Perhaps I'm a jerk, but I don't feel bad when non-technical people get taken for a ride when hiring people for a tech-startup. I have no business trying to start a hair salon on the cheap, so why should I feel sorry for someone who feels that he can make a go at something that requires highly talented, seasoned workers?
Sure, but you'd better be able to tell if the servers you hire are doing a good job. Ditto for cooks, cleaners, dishwashers. You shouldn't need to hire someone to look for flecks of food on your 'clean' dishes.
Alternatively, if you want to open a restaurant, you shouldn't need to be an expert in plumbing, electrical, framing, HVAC, upholstery, cabinet-making, painting, and floor refinishing just to get the place ready to open.
The reason you don't need to be an expert in all these things is because there are governmentally mandated codes, licensures and bonds with which all such workers must comply or face governmental censure. These standards have supposedly been crafted to represent an acceptable minimum quality of work by qualified persons.
Sure, but you hire professionals to perform and inspect this work, and at the end, have a local official verify the work has been done. Your example really stretches the analogy as buying/renting a structure is not at all similar to trying to get a stranger to build a core product that you can't maintain.
(I love how you can just kind of say whatever thoughtless thing you want, as long as you call yourself out for being an asshole first.)
Perhaps I'm a jerk, but I don't feel bad making fun of people who write dumb comments on Hacker News.
Or.
Perhaps I'm a jerk, but I don't feel bad when non-business people get take for a ride when hiring people to help them run the business side of their tech-startup. Why should I feel sorry for someone who feels that he can make a go at something that requires highly talented, seasoned workers who understand the details of how to run and grow a business?
Anyway:
Not everyone knows everything. If you are hiring someone because you're aware that you lack the skills to get something done, that's fine. That's why you hire experienced people. And when you hire them, you expect that they'll do a good job at what you're paying them for. Businesses require teams of talented people who can trust one another. Not everyone knows everything -- and if you think that everyone should just take advantage of each other, well, remind me to never hire you. Or work for you.
>Businesses require teams of talented people who can trust one another. Not everyone knows everything -- and if you think that everyone should just take advantage of each other, well, remind me to never hire you. Or work for you.
Keep in mind that this article is about hiring outsourced/contract/freelance labor, not future partners/members of a team.
Yup, I know. Freelancers are members of the team, btw. And I still think it's not cool to find it perfectly acceptable for someone to scam someone else just because they can. Or to say that people who try to do things they're not good at deserve to be scammed.
>"Or to say that people who try to do things they're not good at deserve to be scammed."
It's more often the case that the hire isn't as good as he believes. Which is perfectly fine, because the person/"entrepreneur" that performed the hire is also still learning about the business.
