[HN Gopher] Daniel Gross: Why Energy Is the Best Predictor of Ta...
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Daniel Gross: Why Energy Is the Best Predictor of Talent
Author : vinnyglennon
Score : 82 points
Date : 2022-04-01 18:55 UTC (4 hours ago)
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| bmitc wrote:
| > They also explore why the strongest leaders are energetic,
| enthusiastic, and funny.
|
| Ick.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I feel like the whole genre of 'How to tell if someone will
| perform well' is trying to squeeze blood from stone. I've worked
| with a lot of different people, and the more broad my experiences
| become, the less I think I am able to tell who is good and who
| isn't.
|
| I've worked with people who have extraordinarily high output, but
| slowed everyone around them down because they filled absolutely
| no-one in on their decisions and changes, so we were all left
| trying to beat the next code-base warping idea.
|
| I've worked with people that accomplished almost nothing, but
| lifted morale so much that they more than made up for their lack
| of productivity. (I wouldn't recommend looking for this scenario
| though, most low-output individuals drag morale down...)
|
| How many marriages do you think would make it 5 years down the
| road with only a month of knowing each other? A week? A handful
| of 1-hour interviews? I mean, that's the kind of time commitment
| you are looking at with a job.
|
| Just filter out people who are obviously bad fits, and fire fast.
| The diminishing returns of trying X, Y, and Z, to me, just aren't
| worth it, and if you are a small company, you've got better
| things to dedicate brain power to.
| vletal wrote:
| > fire fast
|
| My former company fired bunch of people at the beginning of
| COVID, because of the reaction of markets and our clients, some
| of whom left us. The fired employees were either new hires or
| bad apples. IMO it cleaned up the air a lot at the time.
|
| On the other hand firing people is costly. For small to mid
| size companies, this advice might not be a as viable as it
| sounds.
| polote wrote:
| Your objective is to create good teams, but the goal of Daniel
| Gross it to find unicorns. That's not the same thing. You could
| really have the worst culture and the best mismatch of talent
| and still have a unicorn.
|
| That's the whole job of seed VC investors to be better than
| random at selecting people who will end up creating unicorns.
| So I disagree it is "trying to squeeze blood from stone"
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > Your objective is to create good teams, but the goal of
| Daniel Gross it to find unicorns.
|
| That's fair. In the context of placing bets, the dynamic is
| different, but VCs have the benefit of simply not investing
| in follow up rounds, which is as close to 'firing' as they
| can get.
|
| > You could really have the worst culture and the best
| mismatch of talent and still have a unicorn.
|
| True. However, I'd be willing to bet there is predictive
| power in how horrible a company's culture is in the early
| stages.
|
| > That's the whole job of seed VC investors to be better than
| random at selecting people who will end up creating unicorns.
| So I disagree it is "trying to squeeze blood from stone"
|
| Of the VCs I know and have met, the successful ones don't
| give much (almost no) weight to personality tests, outside of
| more obvious 'red-flags'. The checklist I've seen is:
|
| 1) History of entrepreneurial success. This is probably the
| best way to get in anyone's door. 2) History of domain
| success. They want to see that you know what you are talking
| about and come with the connections necessary to make the
| venture successful. 3) Does the founder's approach to the
| problem align with the firm's. Most high-quality firms look
| to invest in areas where their partners have deep domain
| knowledge, and they look for companies who they believe are
| making good bets.
|
| There are very "impression" agnostic measures. I wouldn't put
| a lot of weight on "energy", but hey, I'm not a VC, so what
| do I know :P
| greggman3 wrote:
| > How many marriages do you think would make it 5 years down
| the road with only a month of knowing each other? A week? A
| handful of 1-hour interviews? I mean, that's the kind of time
| commitment you are looking at with a job.
|
| I've heard people claim arranged marriages last longer, on
| average, then non. Of course there are all kinds of confounding
| factors. The number one though seems to be the expectation to
| make it work instead of just giving up and moving on if things
| aren't perfect.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > The number one though seems to be the expectation to make
| it work instead of just giving up and moving on if things
| aren't perfect.
|
| Cultures that arrange marriages typically do not allow
| divorce.
|
| Even if we carry that comparison through, the marriages are
| normally arranged by family, people who have known you your
| whole life, and probably want you to not hate your spouse.
| Hiring via references from people that have worked together
| for a long time are much more useful than interviews and
| personality tests.
| erdos4d wrote:
| I took a year of sociology in college. One bit of wisdom that
| out professor gave us was how arranged marriages happen in
| countries where there is immense pressure to conform to
| traditional gender roles. He literally described these
| societies as hammering a person through a form to get the
| requisite shape the society wanted. In societies like that,
| you can pair up any two people and it will likely work
| because both know precisely what is expected of them, and
| there is immense pressure again to make it work, no matter
| what.
| macksd wrote:
| And going to another extreme - I know couples who have lived
| together for years before deciding to get married, and the
| marriage really didn't last very long at all. A lot of
| sociological explanations but the point I really want to make
| is you can't always look at something that doesn't work out
| and assume that you would have made a better decision with
| more time.
|
| We could double the size of our interview panels and still
| get people that weren't right.
| hobs wrote:
| Also another thing is that someone's circumstances play
| decently into their work ethic and their team pose - I have
| seen people play out poorly at one company and then excel at
| another - at this point unless the person is actively harmful I
| try to avoid too much overthinking of the whys they dont fit in
| a job.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > 'How to tell if someone will perform well' is trying to
| squeeze blood from stone
|
| Well, there seems to be an awful lot of blood . . .
|
| Oh! I bet it's from the wringing but not the stone. Nice
| illusion, though.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| Totally agree. And it has become this quest for presumably so-
| called high performers to enable themselves and tell others how
| to spot something or someone.
|
| Not only is it boring to listen to, but very much subjective.
|
| You cannot measure quality. Its simply too difficult with all
| the variables in play over time.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| I've also seen people whose output changes. Some people really
| not developing fast at the start but after a few years, finding
| a new steep and steady upwards trajectory.
| sweetheart wrote:
| > and fire fast.
|
| I'd straight up not work for a place that took this approach.
| Seems like a great way to fuck over the folks who made a big
| life change to join you. Though this philosophy is probably
| super effective, as long as you're willing to not think about
| the effects it has on others. Yikes!
| forbiddenvoid wrote:
| Yep. Power dynamics are a real thing.
|
| The relative risk for an employee joining a new company is
| WAY higher than it is for that company.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Not in software. At least not in the US. I have very little
| fear of being let go. If it's not a good fit, I'd
| personally rather spend my time elsewhere.
| 8note wrote:
| If you're working on a visa, that means you're in rush
| mode to find a new company and a new visa, otherwise you
| need to start moving country
| Bud wrote:
| You left out the vital third part of that, which is "not
| for you in your particular set of applicable privileges
| and life circumstances".
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I believe the post was mostly aimed at employers seeking
| highly paid, highly skilled, professionals. I was
| responding in the same vein.
| jlokier wrote:
| I believe the thrust of the GP's point is that your
| position is quite particular to you, as there are plenty
| of highly-skilled, highly-paid professional software
| developers, even in the US, who struggle to find good,
| well-paid work quickly after being laid off, so have
| legitimate reason to worry about being let go.
|
| For example, that may be due to any combination of age,
| skin colour, geography, ethnicity, visa/citizenship,
| neurodivergence, gender, family dependents, or other
| factors outside the person's control, helpfully
| summarised by the umbrella word "privilege".
|
| After all, as is often said here, hiring is broken. It's
| not enough to be highly skilled.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| I was refuting an absolute. I did not intend to posit my
| own. Obviously, not the case for everyone.
| simulate-me wrote:
| This is typical breakup scenario. Yes getting fired sucks,
| but it's probably best in the long run. Wasting an employee's
| time in an environment where they're definitely not going to
| succeed is not good for anyone.
| markkanof wrote:
| There is an important nuance here in that it assumes that
| all employers understand that someone being fired can just
| mean that they weren't a good fit for that particular
| position. I'm not sure that is universally understood. I
| would be that most people still look at firing as an
| indication that the employee is no good. That isn't
| necessarily correct at all, but unfortunately I do think
| it's how the majority of people perceive things.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I have some issues with the "fire fast" philosophy, but
| this is not really one of them. Companies don't generally
| even divulge that they fired someone when giving a
| reference. They will say the employee is "not eligible
| for rehire," which is frequently code for "we fired this
| person for cause," and is generally interpreted that way.
| I do wish they would just come out and say that the
| person was terminated for cause, so others wouldn't have
| to guess, but that's not even really related to the "fire
| fast" issue.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Resumes have employment dates on them, which will be
| interpreted long before past employers are asked about
| anything.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| So? Just don't list the position if the tenure was too
| short.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Yes, of course. And yet, having a gap on a resume is
| _also_ something people make judgments about.
| klyrs wrote:
| If you assume that the breakup is inevitable, yes. Working
| through issues is another possibility; firing fast misses
| that opportunity and sacrifices potential loyalty in the
| process.
| lkxijlewlf wrote:
| Yeah, the stigma of getting fired is bad for the employee.
| They may not have been a good fit for your team, but now
| other companies will automatically feel they're not a good
| fit for their team either.
| smolder wrote:
| I see that as a problem with hiring, though not an easy one
| to solve... since even with lazy heuristics, it's a lot of
| work to hire.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Seems to work for Netflix, who is very up front about this
| philosophy. Of course, a big part of this is they _do_ pair
| it with an incredibly generous severance package.
|
| Personally, I would jump at the chance to work at a company
| with this philosophy, _even if I ended up being the one
| getting canned_. I don 't think I've ever worked at a company
| that fired "too fast", if anything it was clear that some
| folks were clearly not going to succeed, but hard decisions
| were avoided, which took down the productivity of everyone
| involved, and when the folks were eventually let go or left
| on their own they usually ended up still being super bitter.
| A reluctance to fire, in my experience, just really
| translates into a company that has difficulty making hard
| decisions.
| majormajor wrote:
| Yeah, Netflix appears to do it in a reasonable way. I would
| be perfectly fine taking an offer to work there.
|
| But I've more frequently heard stories of others who see
| "fire fast" solely as a way to save money and also avoid
| having to ever train or mentor. That's bad for the
| employee, and not a place I'd work, if I knew it in
| advance.
|
| If you're looking to structure your employees' comp with a
| heavy equity component that takes a while to vest, "fire
| fast" becomes _especially_ dangerous for the employee.
| AlchemistCamp wrote:
| He's been pretty up front that he's looking for young people,
| both in this podcast and on the previous messaging of
| Pioneer.
|
| The cost to someone in their early 20s to take a job for a
| month or two and then hop to another one isn't very high
| compared to someone far enough into their career to likely be
| making changes for their family and possibly face more
| judgement for a short stint from future interviewers.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Not firing fast is like cutting the dog's tail piece by
| piece. Every time I have tried to give an employee another
| chance, I have ultimately regretted it in the end.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Pair it with remote work and a decent severance package and
| it is far more acceptable.
| devmunchies wrote:
| > I'd straight up not work for a place that took this
| approach
|
| that's "quitting fast"--quitting before you even take the
| job. impressive, you're hired.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > Seems like a great way to fuck over the folks who made a
| big life change to join you.
|
| Most companies are motivated by profit, and will, therefore,
| gladly pay someone to fill a role that earns them more money
| than it costs. I don't see severing a non-mutually beneficial
| relationship as fucking someone over.
|
| If you are in a position that being let go would be horribly
| detrimental to your personal and financial goals, looking for
| a company that is very slow to fire may be a good way to go.
| However, that is for your benefit, not the company's. I was
| targeting my advice at employers.
| csours wrote:
| The most energetic person I know is also the most infuriating to
| work with. I like him, but he can only listen to one point at a
| time. He gets very frustrated when the one thing he wants to fix
| doesn't make the system work. He does not take the time to
| comprehend how details fit into the larger picture. He does not
| onboard mental or software tools that would be a force
| multiplier.
|
| Energy alone is not a good predictor.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Yes, I think many can relate to this.
|
| But that doesn't mean that it isn't a top predictor for talent.
| Can you think of a better proxy that this might have been
| about?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Energy alone is not a good predictor.
|
| I hope that much is obvious to everyone.
|
| The podcast isn't literally suggesting that we discard all
| metrics aside from energy, or that energy automatically results
| in success.
|
| They talk about a lot of different values, the difficulties in
| measuring them, susceptibility to interviewer bias, and so on.
| eloff wrote:
| There's an exception to every rule. I think the point is that
| energy may be a good signal. Are there better signals?
|
| Spotting talent is hard.
| csours wrote:
| Energy is a good signal. Patience is a good signal. Spotting
| talent is hard!
|
| I would say that energy is an X factor. If you have two
| candidates and both demonstrate similar system comprehension,
| go with the one with more energy.
|
| Energy is great for short term success, contemplation is
| great for long term progress. Maybe hire a mix of tactical
| and strategic thinkers? And then get them to work together
| somehow? It's easy to say and hard to do!
|
| Writing about failure is easy, because you get to do it after
| the fact when everything is obvious.
|
| Writing about your own successes is fun, because you get to
| talk about something that turned out well.
|
| Trying to tell someone else how to be successful by following
| what you did is often a fool's errand, because you can never
| convey all the things you did to be successful; and in the
| case that you were VERY successful, you have changed the
| marketplace of products and ideas!
| crispyambulance wrote:
| Agree, and even if someone has "talent" it doesn't mean that
| they or their workgroup and larger organization can actually
| USE that talent effectively.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I'm not the GP, but every high-energy person I've met is like
| this.
|
| When people want to get it done _right now_ , they don't tend
| to make good decisions.
| borski wrote:
| I understand your point, but mediocre decisions made
| quickly are sometimes better than no decisions made ever;
| there is a spectrum, and being on either extreme is not
| good.
| drewcoo wrote:
| That plus all the 1x engineers can clean up the messes
| made by snap decisions by 10x-ers.
|
| Not my personal philosophy but I've seen it used.
| foobarian wrote:
| I mean, there aren't any contradictions between the title and
| OP. A best of X is not necessarily very good. It's OK! Sharing
| stories is fun too.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| I agree in theory but in practice this kind of interview would
| eventually be very easy to game
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I tend to agree with this. In my experience (over 35 years in
| tech now) generally the most successful people have the most
| energy. I recall being invited to dinner to my wife's boss' house
| back in the early 90s. After dinner her boss ran each of his 4
| kids up the stairs on his shoulders. This was after a very long
| day of work - his habit was to show up in the office at 6AM and
| work till 6PM. I was super impressed (and somewhat envious TBH)
| by his energy - I wouldn't have been up for that after even 8
| hours of work and we were about the same age. He was already
| quite successful back then but now he is the CEO of Intel - not
| surprised at all that he ended up in that position.
|
| I've worked with a lot of very smart people over the years who
| just didn't have much energy. It's not that they've all been
| unsuccessful, but they aren't _as_ successful as someone who may
| not be quite as smart but has much more energy. I put myself in
| that category - I don 't have the energy to be super successful
| and I've realized it for quite a long time (probably going back
| to about the time of that dinner) -I'm not going to create a
| startup or be a CEO/CTO. We aren't all gifted with a high-energy
| physiology and that's fine - we can still have a decent career.
| When you find the rare individual who is very smart _and_ has a
| lot of energy they can go very far indeed.
| w0mbat wrote:
| This is just a recipe for hiring extroverts and rejecting
| introverts which is a terrible idea unless you are hiring for
| sales.
| jdauriemma wrote:
| I am begging anyone in this comment section who hires people: do
| not ask candidates about their favorite movies in the interview
| process in an attempt to identify talent.
| didip wrote:
| I would assume results is the best predictor of talent.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I worked with a really energetic guy a few years ago, I remember
| these things - he wrote code that looked sort of like this:
|
| const antilooped = [];
|
| const looped = [];
|
| const looper = data.map((item) = {
|
| if (item.nonX) {looped.push(item) }
|
| if (item.nonY) {antilooped.push(item)}
|
| });
|
| then would not use half of the variables he instantiated, and
| probably merge looped and antilooped arrays in some weird way.
| Invariably debugging his code led to me just rewriting it all.
|
| And I remember just about the first thing he asked me is if I
| went to prison in Jylland in Denmark and a big guy named Ole
| wanted to make sweet love to me would I do it or would I rather
| die, and then he volunteered he would rather die. This turned out
| to be his typical lunch time small talk.
|
| on edit: just to be clear, he didn't use the looper array for
| anything.
| sublimefire wrote:
| People need to be trained at work. There is nothing wrong with
| a person making mistakes; we all did them. AFAIK the problem is
| usually mentoring. At work, I observe "leaders" not having time
| to give a hand and explain stuff.
|
| Otherwise, there is a simple rule for engineers: do not write
| the code that makes the next engineer fantasize about your
| death.
| dymk wrote:
| People should be on-the-job trained for specific technologies
| or in new/advanced techniques.
|
| If somebody doesn't understand the fundamentals of writing
| code for a code-writing job, though, that's a different
| story. That's what self-study and the education system is
| for.
| kube-system wrote:
| If you have an employee that has troubles with a
| fundamental, you either train them, fire them, or do
| nothing.
|
| Training them is the lowest risk and lowest cost option of
| these.
| askafriend wrote:
| Wrong. Firing is the lowest risk, lowest cost, least
| distracting option.
| kube-system wrote:
| If there are severe issues, of course. If someone wrote a
| loop in a strange way and it was an honest mistake, it's
| pretty silly to fire them without communicating with them
| first... and then firing them if they aren't able to turn
| it around.
| itronitron wrote:
| Did he think he was still in the job interview?
| agumonkey wrote:
| he never ran into foreach or partitions/groupby functions (in
| general I mean)
| edmcnulty101 wrote:
| I'm not going to lie, that code looks fun to me.
| kache_ wrote:
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I think I would prefer not to but it is not one of the
| preoccupying thoughts of my daily routine.
| elevenoh wrote:
| petermcneeley wrote:
| Does Daniel Gross fit this description?
| AS37 wrote:
| This is a promotional piece for a new book that comes out May
| 17th (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08R2KNYVX)
|
| One of the authors is known for being a YCombinator partner. The
| other is known for responding to every email. I'm not sure which
| is more impressive.
| Animats wrote:
| Ah. That makes sense as a strategy for YCombinator. If you fund
| the energetic ones at YCombinator's minimal level, they either
| succeed fast or fail fast. If they fail fast, they're quickly
| and cheaply flushed and require no further attention. The
| headache for VC firms is the company that takes forever to
| slowly make their thing work. Or the zombie that has reached
| breakeven but will never take off. Those require too much
| ongoing management attention.
| Animats wrote:
| There's a classic classification of military officers.
|
| 1. Smart but lazy. 2. Smart and energetic 3. Dumb and lazy 4.
| Dumb and energetic
|
| Type #4 is dangerous. Those are the ones who energetically do the
| wrong thing and get people killed. The most famous losing
| generals (Custer, Cardigan, Burnside, McClellan, Westmoreland)
| were type 4.
| kareemsabri wrote:
| In order to really judge his talent picking methodology, he
| should fund some of his anti-portfolio or at least people he
| seems unimpressed by. The trouble with VCs assessing their own
| talent spotting abilities is investing capital changes the odds
| of the outcome, it's not a neutral prediction.
| kupopuffs wrote:
| Ah yes, business and science clashing. Classic
| hrez wrote:
| what's worse than a fool? - a fool with a lot of energy
| [deleted]
| asah wrote:
| After 30 years, dozens of startups and several IPOs... I'm here
| to say that the combination of energy and tenacity is an amazing
| predictor of success.
|
| I read this more as "in defensive of high energy people" which
| then attracts the sort of vitriol you see in the comments section
| here, e.g. accusations of sloppiness, short attention spans, etc.
|
| Obviously, quality is required to the extent customers judge
| products in that category. Tesla had/has astoundingly poor
| quality, and Henry Ford is famous for optimizing-down quality as
| well.
| ta8645 wrote:
| This rings true to me. The smartest person sporadically makes
| important contributions, but the most energetic person pushes
| things forward every single day.
|
| The most successful person I know has boundless energy at work,
| and is often used as a resource for many other people, helping
| them get their work done. She's on the national board of the
| professional association that oversees her field. She takes
| exceptional care of her extended family, and somehow manages to
| squeeze in vacations, nights out dancing, and time with her
| friends watching football on the weekend. Furthermore, she
| volunteers for an organization that helps new immigrants feel
| welcome, get settled, and find employment. Also, she decided to
| teach at the local college two nights a week for the last few
| years and gets glowing reviews from her students.
|
| Makes me tired just typing it all out.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| I'm not high energy and I have to try very hard to assume super
| high energy people aren't on drugs.
| yifanl wrote:
| > Final thought on this, if I didn't really nail the point
| already, in the story of a founding company, the main reason why
| energy matters is you need at the end of the day, whatever the
| person's hypothesis early on in the business, it's generally
| wrong. And so what you're trying to evaluate is two things: one,
| will the market give you enough tailwind and excitement so that
| you continue bouncing around and trying other things, and two:
| how many things you're going to try and how quickly you're going
| to try them, so you know investing in someone who's starting a
| company and who's energetic is like just having more shots on
| goal.
|
| Given this quote, I feel like the title needs to be qualified
| really heavily, it's looking at a very specific type of talent
| for a very specific type of situation.
| eric4smith wrote:
| This is so very true.
|
| Another extremely good signal are people that won't give up
| easily.
|
| Tenacity, grit, whatever you want to call it.
|
| All that trumps degrees and knowledge, because all you have to do
| is spark the interest of this kind of person and they will find a
| way because they just won't stop until they do.
| mountainriver wrote:
| I really like grit over energy. So much of software is just
| about grit and I see it as a distinguishing factor among the
| engineers I mentor.
|
| The ability to sit with hard problems and continue to be
| curious in the face of pain and adversity is a very important
| skill.
| dgb23 wrote:
| IMO that's the easy part, the hard part is to do all the
| boring stuff around that. Both of these things require
| different types of grit or energy or what ever and some
| freedom and organizational skills, but the tricky problems
| are the most exciting and motivating.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I've helped mentor CS students and bootcamp students before (as
| well as junior devs and interns), and I agree. Asking for help
| is good, but certain types of people think that learning to
| program is just a matter of learning all the steps and then
| doing it, when in reality it requires a more meta level skill
| of being able to tenaciously pursue a problem until you solve
| it. You should be asking for help along the way, but you need
| to have a drive to figure out the problem yourself, regardless
| of what help others are or are not able to give.
|
| Sometimes students just need a lift up and then they find that
| ability along the way, but it just doesn't seem to ever surface
| in others.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| This is why I don't buy into the "anyone can code" mindset.
|
| More than being some kind of super genius, to be a successful
| engineer you need to have the stones to face your stupidity
| every single day. Most jobs have clear a to b to c to d
| steps. You know when you're done.
|
| With software dev you faceplant almost every couple of hours
| until you finally succeed and get that high. Then you start
| all over again with a new ticket.
|
| Most people have no desire to live that every day. They are
| happier in excel massaging spreadsheets.
| andai wrote:
| There's something that's been bugging me I've been trying to
| put into words. Lately I've been teaching programming to high
| schoolers and college students, and I kind of feel like, the
| sort of people who want to pay someone to teach them rather
| than figuring it out by themselves are going to have a
| distinct disadvantage.
|
| Maybe it's just a case of "I did things the hard way so
| everyone else should too" -- my path was certainly not
| efficient! But I have to wonder if they lack that "grit", and
| if it can be taught or if is something innate.
|
| Here's another example which might illustrate the same
| mindset: I go to IRC as a last resort, because I don't want
| to ask anything I could have solved in a few minutes by
| myself (or worse, that I could have found on Google!)
|
| But when I do go to IRC, I formulate my question very
| precisely, explain the facts, the steps I took, my
| hypothesis... and 9 times out of 10, just the act of writing
| the question out causes the solution to become obvious! (Or
| reveals something I forgot to try, which then solves the
| problem...)
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I definitely see what you're saying. I think many people
| come to programming with the mindset that it's just like
| math. Memorize the formulas and the rules, and then get the
| right answer. So they just want somebody to teach them the
| formula so they can memorize it. But that's just not how
| writing software works.
| drewcoo wrote:
| Actually, when I got my math degree I noticed the same
| two sets of people. The memorizers and the ones who
| enjoyed solving problems. Software works just like math
| (where math is doing proofs, often with new things you're
| not familiar with).
| itronitron wrote:
| I recommend showing them how to solve various types of
| problems that developers typically encounter, setting up a
| project in an IDE, cloning a repo and building it, finding
| API docs for the specific version being used, etc... That
| way they know how to get past roadblocks when they
| encounter them.
|
| I'm currently taking a class, which is not programming
| related, and it's maddening because the teacher and course
| material do a very poor job of covering the basics, so from
| my perspective as an outsider it is near impossible to
| figure out how everything relates. It's possible that your
| current students need a general overview of how all the
| pieces interrelate before they can internalize and build
| their own knowledge.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Before people start debating the headline, know that the podcast
| isn't literally saying that energy is the only metric that
| matters or that energy guarantees success.
|
| They talk about many different dimensions of individuals and how
| feasible they are to evaluate in the context of an interview.
|
| There are also great tidbits about techniques to help get honest
| answers from candidates, such as structuring the interview format
| in ways that leave less leeway for candidates to try to game up
| the answer they think the interviewer wants to hear.
|
| It's an hour long podcast. I remember it being interesting at the
| time. Worth a listen.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The headline only claims that energy is the best predictor of
| talent. HN can't even get that far without adding their own
| incorrect assumption.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| Energy sometimes seems to correlate with agreeableness and
| extroversion. Everyone I've worked with who does this has been a
| nightmare, I never get any valuable negative feedback and it's
| impossible to tell when something is going astray when everything
| is a degree of very positive. Sure, the same is true when
| everything is a degree of negative (which of course is worse and
| equally unproductive).
|
| High energy people are also in my opinion the most draining to
| work with and the most likely to be discounted as juvenile or
| inexperienced.
|
| In my opinion, the best indicators of talent are being humble,
| metered, incredibly well spoken / articulate and willing to help
| someone out of a situation they'd otherwise be afraid to go
| through with a superior. Handling stress without being a adderral
| ridden monkey while maintaining resolve is a trait that the most
| talented brilliant people I've ever worked with have had.
| treeman79 wrote:
| I used to give recruiters opinionated technical questions.
|
| Instructions were to forward his resume if he was passionate
| about it. Didn't care what side of issue the candidate was on.
|
| Just that they had an opinion and showed enthusiasm about why
| their "side" was best.
|
| It worked very well.
| devmunchies wrote:
| I think "enthusiasm" is more descriptive than "energy". I
| typically enjoy interviews since I'm a depth-first learner as
| opposed to breadth first, and interviews are an opportunity to
| talk about all kinds of things I've learned.
|
| Depth first learning meaning that I go deep a specific topic
| before learning adjacent topics (e.g. if building a database
| access layer + cache, I'll go deep on Redis documentation,
| which cause me to go deep on specific redis commands, etc. then
| after redis I move on to cache rehydration strategies, etc).
|
| This is reflected in my enthusiasm in interviews and ability to
| "talk their ear off" if they are interested in the topic. Maybe
| I have it backwards, my enthusiasm for learning technologies is
| why I go deep in the first place.
| Razengan wrote:
| I don't know, I'm energetic and lethargic at different times but
| my output isn't necessarily tied to my energy levels.
|
| Sometimes when I'm not actively working, I'm thinking and
| planning stuff in my head while seemingly loafing around.
|
| Other times when I'm energetic I don't know what to work on.
|
| It's a cycle. With humans nothing is constant.
| memish wrote:
| Relatedly, there's a new interview question going around that
| likewise functions as a good predictor:
|
| What's your opinion of Elon Musk?
| drewcoo wrote:
| I'm usually into more floral things.
|
| What's an Elon? I assume not a river.
|
| How did I do?
| tasubotadas wrote:
| I've hired in the past a person that spoke minimally during the
| interview and during work calls (as like, convey the needed info
| with the least words possible) and he was crushing it at work
| later.
|
| Also, I've worked with a super energetic person who couldn't
| stand in his place, talked way too much, was rude, and, in
| general, unbearable. He was fired later.
|
| So... maybe to soon generalize.
| BLanen wrote:
| > Daniel is an expert on spotting talent.
|
| Why? He's a 31 year old from a startup which left zilch to the
| world.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Years ago I had a phone screening with Daniel Gross when he
| founded Greplin... Right out of high school.
|
| As someone in my late 20s, I was honestly concerned about working
| for a teenager; but he left such a mark that every few years I
| Google him and Greplin. Interesting to see where he goes.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Energy must be inspired and directed.
|
| That is up to leadership.
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