Bram Cohen ([info]bramcohen) wrote,
@ 2007-12-10 09:30:00
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Executive Search
I'm very happy with my new CEO, although the executive search firm we used did some things which I personally find quite humiliating, so I'd like to let people know a few things.

Just because you were approached about being BitTorrent's CEO doesn't necessarily mean that I'd ever heard of you. If I had ever heard of you, it doesn't necessarily mean that I thought you had the necessary experience for being BitTorrent's CEO. Even if I did think you had the necessary experience, it doesn't mean I wouldn't have gotten fuming mad at your name being suggested for any of a number of other reasons, including in some cases widely known lack of competence and lack of morals.

Normally I'd keep quiet about this for the time being, but at least one person is talking about how he was contacted by the executive search firm, and I happen to have completely blown my stack after I heard that he'd been approached, so I wanted to set the record straight.

The executive search firm's name? Heidrick & Struggles.

Unrelatedly, if there was any candidate who literally stood me up five times and then removed themselves from the search as if the job was theirs for the taking, I'd like to let them know that I'd already knocked them off my internal list of potential candidates after stand-up #3, because that was a strong enough hint to make me not care how godlike some people view them. Really, the nerve of some people.

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[info]jered
2007-12-10 05:52 pm UTC (link)
I despise executive search firms; I'm happy to hear that you had a half-good experience in that they found you a good candidate.

Every experience I've had has been, across the board, awful. They demand a huge fee up front (unlike other recruiting firms), yet show very little initiative in locating good candidates, relying rather on their rolodexes (or the modern equivalent thereof). Especially in sales, the results have been wretched. Personal contacts and word-of-mouth have been both cheaper and much more effective.

It sounds like your search firm was going about saying, "Oh, Bram says you're just perfect for the job!"?

I'm actually more curious about who stood you up five times. If it was really him and not the search firm messing up, he deserves the public humiliation far more.

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[info]bramcohen
2007-12-10 06:01 pm UTC (link)
I'm happy to hear that you had a half-good experience in that they found you a good candidate.

Please don't get tripped up on that false dichotomy.

It sounds like your search firm was going about saying, "Oh, Bram says you're just perfect for the job!"?

In fairness, I'm pretty sure they didn't use those exact words, although approaching anyone about a CEO job has very strong implications no matter what wording is used.

I'm actually more curious about who stood you up five times. If it was really him and not the search firm messing up, he deserves the public humiliation far more.

There are a few more personal connections to people I know to him, and besides, I can't remember his name off the top of my head.

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Trash Talking
(Anonymous)
2007-12-11 11:14 am UTC (link)
I like it when Bram talks trash.

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[info]bramcohen
2007-12-10 08:38 pm UTC (link)
Also, the stood-me-up guy is not, to my knowledge, going around telling people about it. If he were to publically claim that the job was his for the taking and that he turned it down, I would most definitely name him.

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[info]abyrneseyeview
2007-12-10 06:17 pm UTC (link)
Executive search firms (and recruiters in general) have to be more focused on generically amazing candidates. I do IT/quant headhunting for financial companies, and the smartest thing I can do is find someone with a ridiculously solid resume, who can be shopped around to everyone who would consider him. That usually means considering at least one company that would hate him, or that he'd hate, but since I check individual candidates before submitting them to companies, it's usually not a problem.

My understanding is that even if most headhunters do ask candidates before sending them to a company, a small fraction forward resumes pretty indiscriminately -- and end up being responsible for most headhunter-submitted resumes.

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[info]bramcohen
2007-12-10 06:51 pm UTC (link)
First, this wasn't a generic call for candidates, it was a CEO search done exclusively with one firm, as most of them are, so the 'it was just a few bad apples spamming you' explanation doesn't fly, since there was only one apple. Second, the amount that such a search costs would justify a huge amount of resources being put into filtering, which either wasn't done or wasn't done well.

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[info]abyrneseyeview
2007-12-10 06:55 pm UTC (link)
If it's a large enough firm, you might expect the 'spammer' type recruiters to be the most successful -- but that would depend on the hiring climate (if it's hard to get a CEO hired, obviously spammers will be forced out).

It's still surprising that they didn't do such basic research. You'd think that the return on investing five minutes to find out if the guy is an automatic rejection would be high enough to justify that time investment. Maybe they're just pathologically lazy.

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He Did whattt?
[info]booger_dawson
2007-12-10 08:19 pm UTC (link)
He stood you up 5 times....? This is what you do. Next time you see him you get up in that Ass Bram... You get a spray can and write "Bram Was Here!" Then you step out of that ass and you keep it open! "Keep it open?" "Yeah you keep that ass open, so when someone else sees him, it will read BRAM WAS HERE!"
- Curb Your Enthusiasm (Slightly Modified haha)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ewr4BSTr8Q <--they have the scene from that episode on youtube. (reference to the quote)

But seriously though. How popular of a person do you have to be in the Silicon Valley to stand someone up 5 times? WTF! hmmm perhaps an Ivy Leaguer? jk Anyways, yeah, that sucks man, hey at least you gave him 3 shots and you held your end too bad he didn't and wasted your time.
Take Care

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[info]dragonladyflame
2007-12-10 11:26 pm UTC (link)
Wow. Executive drama meets LJ drama. I always knew there was some snippiness going on behind those bland Wall Street Journal editorials.

More puzzle rings!

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[info]pyramidrabbit
2007-12-12 03:30 pm UTC (link)
Well thats the executive mentality, they're taught to talk and act that way. Blow up your ego and you succeed basically. Just makes me think of that episode from Futurama where they found the 80's executive with an uncurable case of boneritis.

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[info]deobserver
2008-01-13 05:33 am UTC (link)
Hmmm....Is there a (strong) correlation between the size of the company and the size of the egos of senior management? Future Stock reminds more me of Enron (see Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room).

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