That’s how Twitter works isn’t it.
My point of course is it rarely works, it’s a big problem and everybody knows it. But people keep trying to make it work.
Like people not getting enough sleep and saying they don’t need it
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Now we're talkin ;)
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Actually the I think about the initial bit - deep product people mostly come to mind when I think of successful counter-examples. I'm not sure I can think of ones where "sales" worked out. I'm sure it exists. Also I am obv biased by 20 years of tech & gaming pre-baseball.
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I’ve seen great product and design people — have no clue how to hire serious engineers much less build it. Even great successes like FB struggled — and spent large $$ and time with bad tech leadership early on. Twitter — even more so.
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Contrast that with Stripe. Good technical founders.
Engineering is not enough. Great ideas matter more. But no one ever had too much good engineering.
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Indeed. There are loads of examples that fit. The hiring comment is definitely one I take to heart since I realized long ago the diff between an 85 percentile engineer and a 95th (let alone 99th) one definitely isn’t linear.
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It’s not. And even thinking about percentiles is kind of silly.
The reasons not to hire the best though exist
* you don’t need them
* you can’t motivate them to work on your problem
* they won’t learn the non tech part that’s crucial to the job
many others. But know what’s up
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I’m a fan of bad code, akshually. Facebook was built off horrible code. Sometimes that’s what’s for dinner.
They spent years and millions of dollars ripping it all out when it mattered.
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Yah we agree here I suspect. MVP/vertical slice and fix it “in post”. Risky sometimes, but not always outsized.
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Yeah it’s fine. Just know your code is 🐶💩 — it’s fine just don’t let yourself think otherwise. Bad code is fine just don’t have an ego about it
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Even as a non technical person I’ve learned a decent tell that a candidate might be a good engineer, especially senior ones...those who say “I don’t actually think I need to rewrite all that” instead of the “this is all 💩 rip it all out and start over” crew. (Needed sometimes!)
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It can be hard to tell. The problem with technical people is they are all flawed, and many can talk a good game, interview well — 100% legit. Then can’t solve actual problems or work well with people, especially toward a goal.
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Engineering education in America is largely divorced from product, and collaboration, or the idea you’re modifying a system rather than building one from scratch.
Maybe it’s changing; I’m a old man
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