Meanwhile, the “it’ll take a few years to wash out” and “it’ll be obvious to the people in the environment before then” are both correct and both applicable to either side of this argument, thus you get the fairly invested/high-conviction but “low rigor” argumentation.
But obviously the “what do you see here” discussion is pointless.
"OTOH it's likely to be obvious to people actually in the environment long before it has a measurable impact on any kind of balance sheet."
And with any luck it will remain so for years and years to come.
This difficulty is what levels the playing field in the office. It's what enables untalented-but-hardworking employees to still have a seat even though they have to burn the midnight oil to do so.
True meritocracy is a slippery slope I pray we never have to travel down.
What's the HR method that can parse untalented and hardworking vs untalented and putting in normal hours?
What's the cost of untalented? It's probably not just their salary.
Which I acknowledged by describing it as a slippery slope.
> What's the HR method that can parse untalented and hardworking vs untalented and putting in normal hours?
One does not exist AFAICT and, with any luck, one will never exist.
> What's the cost of untalented? It's probably not just their salary.
By untalented I did not necessarily mean stupid. I meant non-"rockstar" or whatever the mythical 10X programmer is called nowadays.
In most cases there is no cost at all of the untalented, employers make profits on their work as well. Just look at salaries compared to profits.
If a talented worker makes her company a profit of 10 million dollars just because of her work, she'll be lucky to get 100 000 dollars out of that. So there's plenty of money left for paying the untalented. And they are sure to also get less than they deserve.
What?
If you earn $1000 and then you go buy a TV for $990, is it true that the TV had "no cost at all," since you now have $10?
If you get a free TV, but you have to drive 8 hours one way to pick it up then 8 hours back the other way, is it true that the TV had "no cost at all?"
An untalented employee might however only make the company 5000 dollars of profit each month, while costing the same 1000 salary.
The company still makes money on the untalented employee, so it's not right to talk about cost. This is how things work in most companies.