You’d expect Silicon Valley working practices to be less optimal than those in mature industries, because, well, the industries aren’t mature. The companies are often run by people with minimal management experience, and the companies themselves are too short-lived to develop the kind of institutional memory that would be able to determine whether such policies were good or bad. Heck, most of SV still follows interview practices that have been actively shown to be useless, to the extent that they’ve been abandoned by the company that originated them (Microsoft). Success is too random for these things to be noticeable; the truth is that in SV, being 50% less efficient probably has negligible effects on your odds of success, because the success or failure of a given company is massively overdetermined (in one direction or the other) by other factors.
The only people in a position to figure this kind of thing out, and then act on that knowledge, are the venture capitalists—and they’re a long way removed from the action (and anyone smart has already left the business since it’s not a good way of making money). Eventually I’d expect VCs to start insisting that companies adopt 40-hour policies, but it’s going to take a long time for the signal to emerge from the noise.
and anyone smart has already left the business since it’s not a good way of making money.
Can you elaborate? The impression I’ve gotten from multiple converging lines of evidence is that there are basically two kinds of VC firms: (1) a minority that actually know what they’re doing, make money, and don’t need any more investors and (2) the majority that exist because lots of rich people and institutions want to be invested in venture capital, can’t get in on investing with the first group, and can’t tell the two groups apart.
A similar pattern appears to occur in the hedge fund industry. In both cases, if you just look at the industry-wide stats, they look terrible, but that doesn’t mean that Peter Thiel or George Soros aren’t smart because they’re still in the game.
You’d expect Silicon Valley working practices to be less optimal than those in mature industries, because, well, the industries aren’t mature.
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand I expect the working practices of mature industries to have been formed during the times of typewriters and three-ring binders.
Heck, most of SV still follows interview practices that have been actively shown to be useless, to the extent that they’ve been abandoned by the company that originated them (Microsoft).
Can you be more specific?
What do you think the factors that overdetermine a company’s success are? I don’t think I’ve heard of that many wildly successful companies in Silicon Valley with dysfunctional corporate cultures.
For every job, though, the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not I.Q. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information.
It’s of course possible that this Bock guy knows what he’s doing on the hiring front. But in these interviews he has no incentive to give Google’s competitors coherent helpful information on how to hire people—and every incentive to send out obfuscated messages which might flatter the preconceptions of NYT readers.
I’ve pointed out in the past that in the Google context, range restriction is a problem (when everyone applying to Google is ultra-smart, smartness ceases to be a useful predictor), so Bock could be saying something true & interesting in picking out some other traits which vaguely sound like IQ but aren’t (maybe ‘processing speed’?), but then he or the writer are being very misleading (intentionally or unintentionally). I don’t know which of these possibilities might be true.
Everyone who applies to Google is not ultra-smart. Far from it.
As a first-line interviewer, most people get rejected for being blatantly, horrifically incapable.
The perception that they are, unfortunately, causes many people who’d have a chance at acceptance to not even try. Anyone reading this, if you’ve thought about applying to Google and decided you don’t have a chance, please think again! The opportunity costs are really low, and potentially negative; worst case you’ll get a bit of interviewing experience.
Something to keep in mind is that a large organization (like Google) may have pretty decentralized hiring practices. Even if Engineering interviewers believe that “brainteaser” questions are a bad idea, that doesn’t mean Sales or Finance agrees. And a site called “Business Insider” may care more about Sales or Finance than Engineering ….
You’d expect Silicon Valley working practices to be less optimal than those in mature industries, because, well, the industries aren’t mature. The companies are often run by people with minimal management experience, and the companies themselves are too short-lived to develop the kind of institutional memory that would be able to determine whether such policies were good or bad. Heck, most of SV still follows interview practices that have been actively shown to be useless, to the extent that they’ve been abandoned by the company that originated them (Microsoft). Success is too random for these things to be noticeable; the truth is that in SV, being 50% less efficient probably has negligible effects on your odds of success, because the success or failure of a given company is massively overdetermined (in one direction or the other) by other factors.
The only people in a position to figure this kind of thing out, and then act on that knowledge, are the venture capitalists—and they’re a long way removed from the action (and anyone smart has already left the business since it’s not a good way of making money). Eventually I’d expect VCs to start insisting that companies adopt 40-hour policies, but it’s going to take a long time for the signal to emerge from the noise.
Can you elaborate? The impression I’ve gotten from multiple converging lines of evidence is that there are basically two kinds of VC firms: (1) a minority that actually know what they’re doing, make money, and don’t need any more investors and (2) the majority that exist because lots of rich people and institutions want to be invested in venture capital, can’t get in on investing with the first group, and can’t tell the two groups apart.
A similar pattern appears to occur in the hedge fund industry. In both cases, if you just look at the industry-wide stats, they look terrible, but that doesn’t mean that Peter Thiel or George Soros aren’t smart because they’re still in the game.
On the one hand, yes. On the other hand I expect the working practices of mature industries to have been formed during the times of typewriters and three-ring binders.
Can you be more specific?
What do you think the factors that overdetermine a company’s success are? I don’t think I’ve heard of that many wildly successful companies in Silicon Valley with dysfunctional corporate cultures.
I have limited trust in a source which says things like that.
Edited to add: More on Bock’s learning ability:
Yeah, nope.
I was about to post that quote too. Surely IQ has nothing to do with “ability to process on the fly” or “pull together disparate bits of information.”
It’s of course possible that this Bock guy knows what he’s doing on the hiring front. But in these interviews he has no incentive to give Google’s competitors coherent helpful information on how to hire people—and every incentive to send out obfuscated messages which might flatter the preconceptions of NYT readers.
I’ve pointed out in the past that in the Google context, range restriction is a problem (when everyone applying to Google is ultra-smart, smartness ceases to be a useful predictor), so Bock could be saying something true & interesting in picking out some other traits which vaguely sound like IQ but aren’t (maybe ‘processing speed’?), but then he or the writer are being very misleading (intentionally or unintentionally). I don’t know which of these possibilities might be true.
Everyone who applies to Google is not ultra-smart. Far from it.
As a first-line interviewer, most people get rejected for being blatantly, horrifically incapable.
The perception that they are, unfortunately, causes many people who’d have a chance at acceptance to not even try. Anyone reading this, if you’ve thought about applying to Google and decided you don’t have a chance, please think again! The opportunity costs are really low, and potentially negative; worst case you’ll get a bit of interviewing experience.
No, everyone who applies to Google is not ulta-smart but most who are hired are probably pretty smart.
Given that everyone who are hired are smart, gwerns point is valid.
Sorry if I was unclear. I am not claiming I understand why that article was written. But the quote is very funny.
Something to keep in mind is that a large organization (like Google) may have pretty decentralized hiring practices. Even if Engineering interviewers believe that “brainteaser” questions are a bad idea, that doesn’t mean Sales or Finance agrees. And a site called “Business Insider” may care more about Sales or Finance than Engineering ….