On the experience and “derivatives”
Two top Google engineers leave – to Benchmark Capital
In 2007, these guys have been in 26 years, they worked in the Google 3-4 years, having become one of the best out there.
At the same time, some of our companies allow queries such as “middle of the project needed an analyst with 5-6 years of experience in our company.” At that office, in which you give such a request, there are only 4 years old, and the projects we have are such that a good analyst in a year to deal with them getting bored.
To build experience in the rank of an absolute measure – half of the failure. And to measure it solely by years of work – a guarantee of complete failure.
Let’s talk about it.
Derivatives
All my life I had much luck with the chiefs. They were all amazingly clever people, from whom I learned a lot. But one of them stood out in particular – a man for 60 years, with an amazing life experience, humor and special, surprising and not obvious, but very logical outlook on life.
When I went “up,” he told me how to pick up people.
– Suppose you need to appoint a person to a position of responsibility, you have two candidates, one for 10 years and is well versed in the topics of the problem, the other worked for 2 years and in subjects dealt worse. Who do you appoint?
– First, of course. – I replied, already knowing that somewhere there is hidden catch.
– Wrong answer. – Traditionally, a little tough replied the chief.
– What is correct?
– Correct is: you enough information to make such a decision.
And he drew this chart:
– You is not enough just to know who, where and what worked and what he can. You need to know the derivative of this man. Here, look here. The blue graph – this is the first person. He works for a long time, he knows more than the second, but he has no enthusiasm. It just goes to work to earn money. It does not generate ideas. His progress – a progress of his work. He is not engaged in self-improvement, not exploring anything new. He is conservative and will always stick to well-trodden road.
I looked at the picture, and I gradually began to extend what I tried to tell her.
– Now look at the red line. This person works less and less aware. But he catches on the fly. Every day he tries to learn something new, beyond job responsibilities. He’s got some of his projects and his own, not the workers, the results. It generates ideas and goes to work for the progress of any kind.
– Do you see the differences between these graphs? – Continued the chief. – Derivative. You should always put on a person with a higher derivative. And in order to understand the derivative of the person, you will not know how many years he has worked and what he knows. You need to understand how he has been self-training on a regular basis, which it has a professional hobby and passion, how quickly he is able to explore new areas and tasks, as he initiated and what his purpose. Lose the “blue” person would be a pity – his experience is valuable. But to lose the “red” would be a disaster, because the “red” enough, and if the “blue” people keep the company afloat, the “red” – move it forward.
Since then, a few years, I changed a few jobs, but whenever I look at the purpose and results, I compare them to this schedule, and never had my old chief conclusions are not proved to be 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 decided to watch: the number of years in the industry. First, experience is measured not in years, and events. And secondly, the man is not measured by experience, and “derivative.”
Findings
From all this we would like to make some conclusions.
First, of course, it all depends on your business goals. High-derivative for certain companies may be overqualification, they may be interested in rare “blue” people, and then in the first place nominated by the formal features such as years spent in the company, as in the example in the headline.
Secondly, I am not advocating the idea of ??”23-year-old sinyorov.” In our conditions, when the unit of software engineers know the true American computer science, and most of it is conventional encoders, to talk about “sinyorah” somehow, even meaningless. But “sinyor seniority” – no less evil. See the “derivative”.
And third, work on your “derivative”. It does not matter how many years you have worked for and where. It is important that you have done and learned. Think of the 26-year-old guys from Google – now CTO of them on Facebook.
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