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Comment by incision | Hacker News Reader

Not sure how I feel about this.

>"It becomes tougher when it’s necessary to fire someone who’s performed well at their job, but isn’t able to grow with the company. For a startup to scale to a successful larger company, the people need to scale, too."

In some cases, such employees might not take seeing a senior employee hired above them well. They might dislike being passed up for a promotion, but lack the maturity to understand why.

Versus...

>'The ancient Greek aphorism “Know thyself” remains good advice for CEOs. Every manager has weaknesses. Identify them, and hire people who can compensate for them.'

Sounds like people who are admittedly good at their job could be fired for taking issue with the hiring of a manager who they're expected to compensate for.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I'm truly sick of the notion that workers serve their manager, not the other way around.

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Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I'm truly sick of the notion that workers serve their manager, not the other way around.

In the vast majority of companies in the US, workers generally serve the owner of the business they work for, and the managers are expected to carry out the will of the owner (directly or indirectly).

There are a few counterexamples proving that businesses don't have to follow this model in order to scale, e.g. Valve. But Valve is (a) fanatical about hiring, and (b) rolling in so much money that they won't have to make any tough decisions in the near future, e.g. laying off part of the staff to keep their company afloat (which can destroy the sort of culture necessary to sustain the model you're describing).

In the US, the incentive structure for a modern business penalizes letting average employees make major company decisions. One reason is because average employees often lack the motivation to carry out their vision through completion, or have unrealistic expectations. In other words, most mid-to-large businesses are penalized for trusting employees to do things other than what they're told to do (or received approval to do). It's hard to define that as anything other than servitude.

One way around this state of affairs is to work for a startup. When a company is small, such political scaffolding is unncessary.

> But Valve is (a) fanatical about hiring, and (b) rolling in so much money that they won't have to make any tough decisions in the near future, e.g. laying off part of the staff to keep their company afloat (which can destroy the sort of culture necessary to sustain the model you're describing).

Several out of work as Valve makes 'large decisions' about its future (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5215891)

Are you being satirical?

https://www.google.com/search?q=valve+layoffs&;

> When a company is small, such political scaffolding is unncessary.

Politics requires only three people.

It doesn't sound like they care much for their workers. if someone's upset about something that happens within the company, aren't there better ways to resolve it than to just fire them?

There seems to be a bit of a contradiction in this article between the 'hire people who will grow into your culture' and the 'fire anyone who falls out of line with your culture' points being made.

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