Bond prices go down when interest rates go up. As such, an investor who thinks that interest rates will go _up_ will reallocate from long-term bonds to short-term bonds, rather than the opposite as you stated.
I'll offer a good faith answer, even though I'm pretty sure you'll dismiss it as snarky condescension.
Point 1: Lyft's API comes with a contractual agreement regarding acceptable usage. Uber deliberately breached that agreement. This is a breach of property rights.
Point 2: They breached Lyft's property rights with the intent of stalking Lyft drivers, and of harming Lyft as an organization. This shows the breach of property rights was not neutral or positive, but rather was an activity meant to harm the property owner, and to reduce the competitive landscape.
Point 3: It was a clear violation of law. I include this last because law only loosely correlates with morality; however law draws the lines on the playing field and it is worth explicitly noting that Uber arranged for its employees to break federal law, repeatedly, for Uber's benefit.
If you don't think property rights are important, go talk with a Libertarian.
1) If the suit is true, then it will almost certainly zero out the investors, and destroy the careers and fortunes of the executives.
2) Uber has a long history of keeping and promoting executives who lack integrity and show a willingness to break the law.
As such, it is reasonable to assume that Google is making a good faith effort to argue the strongest possible case on their side; and that Uber is likely to lie, cheat, and steal to make the strongest possible case on their side.
This isn't a viable approach for much of the hiring pool, as a majority of working engineers have contracts which explicitly forbid work for contract for other employers.
As such, if you hire any of those, you're hiring somebody with a proven willingness to ignore their contract, which is a strong anti-pattern.
"Work for contract for other employers" could literally mean I can't help my neighbor mow his lawn in exchange for a beer. In this case what it really means is a non-trivial amount of work done for meaningful profit.
If I fix a friends computer in exchange for a nice meal, I am using my relevant skills to perform work, but I'm not actually violating a contract forbidding outside work in a way that could ever possibly result in damages or firing for cause.
For a potential employee to be so rule-stricken as to concern themselves with performing a coding interview, that would be the potential red flag for me. So this could actually be another positive outcome of this approach.
I fear deportation, being unable to ever enter - never mind work in this country again.
You can call that a red flag, but it is the reality I live in. Maybe most of your candidates don't have that problem, but I would definitely be eliminated.
I mean, you could always just ask that the payment be donated to a charity instead, right?
But since almost everything we do is in some way technically illegal, it is important for everyone to be able to function under that premise.
I mean, just to cut the check technically the employer would need a W-9, a work for hire contract, and who knows what else. Let's call the lawyer and spend $5k deciding whether we can do this, and then decide 6 months later it's too risky.... Or, we do it, get better hires, execute on our plans better, meet revenue targets, and succeed in the market, by not following all the rules, just the rules that matter.
Knowing the rules to follow and the rules to forget is the hardest part, but a crucial skill in life and business. The more you push the envelope, the faster you can run, and the more likely you are to combust. See Zenefits...
Ever hear of tortuous interference? When one party induces another to break their contract with a third party. For as realistic as your example is (no employer is going to sue because you mowed your neighbors lawn), plenty of employers can, have and will sue when they realize you have hired away one of "their" people, regardless of your rights and theirs.
Learning of your little deal to pay them for software development work will be the stick they use to hit you with that interference suit.
Certainly you don't want to hire people that are rule stricken. At the same time though, if someone signs a legal contract saying they won't do something and does it anyway, isn't that a red flag?
IANAL but I took business law 101, which taught me that courts almost universally lean strongly towards the employee when considering restraint clauses.
Moreover, if you have a current employer that is sufficiently disrespectful of their employees that they'd even consider enforcing an anti-moonlighting clause in this circumstance, with the preposterous assertion that it qualifies as employment - run away now.
This is a great idea, no legal issues. The important thing is that since the candidate loses 2 hours of his time working on the problem, the employer has to lose something equivalent of that too.
I would be much more willing to do the project if I knew the employer would lose $200. Among other things, this shows that I'm valued.
That's a great idea! Not only does it just 'feel right', it also prevents some of the legal mess people were seeing with effectively moonlighting for the hiring company.
That only makes sense if you're talking about people who are unemployed. As someone who is already employed full-time, I simply don't have the time to solve your problems for free just to see if you'd like to invite me over for an interview.
I avoid these problems like the plague and very much prefer to whiteboard. If you pay me consultant rates, I can more easily justify the effort.
Even when I was between jobs a couple months ago I neglected to complete a take-home interview exercise, because the opportunity cost still exists. The advantage to interviewing in person is that the conversation goes both ways. I was interviewing daily, so I still valued my spare time for personal activities.
Edit: I most likely would have completed it if I were offered some type of compensation, even below market. They claimed it was an exercise and they wouldn't use it, but this was a startup with about 10 employees, and the deliverable was definitely something they could have used. That alone rubbed me the wrong way.
Who would have thought? Maybe - just maybe - not everyone has the same strengths and weaknesses. The real answer here is obvious: present the interviewee with options. Forcing all potential hires to whiteboard is a terrible idea. Forcing all potential hires to do a take-home project is a terrible idea. It's extremely short-sighted and a little pompous to assume that any single interview format one chooses is going to magically sort everyone into neat little buckets of "good" and "bad".
If you force the whiteboarding approach, you are only going to wind up hiring social butterflies who have absolutely no nerves standing up in front of complete strangers and having all the answers on the spot. If you force the take-home project approach, you're turning off a lot of people who can nail a first impression presenting themselves and their skillset in person.
People are different. Applying the same interview type to everyone is going to target a specific set of strengths, and a specific set of weaknesses. And frankly, no business should be composed entirely of one type of person. Some diversity does wonders when assessing the overall strength of a team.
> "If you force the take-home project approach, you're turning off a lot of people who can nail a first impression presenting themselves and their skillset in person."
Whiteboarding is a poor reflection of what people do day-to-day, and can be misleading if a candidate practices interview technique over coding experience. In other words, just because someone can regurgitate an algorithm on command, doesn't mean they'll be a good developer.
If all you want to optimise for is finding people who make a good first impression, by all means carry on with whiteboarding. However, if you want to find good developers then there is a one-size-fits-all solution, and that's to see how they develop code in the real world, which is exactly what the 'weekend project + appraisal' approach is a great fit for.
> The real answer here is obvious: present the interviewee with options.
If you're a company that does any kind of business with the federal government, that's simply not an option. You have to be super-consistent in terms of your interviewing and
recruiting process across all candidates for a job req and can't do things for some candidates without doing it for all of them.
> I simply don't have the time to solve your problems for free just to see if you'd like to invite me over for an interview.
I think that would be misusing this approach.
We build recruitment software.
The recruitment process is a funnel. At each stage, the employer tries to weed out the bad candidates. Simple maths says they try and use cheaper tests early on in the process when there are more candidates.
For example, first stage is often eyeballing the resume and a quick search on GitHub/SO. 5 minutes, costs say $10, weeds out say 65% of candidates.
At the next stage, we use a more expensive test, since we have fewer candidates to filter.
This particular test sounds like it would sit after an initial phone screen and before a team interview in terms of cost.
Personally I would only use it after a first interview, or tell the candidate that you will decide immediately after completion of the first interview whether it was successful, and if so send them away to do this project afterwards,i.e. reduce double handling
I hear this argument quite often but my reaction tends to be...
...as someone that's fully employed I'm probably only looking at jobs I'm really interested in. I don't mind doing some free work for stuff I'm interested in. I also enjoy doing small unpaid side projects or programming puzzles in my free time...basically the same concept.
That being said, my guess is (ignoring legal implications) paying 200$ or whatever for it is actually more beneficial to the company than expecting you to do it for free so it seems like a nobrainer (once again assuming you can handle legal). Reciprocity and all.
Do you also fundamentally oppose to contributing to FLOSS software because that's most certainly being used by for-profit companies. Or is that ok because others that don't profit from it can also use said software?
I do something that I enjoy and throw it away afterwards or whatever I tend to do with little programming puzzles and project Euler stuff or I do the same thing and a company profits off it. The profiting doesn't really hurt me so I don't mind it. I'd also argue that if the intention of a company is to profit off my interview code I'm hopefully filtering them out (as they tend to be pretty boring)...having people write code for you by pretending to offer a job is also all kinds of horrible strategically so I don't see the potential for a mass exploit.
I can understand your point of view but I hear the dreaded "but my time is too valuable" more often than "it's unfair that they profit of it". My argument was mostly that...if you want the job, your time probably isn't too valuable to try to get it :)
> As someone who is already employed full-time, I simply don't have the time to solve your problems for free just to see if you'd like to invite me over for an interview.
That means you don't care enough about changing jobs. There are people who will happily do that "interview" for free even when being employed full-time. The only relevant question for the company is whether there are enough qualified candidates willing to do the test for free.
I re-read this later and wondering if that's actually true. Our industry is very "you don't have anything to do this weekend, right? right!" Anyways, it's true for me.
That couldn't be more wrong if you tried. Not to mention, you're assuming that people need the job. It's the other way around. The company needs the engineers. Much more than the engineers need the jobs.
I don't understand the paid part at all. If I'm working full time, $200 isn't going to swing me one way or the other on deciding if I want to do your homework assignment. And if you come up with a ten-hour problem, then we're talking more of a chunk of cash, but you're also asking me to burn a lot of free time.
I'd much rather travel and meet you in person and do stuff there, but if you don't have the budget for it, we could figure other stuff out (shared docs, skype, whatever, I've done a few of these on both ends with some luck).
"Since the candidate is getting paid" seems like far weaker motivation than "since the candidate wants the job you're offering," which is what's going to determine my level of effort.
The "not a real problem" thing is key, though. I've tried testing out a few different "this is one of our real problem" things but there's almost always more hidden business rules or assumptions in there than you think.
There's a concept around a lot of preliminary engagements between two entities called "skin in the game." The idea is that when something is completely free the other party will take advantage of it without any real serious intent to follow through on anything.
Mostly this seems a reaction to the homework-type assignments where candidates are expected to spend a lot of time on some interview assignment with very little real cost to the company--which raises the possibility that it's effectively a cattle call.
I get this in theory, but the numbers sound too low for that to make a difference still.
I could run 50 candidates through a $200 problem for 10K. That's still a pretty large mismatch between "amount of work done by the candidate" and "amount of work done by the interviewer," and is cost-of-doing-business money for recruiting for a lot of companies currently.
Compare that to the cost of me flying people out (which is still done in this approach), or even the cost of spending an hour of mine or someone good on my team's time on the phone with them.
I guess it's just down to the difference between trying to hire fresh-out-of-college (or still in) free-time-to-spare junior devs and experienced people. That's actually a topic I should write a blog about somewhere myself, one day - I pushed pretty hard at my current company for moving towards a different process for industry candidates, and are extremely pleased with some of the people it's helped us hire.
I get your point. But, in practice, there's a big difference in many situations between free and even a nominal sum.
I do agree that if people are flying around, that represents a fairly significant investment in any case. But in Silicon Valley, that often isn't true.
It's hopefully a case of coming up with processes that don't encourage people to waste others' time. But that also assumes some reasonable balance of power in the process.
Yeah, sorting out serious people from those wasting time is a hard one. Though I'm generally pretty sympathetic to employees/candidates on that one - am I wasting your time if I'm pretty sure I don't want to leave my current place, but want to keep a hand in and know what the market looks like? I would say know, but I know some people who would disagree, and have decent reasons for it.
Even after that, the "experience candidate phone call to see if they're worth flying in" part is definitely the one where I have the hardest time, being not in the Bay Area. I was lucky to find some great local people, where the cost was lower, because that's an expensive one to have to get good at fast. You lose a lot of nuance over the phone, though some other people in the company have been having very good luck with homework in this case - but as a candidate-choice option, where they could still go the traditional route if they wanted.
The big expense for the company isn't the $200, it's the time. If the hiring manager is doing their job, and you have a few people in the physical interview (plus follow up, etc.), then that's the dominating cost.
If you're running 50 people through this, you're doing it wrong (unless you have 20+ positions).
I don't agree that it's a string anti-pattern whatsoever. It's a clear signal that the person can interpret the meaning of a rule and adhere to it in a way that makes sense for the person who made the rule as well as the contractor.
I think person who is either very well compensated for that or with slave mentality would sign such a contract. Either way I don't think those people are a target group of this post.
Non-competes are worthless clauses that should never have existed in the first place. I am perfectly ok with someone ignoring that blatantly anti-employee clause.
Counterpoint, I accepted a counter offer two years ago. Since then, I have been promoted twice. I am now one of the highest-paid, and highest ranked individuals in my organization.
Additionally, I have been given many opportunities specifically designed to help me grow my career in the direction that I preferred. This has included everything from project assignment, to introductions to board members and VCs, to educational opportunities.
One must always be careful when considering a counter offer, however any blanket advice stating to never accept is going to be wrong, and harmful.
Counter counterpoint: I accepted a counter offer. Turns out my boss was literally lying about the counter offer. Raise never showed up in my paycheck despite my repeated bringing up the issue, and the repeated assurance it was just a payroll issue. The original job offer was no longer good, they'd hired someone else, so I spent another few months looking for a job. When I quit the second time around (boss had been fired for this, by the way) the company owner had the nerve the offer me the backpay I was owed if only I'd just reconsider quitting.
Honestly, it shouldn't matter. If the boss is making an offer like that, then it should be good as gold. If it's not, then that is not a place one would want to be working.
Some people even apply for that other job just to get a counter offer. You have a better negotiation position for salary and benefits if you actually have a job offer somewhere else. While you should think that valuable employees should be in a good negotiation position in the first place, employers often don't see the value before they realize that they may lose the employee.
This tactic is of cause risky if you actually like your current job, since the counter offer may not come after all.
Where I work, the only way you can get a raise is to bring in an offer that is at or better than what you want. Does not make sense, but that is how management and HR work.
The author titles his post "Never accept a counter-offer", and says: "By saying you have to be prepared for it, I meant that you should never accept a counter offer."
Just because he later contradicts himself, doesn't make it good writing. You can't have it both ways.
The way I see it with the author stating "(your cat dies and you need bunch of money to save her)." is that only the person that is in the situation can assess the situation. The article talks broadly, but one should still take that particular situation (edge case) into consideration. Tough, it's rarely possible to judge an outcome correctly.
counter counterpoint (or just point?) I accepted a counteroffer and my boss really just said empty words to keep me around. I left 8 months later and should have just left the first time I resigned.
I always hear this, but where do you people work that this is the case? As some who has been on the other side of the table this was never how it worked. Losing a team member sucks. A counter offer is an attempt to avoid that. The idea that your boss would secretly interview your replacement before firing you just seems silly to me. At the most practical level doing something so cold hearted would send every other member of my team searching for a job.
Giving the counteroffer anyway will get every other member of your team searching for a job. There's this company I stayed at for a whole 6 months. I came in after negotiation a sensible salary: Nothing spectacular, but still pretty good. Early inquiries at the job made me realize I was paid 25K more than any of my teammates! While I was the most senior, I wasn't quite that far ahead: They were getting underpaid. Realizing this too, one of them quit, and got a counteroffer to be paid just like I was. News spread like wildfire, and entire teams were interviewing out there. Some people stayed with the counteroffers, but many were lost.
When you are not paying people what you are really willing to pay them, eventually they'll learn about this, and hell will break loose. You either have to change the way you pay, or be OK with losing people. Counteroffers get you the worst of both worlds, and on top of that, they are wonderful sources of lawsuits in the long run, as the people that won't complain are typically women and minorities.
The one counteroffer that make sense is to go and say 'look, now we realized that we are underpaying, but we want to keep you all, so we are doing an immediate salary review'. You still look like someone that isn't on the ball, but at least you show you are trying to have equitable pay.
But being paid below market rate also sucks. By making a counter-offer and having it accepted, you're now setting a precedent. All of that person's peers will now see that the way to get a raise at this company is to constantly be interviewing and threatening to leave. Is that the environment you're trying to foster?
I think the disconnect is that most people imagine their boss is allied with their company against them. In reality they are a mediator between the two (or maybe I'm in the minority with that line of thinking, but it is the best way I can both do the job and sleep at night). I want everyone on my team to be paid fair market value. I fight for it come budget time. If someone who I think is underpaid comes to me with an offer, I will go to my boss for more money. If someone who I think is fairly paid comes to me with an offer, I might simply shake their hand and wish them luck. A counter offer is not guaranteed. It is only offered to employees that we want to keep long term at whatever their new rate would be.
Trying to get a raise with another offer is a bluff. You have to live with that fact that you might be called on that bluff.
> Trying to get a raise with another offer is a bluff. You have to live with that fact that you might be called on that bluff.
I think you meant to say "without another offer". When you indeed have an offer, it's not a bluff. Whether you get a counter or not, the outcome for you is you win. Now, if you DON'T have another offer, but try to get a raise by claiming to have another offer--well, that's an advanced tactic and very risky.
I meant it as I wrote it because it was in response to your original comment below:
>the way to get a raise at this company is to constantly be interviewing and threatening to leave
If your goal is to get a raise and keep your job, coming in with another offer is a bluff. The way to get a raise at my company isn't to constantly be interviewing because we won't counter offer everyone and we generally won't offer repeated counters.
There is a solution: Pay your employees the true market rate and they won't be leaving for more money. Oh, but you say you want to keep paying everyone [who doesn't call you out by getting outside offers] below market? Too bad.
Where is this mythical "market rate" that I as an employee or employer can constantly get access to?
Every employee has their own market rate and that rate is determined by BATNA negotiations. If I'm hiring someone, I don't have market rate for them in mind which I try to pay under.
As a manager at a small company, you barely have more info on market rates than employees do. Sometimes savvy employees even have more info than I do (they can go out an interview to assess the market, while I can't interview people just to see what offer they'd accept).
Of course, there are also cases of flagrant underpayment (ex. paying <$100k for an engineer in SV) which should drive you away automatically.
That depends on the management culture. Some companies will not consider a raise unless you have another offer, some will refuse a raise no matter what you can get elsewhere, some will lie straight to your face to keep you some more and may even backstab you later.
I've seen most of the options in action. The workplace can be an evil place.
There may be some disparity in the way this happens due to the size of the company. Most of my jobs have been with very large corporations, and the way it usually works is they don't put you on new high visibility projects. When the next round of layoffs come you're the most expendable.
This is the "razorblade inside a candybar on Halloween" of employment advice. I've been warned about it a million times, never even heard of someone who has heard of someone to whom it happened.
If you spend even a little time in Silicon Valley you would know how rare qualified people are and giving them a raise is such an insignificant proportion of the value lost if they quit. I'm not even talking about the money and time spent in bringing their replacement up to speed.
Bond prices go down when interest rates go up. As such, an investor who thinks that interest rates will go _up_ will reallocate from long-term bonds to short-term bonds, rather than the opposite as you stated.