> One thing that's worked well for Stripe is bringing on people who didn’t have an immediately obvious role in the organization. If you can think of one thing this person can do, then there’s probably ten more you're not thinking of that he/she can do two months from now. Focusing on hiring to fill a role could make you more likely to sacrifice quality just to get someone with the right skill set.
Essentially DDR state hiring policies that ensured "work" for everyone. Was this part of the reason for the many tech layoffs the last few years?
The above attitude is an optimal one if you have a ton of cheap capital - AKA low interest rates.
Once investors start demanding a high return on capital, or it's hard to even get your hands on capital, then the optimal approach is to only hire people you could already have utilized at 100% yesterday.
Another factor affecting the optimal hiring level is how easy it is to fire someone. If it's really hard, you have to price in the fact that you'll eventually be stuck with a good employee with nothing to do - or a dud who isn't cutting the mustard - for a number of months, while you bleed cash to pay this person.
If it's completely effortless to fire someone, then there's little harm and future planning involved in hiring someone if you need them and have the money right now and the hiring friction drops to zero.
The optimal outcome for society as opposed to the companies is going to be some mix of the above factors, but probably skewing towards low-ish interest rates and easy-ish firing.
Essentially DDR state hiring policies that ensured "work" for everyone. Was this part of the reason for the many tech layoffs the last few years?