The downvotes are probably because I've implicitly called out individuals who believe in - have perhaps even published materials encouraging - the "missing out on 99 good hires is better than making one bad hire" philosophy.

I've also explicitly called out the FAANG hiring practices, which are frequently held up as the best practices in the industry by those doing the hiring. After all, who wants to be even partially responsible for hiring "that guy" when you can not or will not fire them later?

But, here's my point: I've been part of the process that hired "that guy". I was also consulted on the decision to fire "that guy" a month later. I was wholly on board with the action in both cases; and in the process we got two other great employees that we never would have hired if we were afraid of taking chances.

Thanks for the details. I too have been part of that committee. I've also given the green light on people I could barely understand in free-flowing conversation due to language gaps based on the assurances of lower-level people that they are good and can get better. Like you, "I regret nothing". :-)

To me it paints a terrible picture. My suspicion is that the dangerous bad hires are not the utterly incompetent people who will flail in place until removed. The dangerous ones are going to energetically do all sorts of peripheral, irrelevant work, try to insinuate themselves into a lot of 'process' type setups, and move around the company in a way that stops anyone from ever noticing that they can't actually do anything. I suspect a lot of BigCos have very weak immune systems against such mobile 'attacks'.

It's in no way a fear of firing someone that's little easy. The fear is the weeks/months of issues before someone is fired. Further, many people that are part of the process will be working with this person, but not be able to fire them.

Is there also a fear of three people doing the work of four for weeks/months since there's the possibility someone could be a bad hire?

Is there not also a fear that an overworked person will become toxic?

> Is there also a fear of three people doing the work of four for weeks/months since there's the possibility someone could be a bad hire?

Apparently not at my employer. My team was 10 people 4 years ago, and we're down to 6 now, without much dip in workload. We had someone leave about a month ago, and we're still fighting to get a job rec to replace that person.

Downvotes might be from CMV-norm people[1] thinking "that's bullshit" is rude/inflammatory and unfit for HN.

[1] https://changemyview.net/2018/03/28/thats-bullshit-rude-enou...