[Foundation-l] Remarks on Wikimedia's fundraiser

[Michael Snow]

On 3/9/2011 3:09 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> On 9 March 2011 23:02, David Goodman<dggenwp at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Until recently, the foundation has been increasing its staff by hiring
>> the best person immediately available, rather than a person good
>> enough to do the necessary job.
> Citation needed.
It depends on your definition of recently. We were still making mistakes 
along these lines a couple years ago, but I think the relevant lessons 
were learned, certainly by the time we had to hire a CTO to replace 
Brion (who it's so wonderful to have back with us, not that he fully 
left or anything). And of course regularly reviewing and applying those 
lessons is good, not just for hiring but any kind of recruiting. For 
example, the process that led us to find Bishakha went through a number 
of iterations and took longer than we would have liked, but ultimately 
it was what we needed to find the right person for that position on the 
board. I would generally agree with much of David's advice as a matter 
of theory, regardless of how familiar he is with actual current practice 
at the foundation.

--Michael Snow