[prepend]

> For many companies, you cannot be qualified to make this determination.

It’s hard but useful. If you know this, you will be more successful whether you’re in engineering or sales or whatever.

I research every business and organization I do business with. It’s not perfect, but it’s part of my decision making process.

In CircleCI’s case, this would be me looking at the financials (hard because they are private), talking to some friends who use them, and, since I know some tech, trying the product.

It’s not wise to trust every business as every business has people thinking and saying they are great. It’s wise for an individual to assess these for themself. Companies success isn’t entirely random.

[tomnipotent]

This research helps you form a more informed opinion, but it doesn't make you any more qualified at predicting the companies future success potential. The people running these companies are barely in such a position, nonetheless the average person who thinks they're privy to prescient insight.

[prepend]

I’m not sure what you mean by qualified.

The research makes you more able to make an accurate decision. It helps improve your outcome.

I don’t think being qualified is important here. I think the important piece is to make a good decision to join a firm, or leave a firm.

There’s no perfect information, but every potential employee has the ability to improve their chances by researching important decisions like this.

I think a good litmus test is if I can’t answer “how do they make money” or “how will they make money” or “how do they create value,” then I don’t want to work for them.