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Weird, isn't your comment a bit self-contradicting?

Above the <hr> fold: "Stop the loser talk. You can learn from others' mistakes. Your fate is not sealed."

Below the fold: "Track record is king. It's all DNA. People don't change. Your fate is sealed."

FWIW, I tend to agree more with your below-the-fold views based on most people I've met.

> Below the fold: "Track record is king. It's all DNA. People don't change. Your fate is sealed."

You read it wrong - it's not about DNA or fate. It's about what a person has done recently. It's a good predictor of what they're going to do next. As soon as someone changes for real, they build a new and healthy track record.

In general, you should weight a person's actions - track record - over what they say. It's a people skills thing more than a destiny-predicting thing.

> FWIW, I tend to agree more with your below-the-fold views based on most people I've met.

Huh, well, I admire you saying that, it's not a fashionable viewpoint these days. I'd predict a person's actions 95% by what they've done recently and 5% what they talk about, but I think it's possible for anyone to change through incremental improvement. Many people won't, but everyone could. There's always some little incremental improvement you could make. But for important roles in your life, you can't gamble - look for someone with a good track unless you're in a position to make a good evaluation, and be careful even then.

Isn't it possible that a person will act the same based on track record because their environment is always the same and therefore there isn't an incentive to change their habits, especially if they are unaware of this? People can change enough to make a big difference when their eyes are opened and they realize what really matters in life. I've seen it happen.

Yes, but creating that environment for change is a pretty difficult task. As an example, several times I've hired people who did customer support before to do customer support for me, and de-training all the customer-hostile and ultimately time-wasting behaviors is really hard. I mean, sure, it can be done, if you understand the behaviors and values you want, and if the employee is willing to work with you, but it is /hard/

My experience with this sort of thing is that if the person looks like they failed in the past due to having a bad boss[1], yeah, I can fix it. But otherwise? you are in for a whole lot of work with a very small chance of success. Sometimes, it's worth it, but you need to go in with your eyes open.

[1] oh man, bad bosses do a whole lot of damage. that's the funny thing; I don't think a good boss, even a really good boss helps all that much. I mean, sure, they help a little. I try to be a good boss. But a bad boss can easily swing productivity in to the negative. Goal one is to not be a bad boss.

While there is truth in what you say I can only quote (or rather paraphrase from memory) Michael Mcintyre:

have you ever noticed with ATM's, you go up to it and it says "no, I have no money for you, go away". So, like a good citizen you turn round to the man behind you in the queue and say "it is out of money". And he says "thank you.....", and then steps up to try for himself anyway. "thanks, but I don't believe you, it will work for me".

So, no, you don't have to "learn things the hard way". But most people nod sagely when you give them advice and then do it anyway :) (and that is a good thing IMO)

(I agree with your track records thing; it's too easy to imagine you are giving a "last chance" and that it will really work out this time).

Forgive me also for being blunt ... what if the person who has the poor track records is yourself? I'm of course referring to myself and others who don't have as a tough sounding username as lionhearted.

I think we give the benefit of doubt to people that we could relate to, who have had the same disadvantages and flaws as ourselves (after all, to not do so is to reject ourselves).

Does your statement imply that we should try to align ourselves with those who have better track records than our own, and vice versa for those who are inferior? I'm not trying to be facetious, but trying to get you to elaborate applying what you said in a real world context.

> what if the person who has the poor track records is yourself?

Build a track record! :)

The problem with people without track records is that often they talk a good game but haven't built up their game. You goal shouldn't be to convince people that you're now [loyal / effective / honest / disciplined / whatever], it should be to actually build that quality in yourself.

Everyone's got no track record at some point. Build yours. Accomplish things. Be loyal. Keep growing and learning and doing things. Mostly - do things as much as possible as fast as possible. "Quantity always trumps quality" - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always-tru...

> Does your statement imply that we should try to align ourselves with those who have better track records than our own, and vice versa for those who are inferior?

It's not about better/inferior - it means people will usually continue to do what they've done in the past, as opposed to what they say they're going to do.

You should look to associate yourself with people you admire and like, and you should also look to find people on their way up and help them too. I don't think I've ever quoted the Bible before, but this about covers it:

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to reap that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."

> I'm not trying to be facetious, but trying to get you to elaborate applying what you said in a real world context.

Okay, ultra-practical rendition:

-Avoid men/women with a history of nasty endings to their relationships, even if they're charming...

-Avoid hiring people who look extremely talented but flame out without producing

-Avoid working for people that everyone says is a terrible/mean/awful boss/client/whatever, even if they seem okay

-Feel free to break this if you have a particularly good eye for talent, but only then

-If someone has rehabilitated themself, you'll generally see a good track record coming from them quickly. People can accomplish and build and do good things pretty quick after improving. Don't take anyone's word that they've improved without results, because everyone says that.

Anyway, don't sweat if you have a mixed or poor track record yet, just start building yours as quickly as you can. Accomplish things, build things, learn, and serve people, and don't forget to get some of the value you create for accomplishing, building, and serving - helping is good, but it's totally fair to get some of the value you created. As you accomplish more things, people come to know and respect you as a guy that gets things done, is a good guy, and accomplishes things. Then people want to work with you. It's a virtuous cycle.

I agree with the track record thing but it is important to compartmentalize here. Somebody might have a track record of being a womanizer but might be good at what they do eg. Bill Clinton, Tiger Woods, JFK, or they might have a gambling problem, reference Michael Jordon. With that said, only judge people on track record in the category you need them to perform in.

I don't know, I think character is a really important trait. If someone is a womanizer and consistently breaks his commitment to his spouse, why should we believe that he will deal any differently with us? One is to have the most intimate, enduring, unbreakable commitment to his spouse, and if this person considers such an intimate connection worthless, why would he place any value on your professional relationship?

The best way to find success in hiring is to hire people who are honest and moral all-around. Don't make exceptions just because someone is supposedly a "rockstar programmer"; even if he can write code 10x more efficient than anyone else, it's almost never worth the added interpersonal friction. Life -- and business -- is all about relationships, not technicalities.

Phil Jackson placed Rodman on the Bulls despite his character flaw and generally being regarded as being unstable. But Rodman was the best at what he did. I think everybody comes with their flaws but choose people based on their genius not on their lack of flaws.

I think people have this notion that a person has to be this all around good person, when it is not true. Like Woods, the media needs to present this image of being perfect. What you need are people perfect for their position and manage their other flaws

Sports stars are something of an unusual situation. Things like instability generate publicity for the given player and his team. Rodman was good for the Bulls because:

a. the Bulls is show business; people pay to see characters like Rodman

b. celebrity tabloids/news pick up on "unstable" behavior and make a show out of it, which is good publicity and marketing for the subjects

c. a long-term steady relationship is not necessarily important; you milk the characters while they generate cash for your business, and try to make it last, but if they eventually leave (in most cases, including Rodman's; MJ would be an exception) there's no critical damage to the business, just less free publicity.

It's not about picking people on a "lack of flaws" generally. It's about avoiding people who've demonstrably, repeatedly, unabashedly violated the most important and intimate commitments they have ever made, and it's about reasoning from that basis that they may not value your professional relationship so much if they won't even value their marital relationship very much.

Adultery isn't necessarily the only case where this conclusion is valid, but I think you get the point. You should avoid "bad people", even if they are geniuses. Just look around -- Ulrich Drepper is a liability to libc because of his abrasiveness and that trait has caused fragmentation of effort, Hans Reiser wrote a mighty fine filesystem, but couldn't work with others and eventually murdered his wife, and so on.

I don't know the personal lives of Drepper or Reiser so it's unfortunate to implicate them in this post, but the point is, some things are more important than raw performance in a core competency. If we accept slightly-less-awesome code in return for largely-more-awesome demeanor, interaction, and maintainership, that's a great trade because while the code may run slightly less fast, it will attract many more users and contributors, prevent fragmentation, and progress quickly and more applicably than a project run by a close-minded or hostile maintainer, no matter how great that individual's code is.

The reality is that a person's behavior in their personal life is a reflection of their behavior in professional life. You can't really segregate the two and pretend that they're completely different animals. They bleed over, a person is one individual. I would never hire someone I knew to be a fraudster or adulterer because they have already proven that they are not worthy of trust from their closest friends and family members, much less their employer.

[I didn't downvote you, I think you are making some valid points]

What I'm trying to point out is not paint with broad strokes. But evaluate everything and everyone independently of rules.

Flaws of people admired:

1) Gandhi - Racist

2) Martin Luther King - Copy someone's work for his phd. Also an adulterer.

3) Edgar Allan Poe - So disrespectful that he was disowned by his guardians.

4) Tesla - Hated fat people.

5) Steve Jobs - Erratic and Temperamental. Fired employees on the spot

6) Bill Gates - Monopolistic tendencies

7) Mark Zuckerberg - Used delay tactics on his competition to get facebook to market. Hacked people's profile.

8)Vincent van Gogh - Lived with a prostitute. Accused of rape. Was mentally ill. Cut his ear off.

I would say it's best to control these negative tendencies than to try to find flawless people.

Apple tried to control Steve behavior and you see what happened in his absent. While he went on to form NeXT and Pixar, Apple tank.

Sure it will be nice to have someone who isn't temperamental and abrasive but choose genius over any other qualities. I think the rest qualities can be managed. Give Steve a meditation coach(meditation= more empathetic)

Thanks for not downvoting me.

Again, it's not about finding "flawless" or "perfect" people. We all know these people don't exist. It's just about paying attention to a few basic moral imperatives, namely integrity; if a person has a history of adultery, that person is not likely to be a trustworthy resource. That person is willing to destroy the lives and hearts of his family for fleeting personal sexual gain. Why do you think such a person wouldn't be willing to trade the well-being of your company or other employees if the right personal incentives materialized? An adulterer is pretty much the most selfish kind of person you can find.

Of course adulterers and other people can still do good things. Everyone is capable of doing good. I am merely saying that I wouldn't invest the resources into hiring an adulterer because adulterers prove that they are suspicious and untrustworthy by committing adultery. There are plenty of non-adulterers out there that are safer investments, even if it costs me a bit of CPU time.

All of us have our limits, I wouldn't hesitate to hire an adulterer but under no circumstances I would hire a racist, a rapist, or a murderer.

Gandhi was a racist? That's news to me. Links? Citation?

"We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race. "- Gandhi

http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm

Point taken. Thanks for pointing it out.

It's a general trend to rewrite history and present world leaders in glowing terms. The assumption is common people would loose faith if they know about their flaws.

I don't buy that. Ignorance, though bliss, isn't a solution to any problem. I would expect people to know the facts and then exercise their judgement.

I remember a slideshow a couple of days back from some startup which had a slide of a monkey saying "We don't write software for this", followed by a slide of Neil Armstrong on moon saying "This is what we write for; Humans who transcended moon and keep going higher"(paraphrasing).

The elite dumbasses at the top assume too much about common people.

Gandhi, "racist"?

Would you mind very much googling "Harijan"?

You seem to have latched on to a very strange definition of "racist". Gandhi might have believed during that early period in his life in keeping races separate, which is not surprising given his orthodox upbringing, but he did a very great deal, later, to unite people of all religions and races and motivate them to think of each other as equals, persuading them to literally call each other 'brothers and sisters'.

I cannot accept that that is the same as what is commonly understood as "racist".

"We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race."- Gandhi http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm

Yes, I'm talking about the early part of his life. Well if you feel comfortable - ex-racist.

Lots of people contribute nothing to racial harmony over their lives and yet they'd be sufficiently politically correct that you couldn't call them racist or ex-racist.

Gandhi ended up having undone the damage to an incredible, extraordinary extent. I'm no Gandhi fanboy, but I don't see how the hint of blame that 'ex-racist' implies can be applied to his life.

Maybe you are right. I was using Gandhi as an example of how evaluating ones fault is not necessary the way to judge people for a job. Sure he made these mistake, but it didn't take away from his ability to unite people. That is the point I was trying to make, whether he was a racist or not, his genius still stands.

this is the stupidest comment I've ever read anywhere. Mahatma Gandhi did a lot for people in both South Africa and India. By glibly calling him a racist you're insulting an entire country and a great man.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You insult the whole community with your glib response. But it still stand Gandhi was racist in his early days.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/17/southafrica.indi...

If you go back far enough, you won't find anyone who thought the way we do about race, so the label you're putting on Gandhi here is an anachronism and the moralism implicit in it is glib.

A more interesting place to look for Gandhi's shadow side is in the dynamics of his family, particularly his oldest son (IIRC) who lived out all the things his father hated; he became an alcoholic and, worse, a salesman.

But Gandhi shouldn't have had to be completely responsible for how his son turned out (assuming he turned out badly).

I might blame some but not all parents, as a class, if their kids became alcoholic, but in the case of specific individuals it's hard to say.

I agree with you on the first point.

Some of these are interesting. Gandhi, for instance, may have been racist in his early life. But if he changed as he aged, does that make him a racist forever? In other words, there was a racist Gandhi, but also a non-racist Gandhi. Which one gets the legacy? Both?

Neither Rodman nor Woods ever had any incentive to play poorly or otherwise screw over their team.

Hiring untrustworthy people is fine if you can make sure their incentives are 100% aligned with yours. If you can't, then I think cookiecaper's advice is sound.

"I don't know, I think character is a really important trait. If someone is a womanizer and consistently breaks his commitment to his spouse, why should we believe that he will deal any differently with us? One is to have the most intimate, enduring, unbreakable commitment to his spouse, and if this person considers such an intimate connection worthless, why would he place any value on your professional relationship?"

From what I can tell, this seems to be a common way of thinking in the US, especially in politics. Much less so in Europe (and maybe other parts of the world, I don't know). Personally, I don't see the connection between a person's romantic affairs, and their political decisions... one involves raging hormones, the other (hopefully) does not, so the decision making process is likely very different. (One could say, there are different body parts involved in the decision making... :-)

And what happens when things align such that sexual incentives occur which are contrary to relevant covenants? If we can't trust a politician to be loyal to his wife when faced with another attractive woman, why should we trust him to be loyal to political or employment covenants, by all accounts much less intimate and involved than a marriage covenant, if such a condition was presented?

For instance, if a company promises lots of pre-paid escort time in exchange for a given change to a given bill, why should we expect that an adulterer would be any more loyal to the right regarding the political establishment than his own wife and family?

And the reality is that these people don't even need an explicit sexual offer to betray their associates, there are many other bribes that appeal to the same basic desires (like money, power, status, etc.) that can be exploited to the same ultimate end.

An adulterer is a proven liability. Why should we trust him and invest a bunch of time and money and trust and secrets into him, only to betrayed when an adversarial entity lures him with money and sex? Obviously repentant people should be given another chance at some point, but I would never trust a known adulterer that wasn't completely repentant.

Wise words lionhearted. Wise words.

Note that you can hire early flameouts in bundles and rotate them when each flames out though. If you can manage that, it's like driving with NOx.

"Like, there's tons of literature on good parenting. How many people read it? Like, none."

I think that's a really bad example. There's a lot of bullshit in the parenting literature. In a way I find it very disturbing, that we need to learn how to parent our children.

I agree that there's a lot of junk out there. Almost all the "professional", published advice I've skimmed or read on pregnancy, for instance, amounts to "do whatever the pregnant lady says". Somehow I find this less likely to be good advice and more likely to be fodder for sales, to get women to buy a so-called "authoritative" source that justifies unreasonable behavior under the guise of pregnancy.

"In a way I find it very disturbing, that we need to learn how to parent our children."

Really? Why?

I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn.

>I've never understood why people look at parenting differently than any other skill you have to learn.

Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea.

Even under such a regime it's possible that you can learn "better" parenting from outside the group but you're going to be able to actually do it already just like learning to eat or prepare food.

The thing is we mostly don't have such a structure.

It seems to me that society is in death throes; that as populations burgeon so we value one another and interaction with one another less-and-less. But perhaps this is just me; I tend to be too introverted and pessimistic for my own good.

From experience I've seen that this "learn by your parents" is truly starting to be weak in the Western "thinking" countries. Poor countries on the other hand use this a lot.

I was raised in a post-communist Albania, and people weren't influenced by consumerism. It was a more warm-environment for the child to grow. My sister was raised in Italy (during 00'). Between me and my sister, assuming the same age, I would learn better from my parents then her.

"Parenting should be assimilated (learnt if you like) gradually over time from those around you. Humans IMO function best as family groups within a [close-knit] tribal system: under such a regime one learns from one's own parents, parents of peers, parents of younger children, older intra-generation peers and peers as parents as well as from looking after younger children as a child, looking after younger children as a teen, ... you get the idea."

This doesn't seem to work so well in today's society, as we tend to consider older generations' ideas of parenting "old-fashioned". Maybe rightfully so, maybe not... but discarding the experience from older generations means you have to relearn everything all over. In that context, it may be useful to have books (etc) on parenting that tell you, "do X", "don't do Y", maybe put in a contemporary context, so there's less of a stigma of being "out of date".

The problem is that most parenting literature is based on one person's subjective opinion. There is a dearth of real evidence to prove that one technique actually produces better outcomes than another. So how are we to know what skills to learn?

There is a tremendous variation in individual children so mostly it has to be a trial and error process until you figure out what works for each.

Read Laura Berk. She is an awesome researcher in child development.

Look at the context for the track record: was it against all odds, or were they raised with a silver spoon? It is much easier to get ahead when having good loving parents, good teachers, good friends, but there might not be much of a fighter in those champions.

and definitely: people who bad-mouth others will bad-mouth you when you leave, no matter how noble you behave. But you still have to be noble to avoid your actions coming back and biting your ass.

how about "people will bad-mouth you." full stop. There is nothing you can do to stop it.

Now, how you respond says a lot, especially if you own a business, and people are bad-mouthing you on 'the permanent record'

1. don't respond as if you are taking it personally.

Sure, being attacked unfairly by a customer feels like a fist to the gut. But it's not. This won't burst your spleen. Man up and act rationally.

2. acknowledge problems the badmouther brings up, if some of them are valid complaints. Explain how you are trying to prevent those problems from happening again. If possible, offer a refund, etc.

3. try to deflect invalid complaints without getting angry.

Fear is not the mind killer. Anger is the mind killer. If the badmouther is being unreasonable, it's likely that others will see this as well, (If others don't see this... perhaps your idea of reasonable needs to be re-calibrated?) If you can't deal with this in a calm manner, don't say anything at all. personal attacks in response to personal attacks will make you look like a 15 year old or a politician, in any case, nobody anyone wants to do business with.

First - do everyone a favor and throw this "If I say bullshit enough people will think I'm good at spotting it" mindset out. While you're at leave the "there's a lot of loser talk in this thread" talk to trolls.

Second - Why in gods name would you teach yourself to view people so one dimensionally? You sound like a College Admissions rep only interested in a persons GPA.

I appreciate the basic notion, that execution matters more than words but I wouldn't waste my breath telling my naive self that. I was far too naive to take that advice to heart. And I surely wouldn't tell myself to not be the first to give someone a second chance.

I don't know what I'd tell myself, I haven't put my mind there yet, but I do know for damn sure that it wouldn't involve such a cold finite tone.

>Someone fired from all their jobs is probably going to be a menace later in some form or fashion. >Someone who ended all their relationships on bad terms is going to end on bad terms with you.

This was an important lesson for me recently. I had a friend I was spending quite a lot of time with, and was discussing starting businesses with. One day it dawned on me that there was not one job, friendship or relationship this person had not ended, usually badly. Then I realised that I was just about their only current friend, which made me realise this person eventually fell out with all their friends. Seeing the writing on the wall I staged a gradual withdrawal, and remain friendly but not friends.