5 ms·

Just goes to show, on paper, founders aren't always the most appealing employees.

by erict19 13y ago

greyshi 13y ago
Seems like he was pretty qualified on paper. Stanford grad and former VP of Engineering at Yahoo. With that in mind, maybe he just had a bad set of interviews. I think this would be more meaningful if we knew the position he was going for.
- foobarqux 13y ago
  Some people are really bad interviewees. Forgivable because interviews are really bad at predicting fit and performance.
pyrrhotech 13y ago
That's because successful founders are just lucky. That's it. Not qualitatively different from any of us. You'd have no better luck picking lottery winners by the looks of the guys entering the gas station.
- wpietri 13y ago
  You overplay your hand. There is a very large luck component to it, sure. But I mentor at entrepreneurship events, and there is a very wide distribution of people who want to start companies. Some of those people are obviously more suited to the work than others. I think that's especially true for people who, like WhatsApp, do things that are different than the common wisdom [1]. I had dinner recently with a friend who worked for Jeff Bezos years ago. She remembered Bezos coming into a meeting in something like 1999 excited about eInk and how it was the future for electronic books. Everybody single person in the room thought he was crazy. They didn't get the Kindle out the door until 2007, and most people thought it was crazy then. But it worked. You could call that pure luck, but I think that's only true in the most abstract sense, where everything we are is luck. [1] http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/77211282835/four-numbers-that-explain-why-facebook-acquired http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/77211282835/four-numbe...
  - pyrrhotech 13y ago
    If Mark Zuckerberg was a freshman in college again in 2014, what chances do you give him of creating a $170B company in the next decade? How about in his lifetime? How about a $1B company in his lifetime? I'd say on the order of 1. 1 in a billion 2. 1 in 100 million. 2. 1 in a million. Sure he is smart and driven and has had every opportunity available to the one guy on planet earth who will achieve what he has. But that doesn't mean he's qualitatively different than the millions of others equally intelligent and talented who didn't buy the winning ticket.
    - adam419 13y ago
      Pretty slim because Facebook exists in 2014 buddy. Your problem is that you're associating the biggest most overhyped entrepreneurs as being the typical entrepreneur. And they indeed do hit huge luck. So you're right there. What the media doesn't talk about -- are the thousands of founders running profitable companies in the tens of millions or even low hundreds of millions. If you do something of value to society, the world will make you rich with a smile on its face.
      - pyrrhotech 13y ago
        No I agree completely there. I think we all have reasonably good chances of creating successful small businesses and extracting our fair value out of society of a few million or even 10 million. But to start something that grows to billions or tens or hundreds of billions that quickly--that isn't skill, that's luck. It takes being the kind of guy who can make the 5 million dollar successful small business to have a chance to play the lottery, but I'm saying that most HN readers are of opportunity to play that lottery. Zuck is much, much different than the typical member of planet earth, but not MUCH (a little better, I'll give him that) than the average silicon valley engineer.
      - enewc 13y ago
        > If you do something of value to society, the world will make you rich with a smile on its face. Said no teacher, cancer researcher, etc. ever
paul 13y ago
I think in many cases great founders would make terrible employees. Imagine trying to tell Steve Jobs what to do.
- waterlesscloud 13y ago
  So if you're a giant company, hire them and don't tell them what to do. Let them run free on your dime. Own whatever they make. (Not that Twitter was a giant company in 2009, and Facebook was just getting there)
  - mrtron 13y ago
    That goes against everything engrained in big org culture.
  - bduerst 13y ago
    Too high of a risk for companies. Better to let the market sift out the successful founders than to payroll a hundred of them, hoping for a big win. Think of how many unsuccessful founder types that Facebook didn't hire too. Also if this guy was working for Facebook, odds are he would have ended up on messenger, and someone else would have filled the SMS market need for Whatsapp in India. Then Facebook would be acquiring that company instead.
    - scep12 13y ago
      > Better to let the market sift out the successful founders than to payroll a hundred of them, hoping for a big win. Sorry, I can't help myself, but at a salary of $160k a year, payrolling "a hundred of them" per year would only cost 1/10th of what FB just paid for whatsapp. It's too bad companies like FB and Twitter would rather let the 'founder' types slip by than to take more chances. When Facebook last tried to recruit me, they described themselves as "a bunch of startups that just happen to work under the same company." Yeah, right.
      - technotony 13y ago
        I think you mean 1/1000th of what FB just paid... seems like it would be a good investment to me!

Just goes to show, on paper, founders aren't always the most appealing employees.

by erict19 13y ago

Just goes to show, on paper, founders aren't always the most appealing employees.

Seems like he was pretty qualified on paper. Stanford grad and former VP of Engineering at Yahoo. With that in mind, maybe he just had a bad set of interviews. I think this would be more meaningful if we knew the position he was going for.

foobarqux 13y ago
Some people are really bad interviewees. Forgivable because interviews are really bad at predicting fit and performance.

pyrrhotech 13y ago

That's because successful founders are just lucky. That's it. Not qualitatively different from any of us. You'd have no better luck picking lottery winners by the looks of the guys entering the gas station.

wpietri 13y ago
You overplay your hand. There is a very large luck component to it, sure. But I mentor at entrepreneurship events, and there is a very wide distribution of people who want to start companies. Some of those people are obviously more suited to the work than others. I think that's especially true for people who, like WhatsApp, do things that are different than the common wisdom [1]. I had dinner recently with a friend who worked for Jeff Bezos years ago. She remembered Bezos coming into a meeting in something like 1999 excited about eInk and how it was the future for electronic books. Everybody single person in the room thought he was crazy. They didn't get the Kindle out the door until 2007, and most people thought it was crazy then. But it worked. You could call that pure luck, but I think that's only true in the most abstract sense, where everything we are is luck. [1] http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/77211282835/four-numbers-that-explain-why-facebook-acquired http://sequoiacapital.tumblr.com/post/77211282835/four-numbe...
- pyrrhotech 13y ago
  If Mark Zuckerberg was a freshman in college again in 2014, what chances do you give him of creating a $170B company in the next decade? How about in his lifetime? How about a $1B company in his lifetime? I'd say on the order of 1. 1 in a billion 2. 1 in 100 million. 2. 1 in a million. Sure he is smart and driven and has had every opportunity available to the one guy on planet earth who will achieve what he has. But that doesn't mean he's qualitatively different than the millions of others equally intelligent and talented who didn't buy the winning ticket.
  - adam419 13y ago
    Pretty slim because Facebook exists in 2014 buddy. Your problem is that you're associating the biggest most overhyped entrepreneurs as being the typical entrepreneur. And they indeed do hit huge luck. So you're right there. What the media doesn't talk about -- are the thousands of founders running profitable companies in the tens of millions or even low hundreds of millions. If you do something of value to society, the world will make you rich with a smile on its face.
    - pyrrhotech 13y ago
      No I agree completely there. I think we all have reasonably good chances of creating successful small businesses and extracting our fair value out of society of a few million or even 10 million. But to start something that grows to billions or tens or hundreds of billions that quickly--that isn't skill, that's luck. It takes being the kind of guy who can make the 5 million dollar successful small business to have a chance to play the lottery, but I'm saying that most HN readers are of opportunity to play that lottery. Zuck is much, much different than the typical member of planet earth, but not MUCH (a little better, I'll give him that) than the average silicon valley engineer.
    - enewc 13y ago
      > If you do something of value to society, the world will make you rich with a smile on its face. Said no teacher, cancer researcher, etc. ever

paul 13y ago

I think in many cases great founders would make terrible employees. Imagine trying to tell Steve Jobs what to do.

waterlesscloud 13y ago
So if you're a giant company, hire them and don't tell them what to do. Let them run free on your dime. Own whatever they make. (Not that Twitter was a giant company in 2009, and Facebook was just getting there)
- mrtron 13y ago
  That goes against everything engrained in big org culture.
- bduerst 13y ago
  Too high of a risk for companies. Better to let the market sift out the successful founders than to payroll a hundred of them, hoping for a big win. Think of how many unsuccessful founder types that Facebook didn't hire too. Also if this guy was working for Facebook, odds are he would have ended up on messenger, and someone else would have filled the SMS market need for Whatsapp in India. Then Facebook would be acquiring that company instead.
  - scep12 13y ago
    > Better to let the market sift out the successful founders than to payroll a hundred of them, hoping for a big win. Sorry, I can't help myself, but at a salary of $160k a year, payrolling "a hundred of them" per year would only cost 1/10th of what FB just paid for whatsapp. It's too bad companies like FB and Twitter would rather let the 'founder' types slip by than to take more chances. When Facebook last tried to recruit me, they described themselves as "a bunch of startups that just happen to work under the same company." Yeah, right.
    - technotony 13y ago
      I think you mean 1/1000th of what FB just paid... seems like it would be a good investment to me!