About experience and "derivatives"
Two top Google engineers leave - to Benchmark Capital
In 2007, these guys were 26 years old, they worked at Google for 3-4 years, having managed to become one of the best there.
At the same time, some of our companies give requests such as “a middle analyst with 5-6 years of experience in our company is needed for a project”. Despite the fact that the office to which you submit such a request has existed for only 4 years, and our projects are such that it becomes boring for a good analyst to get through it in a year.
To elevate experience to the rank of absolute measure is half a failure. And to measure it exclusively for years of work is a guarantee of complete failure.
Let's talk about it.
All my life I was very lucky with the bosses. They were all amazingly smart people from whom I learned a lot. But one of them stood out especially - a man for 60 years, with amazing life experience, a sense of humor and a special, surprising and not at all obvious, but very logical outlook on life.
When I walked up, he told me how to select people.
- Suppose you need to appoint a person to a responsible position, you have two candidates, one has worked for 10 years and is well versed in the subject of the task, the other has worked for 2 years and is less well versed in the subject. Who will you appoint?
- First, of course. I answered, already realizing that somewhere there was a catch.
- Incorrect answer. - traditionally, the chief answered a little tough.
- And which one is correct?
“This is correct: you don’t have enough information to make such a decision.”
And he drew this graph:
- It’s not enough for you to simply know who, where and how much you worked and what you can do. You need to know the derivative of this person. Look here. The blue graph is the first person. He has been working for a long time, he knows more than the second, but he no longer has enthusiasm. He just goes to work to make money. It does not generate ideas. His progress is the progress of his work. He does not engage in self-improvement, does not learn anything new. He is conservative and will always follow the beaten track.
I looked at the picture, and what they tried to tell me gradually began to reach me.
- Now look at the red graph. This person works less and knows less. But he grasps everything on the fly. Every day he tries to learn something new, out of work responsibilities. He has some of his projects and his own, not working, results. He generates ideas and goes to work for progress, of any kind.
- You see how these graphs differ? - continued the chief. - Derivative. You should always bet on a person with a greater derivative. And in order to understand the derivative of man, it is not enough for you to know how many years he has worked and what he knows. You need to understand how regularly he is engaged in self-training, what professional hobbies and hobbies he has, how quickly he is able to master new areas and tasks, how initiative he is and what his goals are. It will be a pity to lose a “blue” person - his experience is valuable. But losing the “red” will be a disaster, because there are few “red” ones, and if the “blue” people keep the company afloat, the “red” ones move it forward.
Several years have passed since then, I changed several jobs, but always, when I look at appointments and their results, I compare them with this schedule, and the conclusions of my old boss have never been erroneous.
I do not want to say that experience is not important. But it is not important from the point of view from which it is customary to look at it: the number of years spent in the industry. First, experience is not measured in years, but in events. And secondly, a person is measured not by experience, but by “derivative”.
From this all I would like to draw several conclusions.
First: of course, it all depends on business goals. The high derivative for certain companies may be overqualification, they may be interested in inert “blue” people, and then formal attributes like years spent in the company come first, as in the example in the headline.
Second: I do not advocate the idea of “23-year-old Signyor.” In our conditions, when units of software engineers know true American computer science, and most of them are ordinary encoders, it is somehow even pointless to talk about “Signorers”. But the “senior for seniority” is no less evil. Look at the derivative.
And third: work on your “derivative.” It doesn’t matter how many years you have worked and where. It is important what you have done and what you have learned. Think of the 26-year-old guys from Google - now one of them is CTO on Facebook.
UPD: During the discussion, a lot of misunderstandings surfaced that there is a “red” person and what is a “blue” person. We made this clear in this thread.
In 2007, these guys were 26 years old, they worked at Google for 3-4 years, having managed to become one of the best there.
At the same time, some of our companies give requests such as “a middle analyst with 5-6 years of experience in our company is needed for a project”. Despite the fact that the office to which you submit such a request has existed for only 4 years, and our projects are such that it becomes boring for a good analyst to get through it in a year.
To elevate experience to the rank of absolute measure is half a failure. And to measure it exclusively for years of work is a guarantee of complete failure.
Let's talk about it.
Derivatives
All my life I was very lucky with the bosses. They were all amazingly smart people from whom I learned a lot. But one of them stood out especially - a man for 60 years, with amazing life experience, a sense of humor and a special, surprising and not at all obvious, but very logical outlook on life.
When I walked up, he told me how to select people.
- Suppose you need to appoint a person to a responsible position, you have two candidates, one has worked for 10 years and is well versed in the subject of the task, the other has worked for 2 years and is less well versed in the subject. Who will you appoint?
- First, of course. I answered, already realizing that somewhere there was a catch.
- Incorrect answer. - traditionally, the chief answered a little tough.
- And which one is correct?
“This is correct: you don’t have enough information to make such a decision.”
And he drew this graph:
- It’s not enough for you to simply know who, where and how much you worked and what you can do. You need to know the derivative of this person. Look here. The blue graph is the first person. He has been working for a long time, he knows more than the second, but he no longer has enthusiasm. He just goes to work to make money. It does not generate ideas. His progress is the progress of his work. He does not engage in self-improvement, does not learn anything new. He is conservative and will always follow the beaten track.
I looked at the picture, and what they tried to tell me gradually began to reach me.
- Now look at the red graph. This person works less and knows less. But he grasps everything on the fly. Every day he tries to learn something new, out of work responsibilities. He has some of his projects and his own, not working, results. He generates ideas and goes to work for progress, of any kind.
- You see how these graphs differ? - continued the chief. - Derivative. You should always bet on a person with a greater derivative. And in order to understand the derivative of man, it is not enough for you to know how many years he has worked and what he knows. You need to understand how regularly he is engaged in self-training, what professional hobbies and hobbies he has, how quickly he is able to master new areas and tasks, how initiative he is and what his goals are. It will be a pity to lose a “blue” person - his experience is valuable. But losing the “red” will be a disaster, because there are few “red” ones, and if the “blue” people keep the company afloat, the “red” ones move it forward.
Several years have passed since then, I changed several jobs, but always, when I look at appointments and their results, I compare them with this schedule, and the conclusions of my old boss have never been erroneous.
I do not want to say that experience is not important. But it is not important from the point of view from which it is customary to look at it: the number of years spent in the industry. First, experience is not measured in years, but in events. And secondly, a person is measured not by experience, but by “derivative”.
conclusions
From this all I would like to draw several conclusions.
First: of course, it all depends on business goals. The high derivative for certain companies may be overqualification, they may be interested in inert “blue” people, and then formal attributes like years spent in the company come first, as in the example in the headline.
Second: I do not advocate the idea of “23-year-old Signyor.” In our conditions, when units of software engineers know true American computer science, and most of them are ordinary encoders, it is somehow even pointless to talk about “Signorers”. But the “senior for seniority” is no less evil. Look at the derivative.
And third: work on your “derivative.” It doesn’t matter how many years you have worked and where. It is important what you have done and what you have learned. Think of the 26-year-old guys from Google - now one of them is CTO on Facebook.
UPD: During the discussion, a lot of misunderstandings surfaced that there is a “red” person and what is a “blue” person. We made this clear in this thread.