Re:I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas
by Alex3917 on Friday September 09, 2016 @05:00PM
(#12466008)
Given that you and Patrick have spent the last several years advocating billing by value instead of by time/skills, why did you decide to start a business trying to convince people that the best way to get paid more was by improving their tech skills? Granted learning stuff is often a good thing and there is clearly some connection between skills and value so I don't think there was anything wrong with the concept itself, but the fact that it was both of you running it seemed at the least off-brand.
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I remain confused by all the weird things people think we were trying to do with that business. "Trying to convince people that the best way to get paid more was by improving their tech skills" is one of those things. Whatever it is that got published that created this impression, I disavow.
I feel like, doing recruiting through work sample challenges is basically 80-90% of my whole brand.
The game wasn't at all about learning new skills or improving existing skills. It was a means to demonstrate existing skills, to Starfighter first and then to employers.
That's a fundamental difference.
Actually: I'd like it to be more about learning new stuff, or at least learning that you're already good at new stuff.
What I want to find are people who are spooky good at specialized, high-status tech skills. HFT is like that. So is reversing. So are like 10 other specialties I can think of.
My thesis is that the training requirements for these things are way overblown.