Alex Martelli wrote: > Anton Vredegoor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ... > >>>>only hire people with long backstabbing histories. >>> >>>Such as...? Guido van Rossum? Greg Stein? Vint Cerf? Ben Goodger? > > ... > >>No insider information is necessary, the job requirements make it >>absolutely clear (at least to me) that Google is a company with an >>elitist culture, > > > Absolutely yes, in terms of who we want to work at Google: we DO want > GREAT people. And we don't keep this a secret, either: right up there > at <http://www.google.com/jobs/>, we say "our strategy is simple: we > hire great people". Rather than hiring a LOT of people, we prefer to be > extremely, obsessively selective, and try to hire ONLY a few people, > ones who we can convince ourselves do deserve that adjective, "great". > > This does mean that we definitely tend err on the side of caution, and > FAIL to hire some people who are also great, just because we can't > determine with sufficient certainty that they indeed are -- I've seen > this happen more than once, and deeply regret it (for both Google and > the person), but I have no idea how we could do better without relaxing > our extremely elitist standards (we do debate these issues internally > all of the time, trying to do better, but have found no magic wand yet). > > But this has nothing to do with "only people with backstabbing > histories", which looks like an unsupported, generalized insult. > > >>just like most universities. In fact I am convinced >>that universities (and this time I have extensive, first person and >>historic information) are elitist. > > > No doubt they try to be, mostly (except where governments or other > institutions "twist their arms" to force them to admit huge masses of > students), but I've met many people with advanced degrees from even the > best/most elitist universities, such as Stanford or MIT, where it sure > looked to me as if the university's attempts to only graduate the very > best have definitely failed. > > >>We can discuss that if you want but to me it's appararent that *titles* >>are a strong indication of elitism. Further more I am convinced that > > > Requiring a certain title for a job is mostly a desperate attempt to > reduce the huge amount of work and effort it takes to hire great people, > whittling down the number of resumes to be considered divided by the > number of hires from the high thousands to the low hundreds. If there > were available infinite resources for the job of hiring/selection, we > could easily interview, say, 6000 candidates for a post, giving each a > week or so of concentrated attention to probe their abilities; alas, > this would require about 120 person-years from our people for the > selection process. So, if nobody at Google did ANYTHING BUT interview > candidates, given that we have a bit over 5000 employees now, we could > hire in the course of 2006 another 40 or so, without doing anything > else. (The numbers are all off the top of my head, but I think they may > be roughly the right orders of magnitude). > > This is just impractical: we need to hire many more than 40, AND cannot > afford to have all existing employees do nothing but select new ones. > So, we need to shrink the ratio drastically, on both factors: say 10 > instead of 40 hours of selection per candidate, and 50 rather than 6000 > candidates being considered per post. So we perform selection in > stages, and most candidates out of those many thousands-per-job are > "weeded out" at the very first stage, e.g. by failing to meet specific > qualifications. > > I wish that, as you say, "titles" were indeed strong indications of > excellence. Unfortunately, they aren't, but in some cases they're > better than nothing. Many of our job descriptions, as I pointed out in > another post on this thread, say "BS or equivalent experience" or words > to that effect; if you can show the "or equivalent", and can get past > the first hurdle, then that title is the least of the issues. For > example, if we advertised a job requiring "PhD or equivalent", and among > the candidates were Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, none of > whom has obtained a PhD to the best of my knowledge, they would surely > be able to display the "or equivalent" based on their accomplishments > and experience, and thus get past that first hurdle. > > > >>uses to discredit paranormal phenomena. For example, careers are >>"construed" because scientific success is credited to persons higher in >>the hierarchy and mistakes are the faults of research assistents or >>students. Only if this system breaks down we see reports of "scientific > > > Can you show that happening for Guido van Rossum, for example, or Greg > Stein? What "hierarchy" were they in, to enable them, as you're > accusing, to take credit for accomplishments that are not their own, and > deflect blame to poor maligned underlings? > > You've made a very specific and insulting claim about Google hiring only > people with long histories of backstabbing, and yet it appears that > you're failing to substantiate it. Hurling such accusations (ones which > obviously must involve specific people, since the whole thread, as > indicated by the subject, starts with Guido's working for Google) > without being able to provide any substance is, in my strongly held > opinion, quite reprehensible, and doesn't reflect well on you. > > > >>However for *me* personally, because I am deserted by my government, >>the university community, friends and family, and left to fend for >>myself, there is no pressing need to keep up the facade so I can >>finally see it for what it is. >> >>I hope this answers some of your questions about my position. Anyway, I >>think its better to talk about positive things, like trying to convince >>google to hire any and all people who can program irrespective of their >>corruption history. > > > People who distinguish themselves as outstanding contributors to > open-source projects can generally clear the "or equivalent" hurdle > without difficulty. Do you consider a history of such contributions to > be a "corruption history" and evidence of "backstabbing", too? To > emerge as such an outstanding contributor, titles are irrelevant: all > you need, besides willingness and ability to invest your time that way, > are outstanding technical ability (particularly in design and coding, > but testing and debugging are also very important, and so is a knack for > writing good documentation -- one can become an "outstanding > contributor" through many possible combinations of such skills) AND any > of a wide range of suitable character and personality traits. > > To focus on the latter: I would never want Google to hire somebody, no > matter how great a programmer they might be, who can accuse, for > example, Guido van Rossum, of having a "long history of backstabbing", > without any substantial data to back up the accusation, just to vent > their frustration at their personal situation. You DID say that Google > hires ONLY people with long histories of backstabbing, and by the very > definition of the word "ONLY" this means you are accusing me, Guido, > Greg, etc, etc, of having "long histories of backstabbing" -- and after > hurling such insults, and providing NO specific data to support them, > you're hallucinating that you can now switch "to talk about positive > things"?! > > One reason I'm so happy we've hired Guido is that, in addition to his > technical excellence, he's just a great guy, wonderful to work with. > Technical excellence is a necessary but not sufficient quality: one ALSO > needs suitable combinations of character and personality, and Guido has > them, in spades. There is an enormous variation of personalities and > character traits at Google (we DO value diversity!), but they all have > in common the fact that they can combine into small, fluid teams which > become even more productive than "the sum of their parts", because > teammates LIKE AND RESPECT AND TRUST each other. I do not see how > somebody whose behavior included such unsubstantiated "backstabbing" > accusations could be productive in this way. > > > And, about the job-posting you liked better...: > > >>Run by an engineer, this work environment is a meritocracy. You will be > > > To me, "meritocracy" and "elitism" are close to being synonyms, in most > contexts. "Meritocracy" is defined somewhere on the net as: > """ > A system of government whereby a particular standard of ability is used > as the basis by which political leadership is determined or accrues to > an existing elite. > """ > Note the connection with "elite", which in turn gives us "elitism". I > do like "meritocracy" because it specifically mentions *ability*, but of > course ability (including technical skill, which in turn is enhanced by > appropriate experience, AND 'softer' character/personality issues) is > what a successful firm bases its "elite" on (or tries to; if it fails, > and hires people bereft of sufficient ability, it won't prosper long). > > > Alex
That all been said. My recommandation: hire that man! Jaap -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
