David Barrett, CEO of Expensify, wrote a flamebait post called “CEO Friday: Why We Don’t Hire .NET Programmers.” In his entertaining but close-minded post, Barrett reveals his prejudices, biases, and ignorance in writing about how his company will not hire programmers with .NET experience.
Barrett’s post has provoked a storm of responses in the comments to his post and also at Slashdot. The responses are as entertaining but often more insightful than Barrett’s rant. (As usual at Slashdot, there are only a few diamonds in a sea of mud.)
It is illuminating to read Expensify’s description of the skills requirements on their “Who We Need: Engineers, Entrepreneurs, Skill-set Contortionists” web page. They want someone who is an expert at everything, who will be asked to do everything, and who will devote their entire life to their job. (And when the company goes overseas to focus on code-writing, you pay for the trip yourself.) This description doesn’t recognize that people have different abilities and skills. For example, the best programmer at a company may not have the people skills to provide good user support, and it’s unrealistic to think that such a person can be found.
The question is, given what Barrett has said publicly, do you want to work for such a person? I believe that Barrett, as CEO of Expensify, has damaged his company’s reputation and has made it more difficult to hire good people. This is a good example of when CEOs should keep their mouth shut.
Disclaimer: I don’t use .NET myself, but I work with creative and excellent programmers who do.