I don't even have words for how much of a dystopian idea this is. How do you even come up with this idea and think it's worth following through in any way. It's like a parody idea I'd expect to see on the Silicon Valley show.
Then for YC to back this and basically give their stamp of validation that it's worth continuing? THIS is what we're pouring money and resources into?
carpool, but let's call it ride share, because you go there anyway. 5 seconds later it's a billion dollar machine fighting labor laws. while the other one was supposed to be a bit better couch surfing, while you are on a longer vacation, you let someone to vacation at your place, brilliant. 5 minu5 later cities' housing markets are in flames due to tourists due to the induced demand of cheap apartments.
what the fuck.
yeah, hotels and taxi services were awful (both due to fucking NIMBYism of ossified cities that are unable to zone for high density and build transit networks), but the solution should have been something human centered, not startupization of that awfulness and appification of selfishness.
I think that's another out-of-touch criticism where people who have no problem paying for expensive hotels don't understand why AirBnB provides value to people on a budget.
Airbnb is not a good example - it still has its own problems and controversy. But even with that said, it is nowhere near as ripe for abuse and fraud as Skip the Interview is.
Also, there's already a solution for reputation - the standard references system that already exists. This soon-to-be-former CEO is claiming that references are "useless," and then implies that someone being able to buy themselves a job by harassing their former coworkers for money is a better system. It's a ridiculous premise and would create incredibly toxic culture in professional networks.
I like the idea. I get why it initially seems like buying jobs, but it is really just you being allowed to offer a guarantee that your word is backed up by something.
Would you change your mind if they managed to filter people sufficiently to make hiring take far fewer interviews and they could actually source good candidates?
It is weird now, but my parents also think it is weird to interview 8 times for one job.
Honestly, no, not until it’s proven out. and I fear there will be a selection bias where more questionable companies would use this first before established and reputable companies. They need to make it not weird first like sign Uber or another 2nd tier tech company and socialize the idea so it’s acceptable for small companies.
But this would make it disproportionally easier for people with wealthier friends/family while creating a chilling effect against people from a poorer background, or immigrants.
But it really is just buying jobs. For many people, the $50 minimum is nothing. For most people (in the US anyway), it's more than you'd be willing to invest in any coworker, no matter how good they are. And for many people, it's the difference between paying rent or not.
The kid from a rich family will have no problem getting his parents, and family friends to slap $50 down. The kid who grew up in public housing? Not gonna happen.
I want to like the idea. Having a better way to connect likely-qualified candidates and jobs is a good thing. But a set amount of money really isn't a good guarantee of anything.
They are asserting that, however, as this seems a very hard task to really prevent it and they simply assert that they will succeed (especially since if they don't succeed, they don't lose anything, the employer does) without providing any arguments why they think they have an effective solution to this hard problem, their assertion that they'll somehow beat all fraud attempts is simply not convincing.
I assume they require that the money comes from a former manager or co-worker and if you work in tech in the USA/Canada, $50 shouldn't be a lot to most co-workers.
And if you want to buy an internship, you can just plop your kid at a startup for free. Unpaid internships are how you buy experience already.
It unbalances access to jobs by family wealth and creates yet another:tm: skip annoying thing if you are rich enough and/or have enough friends who are rich enough.
Somebody coming out of a life hiccup like family issues or health issues is gonna have a harder time skipping the interview while also having a harder time interviewing.
The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get ahead, and such a product would just extend this.
To me it feels like a "you won a million dollars, please send us $1k to cover the wire transfer costs" scam. Employment in the US is at-will, as an employee I have zero guarantee that I won't be fired the very next day.
This is going to heavily bias the job market in favor of people who have wealthy contacts willing to throw down money.
This might not seem quite as dystopian from the lens of just high paying silicon valley software jobs for in demand people. But imagine this system applied everywhere - it's horrendous.
Hiring people based on how many friends-with-money-to-burn they have is going to be extremely discriminatory.
E.g. in the US this is usually how we hire the President. The best fundraisers climb the party ranks and get the job. 98% of hired Presidents have been well-connected, rich, white men.
It creates various perverse incentives, so even if it might work if all the involved parties are well-behaved, it pushes the situation towards people not "behaving well", at which point the proposed system would not get good results.
It incentivizes abusive companies to fire people quickly after firing - most companies do it, but some do; and the proposed system would increase that.
It incentivizes behind-the-back deals with ex-coworkers, stressing ethics and relationships.
It incentivizes inequality - it gives an advantage to people with a wealthy "support network" and creates a barrier to people who don't have one, if a company prefers to do hiring this way.
(American here. Not defending the concept. Just stating facts.)
In developing countries, paying to have access to a job is common[0]. Highly sought after jobs for their social reputation (like airline attendent) often require applicants to pay a fee for the opportunity.
You also see this in roles that accept bribes. When police collect cash bribes, their bosses need to see some of that money. One way they do is by requiring people to pay upfront a fee to get access to the role of bribe accepter.
It's true, and that's exactly why it's a catastrophic idea and should be property identified as a form of corruption. In those countries (and you have some form of those issues creeping in western countries if you look attentively) you have an elite, a cast forming around some aspect of public management as the only way to get those kind of job is to get enough money to get it and the only way to get enough money is to be part of the cast. As such after only one generation those positions are filled by people that are 1) not the best and 2) often incompetent.
Nothing new though. Check the recent batches of YC. They have been funding meaningless, ridiculous products/companies like these because the people involved in these "startups" have a "diverse" background. I am not making this up to create outrage, you will find it yourself once you start looking at the compaines and the founders and people involved.
Is there any evidence that the "startups" that we should be frustrated are getting funded are the ones started by people from diverse backgrounds? Chris Evans, the founder of the startup in the OP, doesn't sound like someone from a diverse background.
It's in plain sight. YC even highlights it in their website. I'm not making it up. See this page of the list of YC funded compaines https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/
It explicitly lists "Black founded companies", "Latinx founded companies", "Women founded companies"
At this point in America everything is a meaningless social cause/outrage driven thing. Diversity, renaming things even if those names have proper meaning in their current used context. It's all now a complete outrage and drama driven society.
There are many. Like I said, I an not making this up. Remember they funded a bunch of kids right out of college whose "startup" was a calendar widget for MacOS menu bar? Here's their Launch HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26425318
That is just one example. Just go over the very recent Launch HNs from this year (there were multiple threads) and you will find many more.
Not really. YCombinator throws a lot of relatively small amounts of money at the wall to see what sticks. Getting past that initial investment is the bit where you will fail. The runway the YCombinator cash will give you is not very long.
So not only do you have pressure to perform because you don't want to lose your job, you also have pressure to perform because you don't want friends/coworkers/etc to lose money.
On that link there's a screenshot of the homepage for the service. It looks about as awful as you'd expect. How this even got past the elevator pitch is entirely perplexing.
I had this happen to me once when applying to a major defense contractor. The recruiters claimed that they were too busy to interview me and I'd have the job if I wanted it. It smelled too much like a scam and I was suspicious about this particular operation because these jobs were perpetually posted so I bailed on their game.
(I'm not in favor of this concept at all, but read on for a few thoughts)
---
I can see one exceptionally limited use case for this:
Recruiting influencers into related (influence-y) roles.
Example: eSports player Taylor Jackson wants sponsorship with league Team Plasma. Team Plasma's application/recruiting process entails an invite-only process where players are contracted based on metrics derived from common streaming platforms like stream size, stream demographics, gameplay, an arbitrary "hype" measurement, etc., but Team Plasma decides to offer a secondary route for players capable of crowdfunding a certain total. Taylor fulfills the crowdfunding goal due to their reach on platforms not monitored by Team Plasma (e.g clubhouse for the sake of this contrived example).
Another example could include influencers for promotional gigs, like those gigs where someone tends to a paradise island for a year.
---
I don't foresee this model scaling all that well without shoehorning it into places where it doesn't belong, and the communication of the model (and the model itself) very deservedly got incinerated.
The way I think about it, YC funds founders very early with their current idea and traction as their resume. Founders pivoting and iterating through several ideas during and after the batch is very common. So just because something is a YC company doesn't mean its actually a good idea that was "greenlit".
I think it's a stupid idea, would never use it as an employer or job seeker, and if it's as dumb as I and others feel, it won't go far (and in fact it seems to have shut down). That said, I don't understand the outrage. It's an ostensibly dumb idea, maybe even with an upside down some we dont see. It's not a personal attack on anyone. Make fun of it, sure, don't use it sure, but no need for outrage, "I dont have words" etc
I think people are defensive and outraged because if something like this ever caught on among tech companies and became a normalized practice, it would make the process of job seeking much more frustrating than it already is. It's basically institutionalized, monetized nepotism, with all the toxicity of an MLM scheme.
A professional world where this was a common practice would be an awful one for a lot of people. The intense reaction might be a bit of overkill, but it's worth sending a strong message that this is not okay.
Plus, the people who essentially bought their jobs would be hell to work with for those who were competent (and that's not saying standard interviews aren't themselves dystopian in many ways but just selling a job, if possible, would be a magnet for the utterly incompetent).
I don't understand why people think this is nepotistic. If you're bad at the job, you won't make it past the first month or two. So you're really "buying" a (presumably paid) internship that has the potential to turn into a full time job if you're decent.
If it turns out that you're good at the job, nobody loses any money (except the company, who has to pay a recruiting fee, but that's expected). If you're bad, well, hopefully that won't happen....
Granted I don't think it's a great idea for other reasons, but the nepotism angle just doesn't make sense in my opinion.
I guess you could argue that skilled people with the ability to afford payment have a higher chance of being hired, and that's probably not a great thing, but even then it's not like every company who uses this will be filled with incompetent people who paid for their jobs--that just makes absolutely no sense from the company's perspective.
Because with a trivially large enough network of friends willing to game the system, you could just keep buying each other top-paying jobs over the course of a few years. So long as you're at least a mediocre engineer, you can make it past the two-month mark and everyone gets their ROI.
> people with the ability to afford payment have a higher chance of being hired
That's the other very valid reason that this idea sucks. People from disadvantaged communities now not only have the existing hurdles to face in entering the tech world; now trust fund kids with rich friends can continually skip the line and buy the jobs that others are applying for. And a company is going to take the pay-to-play candidate, because it's easier than running an interview process.
> now trust fund kids with rich friends can continually skip the line and buy the jobs that others are applying for.
I would say this is an accurate description of the current system. What do we always hear, that going to an Ivy League is all about the connections, not the education?
That may be true for management-type positions, but at least in my experience, engineering is somewhat more merit-based. As long as you're good at interviewing you can get a job regardless of who you know. Obviously, having connections still helps, but natural career connections don't require a literal buy-in.
Also, at least Ivy League schools have financial aid programs to help gifted kids from disadvantaged backgrounds still be able to attend.
> So long as you're at least a mediocre engineer, you can make it past the two-month mark and everyone gets their ROI.
Is this sustainable, though? Why do you assume that there would be no system to detect people who abuse the system by continually churning companies? Can’t the same thing happen right now with people who have connections to headhunter/recruiting agencies?
Also, if the system has no abuse detection, many people who work in tech for more than a few years should be able to afford gaming a system like this — not just those from rich backgrounds. $10k is not too much money to find if you know you’re guaranteed a 2x return in 60 days.
> And a company is going to take the pay-to-play candidate, because it's easier than running an interview process.
If the pay-to-play system is really producing only “mediocre” hires who churn earlier than candidates hired through the normal interview process, why would a company prefer the pay-to-play process in the long run?
Again, not saying that the platform is good, but I just don’t think your arguments hold up.
Easily. Few people stay at a software engineering job for more than a year or two as it is. I went almost 4 years without staying at one job for more than a year, and not a single recruiter batted an eye the whole time. Hopping jobs with a network of friends buying each other's jobs for big returns would be trivial.
> Can’t the same thing happen right now with people who have connections to headhunter/recruiting agencies?
Yes. But right now it still requires social skills, conversations, and interviews. Skills that anyone can acquire with practice. Turning it into a pay-to-play system doesn't improve anything, it just makes it easier for people with disposable income to skip the line. Or it will make people harass their professional network for money to skip the line. How is that an improved system over just getting to know some recruiters?
> Also, if the system has no abuse detection, many people who work in tech for more than a few years should be able to afford gaming a system like this — not just those from rich backgrounds. $10k is not too much money to find if you know you’re guaranteed a 2x return in 60 days.
You're proving my point. The system as described is ripe for abuse, and what kind of abuse detection mechanism would catch things like this? They didn't describe one, and I can't picture one that isn't extremely invasive. Mild nepotism is already the de facto way that a lot of companies recruit people even though they're not supposed to - add a gambling mechanic into the mix and you can guarantee people will be trying to game it left and right. There's no way they'd be able to crack down on it at scale.
It could catch on because companies and bosses like it, but it could harm workers for all kinds of reasons. Thus, workers need to loudly voice their concerns, so that companies will be discouraged from adopting it.
It unbalances access to jobs by family wealth and creates yet another:tm: skip annoying thing if you are rich enough and/or have enough friends who are rich enough.
Somebody coming out of a life hiccup like family issues or health issues is gonna have a harder time skipping the interview while also having a harder time interviewing.
The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get ahead, and such a product would just extend this.
People hate it because it does what MLM's do. It turns a social relationship into an extractive one.
Think about how it would work in practice. It's not going to always be a cool professional interaction: "Hey, I was wondering, could you give $50 to my crowdfund?" You: "Nah, sorry." Them: "Okay, thanks for your time."
It'll be more like "Contribute $50 to my crowdfund. Pleeaasseee I need this job. I'm having a tough time, I won't be able to make my rent if I don't get this job, and my wife's about to have our second child. Come on, man." It's really hard to refuse, but you'll also be resentful. You don't go around hitting up your former coworkers for money.
It turns a social relationship into an extractive one. Which gives people the heebie-jeebies. You're basically being told "Give me money, or I'll kill our friendship." It's approximately as appealing as someone who says "Give me money, or I'll kill your dog."
I certainly understand having a seething hatred for a company that makes money by encouraging my friends to act that way toward me.
Also, a lot of SWE's are introverts. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at what I do, but I don't know that I have contact information for 20 former coworkers, let alone be able to put together 20 people who know me well enough that I think they'd put $50 on me.
As to YC would have funded this: For founders and VC's, the line between social and business might be pretty blurry. It might be a cultural blind spot, if you're deep in the VC world, you're probably an extrovert with hundreds of business contacts, and you've maybe forgotten how taboo it is to pitch your acquaintances for money as a normal person.
It seems the Internet quickly gave the company a taste of the public's reaction when they started showing off their "brilliant" idea. And to their credit, they went offline more or less immediately.
I agree that encouraging people to beg former coworkers is shitty, but I'm not sure this is really introducing anything new. If I have a friend who's looking for a job and they ask me to refer them to my employer, then if I think they'd be a bad fit I'm in a similarly uncomfortable position.
Also, MLMs are actual scams, where in this case you'll actually get your money back if they're a good hire.
This idea has real flaws in how it's been implemented, like how the hard limit at which point you get the job (no questions asked?) encourages that begging behaviour to get over the limit, but if it were just another source of information among many used in hiring, like it is with actual referrals, then it wouldn't be so bad.
Why is making fun of it acceptable to you but saying "I don't have words" unacceptable? What line are you drawing here? Why is the tone of some reddit comments (which you agree with on content) worth a HN condemnation?
> Out of the people I had hired at my last startup:
> 12% of hires where exceptional hires (I would instantly hire again)
> 42% of Hire were good hires. (I wouldn’t hire again but they did a fine job)
> 29% of hires were bad hires. (They didn’t do a good job and were eventually let go)
> 17% of hires were very bad hires (They had a negative effect on the company culture and other staff)
These seem like extremely poor numbers. I haven't hired a ton of people but all of them have been excellent, though some that I was peripherally involved in hiring have been just good. I'm curious what other people feel that their ratio is.
This could roughly be saying half of hires are below average, and the distribution is bell shaped (or triangular to a first approximation). For many jobs, below average can be equivalent to bad.
If you have money to spend, or can wait to hire, you can beat the averages. I've hired a fair amount and done well too, but only by refusing to hire anyone if there are not suitable candidates that applied, which can burn a lot of political capital (your boss sees you've spend x time and money and had y applicant and z interviews and you refuse to hire anyone).
Employees aren’t scratch tickets. The on-boarding, training, engineering culture and practices all contribute strongly to whether the prospective employee will turn out to be excellent or not. (I leave it to your judgment to guess how a place where 42% “were good hires, did a fine job, but I wouldn’t hire them again” falls on that spectrum.)
Yeah, it sounds so bad that it’s probably made up. It implies that the company has 46% turnover or firing rate (29+17), but average turnover for tech companies is 10%-15% [0].
The backers get 100% return after 2 months if employee stays on? That doesn’t sound bad to me, if I was convinced of the company’s trustworthiness there are a number of former coworkers I would definitely “bet on” to last more than 2 months.
Picture the inverse. Would you really email an old boss from 2 years ago asking for $50 so you can buy yourself a new job?
I would not, nor would I want coworkers asking me for money. Imagine if someone asks you and for whatever reason you don't want to bet on them - how will that conversation go? How will that affect your professional relationship with that person?
This is more or less a proposal for nepotism-based gambling.
That's kind of how it already works with recommendation letters. The result of nobody wanting to say no is that every letter is positive but the number of adverbs chained together signals their true opinion of the candidate rather than the number of dollars.
You want to find those people who the boss/co-workers thought were so good and amazing that they would put down $50 for.
I have had colleagues refer people they privately referred to as a "codebase wrecking monkey" to avoid telling that person no. But they would be willing to put down $50 for far fewer people.
Is it uncomfortable for the people asked? Probably. But that seemed to be the point, as those uncomfortable people would give a positive reference for free otherwise.
I would never put down $50 for even my best coworker because there's no reason for me to assume the new employer will be good or the job will be good. So many jobs end up being a bad experience for reasons entirely out of the new hire's control. Putting other people's money on their shoulders is just additional stress for someone in a tough transitional period.
It's further than uncomfortable, it's embarrassing.
I would feel embarrassed for both of us if a coworker reached out asking for me to put down $50 so they can get a job.
Not to mention I would never do it (as either party) because it feels very slimy.
This is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever seen on this site. Reminds me that even 'elites' like YCombinator (or at least as I've built them in my mind) are just humans who do stupid things sometimes too though, so that's cool.
How about another inverse. What about instead of former coworkers, current coworkers? This doesn't really specify. I bet there are a lot of folks that would happily pay $50 to not have to deal with one of their coworkers ever again.
Recently a friend of mine dealt with a dev who was hired without their input who didn't know anything meaningful, couldn't communicate well, and was hired without a tech interview when the department was in transition between managers. They were extremely painful to work with, and didn't seem to absorb any information or do anything helpful, but other devs tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking it might be a communication issue.
The guy's resume, though, showed job after job of only 3 to 4 month stints, and glowing recommendations from coworkers at each of those jobs. My bet is that each one didn't have the heart to say he wasn't a good developer, so they passed him on from place to place like the Christmas fruitcake no one wants and just mails to the next sucker. I'm guessing a lot of devs would've happily paid 50 bucks if it meant he went and worked somewhere else without anyone having to get him laid off.
I like the idea of asking colleagues to pay me so that I leave (get a new job). It also really gives me the perverse incentive to be an arsehole to them so that they will pay me more to leave?
Such a system would just get gamed by people with rich friends/family or rich people who have the fortune of saving up 10k in liquid funds before losing their current job and can just buy their way into a job.
It only expands income inequality and is frankly disgusting.
For the guys I would recommend and a company I think is reputable? I’ll front the $10k myself.
In fact, for anyone I would really recommend, and for a company like Google who I don’t think would be capricious, I’d do $100k. I want the money to be 3x though since this money will count as income and I can’t deduct the first bit, it’s just not worth it if I have to put in 1x and then get back 2x which is taxed at 48% meaning I start with x and end with 1.04x. That’s a 4% return? Not enough.
The problem is that the employer can’t afford my recommendation.
At $100k in, $300k out (which is $150k out, 50% gains) sure, I’ll play this game easy. But no less than that.
This company’s mistake was that they didn’t implement this pay-to-play setup as an Ethereum smart contract and create NFTs to represent the employees.
With that kind of scheme they’d ascend to the crypto parallel universe where they can raise millions and it doesn’t matter if nobody ever uses their platform for its intended purpose.
I haven’t seen any well articulated arguments about why this is so evil. I think it’s not likely to succeed because it’s a complicated 3-party transaction but I can’t understand why it’s evil.
It unbalances access to jobs by family wealth and creates yet another:tm: skip annoying thing if you are rich enough and/or have enough friends who are rich enough.
Somebody coming out of a life hiccup like family issues or health issues is gonna have a harder time skipping the interview while also having a harder time interviewing.
it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get ahead, and such a product would just extend this.
Asking for money from candidates as a pay-to-get-hired scheme is evil for the same idea that unpaid internships are evil. Taking it to the next level, it's offering jobs to people with wealth who have networks with wealth. Hyper-discriminatory.
There used to be a time when companies saw employees as long-term assets, to be invested in, educated and trained, given space to grow and learn. Here, they're seen as such liabilities that they need to mitigate the financial risk a company could possibly take, but still ultimately be as disposable as ever.
This reminds me of why I don't use reddit. I can see not liking this idea, but a subreddit dedicated to recognizing how terrible hiring is should also recognize people working to improve it - even if they aren't at a workable solution yet. Instead, it's just toxic insults, dunks, and preaching to the choir.
On top of this, the criticism from reddit is mostly unfounded and suggests they didn't even bother to read the company's landing page. Multiple redditors say things like "I'd never pay fifty dollars to refer a colleague. What's in it for me?" The landing page clearly states you double your money if they get hired.
Another complaint is that it's racist because black people have black friends and apparently black people can't afford to refer their friends. This complaint relies on a racist argument "black people in general have less money, therefore the black software engineers doing the referrals will have less money." I don't think that's how it works. In the company's model you'd need referrals not from your random friends and acquaintances, but from coworkers who knew you and would be willing to be on you. Presumably your coworkers can come up with fifty dollars.
I think this is a poor idea because it would be awkward to bet on people like this. I'd have to tell my colleagues I didn't think they were good enough to bet on, or bet the minimum, or would I get mad at them if they blew an interview? It's not a good system, but the idea that referrals are broken because they cost nothing to give seems right and it's worthwhile to try and fix important things that are broken.
> Another complaint is that it's racist because black people have black friends and apparently black people can't afford to refer their friends. This complaint relies on a racist argument "black people in general have less money, therefore the black software engineers doing the referrals will have less money." I don't think that's how it works. In the company's model you'd need referrals not from your random friends and acquaintances, but from coworkers who knew you and would be willing to be on you. Presumably your coworkers can come up with fifty dollars.
This is a lot of words to say "i haven't tried to understand what systemic racism is"!
Because racism… exists? And a black engineer is much more likely to have a coworker hold a negative opinion of them and thus be less likely to give them referral money?
I’m not sure how prevalent racism is among software companies but I’d guess that a competent person suffering from racism would still raise more than an incompetent suffering less from racism.
Of course it’s still a stupid idea independent of any potential racial aspects.
I mean, I guess Amway is racist too because of systemic racism, but that’s not why it sucks.
Something like 40+% of America seems perfectly content to vote for steaming piles of racist garbage.
The average makeup of software companies (white, male) overlaps heavily with that 40% demographic (and yes, does not overlap in other demographics).
I think it's a safe assumption that software companies are in a similar ballpark.
Yes yes. Being ok voting for explicit, horrific, racist people for purportedly different and important goals does not make you an actual racist. Not in your book, anyway. I'm at least as tired ignoring this statement as you are trying to believe it.
Apologies. You here read in the general sense, not the parent post
> Something like 40+% of America seems perfectly content to vote for steaming piles of racist garbage.
Yes, and? This doesn’t mean 40% of America is racist.
People can’t line item features out of people and they vote for the sum of all parts.
If I had to choose between a racist plumber who was competent and a non-racist, incompetent; I will likely choose the racist plumber. I don’t think I’m racist. But this now means that I support systemic racism in some way. But then we all do, including victims even. So I think the important factor is whether people choose the best option given all factors.
Since everything is mixed together it’s hard to tell someone’s intent is racist or non-racist. Or to tell us racism has a significant effect on a particular item. When we spend time calling out many random things (like this dumb product potentially being extra dumb because it might increase systemic racism) I think it detracts from the actual work of increasing human equality.
> If I had to choose between a racist plumber who was competent and a non-racist, incompetent; I will likely choose the racist plumber
No doubt. But this analogy fails in two ways when applied to politics.
1) The republican party is often given the chance to vote in a primary where they are given the option of several competent "plumbers". They almost always choose (and often overwhelmingly so) the piece of shit racist.
2) The people we choose to represent us in government are, in a fundamental way, reflecting the values we want represented in our society. Because their values will be reflected in the laws they pass, how they apportion money, and the diplomacy and wars they wage. So racism is an explicit job qualification rather than an irrelevant secondary factor like in the plumbing example.
And that is why voting for an explicitly, unapologetic, racist politician (in my mind) absolutely also makes you racist.
Re:#1
I wouldn’t call Bush, McCain, not Romney “piece of shit racists.” If you think they are racist, please describe. Or they are racist in the way everyone is racist due to systemic racism. Or another way, they aren’t racist in a notable way.
I agree to some extent. I think there was a seismic shift which happened when Barack Obama won the presidency.
That said, a lot of their policy positions had the direct consequence of harming minority demographics. Whether it was with explicit racist intent or not, who knows. Today's politicians are making it very clear that those consequences are the explicit intent
There's no fundamental difference between this and any other area of life where a wealthy network aids in success. Which is pretty much all of them.
Your standard seems to be that we eliminate the differential effects of wealthy relationships on success.
You don't really seem to be registering how deep we need to cut and how many fundamental social structures we need to destroy to even attempt to make this happen. The entire educational system, entire economy and all extant hiring practices everywhere, all social practices based around economic status.
Fundamentally the issue is that you've redefined racism from discriminatory acts to differential outcomes. It's a path to insanity and evil.
> There's no fundamental difference between this and any other area of life where a wealthy network aids in success. Which is pretty much all of them.
I can think of one rather prominent example where having a wealthy network doesn't help nearly as much as it does when you're "skipping the interview."
Job interviews. The thing that this product is trying to replace.
Also, you've stumbled past the is/ought distinction. Yes, it's true that being wealthy is an advantage in many areas of society. But that's very obviously a bad thing. Not only does it shut out potentially productive members of society and elevate wealthier incompetents, it fucks over vulnerable people and helps the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
I see no good reason to engage in apologia for systems that favour the wealthy. "Oh but we would need to change lots of things to fix those systems" yeah we do need to change lots of things. Don't cry to me about how improving things is hard. If you have nothing constructive to contribute, at least don't pointlessly denigrate the idea of improving our society.
I didn't say anything 'ought' to be anything, so no stumbling occurred.
I said that a double standard is being applied. The payment-for-interview concept is being rejected because it links relationships and outcomes. However, nearly everything in society links relationships to outcomes. It makes no sense to say that this one thing is stupid-evil because of that, and not comment at all on all the other things that work the same way.
If you want to set your standard that "society should not allow anything that links relationships to outcomes" then do that honestly across the board. And acknowledge how much you need to destroy.
If you don't want to acknowledge that, then this argument makes no sense to apply only here. It's an isolated demand for fairness.
And it was never about how "improving things is hard". This isn't like studying for a test where you "just try harder" to get a better outcome. It's an engineering problem with tradeoffs - to gain one thing you must sacrifice others.
Changing society means sacrificing things - you need to acknowledge how much you want to sacrifice to serve your utopian ideals. And I can point out how dangerous and naive that makes you, just like all your utopian forebears dreaming of a socialist heaven.
Have you ever inherited an ungodly mess of a code base? Did you say "terrible code is just the way things are"? Or did you apply new standards to new code while slooooowly fixing the old code?
It also seems to me that you are arguing with a straw man you have constructed. Literally nobody in this entire thread had defended the status quo. Your standards seem to require people to be actively tearing down society due to it's injustices before they're allowed to offer a critique of an old problem in a new format
It unbalances access to jobs by family wealth and creates yet another:tm: skip annoying thing if you are rich enough and/or have enough friends who are rich enough.
Somebody coming out of a life hiccup like family issues or health issues is gonna have a harder time skipping the interview while also having a harder time interviewing.
The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get a head, and such a product would just extend this, while benefiting the company.
The anger is justified, such systems can not be allowed to exist.
In the US there is in fact a disparity in wealth between black households and white households in aggregate as a consequence of slavery, a lack of reparations for slavery, Jim Crow laws, and ongoing discrimination (see, redlining). So it's not a racist argument that paying for job opportunities could perpetuate racial disparities in the workforce. It's a reasonable one.
Strange to use "redlining" as an example of "ongoing" discrimination. It was banned by the Fair Housing Act of 1968 - 53 years ago.
This reminds me of when people use the murder of Emmett Till to argue how evil white people are. He was furtively killed in 1955 - 66 years ago.
When the best latest examples are this old it kind of cuts against the whole accusation. It's like saying Joe is such a jerk, look, he kicked a dog 50 years ago.
I meant it in the sense of the long now. 53 years ago isn't long ago in the arc of human history. There are people alive who grew up where they grew up or live where they live because of it.
The rest of your post doesn't merit a response as it has nothing to do with what I wrote.
"The long now" isn't the right model for how humans actually live in the world. In reality, people find their level very quickly and historical circumstances don't hold people down for long.
Lots of examples:
-Vietnamese boat people arrived in the mid-70's with nothing. They quickly became successful and still are.
-Jews lost so much in WW2, including half their families. They quickly became successful after the war and still are. They didn't sit around in ghettos forever.
-Nigerian immigrants to America often come with little wealth and yet do better than American whites economically.
-Iranian immigrants arrived after the 1979 revolution with nothing. Now they do very well - better than average whites.
If "the long now" was real, none of these would be possible and all immigrant groups who arrived poor in the last 50 years would still be poor.
This is actually a really important thing to learn because it's critical in your mental model of the world. You think some event 50+ years ago will keep families in poverty for literal multiple generations - it's not true at all. Families rise and fall much much quicker than this. If someone is in poverty that long (in the context of a somewhat free society) it is because of internal issues, not circumstances.
Society at large treats slave-descended blacks no worse than African-immigrant blacks (or other nonwhite immigrants); the difference in outcomes comes from their own internal issues. The sooner we can acknowledge the actual source the problem the sooner we can make progress on solving it.
Familial wealth has a compounding follow on effect in opportunity and wealth growth. A huge part of current economic disparities is likely attributable to these policies, and subsequent discrimination that's reinforced by entrenched poverty.
Redlined neighbourhoods are still overwhelmingly black. Redlining destroyed property values and scared away businesses, creating ghettos that still exist today. The fact that many of the processes which created an unjust society are no longer in motion doesn't automatically make that society just again.
It is a racist argument because you assume things about black software engineers because they are black. That is, you assume a black software engineer has no money because he's black rather than that he does have money because he's a software engineer.
Imagine you and your coworkers are planning to go out to eat for lunch. One coworker says that you should go to a steakhouse. You say "No, coworker X probably won't be able to afford that because he's black. We should go somewhere cheaper instead." Is that racist? I think so, and I think it's the same logic being used here.
You're conflating introducing a new system for how companies hire with direct social interactions. How companies hire is fraught with bias so we should be attentive to not amplifying it. Your example is an obvious false equivalency.
In one situation you assume black peers won't be able to afford lunch. In another situation you assume they won't be able to afford gambling on hiring outcomes. If this is a false equivalence you'll need to explain how.
> This complaint relies on a racist argument "black people in general have less money, therefore the black software engineers doing the referrals will have less money."
The racist part is taking a generalization and applying it to a specific subset. Black software engineers and managers probably have enough money to play this game if they wanted. The "software engineers" is the specific subset that the generalization is being applied to.
Based on https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/S..., while the average income for a software engineer is pretty good, the low end of their reported scale is 63k/yr. Personally, my first salaried job as a software engineer paid 40k. I can attest that I was not able to save much money on that income after expenses like rent, food, and gas. I think it is unreasonable to assume that racial disparities in wealth will vanish just because someone writes code.
> Presumably your coworkers can come up with fifty dollars.
It's nastier than that. It'd be one thing if it was just a handful of references.
There's a link in the Reddit post to a Twitter thread where someone was posting listings. The lowest one from that sample was $3000. If you're trying to get just the $50 minimum out of former colleagues, then you'd need to have 60 of those.
I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't have 60 former colleagues that I know who would be willing to bet $50 that a company hiring this way isn't a den of vipers that will cut me before the payout.
To be clear, the company is not workable in it's current form. I think they're right to shut down and rethink things.
I think the core concept of figuring out a way to get skin in the game for referrals makes sense though. I also don't think the people behind the company should be derided for trying this. And I think it's not racist.
I think this company is interesting (not in a good way), but could we please get a less inflammatory link? I don't feel that it fits the site guidelines in its current state...
Imagine you and a bunch of other people at your company can all chip in and convince that person no one can stand that you can get them a better job guaranteed at another company as long as they apply. Would you? How much would you pay to get rid of that bad apple that seems to stick around?
Let someone else fail upwards at another company for less than the price of the party you throw once you get rid of them!
This is such a tone deaf idea its kinda disappointing YC incubated it. Somebody coming from a poor (or absent) family would have a harder time breaking into the tech fields with this added on compared to somebody coming from a rich or even middle class family.
Somebody job seeking after a 2 year long recovery from serious illness wouldn't have the connections to their old co-workers or bosses to crowd fund this, and wouldn't have the liquid cash flow to do it themselves.
It unbalances access to jobs by family wealth and creates yet another:tm: skip annoying thing if you are rich enough and/or have enough friends who are rich enough.
The return on investment aspect would just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get a head, and such a product would just extend this, while benefiting the company.
The anger is justified, such systems can not be allowed to exist.
AFAIK YC didn't incubate that idea - it was a later development.
The reaction seems a bit overblown to me but maybe that's helpful in a way, since it might not have been as clear a signal otherwise (I mean to the startup, not YC).
I'm not so close to the investment side of YC (i.e. the real business) because HN takes up all my attention. But I'm usually able to find out specific things that HN wants to know.
> The anger is justified, such systems can not be allowed to exist.
Comments like this exemplify how entitled and outside reality the tech industry exists. Consider how much it costs to break into the medical or legal fields. It costs thousands of dollars to become a truck driver, though this is often fronted by a prospective employer. Same with becoming a police officer.
Consider instead screen acting where potential employment is often a pipe dream and costs thousands of dollars for a headshot and agent.
Seriously, what other professional career doesn't require some financial investment and personal connections to break in?
You're saying that as if it means tech should have a large, expensive barrier to entry.
That financial barrier is a problem in those other fields too, and it does disproportionately affect people from disadvantaged backgrounds in those fields. Your argument is basically "well it's tough for the poors to become a doctor, so it would be okay if it's tough for them to become a software engineer too!"
EDIT: also, the costs incurred by becoming a doctor or nurse are debts to educational institutions and licensing boards which, ostensibly, are doing good by educating and regulating. This is a proposal for a financial barrier imposed by your employer, and paid for by your social or professional networks. It's not the same.
That is an assumption that is not stated or implied.
But, if you want to go down that tangent the tech industry would benefit from a set of standard minimum qualifications. Such would reduce employer liability and result in higher quality products pushed to market in shorter time at lower expense. That last sentence is technobabble really meaning employers could more easily discern candidate maturity and thus require a lower headcount for an equivalent task. The great discriminator there isn’t financial but the time and cognition required.
I've had this argument on HN before and I'm generally against that - I don't think the ability to pass a standardized licensing test is any more of a marker of a good engineer than an interview is. If anything, it's less effective than a good interview. I've never taken a test in all my education that I felt was truly and fairly assessing my skills as a software engineer. And I went to a well-ranked CS program. Long-term projects, and the ability to talk in depth about the technical aspects of those projects, is the best marker of ability to me.
But, if a testing system were proposed that could demonstrably add value to the industry and wouldn't select for privilege, then I'd be for it. I'm just very skeptical, and I think lots of licensing programs are onerous and only exist to enrich the licensing organization without adding real value to society.
Have you gone through a professional licensing program? Nearly 100% of the people on HN that make this argument have not.
The big difference is that a licensing process is objective in a way an interview can never be. That alone adds value in a way you cannot possibly imagine until you have worked in a different industry.
There is no greater institutional barrier or discriminator than implicit bias.
Just because someone in a wheelchair can’t drive a Ferrari doesn’t mean a Ferrari isn’t fun for huge base.
The expression “don’t let great be the enemy of good” comes to mind. Whether this is good or not is besides the point, that it’s not good for everyone and therefore not allowed to exist is the problem.
The problem of hiring is accurately signaling fitness for a job. Job hunters should have a variety of ways to do this - interviewing, credible vouches (like this company), and hopefully more in the future.
The concept of having colleagues essentially pay for your salary during a probation period is inane. But if it were your former employer, it could essentially be a type of severance / outplacement benefit. The 'skip the interview' bit is also silly. You'd still interview, but the hiring company would have an extra incentive to give you a chance if they aren't 100% sure.
Having said that, I once tried something vaguely analogous and it backfired. I had left my job and was freelancing, looking into businesses to start for myself, but nothing solid yet, and a fairly senior job opening came bouncing around that I thought would give me useful experience even though in the long term I was set on entrepreneurship. it was clear the company wasn't quite sure about me. So I essentially offered them a free trial - I'd come in and just start working for a few weeks for free for us all to see if it was a good fit, no commitments.
Ironically, I think that seemed so bizarre to them at a senior level (or they read it as signalling that I was desperate, which I wasn't) that they passed.
In the end it was all for the best - I started a business, etc.
That varies by jurisdiction and this wasn't in the US. Even if free were illegal it could have been minimum wage. But I think you're right in that it doesn't fit in well with established processes (HR, etc)
> But if it were your former employer, it could essentially be a type of severance / outplacement benefit.
The old-employer incentives there are the opposite of what is trying to be achieved by the reward aspect, and the existence of the reward is not sufficient to mend that, though.
I'm not sure I follow. You're saying the previous employer doesn't want the laid-off employee to get a new job? I guess that would vary ex-post (eg depending on the reason for the firing, and the industry - a professional services firm will be keener to have a successful alumni network), but I'd imagine that ex-ante having the reputation of 'we care of people even if they don't work out here' or a promise of 'even if this startup crashes and burns we'll do our best to ensure you land on your feet' would make an employer attractive.
> So I essentially offered them a free trial - I'd come in and just start working for a few weeks for free for us all to see if it was a good fit, no commitments.
That's basically what the 90 day probationary period is, where they can fire you for no reason. You might've done better if you offered to work for minimum wage for your first X weeks, with the expectation they'll bump you up to a normal salary before the period is over.
My initial reaction is disgust. But I'm trying to give the idea the benefit of the doubt, and I can see the appeal -- abstractly. But it definitely seems like one of those utopian concepts that completely fails to account for what would happen in real life.
As others have posted, the CEO replied to the reddit mob:
> This is the CEO. We actually launched just to get feedback and clearly the feedback was not positive, so we are definitely going to talk to a lot more people before moving forward. We really were not aiming for something discriminatory and actually had long discussions about it with quite a few people, but we didn't get close to the right outcome, so we will talk to a lot more people before moving ahead.
> Thanks for the feedback.
He had ~-1000 points when I checked (I dont know how voting on reddit works)
I'd like to think there would be some respect for the attempt, apparent failure, and explanation - this is exactly what should be happening as companies take risks and try to build something valuable.
Reverting to feigned indignation that someone could even propose a new way of hiring is not helpful.
Like i said in my other post, I think it's a bad idea too. That's no reason to act like they're committing a major transgression.
220 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 252 ms ] threadNo wonder they got funded...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28873159
Then for YC to back this and basically give their stamp of validation that it's worth continuing? THIS is what we're pouring money and resources into?
and reputation is much stronger signal than leetcode hoops
As someone who thinks that affordable housing is a human right, I wouldn't describe Airbnb as "great in practice".
carpool, but let's call it ride share, because you go there anyway. 5 seconds later it's a billion dollar machine fighting labor laws. while the other one was supposed to be a bit better couch surfing, while you are on a longer vacation, you let someone to vacation at your place, brilliant. 5 minu5 later cities' housing markets are in flames due to tourists due to the induced demand of cheap apartments.
what the fuck.
yeah, hotels and taxi services were awful (both due to fucking NIMBYism of ossified cities that are unable to zone for high density and build transit networks), but the solution should have been something human centered, not startupization of that awfulness and appification of selfishness.
(yes, I used both services.)
Much like I'll never be able to afford a house because of people who think that housing is an investment and not somewhere to live.
Also, there's already a solution for reputation - the standard references system that already exists. This soon-to-be-former CEO is claiming that references are "useless," and then implies that someone being able to buy themselves a job by harassing their former coworkers for money is a better system. It's a ridiculous premise and would create incredibly toxic culture in professional networks.
Linkedin kind of does it with "endorsements" but it seems to be a minor/afterthought feature, only used for filtering by recruiters
I'd build the whole product around endorsements.
Dunno what their validation process is, but every so often it reveals some glaring lapses.
As a former colleague I would consider staking somebody.
As a hiring manager, I would not do this. It’s just too weird. Hiring is hard enough.
It is weird now, but my parents also think it is weird to interview 8 times for one job.
Otherwise you look like a scam.
The kid from a rich family will have no problem getting his parents, and family friends to slap $50 down. The kid who grew up in public housing? Not gonna happen.
I want to like the idea. Having a better way to connect likely-qualified candidates and jobs is a good thing. But a set amount of money really isn't a good guarantee of anything.
I feel like many people have judged without really understanding the details.
And if you want to buy an internship, you can just plop your kid at a startup for free. Unpaid internships are how you buy experience already.
The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get ahead, and such a product would just extend this.
Edit: s/be/me
This might not seem quite as dystopian from the lens of just high paying silicon valley software jobs for in demand people. But imagine this system applied everywhere - it's horrendous.
E.g. in the US this is usually how we hire the President. The best fundraisers climb the party ranks and get the job. 98% of hired Presidents have been well-connected, rich, white men.
It incentivizes abusive companies to fire people quickly after firing - most companies do it, but some do; and the proposed system would increase that.
It incentivizes behind-the-back deals with ex-coworkers, stressing ethics and relationships.
It incentivizes inequality - it gives an advantage to people with a wealthy "support network" and creates a barrier to people who don't have one, if a company prefers to do hiring this way.
In developing countries, paying to have access to a job is common[0]. Highly sought after jobs for their social reputation (like airline attendent) often require applicants to pay a fee for the opportunity.
You also see this in roles that accept bribes. When police collect cash bribes, their bosses need to see some of that money. One way they do is by requiring people to pay upfront a fee to get access to the role of bribe accepter.
[0] - https://e.vnexpress.net/projects/in-vietnam-a-delicate-dance...
It explicitly lists "Black founded companies", "Latinx founded companies", "Women founded companies"
At this point in America everything is a meaningless social cause/outrage driven thing. Diversity, renaming things even if those names have proper meaning in their current used context. It's all now a complete outrage and drama driven society.
That is just one example. Just go over the very recent Launch HNs from this year (there were multiple threads) and you will find many more.
On that link there's a screenshot of the homepage for the service. It looks about as awful as you'd expect. How this even got past the elevator pitch is entirely perplexing.
"How is this not a bribe?"
"Bribe is such a loaded word, these are references who put their money where their mouths are!"
---
I can see one exceptionally limited use case for this:
Recruiting influencers into related (influence-y) roles.
Example: eSports player Taylor Jackson wants sponsorship with league Team Plasma. Team Plasma's application/recruiting process entails an invite-only process where players are contracted based on metrics derived from common streaming platforms like stream size, stream demographics, gameplay, an arbitrary "hype" measurement, etc., but Team Plasma decides to offer a secondary route for players capable of crowdfunding a certain total. Taylor fulfills the crowdfunding goal due to their reach on platforms not monitored by Team Plasma (e.g clubhouse for the sake of this contrived example).
Another example could include influencers for promotional gigs, like those gigs where someone tends to a paradise island for a year.
---
I don't foresee this model scaling all that well without shoehorning it into places where it doesn't belong, and the communication of the model (and the model itself) very deservedly got incinerated.
Is this a symptom of YC having such large batches now?
A professional world where this was a common practice would be an awful one for a lot of people. The intense reaction might be a bit of overkill, but it's worth sending a strong message that this is not okay.
It's betting that you would be good at a job.
If it turns out that you're good at the job, nobody loses any money (except the company, who has to pay a recruiting fee, but that's expected). If you're bad, well, hopefully that won't happen....
Granted I don't think it's a great idea for other reasons, but the nepotism angle just doesn't make sense in my opinion.
I guess you could argue that skilled people with the ability to afford payment have a higher chance of being hired, and that's probably not a great thing, but even then it's not like every company who uses this will be filled with incompetent people who paid for their jobs--that just makes absolutely no sense from the company's perspective.
> people with the ability to afford payment have a higher chance of being hired
That's the other very valid reason that this idea sucks. People from disadvantaged communities now not only have the existing hurdles to face in entering the tech world; now trust fund kids with rich friends can continually skip the line and buy the jobs that others are applying for. And a company is going to take the pay-to-play candidate, because it's easier than running an interview process.
I would say this is an accurate description of the current system. What do we always hear, that going to an Ivy League is all about the connections, not the education?
Also, at least Ivy League schools have financial aid programs to help gifted kids from disadvantaged backgrounds still be able to attend.
Is this sustainable, though? Why do you assume that there would be no system to detect people who abuse the system by continually churning companies? Can’t the same thing happen right now with people who have connections to headhunter/recruiting agencies?
Also, if the system has no abuse detection, many people who work in tech for more than a few years should be able to afford gaming a system like this — not just those from rich backgrounds. $10k is not too much money to find if you know you’re guaranteed a 2x return in 60 days.
> And a company is going to take the pay-to-play candidate, because it's easier than running an interview process.
If the pay-to-play system is really producing only “mediocre” hires who churn earlier than candidates hired through the normal interview process, why would a company prefer the pay-to-play process in the long run?
Again, not saying that the platform is good, but I just don’t think your arguments hold up.
Easily. Few people stay at a software engineering job for more than a year or two as it is. I went almost 4 years without staying at one job for more than a year, and not a single recruiter batted an eye the whole time. Hopping jobs with a network of friends buying each other's jobs for big returns would be trivial.
> Can’t the same thing happen right now with people who have connections to headhunter/recruiting agencies?
Yes. But right now it still requires social skills, conversations, and interviews. Skills that anyone can acquire with practice. Turning it into a pay-to-play system doesn't improve anything, it just makes it easier for people with disposable income to skip the line. Or it will make people harass their professional network for money to skip the line. How is that an improved system over just getting to know some recruiters?
> Also, if the system has no abuse detection, many people who work in tech for more than a few years should be able to afford gaming a system like this — not just those from rich backgrounds. $10k is not too much money to find if you know you’re guaranteed a 2x return in 60 days.
You're proving my point. The system as described is ripe for abuse, and what kind of abuse detection mechanism would catch things like this? They didn't describe one, and I can't picture one that isn't extremely invasive. Mild nepotism is already the de facto way that a lot of companies recruit people even though they're not supposed to - add a gambling mechanic into the mix and you can guarantee people will be trying to game it left and right. There's no way they'd be able to crack down on it at scale.
things can only catch on if it is truly beneficial in some way, and the people doing it is finding it useful to continue.
It could catch on because companies and bosses like it, but it could harm workers for all kinds of reasons. Thus, workers need to loudly voice their concerns, so that companies will be discouraged from adopting it.
My guess is that it comes from the fact that it's a YC Company.
The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get ahead, and such a product would just extend this.
Think about how it would work in practice. It's not going to always be a cool professional interaction: "Hey, I was wondering, could you give $50 to my crowdfund?" You: "Nah, sorry." Them: "Okay, thanks for your time."
It'll be more like "Contribute $50 to my crowdfund. Pleeaasseee I need this job. I'm having a tough time, I won't be able to make my rent if I don't get this job, and my wife's about to have our second child. Come on, man." It's really hard to refuse, but you'll also be resentful. You don't go around hitting up your former coworkers for money.
It turns a social relationship into an extractive one. Which gives people the heebie-jeebies. You're basically being told "Give me money, or I'll kill our friendship." It's approximately as appealing as someone who says "Give me money, or I'll kill your dog."
I certainly understand having a seething hatred for a company that makes money by encouraging my friends to act that way toward me.
Also, a lot of SWE's are introverts. I'd like to think I'm pretty good at what I do, but I don't know that I have contact information for 20 former coworkers, let alone be able to put together 20 people who know me well enough that I think they'd put $50 on me.
As to YC would have funded this: For founders and VC's, the line between social and business might be pretty blurry. It might be a cultural blind spot, if you're deep in the VC world, you're probably an extrovert with hundreds of business contacts, and you've maybe forgotten how taboo it is to pitch your acquaintances for money as a normal person.
It seems the Internet quickly gave the company a taste of the public's reaction when they started showing off their "brilliant" idea. And to their credit, they went offline more or less immediately.
Also, MLMs are actual scams, where in this case you'll actually get your money back if they're a good hire.
This idea has real flaws in how it's been implemented, like how the hard limit at which point you get the job (no questions asked?) encourages that begging behaviour to get over the limit, but if it were just another source of information among many used in hiring, like it is with actual referrals, then it wouldn't be so bad.
> Out of the people I had hired at my last startup:
> 12% of hires where exceptional hires (I would instantly hire again)
> 42% of Hire were good hires. (I wouldn’t hire again but they did a fine job)
> 29% of hires were bad hires. (They didn’t do a good job and were eventually let go)
> 17% of hires were very bad hires (They had a negative effect on the company culture and other staff)
These seem like extremely poor numbers. I haven't hired a ton of people but all of them have been excellent, though some that I was peripherally involved in hiring have been just good. I'm curious what other people feel that their ratio is.
If you have money to spend, or can wait to hire, you can beat the averages. I've hired a fair amount and done well too, but only by refusing to hire anyone if there are not suitable candidates that applied, which can burn a lot of political capital (your boss sees you've spend x time and money and had y applicant and z interviews and you refuse to hire anyone).
Good, cheap, available, pick two.
This alone makes no sense to me. It's a contradiction.
So I assume the website/author thinks they're a kind of mega-hustler 1000x developer or something.
[0] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/news/is-everyone-replaceable-a...
CEO's response is above
I would not, nor would I want coworkers asking me for money. Imagine if someone asks you and for whatever reason you don't want to bet on them - how will that conversation go? How will that affect your professional relationship with that person?
This is more or less a proposal for nepotism-based gambling.
I like being concise; maybe better not ask concise people for recommendation letters
You want to find those people who the boss/co-workers thought were so good and amazing that they would put down $50 for.
I have had colleagues refer people they privately referred to as a "codebase wrecking monkey" to avoid telling that person no. But they would be willing to put down $50 for far fewer people.
Is it uncomfortable for the people asked? Probably. But that seemed to be the point, as those uncomfortable people would give a positive reference for free otherwise.
But even then, how often does that happen? Maybe one job in 5? You are still ahead if you are referring great candidates consistently.
I would feel embarrassed for both of us if a coworker reached out asking for me to put down $50 so they can get a job.
Not to mention I would never do it (as either party) because it feels very slimy.
This is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever seen on this site. Reminds me that even 'elites' like YCombinator (or at least as I've built them in my mind) are just humans who do stupid things sometimes too though, so that's cool.
Recently a friend of mine dealt with a dev who was hired without their input who didn't know anything meaningful, couldn't communicate well, and was hired without a tech interview when the department was in transition between managers. They were extremely painful to work with, and didn't seem to absorb any information or do anything helpful, but other devs tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking it might be a communication issue.
The guy's resume, though, showed job after job of only 3 to 4 month stints, and glowing recommendations from coworkers at each of those jobs. My bet is that each one didn't have the heart to say he wasn't a good developer, so they passed him on from place to place like the Christmas fruitcake no one wants and just mails to the next sucker. I'm guessing a lot of devs would've happily paid 50 bucks if it meant he went and worked somewhere else without anyone having to get him laid off.
It only expands income inequality and is frankly disgusting.
In fact, for anyone I would really recommend, and for a company like Google who I don’t think would be capricious, I’d do $100k. I want the money to be 3x though since this money will count as income and I can’t deduct the first bit, it’s just not worth it if I have to put in 1x and then get back 2x which is taxed at 48% meaning I start with x and end with 1.04x. That’s a 4% return? Not enough.
The problem is that the employer can’t afford my recommendation.
At $100k in, $300k out (which is $150k out, 50% gains) sure, I’ll play this game easy. But no less than that.
It’s still probably worth it though.
With that kind of scheme they’d ascend to the crypto parallel universe where they can raise millions and it doesn’t matter if nobody ever uses their platform for its intended purpose.
it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get ahead, and such a product would just extend this.
Pretty solid take on all of this: https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1445902596653260800
There used to be a time when companies saw employees as long-term assets, to be invested in, educated and trained, given space to grow and learn. Here, they're seen as such liabilities that they need to mitigate the financial risk a company could possibly take, but still ultimately be as disposable as ever.
2) This reinforces the already prevalent social phenomenon in which well-connected people with rich friends get all the opportunities.
On top of this, the criticism from reddit is mostly unfounded and suggests they didn't even bother to read the company's landing page. Multiple redditors say things like "I'd never pay fifty dollars to refer a colleague. What's in it for me?" The landing page clearly states you double your money if they get hired.
Another complaint is that it's racist because black people have black friends and apparently black people can't afford to refer their friends. This complaint relies on a racist argument "black people in general have less money, therefore the black software engineers doing the referrals will have less money." I don't think that's how it works. In the company's model you'd need referrals not from your random friends and acquaintances, but from coworkers who knew you and would be willing to be on you. Presumably your coworkers can come up with fifty dollars.
I think this is a poor idea because it would be awkward to bet on people like this. I'd have to tell my colleagues I didn't think they were good enough to bet on, or bet the minimum, or would I get mad at them if they blew an interview? It's not a good system, but the idea that referrals are broken because they cost nothing to give seems right and it's worthwhile to try and fix important things that are broken.
This is a lot of words to say "i haven't tried to understand what systemic racism is"!
Of course it’s still a stupid idea independent of any potential racial aspects.
I mean, I guess Amway is racist too because of systemic racism, but that’s not why it sucks.
The average makeup of software companies (white, male) overlaps heavily with that 40% demographic (and yes, does not overlap in other demographics).
I think it's a safe assumption that software companies are in a similar ballpark.
Yes yes. Being ok voting for explicit, horrific, racist people for purportedly different and important goals does not make you an actual racist. Not in your book, anyway. I'm at least as tired ignoring this statement as you are trying to believe it.
Apologies. You here read in the general sense, not the parent post
Yes, and? This doesn’t mean 40% of America is racist.
People can’t line item features out of people and they vote for the sum of all parts.
If I had to choose between a racist plumber who was competent and a non-racist, incompetent; I will likely choose the racist plumber. I don’t think I’m racist. But this now means that I support systemic racism in some way. But then we all do, including victims even. So I think the important factor is whether people choose the best option given all factors.
Since everything is mixed together it’s hard to tell someone’s intent is racist or non-racist. Or to tell us racism has a significant effect on a particular item. When we spend time calling out many random things (like this dumb product potentially being extra dumb because it might increase systemic racism) I think it detracts from the actual work of increasing human equality.
No doubt. But this analogy fails in two ways when applied to politics.
1) The republican party is often given the chance to vote in a primary where they are given the option of several competent "plumbers". They almost always choose (and often overwhelmingly so) the piece of shit racist.
2) The people we choose to represent us in government are, in a fundamental way, reflecting the values we want represented in our society. Because their values will be reflected in the laws they pass, how they apportion money, and the diplomacy and wars they wage. So racism is an explicit job qualification rather than an irrelevant secondary factor like in the plumbing example.
And that is why voting for an explicitly, unapologetic, racist politician (in my mind) absolutely also makes you racist.
That said, a lot of their policy positions had the direct consequence of harming minority demographics. Whether it was with explicit racist intent or not, who knows. Today's politicians are making it very clear that those consequences are the explicit intent
Context 1) Black person more likely to have a higher percentage of friends/close co-workers who are also black
Context 2) Black persons are often coming from disadvantaged backgrounds
Conclusion) Black person's network is less able to gamble on their future success as they may be paying off significant personal or familial debt
Your standard seems to be that we eliminate the differential effects of wealthy relationships on success.
You don't really seem to be registering how deep we need to cut and how many fundamental social structures we need to destroy to even attempt to make this happen. The entire educational system, entire economy and all extant hiring practices everywhere, all social practices based around economic status.
Fundamentally the issue is that you've redefined racism from discriminatory acts to differential outcomes. It's a path to insanity and evil.
I can think of one rather prominent example where having a wealthy network doesn't help nearly as much as it does when you're "skipping the interview."
Job interviews. The thing that this product is trying to replace.
Also, you've stumbled past the is/ought distinction. Yes, it's true that being wealthy is an advantage in many areas of society. But that's very obviously a bad thing. Not only does it shut out potentially productive members of society and elevate wealthier incompetents, it fucks over vulnerable people and helps the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.
I see no good reason to engage in apologia for systems that favour the wealthy. "Oh but we would need to change lots of things to fix those systems" yeah we do need to change lots of things. Don't cry to me about how improving things is hard. If you have nothing constructive to contribute, at least don't pointlessly denigrate the idea of improving our society.
I said that a double standard is being applied. The payment-for-interview concept is being rejected because it links relationships and outcomes. However, nearly everything in society links relationships to outcomes. It makes no sense to say that this one thing is stupid-evil because of that, and not comment at all on all the other things that work the same way.
If you want to set your standard that "society should not allow anything that links relationships to outcomes" then do that honestly across the board. And acknowledge how much you need to destroy.
If you don't want to acknowledge that, then this argument makes no sense to apply only here. It's an isolated demand for fairness.
And it was never about how "improving things is hard". This isn't like studying for a test where you "just try harder" to get a better outcome. It's an engineering problem with tradeoffs - to gain one thing you must sacrifice others.
Changing society means sacrificing things - you need to acknowledge how much you want to sacrifice to serve your utopian ideals. And I can point out how dangerous and naive that makes you, just like all your utopian forebears dreaming of a socialist heaven.
The return on investment aspect could just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get a head, and such a product would just extend this, while benefiting the company.
The anger is justified, such systems can not be allowed to exist.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disp...
This reminds me of when people use the murder of Emmett Till to argue how evil white people are. He was furtively killed in 1955 - 66 years ago.
When the best latest examples are this old it kind of cuts against the whole accusation. It's like saying Joe is such a jerk, look, he kicked a dog 50 years ago.
The rest of your post doesn't merit a response as it has nothing to do with what I wrote.
Lots of examples:
-Vietnamese boat people arrived in the mid-70's with nothing. They quickly became successful and still are.
-Jews lost so much in WW2, including half their families. They quickly became successful after the war and still are. They didn't sit around in ghettos forever.
-Nigerian immigrants to America often come with little wealth and yet do better than American whites economically.
-Iranian immigrants arrived after the 1979 revolution with nothing. Now they do very well - better than average whites.
If "the long now" was real, none of these would be possible and all immigrant groups who arrived poor in the last 50 years would still be poor.
This is actually a really important thing to learn because it's critical in your mental model of the world. You think some event 50+ years ago will keep families in poverty for literal multiple generations - it's not true at all. Families rise and fall much much quicker than this. If someone is in poverty that long (in the context of a somewhat free society) it is because of internal issues, not circumstances.
Society at large treats slave-descended blacks no worse than African-immigrant blacks (or other nonwhite immigrants); the difference in outcomes comes from their own internal issues. The sooner we can acknowledge the actual source the problem the sooner we can make progress on solving it.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/09/10/why-bay-area-neighborho...
Imagine you and your coworkers are planning to go out to eat for lunch. One coworker says that you should go to a steakhouse. You say "No, coworker X probably won't be able to afford that because he's black. We should go somewhere cheaper instead." Is that racist? I think so, and I think it's the same logic being used here.
It's not a racist argument, it's factually true.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=average...
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disp...
are you talking about this "skip the interview" thing? If so, what?
That should be a warning sign to you that this is a scam.
It's nastier than that. It'd be one thing if it was just a handful of references.
There's a link in the Reddit post to a Twitter thread where someone was posting listings. The lowest one from that sample was $3000. If you're trying to get just the $50 minimum out of former colleagues, then you'd need to have 60 of those.
I don't know about you, but I sure as hell don't have 60 former colleagues that I know who would be willing to bet $50 that a company hiring this way isn't a den of vipers that will cut me before the payout.
I think the core concept of figuring out a way to get skin in the game for referrals makes sense though. I also don't think the people behind the company should be derided for trying this. And I think it's not racist.
CEO left feedback here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/comments/q7mice/a_ne...
Let someone else fail upwards at another company for less than the price of the party you throw once you get rid of them!
Somebody job seeking after a 2 year long recovery from serious illness wouldn't have the connections to their old co-workers or bosses to crowd fund this, and wouldn't have the liquid cash flow to do it themselves.
It unbalances access to jobs by family wealth and creates yet another:tm: skip annoying thing if you are rich enough and/or have enough friends who are rich enough.
The return on investment aspect would just get gamed by companies being excessively selective on which candidates they allow to stay past 2 months.
And finally it extends the worse thing that exists in our society: "It's easier to make money if you have money."
This is what creates and enforces our class system, this is what makes it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to get a head, and such a product would just extend this, while benefiting the company.
The anger is justified, such systems can not be allowed to exist.
The reaction seems a bit overblown to me but maybe that's helpful in a way, since it might not have been as clear a signal otherwise (I mean to the startup, not YC).
It's a redundant array of inexpensive dangs.
Thanks for explaining, and thanks for working so hard to shepherd HN :)
Maybe. But hiring is hard and I doubt many decent companies would throw away a good SWE for less than $100k
Comments like this exemplify how entitled and outside reality the tech industry exists. Consider how much it costs to break into the medical or legal fields. It costs thousands of dollars to become a truck driver, though this is often fronted by a prospective employer. Same with becoming a police officer.
Consider instead screen acting where potential employment is often a pipe dream and costs thousands of dollars for a headshot and agent.
Seriously, what other professional career doesn't require some financial investment and personal connections to break in?
That financial barrier is a problem in those other fields too, and it does disproportionately affect people from disadvantaged backgrounds in those fields. Your argument is basically "well it's tough for the poors to become a doctor, so it would be okay if it's tough for them to become a software engineer too!"
EDIT: also, the costs incurred by becoming a doctor or nurse are debts to educational institutions and licensing boards which, ostensibly, are doing good by educating and regulating. This is a proposal for a financial barrier imposed by your employer, and paid for by your social or professional networks. It's not the same.
But, if you want to go down that tangent the tech industry would benefit from a set of standard minimum qualifications. Such would reduce employer liability and result in higher quality products pushed to market in shorter time at lower expense. That last sentence is technobabble really meaning employers could more easily discern candidate maturity and thus require a lower headcount for an equivalent task. The great discriminator there isn’t financial but the time and cognition required.
But, if a testing system were proposed that could demonstrably add value to the industry and wouldn't select for privilege, then I'd be for it. I'm just very skeptical, and I think lots of licensing programs are onerous and only exist to enrich the licensing organization without adding real value to society.
The big difference is that a licensing process is objective in a way an interview can never be. That alone adds value in a way you cannot possibly imagine until you have worked in a different industry.
There is no greater institutional barrier or discriminator than implicit bias.
And, a less worse problem: it's bad for the companies too
Also, if you make it two months, you double your money. It's not just a fee.
Just because someone in a wheelchair can’t drive a Ferrari doesn’t mean a Ferrari isn’t fun for huge base.
The expression “don’t let great be the enemy of good” comes to mind. Whether this is good or not is besides the point, that it’s not good for everyone and therefore not allowed to exist is the problem.
The problem of hiring is accurately signaling fitness for a job. Job hunters should have a variety of ways to do this - interviewing, credible vouches (like this company), and hopefully more in the future.
Founder should've stuck to his guns imo
Having said that, I once tried something vaguely analogous and it backfired. I had left my job and was freelancing, looking into businesses to start for myself, but nothing solid yet, and a fairly senior job opening came bouncing around that I thought would give me useful experience even though in the long term I was set on entrepreneurship. it was clear the company wasn't quite sure about me. So I essentially offered them a free trial - I'd come in and just start working for a few weeks for free for us all to see if it was a good fit, no commitments.
Ironically, I think that seemed so bizarre to them at a senior level (or they read it as signalling that I was desperate, which I wasn't) that they passed.
In the end it was all for the best - I started a business, etc.
The old-employer incentives there are the opposite of what is trying to be achieved by the reward aspect, and the existence of the reward is not sufficient to mend that, though.
That's basically what the 90 day probationary period is, where they can fire you for no reason. You might've done better if you offered to work for minimum wage for your first X weeks, with the expectation they'll bump you up to a normal salary before the period is over.
> This is the CEO. We actually launched just to get feedback and clearly the feedback was not positive, so we are definitely going to talk to a lot more people before moving forward. We really were not aiming for something discriminatory and actually had long discussions about it with quite a few people, but we didn't get close to the right outcome, so we will talk to a lot more people before moving ahead.
> Thanks for the feedback.
He had ~-1000 points when I checked (I dont know how voting on reddit works)
I'd like to think there would be some respect for the attempt, apparent failure, and explanation - this is exactly what should be happening as companies take risks and try to build something valuable.
Reverting to feigned indignation that someone could even propose a new way of hiring is not helpful.
Like i said in my other post, I think it's a bad idea too. That's no reason to act like they're committing a major transgression.