

Is it OK to Hire People from Your Friend’s Company? - razin
http://bhorowitz.com/2011/02/23/is-it-ok-to-hire-people-from-your-friend%E2%80%99s-company/

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btilly
It is worth noting that, as pointed out in
<http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/September/10-at-1076.html>, the US
Department of Justice recently forced 6 prominent high tech companies to start
actively recruiting from each other, because failing to do so was anti-
competitive.

And that was in a case where they were hiring from each other, but only when
approached as was the case in the example.

My attitude is that if your friend is a grown-up and understands how business
works, your friendship can last. If your friend is not mature enough to handle
the situation, that friendship was probably not worth maintaining. Certainly
not at the cost of losing out on a stellar employee who wasn't going to stay
with your friend anyways.

~~~
dasil003
Even if you want to be totally Machiavellian about it, the value of a
friendship is not necessarily proportional to their maturity.

~~~
scott_s
I have a hard time categorizing that attitude as Machiavellian since it
promotes treating all potential recruits the same in the hiring process.

~~~
dasil003
I wasn't categorizing anything, I was just framing my response, which was to
this line in particular:

> _If your friend is not mature enough to handle the situation, that
> friendship was probably not worth maintaining._

------
metageek
> _It is important to note that just about all of these kinds of policies
> violate the Right to Work laws in California._

So, what, it's OK to break the laws that protect employees if you're doing it
to help a friend?

~~~
zcid
I tend to value my friends and my own moral code much more than I value the
moral code of lawmakers. I won't say it's OK to break the law, but when there
is a conflict, I will always recommend that you follow your own higher law. Of
course, this will also be dependent on the legal risk involved; I wouldn't do
time to avoid an [minor] insult to a friend, but I would accept the fine or
other slap on the wrist that I expect would be given in this particular case.

~~~
metageek
> _I tend to value my friends and my own moral code much more than I value the
> moral code of lawmakers._

We're talking about a law made to protect employees. I don't want to work for
a CEO who values his friends over his employees' legal rights.

There's also the point that a CEO who follows this advice risks exposing his
company to a lawsuit, which is a violation of his duty to the company's
shareholders.

~~~
ohashi
It could be argued that the CEO was doing exactly his duty to the shareholders
by protecting a very important relationship. Ben used the word friend but made
it very clear that this also meant critical business partners.

~~~
metageek
Good point.

------
segabach
I wonder how a16z would feel about an upstart portfolio company turning down
world class talent in the name of friendship? Obviously, don't hire someone if
it will sour a relationship that is financially important for your company,
but are you really a great entrepreneur/ceo if you're turning away awesome
people for some fuzzy feelings you have with another ceo?

~~~
pclark
I think a16z really really approves of "good guys" - ben horowitz wrote a
really inspirational blog post about the HP CEO being sacked and how leaders
need a moral compass.

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Uhhrrr
The ecosystem described here strikes me as frighteningly provincial. If you've
backed yourself into a niche so small that there are only a few engineers
worth hiring (implausible), then your whole company is at risk every time they
cross the street.

Some might cite Steve Ballmer's chair-throwing incident, but that was an
employee who was a)going to a competitor and not a friend, and b)not likely to
change the overall dynamic between the companies.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
"If you've backed yourself into a niche so small that there are only a few
engineers worth hiring (implausible)"

This isn't that implausible, actually. Hiring is very^2 difficult.

~~~
Uhhrrr
I totally agree that hiring is difficult, but I don't think it's because there
are so few good engineers. Rather, it is because figuring out whether someone
will be a good employee within your particular culture in any expedient amount
of time is difficult.

------
sdh
Is it OK to hire from your friend's company?

Sure, as long as it is totally transparent to everyone. You can't force people
to work for you.

Is it OK to recruit from your friend's company?

Definitely not.

------
CodeMage
The whole post is based on the assumption that if you hire someone from your
friend's company, you lose your friend. Maybe I'm just naive, but I think
friendship that ends for such a reason is a lousy friendship.

I firmly believe that one should be able to separate business from friendship.
For me, this part of the post highlights the flaw in author's reasoning:

 _Here’s an easy way to think about the dynamic. If your husband left you,
would you want your best friend to date him?_

~~~
Travis
The analogy falls flat, because business attachments are not necessarily the
same as romantic attachments. Or friendships.

That said, I agree. It can cause trouble. But is your priority running your
business, or is it keeping your friendship alive?

~~~
chrito
The default assumption is that business implies objectivity and logic... at
least that was my perspective as an engineer.

However, in practice it seems more often than not... lasting business leaders
are highly disposed towards emotion (both towards themselves and others).
Combine that with the fact that it's a small world when it comes to relevant
leaders... and trading rationality for trust may not burn in the short term,
but seems like a bad trade in the long run.

------
jiaaro
I think this line is brilliant:

> _In the end, the social pressure will trump all your brilliant
> countervailing logic._

This seems to happen often with thinkers, especially when they're trying to
justify a decision.

I think it's really useful to consider social pressure as a separate effect -
immune to logical discourse - when you deal with human issues.

------
dotBen
At the start of his post, Ben Horowitz delineates between between "Important
business partners" and "true friends".

The problem with the consensus argument here on HN that _"if the other CEO no
longer wants to be friends then it was a lousy friendship to begin with"_ is
that we're talking about the former distinction. IE it never was a
'friendship' friendship to begin with.

In other words, it's not that the other CEO is no longer going to have you
over for Thanksgiving Dinner but that you may now have strategically pissed of
a valuable strategic partner.

Too many variables really to be able to cover a blanket one-size-all rule but
I do think I would pass if the employee was in a vital role at a key vendor
that would seriously damage my business if the vendor re-negotiated terms or
withdrew service. Which they could in spite or even simply out of a perceived
new conflict of interest with IP transfer in the hire.

------
maxbrown
Business is business... it would of course be worse if you were recruiting
from your friend's company, but in the example given, the CEO in question had
nothing to do with the initial interest and interviewing.

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zizee
I think the question of how upset the friend is going to be depends on how big
the friends company(s) is. A big company is less likely to take it personally
than a 5 person team.

That said, if the only reason for not hiring the person is the potential to
upset your friend, then you have a moral responsibility to hire that person,
come what may.

I would hope that friends would understand that, especially if you can show
that you did not head hunt that hire. But people are not always that straight
forward.

------
kstenerud
Hiring from a friend's company is a lot like dating a friend's old girlfriend.
It can be totally cool on the surface but totally not cool underneath.

------
Silhouette
I don't see any problem here. I think the article is making the assumption
that people only move jobs when they are seriously upset about where they are.
In my experience, that simply isn't true: people move on after a few years
anyway, just to get a change of scene and/or to protect against "CV
typecasting".

I would not be offended by a "friend" (whether a real personal friend or a
valued business associate) hiring one of my staff because the staffer has
chosen to move on, nor by the staffer choosing to apply for a job at my
friend's company if it was a decent place to work. I suspect the only things
that would offend me would be sneaky or otherwise unprofessional conduct, such
as if the friend tried to use our relationship to prevent me from making some
sort of genuine counter-offer to entice the staffer to stay. Chances are that
I would not consider someone who would do that either a personal friend or a
valued business associate anyway, though.

