Comment by galistoca | Hacker News Reader

Comment by galistoca | Hacker News Reader

I don't know, to me it just sounds like a gimmicky way to get more people to apply. That's what recruiters do. They try to get as many people to apply as possible, and then filter the hell out of them. So just because a recruiter "reached out" to you via linkedin or something, it doesn't mean they think highly of you. Actually, you should assume that they don't care at all about what you've achieved. You're just one of many fish they're trying to pass through their funnel.

That's why I am genuinely curious what they plan to do once they hire teams. Let's say you hire a team of a designer and a developer. It's not like they will be always working together and with no one else in the company. Chances are you won't be working as the tag team forever. That would be stupid both for the company and for these people because you are being too closed minded and won't learn much by only interacting with the other person when there are so many other talented people in the company. I presume that isn't what they plan to do. Then that leaves us with the option of just hiring them "as a team" but once they're in, there's no guarantee that they will work as the same team, just like how most acquisitions work--when they acquire a company they say stuff like "Company A's expertise will be helpful in us developing our such and such core features", but after the acquisition they all disperse and get assigned to different teams after a while.

So... what's the point? Well that's why I think it's a gimmicky way to attract attention and get more people to apply. Any counter argument?

I think you have hit the nail on the head. With the HN exposure all the better.

Any team that gets an offer should come back and ask for +50% since they have as a united team the upper hand.

There was a post a few months ago by a guy who was doing the opposite, I think his entire team got fired together but they got on really well so they were trying to apply to places as a group, so there is at least some interest in this out there.

there is really little downside. Imagine a team of 3 applies and one guy is just brilliant and the other two are just average. First of all, average people are worth it if you can get 1 brilliant guy or girl. Secondly, you can always let the average people go few months later and keep the brilliant person, if you so choose

> Secondly, you can always let the average people go few months later and keep the brilliant person, if you so choose

After this initial PR, said fired average people could write quite an exposé on their experience joining Stripe as a team. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me and I don't think Stripe is ignorant enough to believe this strategy only has upsides.

Sure, but people are let go for poor performance all the time, team hires will be no different once they join. So from that standpoint, there is not much more risk than any regular hire ( who could also write an expose about whatever )

> there is not much more risk than any regular hire ( who could also write an expose about whatever )

Comparing a regular hire / fire to firing an individual from a team is not apples to apples.

For a regular hire, that person is a "team" of skills that can do many things. For example, Joe can program and do technical writing. If MegaTech hires Joe for a programming job, and then only assigns him technical-writing work, they've "laid off" his programming skill. Joe might be a little unhappy that he didn't get to do the job for which he was hired. He may mention it in his Glassdoor review, and that may impact future developers' opinions of MegaTech a smidge.

If MegaTech does a team hire and then lays off one person, it could appear that the initial idea of hiring the whole team was not sincere. That is risking more reputation than hiring and firing one person. When you hire/fire one person, it's clear the company and individual's initial plan failed. When firing a person from a team after a few months, it's not so clear whether the company ever really wanted that person or not.

So I think there are potential downsides. I also think Stripe is aware of these.

I look forward to hearing about this model and hope it works for the companies and groups who try it.

Which would almost certainly impact the brilliant guy's work. People aren't robots - if you hire them as a team (presumably because they liked working together) and then fire half the team within a few months, the ones left will start looking for something else.

well, you would only fire half the team if that half was for some reason performing really poorly. in which case, the brilliant guy would probably not be too upset.

It is NOT worth hiring a few average people just for one brilliant person. First of all "brilliant" person is overrated, unless we're talking about hiring someone at a CTO level. One could be brilliant yet a perfect disaster for the company if he doesn't fit in, not to mention many other factors. Also you seem to think mediocre employees don't hurt the company but mediocre people hire/attract less than mediocre people, who in turn hires/attracts people even worse, and so on. As a startup you don't have that luxury. And the company culture goes to shit. I would never make that decision. I've had both cases, one of the employees was a brilliant guy but was lazy, and he fucked up the company culture by acting as a "role model". Soon everyone in the company started acting like him. I've also hired someone who didn't really fit in and was passive aggressive, and it was hard to communicate with him. Thinking back it wasn't because he was not talented, but because he just didn't care much (This is equivalent to having a mediocre employee). Because of this the entire team had hard time making decisions. When your team is small even one person can influence the culture in negative ways.

Sure, don't hire brilliant and lazy people. hire brilliant and hardworking people. With a team it should be easier, because average people don't want to be on a team with brilliant lazy people

So what's your point? I commented because you said hiring average people is ok, but now you're saying average people don't want to work with hardworking brilliant people so it would be easier. Make up your mind man.

my point is hiring a team of people, as long as just one person on that team is really great, is no riskier for a company than hiring separately

You're just re-iterating your initial comment. I said it's bad to hire mediocre talent in any circumstances. You said something that doesn't make sense as a response to my comment.

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