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Comment by jackgavigan | Hacker News Reader

I always roll my eyes internally when I hear people talking about how they only hire A-players.

The way I see it, you want A-players in certain positions where their performance and influence drives the company forward - "moves the needle", to use a clichė. You don't want A-players in mundane/support roles because they'll end up getting frustrated and likely become disruptive (the exception is when you put an A-player in a support role so she can learn the ropes/basics before you move them to the role you actually want them to fulfil).

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Doesn't that perfectly describe Google? I mean, plenty of A players, not enough A player work to go around, at least what I have read from Michael Church.

Sounds exactly like Google. Here is this really cool new thing we built, but the work to finish it and provide support is boring so it doesn't get done. Fast forward a couple of years and they kill it saying no one used it and it provided no revenue.

I would like to see corroborating evidence from a more reliable source.

Some nuance should be applied here: this is usually said in the context of startups.

In the first few years of a startup, there's no such thing as a mundane support role. The first person you hire for support is your future "VP Customer Support". The first few people will form the support culture and processes of a company for the future.

In this context, all hires should be A-players, because they are supposed to contribute way more than just fulfil the role in their job description.

There are people who are passionate about doing X. They know how to do X very well, might even be a world expert in X. Now, you might even have one of these people at your startup, or maybe not because it can aponly accept jack of all trades at the beginning? Also, keep in mind that advancement in technology typically occurs through specialization, not generalization.

So do you really want your machine learning star working on customer support? If they spent 8 years a PhD to become an expert in that, how would they feel?

If someone becomes disruptive when they get frustrated, then they are not an A player.

Part of being an "A player" is to be professional, including in their communications and behavior. IF they are having problems with their role, speaking to someone about it and getting the problems resolved is appropriate, not disrupting the business.

This sounds like a fantasy. Everyone has different likes, dislikes, and motivation levels depending on the environment they're in. Also, "professionalism" is mainly a stick management uses to beat up on employees when they neglect to align their incentives with the company (because it's expensive and possibly tricky to give points on the package or real bonuses).

They usually get frustrated and leave the company. Also, not all A players make great people managers, which is to say the company went for A-level engineering talent but not A-level people management talent.

That's not the definition of an A player, that's the definition of a unicorn. There are very few talented people who remain productive if they don't feel they're valued / doing valuable work.

I said nothing about remaining productive. Of course productivity suffers along with morale. That is not the same thing as actively disrupting a business. Quitting and/or slacking off are common reactions. But if someone gets passive-aggressive and/or otherwise actively disrupts a team? That makes them toxic. And no matter how talented they are, a toxic individual is not an A player.

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