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Paul Graham: Hiring is Obsolete
jazznjava writes "Paul Graham has a new essay covering what the influences of declining operating costs will have on startup companies, and the undervaluation of undergraduates."
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Besides recent grads, of course.
Hiring someone with no work experience is extremely risky. There's a very good chance you're going to get someone with no clue, or someone who finds out your job isn't really what he wants to do for the next 5 years or so.
Because of that risk, recent grads will not get paid top dollar. Period.
The basic costs to start a business in today's market is very small. Web storefronts have replaced real storefronts and the cost of 'renting' space is close to nothing now a days. Along with the fact that a bachelor's degree doesn't set you apart by any means the same margin it did a decade ago. More and more people are finding graduate school a necessity for job security.
His points over many essays are nearly always the same, but looked at from different angles:
- do hard work (and work hard)
- hang around with smart people
- don't follow trends, blaze your own trail
- start with good ideas
- spend as little as possible
- the internet leverages your investment
- your biggest investment is time
- Tech matters (as do languages and platforms)
- He did it (started a successful company and sold out). All of his essays encourage you to as well.
I cannot understand why anyone on this site does not like what he has to say. He's saying the time has never been better to start a business, keep your costs low and make better technology your advantage, and he's entirely encouraging with his style of presentation.I, for one, thank Paul Graham for his insight into something I want to do.
Oh, and if you didn't know this nugget of wisdom: Find and listen to someone who has done what you want to do. Don't listen to the masses. Listen to someone's who's done it.
Well, the point is that we don't want equilibrium. We're the ones with the advantage right now, and we want to keep it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It seems to me that while, as several users have pointed out, Paul doesn't really present anything new; what he does do is to point out things that most people don't see. While some people already know in detail what he is talking about, many do not, and he is opening the eyes of these people.
Having read about 2/3 of his articles, I have realized that most of what he talks about, I already, at some level, know. The article helps to see a topic in a new light though. Yes, some of his articles aren't all that great, and are stuff that is generally know, but very few writers are always successful.
It is the same reason that we have books on science or programming or how to use Windows, or any other number of topics. A subset of the population already intimately understands these ideas. However, to the rest of us, it lets us understand and explore the ideas in ways that never would have occurred to us/been possible.
If you really don't like Paul's articles, then don't read them. They only come up every few weeks. It's not like he posts a new one every other day.
2) Low barriers to entry also means there is going to be hundreds of other "undergrads" trying to sell the same idea. This means your chances of eventual payback are much smaller!
3) Why should bigger companies buy startups when they can just partner with them or outsource company services to them?
4) Yeah, starting a web based startup doesn't cost significantly more than just being a slacker. But if you haven't noticed, 99% of us can't afford to just set around and be a slacker either! SOMEBODY has got to be paying your food and rent. Apparently Mr. Graham thinks most students graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in the bank and can afford to not have any income for several years. I've got about $130,000 in student loans that say otherwise...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Ever heard of Viaweb? It's the startup founded by Robert Tappan Morris and Paul Graham. It was sold to Yahoo! for (according to Wikipedia) $49,000,000. I don't know how much of that actually went Graham, but he got enough of it to form his own VC company (Y Combinator).
He's got the experience to back up what he says.
So, I hear you're starting your own business?
Welcome, welcome.
Welcome to 16 hour days, and your employees earning more than you. Welcome to heartache and racking your brains for something to give you an edge, calling on experience you don't have yet. Welcome to doing boring and tedious tasks that if you fail, can land you in prison, like accounting and keeping receipts. Welcome to trying to protect your ideas from much larger and more powerful companies who will take and exploit them in a heartbeat.
Welcome to getting your first solicitor. Welcome to earning far less than minimum wage for months on end, and lets not forget that you may never get anything back. Welcome to friends and family slowly becoming more distant as you have no time to devote to them, welcome to becoming a fanatical zealot, welcome, oh yes, welcome to compromising most of your ideals just to stay afloat.
Welcome to management - you're the boss now! Welcome to having to see both sides of the story, welcome to slow or non paying customers, welcome to learning how to manipulate your fellow man to achieve your ends, welcome to grey hair and addiction to mild stimulants.
Welcome, welcome, one and all. Do stay a while.
And that light at the end of the tunnel you are striving for? Well I'm not sure what it is, exactly, are you?
Let your shitty employees go.
Not so hard really. 2/mo salary, fine, cut your losses, and cut your dead weight.
Risks can be mitigated. Basic basic risk investment; you can try 6 employees for two months throughout a years, one of which should prove to be at least 6 times more productive than all the others. In two months at 6x productivity, that employee will already have produced a man-years worth the next guy's work.
I suggest companies take grads who think they're the shit, offer them two months trial at reduced pay and hope pray you can be disruptive and dynamic enough to keep them interested.
Thats the real killer. But I see you see that; "or someone who finds out your job isn't really what he wants to do for the next 5 years." Most people who start startups do it because they'd rather commit sepuko than deal with being forced to continue doing such useless unproductive work on your ass ugly product. Finding smart kids is not hard, keeping us busy is a lot harder to do. Most companies cannot deal with disruptive players.
Myren
This "free trade" idea only works if all countries are created equal.
You obviously have no grasp of economics. Free trade works BECAUSE countries are not equal. A country should specialize according to its comparitive advantage.
I think it can be argued that this outsourcing is part of the natural cycle of growth in the computer industry.
Computers started out as custom built machines by scientists of high education. Now they are built by 3rd world countries. Why are you not crying that computer manufacturing should be done in the US? Programming is (arguably) the same way.
This is some of the most basic economics (I have only had one class in international trade). There is no "unfair" competition going on, people need to learn to adapt to a changing economy (this includes me, as I will be going into the CS field when I graduate)
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
Well the reason I modded it down was that its so demeaning to us Indians. Yes this happens in India.
So who is responsible, do you have any idea. The problem is education. There is not enough of it. Did you fund any non-profit organisation here who was providing education to poor Indians. Who gave you the right to say such hurtful things.
The only reason why you are saying this is because of outsourcing of IT jobs. Because it hurts you. You are losing the advantage you had, of getting a much better salary than the average.
But don't forget that the things you said to not apply to the IT sector. The Software Engineers) are living much better in India than their American counterparts, at least on the things that we care about.
Can you eat outside daily in a decent restaurant without going over budget. Can you afford a Chauffer for your car in budget. Can you get house help who will clean your house, clothes and cook food in Budget. We can and that is what we care about more than the latest electronic gadgets.
I am just 33 and own a house and will be able to pay off the mortgage in a couple years more. And I will say that I am not as successful as my other friends. Can you say something like that.
You talk about safety regulations, what are those that would matter in the IT industry. An american should not talk about the Environment regulations, because they are the worst in the developed nations. They probably produce more emissions than India (except if you consider emissions from Cars).
Yes we work harder than you guys. Because we don't have labour unions, and nobody would protect us if we lost the job. There is no job security. We have to save our old age pension ourselves. There is no social security. So we save as much as possible.
We have been in this job insecure position since the beginning so we take it for granted. You will have to come to terms with it and work hard to be where you are. It is going to be harder on you than on us, because you cost more than us. Even though we live more lavishly (in the lower salary) than you.
Such rants are not going to help you. The only possibility of job security for you is to learn some foreign language (Indian or Chinese) and learn about our culture so that you can be the bridge between our technical people and your consumers.