Monday, January 6, 2020

Why a Speedy Hiring Process is Key for Startups - Spark Hire

Why a Speedy Hiring Process is Key for Startups - Spark HireBringing the right people on board has a major impact on the future success of a startup, as this kind of environment is typically one where employees fill several roles. While you want to make a careful decision when it comes to filling an open spot within your business, taking too long to hire can actually be detrimental. Heres why slow hiring is problematic for fledgling businessesCandidates who are in top demand typically wont wait to get an offer from youYou want to acquire the best talent possible in order to help drive your company forward. However, if you have to wait weeks or months to make an offer to an individual, its likely that this person will already have received an offer elsewhere. When its your turn, theyll no longer be available, leaving you with a pool of less desirable candidates. Over time, this can bring down the level of talent found in your office.Taking longer to hire doesnt necessarily guarantee t hat youll make smarter choicesWhile it may feel like taking time to carefully evaluate each candidate ensures that youre getting a capable, positive employee, in reality this is bedrngnis always the case. Candidates who interview well may not turn out to perform as you had hoped. Those who receive glowing recommendations from past supervisors may not actually deserve the level of praise heaped upon them. You can research a candidate for months and still end up making a bad hire. For these reasons, its best to gather as much information as possible and then act, rather than driving yourself crazy worrying about whether youre making the right choice.You stretch other employees too thin when positions are left vacantIn a startup environment, one employee often fills several roles. Therefore, when someone leaves and a position is left open, its easy for the employees who remain to become overwhelmed as they try to handle their jobs while picking up the slack caused by the departure. Pro tect your current employees sanity by filling open roles quickly and ensuring that no one person is taking on too much.In addition to these concerns, if it takes you months to make a hiring decision, potential employees may become hesitant to work for you. Theyll feel that if youre paralyzed when it comes to making one choice, how will you be when it comes to making other decisions regarding your business? Hiring in a careful yet speedy way is an important part of protecting the health and future success of your company, particularly when your business is new to the market.Image pressmaster/BigStock.com

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg trade insults over robots

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg trade insults over robotsElon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg trade insults over robotsOn Sunday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was playing the role of normal human being, holding aFacebook Live from his backyard in Palo Alto, California, as he smoked some meats and shared his views on killing what you cook, exercising, and of course, the future of humanity.As he waited for his meats to grill, Zuckerberg read out loud one anwenders question to him I watched a recent interview with Elon Musk and his largest fear for future was AI artificial intelligence. What are your thoughts on AI and how it could affect the world?This was one question Zuckerberg couldnt resist answering. Musk, the CEO of SpaceX andTesla, is known for his dystopian views on AI. Musk believes that robots will be able to do everything better than us and will leid only take our jobs, but could also be a threat to the existence of humanity by starting wars and manipulating information through their super intelligence networks. In 2014, he warned that AI could even be potentially more dangerous than nukes.Zuckerberg had strong opinions about this.I think that people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios are- I dont understand it. Its really negative, and in some ways I actually think its pretty irresponsible, he said. Zuckerberg then went on to outline how AI will help us, not replace us, in the next five years.(function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)0 if (d.getElementById(id)) return js = d.createElement(s) js.id = id js.src = https//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.jsxfbml=1version=v3.1 fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs)(document, script, facebook-jssdk))If youre arguing against AI, then youre arguing against safer cars that arent going to have accidents. And youre arguing against being able to better diagnose people when theyre sick. I just dont see how, in good conscience, some people can do that. Im just much more optimisti c on this, in general, than probably a lot of folks are, Zuckerberg said.Elon Musk was not mentioned by name in Zuckerbergs answer, but its clear who Zuckerberg is referencing when he mentions people who are acting pretty irresponsible.Two days later, in his response to Zuckerbergs criticism on his AI vision, Musk did what Zuckerberg did not make it personal.Theres a lot you can read in this 13-word answer. First off, the use of Zuckerbergs first name. Using someones first name in an insult to their intellect suggests that this is personal, that you know the measure of this person and you find them lacking. You may hear limited understanding and think that this vague criticism shows restraint, but look closer. Saying that your fellow technology CEO has a limited understanding on one of the most important areas of technology is a staggering insult to their competence as an industry leader.Do we need a tie-breaker to this war of words? Lets ask another billionaire. Microsoft co-founde r, Bill Gates, sides with Musk when it comes to AI.First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well, Gates said in a Reddit Ask Me Anything two years ago. A few decades after that though, the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and dont understand why some people are not concerned.Billionaires, theyre just like us They grill, tweet, and get into carefully-worded beefs with each other too- except their positions can actually change the course of humanity. The bad news is that while were all arguing about whether robots will destroy us, theyre moving ahead and getting ready to take our jobs.