

Under No Circumstances Believe That You Need To Hire Rock Stars - BrandonWatson
http://www.thefailingpoint.com/2009/08/buildingateam/believe-that-you-need-to-hire-rock-stars/

======
strlen
That's very well written, however there's a better way to put it: when hiring,
neither side should be trying _too hard_ to sell themselves. A candidate
telling a company "I am a rockstar ninja" is a candidate selling themselves
too hard. A company talking about "hiring the top C/C++/Java hackers, from a
top-ten CS program" to create CRUD screens in PHP is selling themselves too
hard as well. If you want top talent, give them top challenges. You can find
plenty of people who are passionate about web development who would be
interested in writing PHP for you. May be they can't implement a red-black
tree on the white board (yes, I have literally heard of a PHP/Perl web
developer being asked to do that), but they may have a great deal more
knowledge when it comes to UI/UX, requirements gathering or people/project
management.

I _do_ think there is room for "top talent" in a start-up, but the key thing
is that they will almost certainly be doing work that is "below them" at one
point or another. As pg pointed out, YC presently has a tenured MIT professor
as their Systems Administrator.

There's also a corollary to that: if you're coming straight out of college and
are looking for serious technical career growth, you may want to hold-off
joining an early stage start-up unless they're doing something truly uniquely
challenging (e.g. Netscape in the early 90s, Google in 1998 or -- right now --
Directed Edge or the YC start-up making an alternative storage engine for
MySQL).

It's also true that seemingly "simple" sites such as various social networks,
e-commerce and media sites (Facebook/Ning/LinkedIn, Digg, Twitter) _do_ grow
to present many fascinating scalability and algorithmic challenges, these _do
not_ occur until the stage where these companies are no longer early-stage
start-ups (particularly now, when powerful web frameworks abstract away any
systems programming).

(EDIT: some start-ups do have many scaling and algorithmic challenges, but
usually not in the early stages)

~~~
mechanical_fish
_many fascinating scalability and algorithmic challenges... do not occur until
the stage where these companies are no longer start-ups_

I agree with your point that you shouldn't think about scaling too soon, but
you're overstating the case. Twitter is still a startup. And they emphatically
did have to worry about algorithms and scaling while they were still a
startup.

~~~
strlen
Good point, corrected my post. My point isn't "don't worry about scaling" (in
fact, large scale distributed computing is pretty much my own area of
expertise/interest). My point is that there's a lot of glory stories of grand
technological challenges, but they _do not_ occur at your typical early stage
start-up. If you want to solve these kind of problems, you're best off joining
a company that's experience them (and _not_ joining an early stage start-up
and wishing they would: been there, done that).

------
moe
_It’s a very rare company where they can make the claim that their CEO is the
recipe for success._

This seems to be the opposite of what most VCs tell. "We invest in people, not
in ideas" is a common claim.

 _If you can’t trust the guy sitting in the cube next to you, you are in
trouble. Hiring rock stars and ninjas is inviting trouble because they are
likely to be glory seekers who are thinking about their own personal rewards,
and less likely to be thinking about the team_

I disagree with the stereotype he draws of "rockstars" (which is a retarded
term anyways).

Overall this whole article is just based on a broken premise. The author
suggests that a team of programmers is more than the sum of its individuals.
This is false. A team of programmers is _less_ than its sum. The larger the
team, the more dramatic the impact of this inverse correlation. Cf. The
mythical man month.

That's why a very small group of "rockstars", or even an individual, can run
circles around mediocre teams of any size.

~~~
DannoHung
Maybe the term "rockstar" is where the trouble lies. Because, I don't know
about you guys, but when I think rockstar, I don't necessarily think about
virtuoso performers capable of creating masterful artwork. I usually think
about burning out by their 30's, trashing hotel rooms, refusing to work
because the mic settings are incorrect.

I think what everyone's trying to get at is, "consummate professional devoted
to their field." The sort of person who, in an academic setting, might obtain
a PhD and publish, or at the very least an engineer who reads technical
journals and contributes, either to newsletters or publications, or as a
member of a professional society; someone who considers personal improvement
necessary to do their job as best they can. I think even if you're looking to
hire someone to work on your CRUD PHP webapp, that's the sort of attitude you
need, regardless of their actual experience.

~~~
moe
I fully agree.

Further I'd argue that even for your CRUD PHP webapp you ideally want the guy
who, first thing, explains to you why doing it in PHP is a bad idea and how
he'll do it with a more powerful tool in a day - rather than the guy who will
just nod and then go off to blindly beat "something" into shape in a week.

Both candidates will deliver the first iteration of your "simplest thing that
could possibly..." within a reasonable timeframe. But their respective
effectiveness will diverge dramatically starting from the second iteration...

~~~
lucumo
_> you ideally want the guy who, first thing, explains to you why doing it in
PHP is a bad idea and how he'll do it with a more powerful tool in a day_

No, you don't. The last thing you need on a team is a person who's first thing
is to start whining about things that cannot be changed. That kind of thing
can quickly spoil the atmosphere. Rather, you want the person that accepts
that things aren't perfect and use the strengths of the situation and works
around the weaknesses. He'll need to do that anyway, even if you use the best
"language du jour"...

Not accepting the weaknesses just leads to constantly chasing the perfect
state while never completing the project.

~~~
DannoHung
You must be really good at differentiating that which can _not_ be changed
from that which is ingrained.

~~~
lucumo
If I have a code base of over a few thousands lines (yes, even when that
small), changing the language is just a dumb thing to do. It requires a
complete rewrite, while changing a language that your team has experience in
for one it doesn't. And of course, the usual rewrite problems also apply:
killing a fully battle-tested system in favor of one that has not even seen a
strong discussion...

And all that because one new hire couldn't get to grips with the fact that the
organization didn't use his favorite language.

------
billybob
In programming, there is a VAST difference in productivity between great and
mediocre programmers. That's because programmers create tools that do work.
Bad programmers create shovels; great ones create fleets of bulldozers. Bad
programmers create buggy, slow code; great programmers create fast, working,
robust code and meet deadlines to do it.

I know this, because I'm a mediocre programmer. I struggle for a couple weeks
to build something, and I talk to my Rock Star Programmer buddy, who
immediately suggests a better solution. At his job, he creates stuff in a week
that I couldn't create in my whole life (or at least it feels that way).

So yes, I think he'd definitely be a bargain at twice my salary, and probably
he makes more than that, and should. If I were going to start a company, I
would definitely want some rock stars like him.

The trick is, you almost have to be one to know one.

------
uhjkiyrfggv
Further anti-joeltest hints:

You are only posting the job ad on craiglist for free

You ask for guru level C++,C# and Java in the ad but the app is in VB6/PHP

Programmers don't get a corner private office, they share a room with the call
center and sales staff.

They don't get an aeron chair and height adjustable desk. They get something
government surplus with at least one broken leg in the corner of shipping and
receiving warehouse.

Your office doesn't have views of central park. It has views of a railyard and
the police regularly raiding the junkyard next door

And finally, if you are paying $40,000 you are hiring RockBand playing
programmers, not Rockstar programmers - there is a sublte difference.

~~~
ispivey
These sound like things to avoid if you want to get a cushy job at a big
company, not find stimulating work at a start-up. Or is that the point? Color
me confused.

------
aberman
If an actual rockstar ever becomes a programmer, they are going to be in very
high demand.

------
jimfl
If you advertise for rock stars and/or ninjas you deserve every candidate that
you get.

If you really do need such talent, you are unlikely to find it through
classifieds or job sites, but through the network of technical people you
know.

~~~
dannyr
Rock star and ninjas are very common terms used by startup companies when
hiring.

I personally am a bit turned off when I see that.

------
teralaser
To me, the author and commenters are missing the point of hiring "rock stars".
The point is sort of the reverse. _If_ your company was able to attract a
"rock star", it probably makes something very interesting. This just -in the
eyes of VCs and other companies- makes your company more interesting. The same
applies to the times, where employees with PhDs made the company worth 70
mill$ more each (back in 2000).

~~~
BrandonWatson
A good deal of the value you can bring to hiring has to do with your personal
network as well. You could be a mad scientist working on cold fusion, but if
you don't know anyone, and a VC hasn't validated it, does that make whatever
you are working on any less interesting? Absolutely not.

The point of the post was that there is this tendency to believe in the myth
of the rock star, and that only the rock stars can make something amazing. A
couple of the engineers from my old founding team are in YC now, and they are
meeting with many VCs early. Why? Because they made those contacts on the
first go round. Did they need rock stars to make that happen? No. Are they
"rock stars?" No. Not in personality type anyway. I do look forward to working
with them again though. They made for a great team.

------
edw519
_Most of the guys who I regarded as the very best developers were in Seattle
and Silicon Valley._

Sorry you see it that way. I have found little correlation between developer
quality and location. Great developers can be anywhere, with many reasons why
they haven't relocated to a tech center. They may be right under your nose.
Sounds like you found a few.

~~~
BrandonWatson
There is a disproportionately high number of very very good developers in
those centers. That in no way states that there aren't awesome developers
elsewhere. They are everywhere. Finding them is hard, and you certainly
increase your chances when in a tech center like Seattle, Boulder, Boston or
the Valley. Non US countries that have great talent? The Nordic countries have
amazing developers, and former USSR countries. Wow. ODesk has some great
resources in that regard.

