, and the rubber has hit the road in a big
way.

These guys have built out a solid product, that major companies are paying
for, and are getting great feedback from their customers. I understand why you
would be tempted to call bullshit, but it actually isn't anywhere near
bullshit.

~~~
trussi
Thanks for the personal validation.

Good for Lloyd and RippleQ.

All that should make his job of finding technical talent much easier.

However, obviously something is askew if what you said is true and yet, he
can't find any technical talent.

I'm actually meeting with him next week to see if we can figure it out.

------
fuzzmeister
#1 makes no sense. Facebook/Google/Zynga/etc pay hires more because they can
no longer offer hires significant equity, like an early startup can. A startup
is never going to beat an established company on pay, it's going to beat it on
equity. If an offer of significant equity doesn't convince a potential
developer to come onboard, perhaps the problem is that the company isn't
promising enough.

~~~
va_coder
It sounds like this MBA is angry at the most basic law of economics: when the
supply is less than demand, prices go up.

~~~
rfugger
Seems more like he just didn't realize how much demand there was, and how
little supply.

------
clownz0r
I honestly can't comprehend someone writing #1 as anything but a joke. You're
seriously upset that Google can afford to hire good talent and doesn't treat
its employees like shit?

Also, "Shame on you for not squeezing salaries to cut your costs" is not a way
to attract good developers.

~~~
lmkg
I'm going to give the author the benefit of the doubt here, because sarcasm is
notoriously hard to transmit through text. I think he's being tongue-in-cheek
while complaining that hiring is difficult because Google/Facebook/etc have
collectively raised the bar about what sort of compensation is expected to
levels that are hard for him to match.

~~~
VladRussian
they supposedly teach that at business school:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand>

Have you ever heard a physicist whining at e=mc2?

------
llnimetz
You guys sure are tough, but I kind of expected it by putting 'MBA' in the
title of my post. I can't blame many of you for disliking MBAs. MBA graduate
programs are a vestigial product of the industrial era where an aristocratic
group of elite were given the reins to control (a.k.a. manage) the workers and
get them to do the work. That pisses me off as much as the next guy.
Nonetheless, for those of us trying to build post-industrial open enterprises
(check out www.Worldblu.org for a glimpse of what I'm talking about) it's also
hard to argue against the fact that good management is an important part of
any successful enterprise. Just as the stereotype of engineers as nerdy,
socially awkward introverts is not true neither is that of the MBA stereotype.
For example, I play squash not golf, and I wear penny loafers never argyle
sweaters (read: this is a tongue and cheek comment, meaning it's not true but
written solely for comic effect and perhaps -- if I'm going to be completely
honest-- as a slight dig back at those of you who felt entitled to stereotype
me unfairly). I read over my post and can totally understand some of your
comments, particularly from readers who didn't catch the sarcasm. I don't
actually think Google is evil for paying its engineer a lot. I have a ton of
respect for Google: in fact I have a lot of friends working there and Eric
Schmidt taught us at Stanford.) The important point in my blog was that we've
done a good job to date boot-strapping rippleQ to identify a market need, to
build a cool product (iterating a lot along the way) and, most recently, to
sell to a number of enterprise customers. We're poised to raise a series A
round now too. In other words, we're doing all the right things but struggle
to find top web developers because the demand is already so high in the
valley. It's obviously difficult for everybody (e.g. companies are advertising
on road-side billboards now to attract engineers!). I've continued to receive
great advice on how to reach out to recruit great engineers (and we're talking
with a number of engineers now -- thank you to those who referred people!),
but I thought I'd just rant a bit out loud, and I guess I thought (perhaps
mistakenly) that out of my rants an awesome developer would fall out of the
sky, contacting me interested in learning more about rippleQ. Some
entrepreneurs wear monkey suits, I write disgruntled emails that poke fun at
myself and MBAs!

------
localhost3000
Can't wait to see this revolutionary implementation of social game mechanics
that will improve capitalism for the benefit of all.

This person managed to get into the most selective and sought after MBA
program on the planet so I want to give him the benefit of the doubt but,
jesus...wtf?

------
andrewstuart
The real problem is not what you think. The real problem is that some
employers (MBA's?) don't know how to recognise and employ technical talent.
There's talent around, it's not too hard to employ. It's just that some
employers have the wrong set of measures of people.

I spend all my time finding great people who are often knocked back after a
set of selection criteria is applied that often filters out good people.

So Lloyd I am afraid that the problem is not the fault of Google or LinkedIn
or job boards, it's that you're not recognising the great people because your
assessment process is probably flawed.

How about you post here your technical interview questions and your
requirements and the tests that you give people?

~~~
BenSS
In my hunting for a job, the three most annoying things that some employers do
to potential tech talent: \- Instant rejection for missing one of a laundry
list of technologies. There's no desire to grow people into positions. \- Long
competency tests that are really a test of your ability to recall or search
for solutions/trivia. \- Zero feedback. Completely relying on the job-seeker
to follow up.

------
edj
_1\. Google and the other big boyz talk a big game about doing no evil, but
giving out huge salaries and signing bonuses to attract the best talent is
just plain evil from my vantage-point._

This is parody, right?

~~~
jcampbell1
Yes, I think the tone is meant to be lighthearted. Though from the rest of the
comments on hacker news, I think the author missed the mark.

~~~
llnimetz
(yes, tried to be lighthearted and definitely missed the mark!)

------
fractalcat
(cross-posted from the blog's comments - didn't realise they're hidden by
default)

Just a few comments (from a developer/entrepreneur's perspective):

> I hate asking around for help.

We all do. Asking is hard. But if you're aiming to be a successful
entrepreneur, you will have to do things that take you outside your comfort
zone. That's the whole point. Bite the bullet, swallow your pride.

> There are so many job boards and most of them are useless.

Yep, that's exactly right. Don't use them. If you want to find great
developers (and you're not Google), nine times out of ten you're going to have
to do the legwork yourself.

> “I’m looking too. If I found a good software developer, I’d take him.
> Sorry!” Not cool.

That sounds fair enough to me. Good developers are, as you've discovered,
rare. If they're putting the work in, they deserve the payoff - why should
they give up a potentially valuable employee just because you asked?

The common theme here seems to be that yes, building a company from the ground
up is really hard, and it's a ton of (sometimes frustrating and thankless)
work. If you have faith in your company's ability to succeed, you need to do
whatever's necessary to get them there.

------
wdrury
Assume that he really cannot dole out a huge salary ... how much should he be
offering in equity?

Assume that I'm a badass software developer who specializes in scalable web-
based systems. In that case, you can also assume that a.) plenty of people
approach me with their middling ideas all the time, wanting me to work for
peanuts/equity, and b.) I already have a job.

What else could he offer that I might find motivating?

~~~
trussi
First, timing/serendipity is a huge factor and there's nothing anybody can do
about that other than keep at it.

To answer your question: Offer a real chance of success.

Success is my personal financial success, not just company success and it has
to be financial success.

How many POS startups are out there that will never amount to anything?! 50%
of 0 is 0.

Prove that you (the hustler) have what it takes to make this opportunity
succeed.

Prove that this opportunity WILL succeed.

Give me enough equity that will pay 3-5X my base salary with the
low/conservative projections and 20X my base salary with the homerun
projections. That's based on a 2-3 year commitment.

Give me the ability to do my thing (hacking) without you (the hustler)
meddling in it.

It's pretty easy, if you're a really good hustler who's actually out there
making it happen.

------
VladRussian
if i were looking, i'd not apply at his company after reading this as he just
doesn't seem to be a good problem solver. A successful leader would post a
solution (or at least reasonably constructive ways to approach the problem)
instead of whining at the problem.

------
pssamant
How are MBA programs so behind? I mean, talented/successful entrepreneurs
flock to the teaching positions at top MBA programs. Why do they remain to set
in their ways?

A question for you all you disgruntled MBA's -- how do you make MBA programs
more agile/nimble?

~~~
shriphani
Let us inspect the definition of an MBA - nope. nothing there.

How about the sales pitch B-Schools make - nope they don't. $$ is the only
promise.

Basically what we see here is that institutions are issuing certificates
saying that they are capable of producing an individual who fits into _any_
leadership role in any org without any domain specific knowledge and can keep
everything going smoothly.

After that analysis, the usual response I get from people is that MBAs are
great at networking and blah blah. So navigating the communication hierarchy
of an org takes 2 years of training ? And this is enough to produce "Da Boss"
for an org ?

When you sign up for a 4 yr CS degree - you are guaranteed some exposure to a
mixture of CS concepts, same for EE. A masters degree / PhD are also
reasonably defined. Can anyone produce a similar intuitive definition for an
MBA ?

------
thinkcomp
My views on MBAs notwithstanding, anyone with a Stanford degree should know
the difference between "haven" and "having."

~~~
pg_bot
It should also be je ne sais quoi not je ne sais pas. Actually that entire
phrase should be deleted as it is unnecessary.

~~~
llnimetz
now fixed. Thanks for pointing out the error.

------
jacques_chester
The use of 'haven' instead of 'having' made it impossible for me to complete
this article. I would have expected a higher quality of writing from a
Stanford graduate.

------
NonEUCitizen
Shame on the evil MBA for whining about market price.

------
shareme
Wrong requirements..

He is searching for a co-founder but not giving the benefits of a co-
founder..that is a sale he will never make..ever.

