We only hire the trendiest
The “Moneyball” quote is by far the most provocative. Never mind hanging around bashing TendyCo or trendy engineers. There is a market for programmers, and like in every market, some are overvalued and some are undervalued.<p>But unlike stocks, you don’t extract value from your programmers by selling them at what the market perceives it will pay. So you aren’t hunting for programmers that are valued by the market, you’re hunting for programmers that will be productive.<p>And because it costs you time and money to even talk to programmers, you want the programmers with the highest probability of accepting an offer and being productive. Which means that regardless of your budget productive programmers that are undervalued by the market are the very best ones to interview.<p>Think about that the next time you see an ad that “encourages women and people of colour to apply.” Maybe they’re raving SJWs who hate white men. Or maybe they’re playing Moneyball. (Where or is `||`, not `^^`, of course.)