
Paul Graham: don’t hire anyone with children - notlukesky
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/12/23/paul-graham-dont-hire-anyone-with-children/
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CoolGuySteve
> if you’re an employer and want to hire someone ambitious and productive
> whose first priority is the company’s project

Sounds like you're searching for a rube above all else.

Someone dumb enough to sacrifice their personal life to your "vision" to this
extent will probably exhibit poor judgement in other aspects of your business.

Just hire someone reasonable, with or without kids. If they start pulling away
from your project, maybe take that as information that you're not handling the
rudder quite right.

~~~
allovernow
>Someone dumb enough to sacrifice their personal life to your "vision" to this
extent will probably exhibit poor judgement in other aspects of your business.

Honestly, a lot of us programmers don't really have lives outside of work and
enjoy what we do. Maybe that advantage inspires snark in those for whom work
is not a 1# priority.

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CoolGuySteve
If that’s the case then unless you own a significant part of the company you
should either be starting your own company, learning something perpendicular
to your day job, or you know, engaging in leisure.

Don’t be a rube.

~~~
meowface
100%. Making your life your work isn't necessarily bad, if you've come to that
decision of your own free will and after careful consideration of the
alternatives, but making your life a faceless cog in a bureaucracy is a life
unlived. It only makes sense to treat work that way if you're a co-founder or
co-owner.

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lesserknowndan
That article title disgracefully misrepresents what Paul Graham has written in
the text quoted. Paul Graham described his own experience of how having
children affected his priorities. In the material quoted he never advocated
anything regarding hiring.

Philip Greenspun may have been inspired by Paul's article to come to his own
epiphany regarding hiring, but that is exactly what it is - Philip Greenspun's
opinion.

I don't know Paul Graham's personal and financial situation, but my impression
is that he is someone who has the luxury of reprioritising "work" without
major personal consequences.

I would suggest that for most "average" people life changes like getting
married, buying property, and having children make people more attentive to
work responsibilities because they literally can no longer afford to get
fired.

Edited - fixed some grammar.

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sitkack
Subtext and shadows. PG essays are aimed directly at founders.

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neonate
Says who? His essays seem to me to be aimed at whoever wants to read them.

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coldtea
Well, to the rest of us, they seem aimed at founders. In fact most of them
talk specifically about entrepreneurialism and founder issues.

Not to mention his actual job.

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neonate
The rest of us? You've surveyed?

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compscistd
This isn’t a great conclusion from Graham’s post. If you’re really trying to
make this connection, then employers are incentivized to hire people with
children since you can more accurately gauge their aspirations, work habits,
performance during an interview after they’ve already had the child-having
transformation. On the other hand, a childless interviewee may change
drastically after having children.

In the end, I like Paul Graham’s introspection but assuming employers would
see this as some kind of direction to prefer childless candidates over
childbearing ones is far fetched

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epx
In my case, it was the opposite. I was prepared to retire at 35. Having a kid
changed perspective completely in the direction of being more ambitious.

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johnny313
Is the willingness to make work the most important thing in one's life really
this important?

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byoung2
That may be illegal, depending on where your company operates.

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SteveGerencser
I was super kicked back and mellow until I got a kid. Then I kicked worklife
into high gear because I had a little mouth to feed and clothe. Kid got older,
moved out, got married and I kicked back into mellow man.

Now we have a grandbaby in our lives and I'm back at work being more motivated
to be more efficient and productive than ever so I can have the time to spend
with her.

Sort of exactly the opposite of the article.

~~~
jonstewart
Yes, pg succumbs to the anecdotal fallacy with his conclusion here. He is
filthy rich. When someone who’s filthy rich has kids, I’d expect a bimodal
outcome: outsource child raising entirely and keep on working hard (lousy
father scenario) or take it relatively easy to spend time with the kids.

When someone has kids who is not filthy rich (ie most people), I think the
outcome has more variance. Some will have a hard time adjusting, some will
decide that money and work aren’t very important, and some will become more
ambitious in order to provide for the family. Also, the outcome can change
over time. The shock to the system of the early years can be replaced by naked
ambition as the kids get older and college looms. Etc. One thing I enjoy about
working with people with kids is that they generally seem more discerning
about what to spend time on at work, and they have a good sense of rudimentary
people management skills.

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anonymousiam
I recall when I was in my 20's, unmarried with no kids, how resentful I felt
toward all of the older folks with kids. I worked a lot longer and harder than
they could, and I was more focused on my work. I was satisfied with my salary,
but (at the time) my company provided full medical and dental insurance for
the entire family of an employee. I viewed this as a form of unfair
discrimination because they were effectively earning more money (in the
context of the value of their benefits) just because they had a family.

Of course once I got married and had kids, my selfish self-interest prevailed
and I no longer cared about whether or not it was unfair.

Companies like Space-X and Google thrive on exploiting young single people,
but on average, they can only get away with it for a decade or less (until the
employee gets married).

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jotakami
If only as young people we could recognize how important it is for society as
a whole that people continue to become parents... then we might not resent the
unfairness.

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3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _In other words, if you’re an employer and want to hire someone ambitious
> and productive whose first priority is the company’s project… recruit from
> among the childless and, for long-term employer-employee happiness, the
> infertile._

Why do you think so many startups still headquarter in SF even though there’s
much better (and cheaper) places? by virtue of the cost of living alone you’re
going to end up with a much younger work force.

Personally, I don’t mind that someone who wants unwavering and unquestionable
commitment to the company (slavery) passes up on me.

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analog31
Ironically, the assumption that people with kids are less ambitious may be
false. Some anecdotes:

1\. Long ago, the newspaper reported about a study of single unskilled women
in south Chicago, where it turned out that the women with kids tended to work
more hours for higher wages, and often commuted further to their jobs.

2\. Another study, reporting that a disproportionate number of people change
jobs in pursuit of higher pay after the birth of their first child. I was one
of those people, and I know a lot of other people who did the same.

3\. Completely anecdotal and informal survey of colleagues, that the people
who went into the thankless but higher paying jobs in project or middle
management are exclusively parents. I've never met a project manager who was
single.

All of this is with the usual caveats about "studies" and anecdotes, but the
suggestion is that economic motivation can make people more productive. Or at
least, it's enough of a counter-argument to the conventional wisdom to justify
reserving judgement in the absence of more robust evidence.

~~~
jotakami
I’m way more productive than before I became a parent because fatherhood
triggered a cascade of positive lifestyle changes and priority rearrangements.

You could argue that non-parents are better employees, _all else equal_. But
all else is never equal.

Tangentially, regardless of the outcome for productivity, I would argue that a
society with more parents is a better society than one with fewer.

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matthewaveryusa
Sample size one anecdote here: Having a child made me more focused, ambitious
and productive at work. I had a moment of lucidity where I decided to drop all
my tech related hobbies and instead split the new-found time between caring
for my child and doubling down my efforts at work.

Having kids can reset your priorities to the benefit of your employer.

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maximp
Wow, what malarkey, what clickbait. PG says nothing about ambition at his 9-5
job, which is what a job should be. If an employer is looking for someone
available around the clock, who'll work endless hours tirelessly, complaint-
free... well, that's not a place I want to work at. That is, pardon the mixed
metaphor, a red-flag-toxic-expectation.

I read this essay as being about personal ambition - the hours you put in
above and beyond on your own projects.

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halfjoking
Does ambition matter for a non-founder?

If they were more ambitious they might always be looking for better, and
bigger things.

I think companies care more if you are a mercenary or a kool-aid drinker. They
want kool-aid drinkers that will give everything for the company without
asking much, that's why they always go on about their mission as if it's a
cult. Whether you are into that BS or not has nothing to do with if you had
kids or not.

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unreal37
Philip Greenspun is a legend in the blogging space. One of the pioneers.

But that's not what Paul Graham said or implied. For him, having kids changed
him. For others, it's a different effect.

If you'd rather be at the office until 1am, 7 days per week, don't get into a
relationship. Nor have kids. Luckily, very few jobs are like that. And the
people working there are doing so voluntarily.

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JohnDeHope
This reminds me of the modern take on ancient spiritual practices. “Deities
are unfalsifisble lol. Also I’m kind of depressed and find life meaningless.”
It feels like missing the forest for the trees. Or throwing the baby out with
bath water.

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m3kw9
If the person has children works better than one without, hire the person with
children. Also, don’t hire the person with children if there is such an exact
person without it.

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nikolay
Yeah, keep giving advises witch break the law, PG! This, in addition to
ageism, is a serious and underestimated problem, especially in technology!

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dangus
I want to bust out my Jump to Conclusions Mat after reading this post.

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coldtea
Maybe the "Draw the obvious implied takeaway" mat would suit it better?

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dangus
I didn't think it was obvious.

The original author never said these life changes made him a less valuable or
effective employee.

The original author wouldn't advocate against his own interests, i.e. tell
other companies not to hire people like him.

The original author never made any claim about losing overall productivity,
only that having a child changed his feelings on what holds priority in life.

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8bitsrule
Good thing that somebody had children, else you'd have to learn ALL the things
your employees learned to do, so you could make big bucks and bragging rights
from their labor.

Hey Christmas spirits ... I think we found Ebenezer again.

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sam_lowry_
...better hire those burdened with a mortgage.

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ykevinator
Paul Graham is mediocre,not worth arguing about. I think he preached then left
his wife for his secretary or somwrhing.

