The good argument against hiring experienced people is that they will be highly opinionated about how they did things before. (Plus, the purely practical concerns around cost and availability) I don't think this closely correlates to age -- a 45 year old consultant who has done short engagements at hundreds of small companies (qsa or something like that) has entirely different characteristics than someone who ran a specific function at one successful company right out of college and nothing else. I'd actually argue the 45yo in that case is less likely to be an "old person" than the 24yo! In a less pathological case, certain roles are probably more likely to make people into jerks (or select for jerks to retain) than other roles.<p>The argument for is time, and that you might really want those opinions. It just doesn't mesh well with "everyone is equal, we are doing something new, so everyone contributes ideas" way of thinking at the earliest stages, and it is possible the conventional wisdom (or at least the version embodied in the experienced employee) will either be wrong in general, or at least wrong for your specific case now. It is probably more important that "experienced" people be polite and reasonable than that "brilliant" people be polite and reasonable, actually.<p>The biggest jerks seem to be people who have had one or two early successes and little or no failure.
Holy shit. I would never work with/for this writer.<p>In example one, the writer refuses to take responsibility for the fact that they had unrealistic expectations and encouraged unhealthy behavior. If a guy works for 72 hours straight, you don't <i>reward him for that</i>, you tell him to take 3 days off and get some sleep, because nobody can be productive at a pace like that. At the very least it's incredibly unhealthy for the employee.<p>In the second example the writer basically is suggesting that you should fire people who speak out against the company. What a ridiculous notion! If your culture is so bad you're producing "heretics", you should probably take a serious review at what you're doing to cause such behavior, and why you couldn't detect and rein it in before they "went public" with their concerns.<p>In the third example, again, before the "jerk" can "destroy" communication "across the team", why didn't somebody notice and maybe have a talk with this chap? Why not work out counseling, or find new ways to work with the person? There are a lot of avenues available to improve communication between employees. "The pound" is a failure to deal with the communication issue.<p>The ageism of the rest of his post is just the nail in the coffin. Instead of adapting your culture to support different viewpoints, he suggests filtering out anyone who doesn't think the same. Instead of providing a facility for all employees to come to consensus and work together productively, he suggests you should simply be cautious that the old person could be more politically-savvy than you - essentially, to be 'on your guard' around them. And the idea that an old person has some specific knowledge you need is not only irrational, it ignores the real reason 'old' people have an advantage: they may not have <i>specific</i> knowledge you need, but they have [probably] failed more, which gives them the experience of knowing what doesn't work (in their experience), and to a smaller extent, what does.<p>Dealing with "geniuses" should be the same as dealing with regular people. If you take an active role in caring about your employees and their experience in your company, you'll find out before problems come to a head, and be able to work out solutions that help everyone. (Or you could just fire anyone that causes you problems, which seems to be his suggestion)
Jesus Christ, is that top picture of a hellish working environment typical? I have a panic attack just looking at it.<p>Does anyone happen to know what company that is so I know to avoid them like the plague?<p>EDIT: OK, figured it out, it is Pivotal[0]. I have absolutely no idea what they actually _do_ based on their website, exactly as I would expect for the kind of company that would have that sort of office.<p>[0]: <a href="http://www.gopivotal.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gopivotal.com/</a>
I love remote companies because they can afford to give their employees the freedom to have drug habits or kids who demand a lot of attention or whatever else. There's no pressure to "keep up appearances" so as long as his communication on git and hipchat is professional and his code quality is high.<p>In real offices there is too much wasteful drama/noise around 'perceived slackness' that often does not correlate with the actual facts. In a remote environment everyone is being judged on the same time-scale by the same exact criteria which has nothing to do with their age, sex, lifestyle choices, sleep habits, etc.
> Most executives can be pricks, dicks, a-holes, or a variety of other profane nouns at times. Being dramatically impolite can be used to improve clarity or emphasize an important lesson.<p>I hate that such behavior is considered normal and acceptable.
Didn't Ben Horowitz basically publish this already as Old People? <a href="http://www.bhorowitz.com/old_people" rel="nofollow">http://www.bhorowitz.com/old_people</a>
>It turned out that Arthur was bipolar and had two significant drug problems.<p>Then it's very likely that his extremely productive coding marathons were during manic episodes and/or while abusing stimulants. Certainly not something you would want to bank on either way.<p>My dad was bipolar and also one of the hardest-working men I knew (even during waves of depression). He actually had a couple (prescription) drug problems too. But when he started up a manic episode, it was still abundantly obvious. Basically what's described in the article- seemingly endless pools of energy and stamina despite little to no sleep, <i>always</i> working on or planning some kind of project (for my dad, it was usually some kind of restoration), and never relaxing.<p>I think he was probably an exception to the rule, because when he was depressed and taking heavy doses of benzodiazepines, he still managed to get his fair share done. I'm not a psychiatrist and I don't know Arthur, but I'd guess both his absences and drug use stemmed from his depression.
Ben's perspective is strongly influenced by his experiences at Netscape and Loudcloud and looking for and funding rocket ships. Are these cultural artifacts - working w/ jerks, hiring young, working 72 hours in a row - the inevitable outcome of venture funded tech? Are there strong counter examples?
<i>Why do we need senior people at all? The short answer is time. Hiring someone who has already done what you are trying to do can radically speed up time to success. But won’t they just ruin the culture? This question must be taken seriously. However, bringing in the right kind of experience at the right time can mean the difference between bankruptcy and glory.</i><p>Wow, that's offensive.
Ignoring the out of place second half of the article...<p>Whats most troublesome to me about this article is in the first example.<p>> On his third day, we gave him a project that was scheduled to take one month. Arthur completed the project in three days with nearly flawless quality. More specifically, he completed the project in seventy-two hours: No stops, no sleep, nothing but coding. In his first quarter on the job, he was the best employee we had and we immediately promoted him.<p>This is the monkey getting his hand caught in the jar. This is Chewbacca thinking with his stomach and getting hung upside down by Ewoks.<p>Behavior like Arthur's is unsustainable. The human energy to stay up for 72 hours writing code has to come from somewhere. Burnout in these sort of cases is inevitable.<p>Why oh why would you promote someone like this before waiting for them to display an ability to be consistent? We should see these sort of things as red flags. Instead, the dream of having a programmer that can get month-long projects done in three days is too sweet too ignore. It's ironic that his downfall was giving in to drugs, which provide short term gains at long term costs -- the company was guilty of the same, with Arthur as their drug
The first example read like <i>the employee was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so we fired him</i>. Ouch. Try to be supportive and help at least once. Then reconsider. Else, the jerk is on you.