A couple of years ago I wrote about a stupid, soul-gutting Silicon Valley myth about work and people’s value.

It spelled out the idiocy of believing that only the best were hired by startups, let alone unicorns, and everyone else was second caliber. As I said then, what a crock.

Throughout a long career as a recruiter and since I’ve said the same thing and it hasn’t changed.

The right place for you to work is the one that satisfies what you want — whether that’s the opportunity to work on bleeding edge technology, build a network, upgrade your resume or even plain, old curiosity.

The wrong place is the one you join with an eye to getting rich quick or for bragging rights.

For some people those reasons still stand, but a lot has changed.

For many Silicon Valley engineers money has taken a front seat to most considerations and it’s startups that are suffering, since they can’t compete salary-wise with giant companies and unicorns (which are nothing more than giant companies that haven’t gone public — often because they aren’t profitable and likely never will be.)

That’s understandable, considering the cost of living, but when you add the aspirations so many consider “necessities” then salary becomes even more important.

The problem, for both employers and employees is the same.

Money is not and never has been a source of loyalty — in either direction.

When companies feel the necessity to lower their burn rate the highly paid are often the first to go.

And my old adage that people who join for money/stock/perks will leave for more money/stock/perks still holds true.

Loyalty is the result of managers and companies giving a damn and employees invested in a mission that has meaning beyond money.

Silicon Valley is big on smoke and mirrors; the two biggest are

• Startups, including unicorns (think WeWork), will make you rich is the smoke.
• The inevitability of technology is the mirrors.

Image credit:  theilr

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

How time and tech fly. I wrote this in 2017 and there’s been a lot of change since then. In short, while hypocrisy has skyrocketed, with the advent of Uber, Lyft, We, and others profitability has fallen way behind. Greed, however, is alive and kicking butt — think We’s Adam Neumann.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

Tuesday I cited a post by Scott Belsky on Medium talking about how employees are often conned (my word) by founders, especially unicorns, when it comes to the wealth that is supposed to flow from their ISO.

As pithy as the post was, some of the comments were even pithier. I especially like this one from  colorfulfool (21st comment)

If profitability were proportional to hypocrisy, there would be no failed startups in the Valley.

Not just true, but succinctly and elegantly stated.

Founders love to talk about the importance of transparency, trust and authenticity.

However, their stock plans and pitfalls thereof exhibit such a high degree of opaqueness and caveat emptor that they kick a hole the size of Texas in the fabric of the founders’ authenticity.

Another prevalent piece of hypocrisy is “change the world.”

Do you really believe that another dating app or being able to evaluate a new restaurant or another way to buy your groceries will change the world?

While they may impact one’s personal world, they certainly don’t have the impact of something like Mine Kafon.

What is proportional to the Valley’s hypocrisy is its sheer greed.

Actually, when I stop to think about it, the greed probably exceeds even the hypocrisy.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

It’s said that money is the root of all evil, but there are plenty of evil people with no money and lots of wealthy people who do enormous good. I think it’s more accurate to say that greed is the root, since people will do anything to satisfy it. And often, what they do is perfectly legal — but legal doesn’t mean either ethical or moral.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I’m no happier about the AIG and other bonuses paid to screwed up Wall Street banks, but I’m not sure why any of us are surprised.

“In the largest 25 corporate bankruptcies between 1999 and 2002, while hundreds of billions of dollars of investor wealth and over 100,000 jobs disappeared, the Financial Times found the “barons of bankruptcy” made off with $3.3 billion.”

Giant compensation packages, guaranteed bonuses and platinum parachutes are excused by Boards and executives as necessary to attract the “best and brightest,” but here’s what’s really going on.

The ‘names’ demand outsize compensation/stock options/guaranteed bonus/etc. in order to validate their ‘brand’.

Those responsible for hiring not only meet the demands, but even exceed them in an effort to attain or sustain the company’s reputation as a better home for ‘stars’ — the more stars you have the greater the bragging rights — mine’s bigger than yours in high school locker room talk.

Now let’s consider the folly of this attitude.

Those hiring often seek a name brand in the mistaken belief that the brand comes with a warranty that guarantees good results.

But no matter who you hire you’re actually paying for their past performance, which is always influenced by

• • circumstances—boss and company positioning in its market and industry
  • environment—culture and colleagues;

and let us not forget that minor factor

• • the economy.

The hiring mindset is that everything the brand accomplished was done in a total vacuum and dependent only on the brand’s own actions, therefore changing every single surrounding factor will have no impact on performance.

Put like that it sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it.

This is one of the prime reasons that so many CEOs bring their ‘own team’ over when they move, as do managers all the way down the food chain—they know they didn’t do it alone.

CEOs aren’t like movie and rock stars whose very names draw consumers into spending money—nobody ever bought a product from GE because Jack Welch was CEO, nor do they carry Jobs iPods—so why pay them that way?

Moreover, assuming that performance occurring during an expansion is a valid yardstick for performance in general, let alone a downturn, is sheer idiocy.

You have only to remember the difficulties faced by people whose management skills were honed between 1991 and 2000, the longest expansion in our history. When the recession hit in March of 2001 they had no experience whatsoever of how to drive revenue or manage in a down economy.

That recession and the previous one in 1990 lasted only 8 months each. The longest recession we’ve had was 2 years, January-July 1980 and July 1981-November 1982, and that one had a 12 month break in it. This means there are a very small number of managers with any actual experience managing in anything even close to what’s happening now.

The current recession officially started in December 2007, so it’s already 15 months old and the end isn’t in sight.

What experience makes these folks the ‘best and brightest’ for today’s world?

Just why the hell are companies still guaranteeing oversized compensation and exorbitant exit packages when now is definitely the time to pay for future performance—no guarantees.

Image credit: flickr

Yesterday we saw how companies often equate ‘happy’ with fun and fun with games.

Beyond that they seem to think that money buys happiness and will solve most, if not all, motivation issues; an attitude especially prevalent in tech.

That would mean that the well-paid employees with plenty of games at Google and Facebook are among the happiest workers. Right?

Wrong.

Not even close.

Who are the happiest, with the highest job satisfaction level?

According to a new survey from Bloomberg’s Work Wise (tada) the top five happiest professions are:

The median salary of four of the five is just under $50K

Tech doesn’t even make the list.

More proof that happiness is about far more than money, let alone games.

Image credit: Bloomberg

Jeff Bezos’ reach or, to some people, tentacles, is extensive. Just how extensive is apparent in the infographic below. It is yet more proof that one picture is worth a thousand words.

In case it’s not his empire that interests you, but his earnings, then your should read How much Jeff Bezos makes per minute.

You shouldn’t miss a look at the flip side to see the people who power the Amazon piece of his pie.

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

This story about Slack is from 2015.

Any company that follows in Slack’s shoes still warrants major media coverage.

Sad, isn’t it.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Being a woman in tech can be a serious drawback in 2015; far more so than in the 1980s and 90s — Tinder even dumped a woman founder on the basis that the company wouldn’t be taken seriously by investors. Sadly, they may have been right.

Leave it to Slack, valued at $2.8 billion, to do things differently.

According to its diversity report released on Wednesday, 45% of all Slack managers are female, with 41% of the entire workforce having a woman as their manager. “This means that 41% of our people report to a woman who helps set their priorities, measure their performance, mentor them in their work, and who make recommendations that will impact their compensation and career growth.”  In non-engineering positions, 51% of the workforce turned out to be female. Out of the roughly 250 employees worldwide, 39% are reported to be female.

Slack is considered the fastest growing software company in history and they certainly lead  the tech pack In gender diversity.

And while their racial diversity stats are as dismal as the rest of tech they are far more actively working on changing that, too.

Here are the company’s four hiring guidelines,

1. Examining all decisions regarding hiring/recruiting, promotion, compensation, employee recognition and management structure to ensure that we are not inadvertently advantaging one group over another.
2. Working with expert advisors and employees to build fair and inclusive processes for employee retention, such as effective management education, company-wide unconscious bias training, ally skills coaching, and compensation review.
3. Helping to address the pipeline issue with financial contributions to organizations whose mission is to educate and equip underrepresented groups with relevant technical skills (like Hack the Hood and Grace Hopper), as well as supporting a variety of internship programs to broaden access to opportunity (like CODE2040).
4. Attempting to be conscious and deliberate in our decision-making and the principles and values by which we operate. Changing our industry starts by building a workplace that is welcoming to all so that a generation of role models, examples and mentors is created.

Slack is practicing what recent studies have proven; hiring women pays.

Give that some thought the next time your unconscious bias kicks in leading you to reject a candidate because she is a she.

Image credit: HikingArtist

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

From the start of my career, especially as a headhunter, AKA, recruiter, I have  done my best to drum the following mantra into the heads of both hiring managers and candidates.

Life is LARGE; career is but a small part of the whole.  A major problem is created when the adjectives (and, therefore, the attitudes) are reversed.

Most agreed, but that was then…

These days, too many companies intentionally design their perks and campus to encourage people to stay — like Facebook.

My greeter walked me to one of the complex’s main arteries from Hacker Way toward Main Street. “The campus was designed to be a cross between Disneyland and downtown Palo Alto.”

If everything is at work why leave?

Maybe to have a life?

Of course, before you can leave you need to get your work done and it’s hard to be productive with all the distractions.

“It’s no wonder people are working longer, earlier, later, on weekends, and whenever they have a spare moment,” Jason Fried writes in the new book It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work, which hits the shelves in the US today (Oct. 2). “People can’t get work done at work anymore.”

Forbes recently published a Quora response to the question What People Won’t Tell You About Working At A Top Tech Company that presents both the pros and cons of working  for a company with the main goal of arranging its perks and compensation so people won’t leave.

Not just won’t leave, but can’t leave.

It’s not just the perks, but the compensation. Even those willing to take a reduced package will find other companies hesitant to hire them. And when the downturn comes, as it always does, they will be in an even worse position.

A couple of weeks ago Ryan accepted a new position and I wrote his new company, Spatial Networks, up as a role model.

It’s proof companies don’t have to turn themselves into a field of poppies to attract and retain great talent. We’ll look at more examples next week.

Image credit: HikingArtist

If you follow Ryan’s Journal on Thursday you know that he’s been interviewing for a new position. (If you aren’t familiar with Ryan you can learn more about him here.) Last week he wrote about red flags and deciding factors.

As a Millennial and former Marine Ryan, is extremely sensitive to culture and that’s been number one on his list of wants, including challenge, learning, growing, making a difference, respect, team, etc., and all the normal stuff, such as compensation and benefits.

He has been interviewing for more than a year, both local and remote positions, and finally found it all in a local company called Spatial Networks.

The company builds geospatial intelligence products. Founded in 2000, it has survived the dot com bust and the 2008 financial meltdown, which says a lot about its management.

When Ryan called he was so excited about the company he was practically bouncing. He raved about the people, the culture and said the perks were unbelievable.

What constitutes “unbelievable” to a young married 30-something with 3.5 kids and a mortgage?

Benefits & Perks

Spatial Networks, Inc. continually invests in its employees, and nowhere is this investment more evident than in our employee benefits, development and enrichment program offerings.

Financial security

In addition to competitive pay and performance-based incentives, you’ll receive 100% company 401(k) match up to the IRS maximum (and are fully vested at eligibility), company stock options, and robust life insurance coverage (3x your annual salary).

Complete health

Spatial Networks covers 100% of medical, dental, and vision plan premiums for you and your family. We also offer short- and long-term disability, an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), 24/7 nurse line with care coordination and mental health programs, and on-site gym membership.

Life balance

We love what we do, but work isn’t everything. With flexible work hours, maternity/parental leave, and generous, tiered paid time off (PTO) and flex-time, you can devote time to the things (and people) you cherish most.

Continuous growth

At Spatial Networks, you’ll learn from some of the most talented, passionate software developers and geographers around and receive professional development and training (plus internal career growth/acceleration).

Happy workdays

Enjoy a fast-paced, fun and collaborative environment, a visible and responsive HR department, company-paid parking in downtown St. Petersburg, and all the fresh-ground coffee you can drink!

This is from a follow-up email Ryan sent.

Very profitable and they are growing. Plus the benefits are insane. I receive 4 weeks vacation to start. 100% payout of all medical premiums for me and my family (I was paying 20K annually before) and I also receive 100% match on my 401K up to the max which is $18,500 per year.

(Note Ryan’s compensation jumped $20K just based on the medical premiums he no longer pays.)

I call these adult perks, plenty of coffee, but no food. Unlike so many perks at companies such as Google and Facebook, none of these are designed to encourage people to stay at the office or build their lives around work.

Image credit: Spatial Networks

Hiring is one of the things where the “move fast and break it” mantra can cause real damage, including blowing product release schedules and, in extreme cases, blowing holes in your team or even destroying it.

A couple of yesterday’s links offered ways to avoid the Peter Principle when hiring, here are some others.

1. Analyze your openings and identify the attitudes needed to perform and be successful in your company, not the experience. Just because they have held a similar position previously doesn’t mean they did it well. And even if they did, the ability may not carry over with a different boss and/or culture.
2. Interview for attitude above experience and don’t rule out someone who hasn’t held a similar position — at some point every boss became one via promotion.
3. Managing is composed of various skills; in that respect it is no different than any other specialty, such as engineering, marketing or finance. Supply training/coaching to anyone promoted to management; nobody is born knowing how, nor is it taught particularly well in college.
4. Find ways to reward exceptional effort beyond promotion to a position that isn’t aligned with ability and interests. When people know there are financial/prestigious alternatives to management they are more likely to speak up when offered a promotion they don’t really want. The image above shows one approach that has been successful in technical and nontechnical fields, because the compensation between pairs is equal on each level.

As in most cases, to change results, change how you think.

Image credit: RampUp Solutions

With 68% of employees disengaged, you would think the board’s critical eye would be turned on the executive suite.

You would think wrong.

One of the greatest causes of disengagement is the difference in compensation between the CEO/executives and the workers.

That difference is the direct result pay-for-performance, coupled with the board’s ego-driven competitiveness and desire for bragging rights.

Name the most brilliant, talented, past or present CEO you can think of, then remove them from their position.

The company may hiccup, but it won’t go down in flames.

Now remove all the line managers/team leaders OR all the workers in a specific department or with a specific talent and watch the company stagger and fall on its face.

An unintended consequence of pay-for-performance is we treat companies as if they are in the airline business, except the only person who matters is the pilot—not the grounds crew, nor the quality control tinkerers, nor the guys who wrangled the ore and fuel from the ground, forged the parts, tightened the bolts and soldered the frame.

In their rush to acquire the “best” talent, boards are likely to forget that corporations are not independent entities

It’s a group of people all moving in the same direction, united in a shared vision and their efforts to reach a common goal.

To move in the same direction people need to be engaged.

But how engaged would you be when the proceeds of your hard work show up in someone else’s paycheck?

In the 1970s, shareholders took out about 50% of a company’s profits, while the rest was reinvested in the productive capacity of the firm, including R&D to employee training and rewards. Today, the shareholder gets over 90% between dividends and share buybacks. Today, a 60% or greater weight on equity or equivalents is the norm in pay packages.

Dominantly CEO/ senior pay packages.

The funny thing is that rank and file aren’t looking for similar pay.

They are looking for fairness in relative pay.

Image credit: JustyCinMD