You'll Get a Cow if You Work at This Company(thenextweb.com) |
You'll Get a Cow if You Work at This Company(thenextweb.com) |
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57324275-93/work-with-the-c...
Look at the design of the site and the buttons and the "weird" offers:
Is this produced by a new web service that creates a cool job advertisement?
No, I get the joke. I just don't think it's funny. There's a big difference, and I think the startups that are using this gimmick need to think really hard about who exactly they are targeting with these things, because it sure does seem to me to be people who value style over substance.
in the job market, there are two things i'd like to trade for my skills and time: dollars and equity. i also appreciate and put value on a company having a nice office to work at and that they have a laid-back culture, but they can just say that. i don't need them to buy me my beer or coffee to "signal" that they are hip, i'd rather have the cash and pick my beer when i want to get drunk. i also don't need them to "signal" that they are green by buying me a bike -- i'd rather have them tell me that they care about that and what things do they do as a company to be green.
in general, all these things companies do to "signal" culture strike me as stupid. just say what you value and have your important actions reflect it.
Nobody is questioning that you believe in what you do and are doing well at it, and enjoying your work. What we are questioning is your methods.
Let me put it into perspective (my perspective):
If you want to donate $2000 dollars to heifer.org for each employee, just do it. Don't put it in my name. I have my own charities, and would prefer to make my own choice.
Don't buy me a bike. I am disabled and that perk just slaps me in the face with it.
Don't buy me beer. I do not drink, and find the implication that drinking is required for your culture to be a little creepy.
Don't say that I am getting $2000 for R&D. That is pocket change for true R&D, and makes me worry that not only do you not handle budgets well, but that the companies future innovation funding could get messed up in HR negotiations.
The bottom line is that most of your perks scare me. Not because there is anything wrong with offering them, but because it shows a severe lack of empathy for the diversity of people in this world.
i think research shows that people are not motivated by money. people also don't eat money. but money is the best way to buy food -- and also the best way to buy people's time and skills.
picking where you work has a lot of dimensions, such as work-life balance, location, what impact the company is having, and on and on... a startup wants to attract people who are compatible with the things they value. that's what "being a good fit" means -- that's your point. however, i still don't see the need to do that by offering beer. it seems much better to be clear about the things you as a company care about and expect/ask the same from people you hire.
It's not the first job ad where I see something along these lines. Sure it tells me that the culture is probably laid-back, but depending on how it's phrased, it can be sound very juvenile.
We develop software for the cattle industry and have had far better luck with hiring people who own cattle or grew up on a ranch as they better relate to our customers.
Of course hiring someone who has their own cattle herd means they can't easily pick up and move to our location so we all work from our own ranches and keep in contact via Campfire and Skype.
I have donated to the Heifer project before, but never saw "my cow". Regardless of that, it's a great organization. Amicus on the other hand is great at getting news sites to write misleading titles about them.
We ride the bikes around the office because it's like 8 guys in a 3000+ square-foot warehouse (and because we've camped out in the good offices, but those aren't quite near the restroom).
I didn't get a cow when I started. Instead we got an office convection oven. I bake bread in it from time to time, though it's actually proved more popular for lunchtime frozen pizzas. There's also a panini press. Today our CEO brought in turkey soup leftovers and some ribs.
(We're hiring, but mostly looking for a really good computer vision guy at the moment: http://www.nearbuysystems.com/company/vision )
To me, it sounds like their product will be a Facebook app that'll ask permission (I hope) to spam my friends.
So Amicus gives a small-ish amount of cash (relative to other signing bonuses I've seen), but ties in several other perks that say a lot about company culture. Each of their ideas says something about the company:
Counter Culture coffee - I didn't know anything about this brand before seeing this listing, but it appears their focus is sustainability and education.
Donated dairy cow - I've heard of this one before, and another similar program with goats. More "responsible world citizen" action.
Gym memberships - Combined with other items on the perk list, it appears that Amicus wants to provide you the opportunity to live a balanced life that includes fitness.
iPad 2 - Ostensibly for "prototyping", but really a statement that they want to provide you with tools that allow you to work while comfortable. More balance.
Iron Man Helmet - Manditory for all company events, I'm assuming. This is just fun!
Unlimited beer - The statement here is that the company is laid back and trusts you to do the responsible thing.
Fixie bike - Hipster fantastic, but who are we to judge? It reinforces the fitness/balance statement.
Maybe they are find people, and maybe it is a fine company. I have no way of knowing. But this approach does not appeal to me, personally because is feels like it is trying too hard.
The cow might just be a gimmick (and let's face it, you can't do more hipsterish than the fixed-gear bike), but it's pretty awesome guerrilla marketing.
a cow.
seriously.
In the end, it's about effectiveness, and I predict this move will get Amicus in touch with more compatible candidates, than simply writing a large check.
You're not going to be drunk from two beers, either, so if you drink at work instead of going to a bar, a little more work has the opportunity to be done. All in all, a nice benefit for everyone.
If you don't drink alcohol, I'm sure they'll buy you an unlimited amount of Perrier or energy drinks or whatever else you want.
But it's really a matter of phrasing.
"We typically have a couple of beers together at the end of the day" sounds much better than "we'll provide you with an unlimited amount of beer" and likely gives the intended image of the company culture. The former tells me that people like to relax together, the latter focuses on the beer you will have access to and incidentally on the dollar amount of that beer, not the social aspect of it.
At my old job, we worked with a certain game development company at the behest of a larger publisher. They also had recently relocated... to an office directly above a pub with their own brewery.
On the one hand, I have a hard time believing that our bitter jokes were true, and that they actually were perpetually wasted; on the other hand, even just getting responses from them was a bit of an ordeal -- never mind getting even acknowledgement of the bugs that prevented us from continuing with our side of the "partnership". Not the most professional folk, and I can't see how the beer would help.
In the interest of not repeating that experience, I'd certainly want positive evidence that the unlimited beer didn't impede the company's performance or professionalism before I'd work with a company that prided itself on offering unlimited beer.
1. The amount of waste between your legs and the road is supremely limited. Until you've been on (evan a cheap) fixed gear you really haven't felt how much power gets lost in a bike with a de-railer setup. It's very addicting.
2. Weight. Sort of related to above.. The truth is, I like climbing most hills on my fixed better than on my geared bike because it's so light. Gears are nice, but there's no substitute for just plain doing less work.
I'm going to try to build a sub-15-pound fixed-gear bike in the near future, so we'll see how that goes. The reason you see so many 15-pound derailer bikes is because 14.99 pounds is the lower limit for UCI races, and the people that spend money on light bikes are doing that to ride them in UCI races.
As for wasted power; I picked a gear that matches my fixed gear bike's gear and rode both for a mile at a 95rpm cadence. Same heart rate both times, which means my body is working equally hard to propel both the same distance and speed. Pushing your sail-like body through the air is where your energy goes when riding a bike. Everything else is a rounding error.
(It would be nice if someone with power-measuring pedals and a power-measuring hub could try both scenarios, though. Then you would know exactly how many watts are being lost in the drivetrain.)
Really, if you get a chance, ride one for a bit. They're not super practical on hills, but they work surprisingly well because they're so light.
That said, I wouldn't want to ride one as my only bike.
(Plus his website is awesome.)
edit: Now that I think about it though, he's the epitome of hacker culture, applied to the bicycle world.
But they're kindof a novelty. Mine is a daily driver, but I wish it wasn't (I'm saving up for a replacement).
1) My knees hurt, a lot, from riding it.
2) "A good cadence" on this bike is really really fast. This is good for me, but I'm a social creature, I'm usually riding with other people, and those other people don't necessarily want to be flying around at "oh no I'm late" speeds.
3) Hills. You can't downshift to go up hills.
4) Mine has a brake, so the brake thing isn't a big issue to me. Granted I wish the brake was chunkier, but that's my own fault since I built the bike.
The people who talk about "less parts" are just plain wrong, and are confusing a fixed gear bike with a single speed bike. Fixed gears are a type of single speed, and it's being a single speed that makes things simple.
The bottom line is that fixed gear bikes are fun but, like I said, they're kindof a novelty. My legs have definitely gotten stronger riding mine (her name is Annabelle), so that's a plus, I guess.
As soon as you add a derailer setup, you need an extra chainring, rear brakes, shift cables + housing, the derailer itself, 10 cogs instead of 1, and expensive shift levers. (Even Shimano's low-end 9-speed shift levers are in the $150 range. The good ones are $700!)
On top of that there's an aesthetic aspect to the simplicity. I tend to find them really beautiful in a post-modern art kind of way.
Plus they are required for track racing, which is also fun for completely different reasons.
On another note, in most, even hilly places, I'll usually only use 3-4 out of my 20 possible gears, so getting along with just one isn't too too bad, it's really the inability to coast that gets ya.
For better, or for worse, the "unlimited amount of beer" line is catchy. It's memorable. And it sends a very strong signal of the company's culture. That cultural signal will turn off quite a few would-be applicants, but it will attract many others. And isn't that the point of a well-thought-out job listing in the first place? You want to find people who'll kick ass at the job, but part of that ass-kicking is cultural fit. Perhaps a bigger part than many of us would admit at first blush. (In this particular case, they seem to be casting a line for New York hipsters. If that's what they want, great. If it's not, then they might want to rethink their listing).
Of course, there is certainly a way to take "startupy" culture too far. Recall the '90s tech scene, for instance. But that depends less on the culture in question, and more on whether or not the company is getting the results to back up the unique culture. A unique culture is pointless, and possibly even destructive, without productive results.
As far as the wasted power, so again.. I don't have a 3k road bike. Both my bikes cost < 700$ to put together, and at that price the fixed gear is probably gonna be lots more efficient :) I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the power loss might be somewhat psychological either. Might be the feeling of the pedals pushing you in the soft parts of the stroke that in-part make you feel that connected with the pavement... either way, it feels good. Probly as good as a few hundred bucks for a bicycle can feel :)
[Edit: Oh! Forgot another thing I really like about fixed's.. Silence! Admittedly, bit of icing on the cake more than a core reason for riding.. but the complete lack of sound that comes from a fixed can be a pretty beautiful thing when riding early morning or late at night (when there's not a bunch of other noise to drown out freewheel clicking anyways)]
In my opinion, cheap components look and feel ugly regardless of what kind of bike they are attached to. The good news is that you can build a fixed gear bike out of good equipment for what you'd pay for a racing bike groupset.