All I'm willing to say here is that I work in financial services. Actually, one of the reasons why I mentioned patio11 above was because it would interesting t

All I'm willing to say here is that I work in financial services. Actually, one of the reasons why I mentioned patio11 above was because it would interesting to talk to him about this kind of stuff given he's also trying to change how tech companies hire talent. I've thought about trying his star fighter project, but it's another example of "invest a lot of time on the side in doing something tangentially related to work that may be construed as fun, and you can maybe get an interview from it". That's what has been illustrated in a lot of the comments on this thread. "Why not learn Ruby?" "Why not contribute to OSS on the side?" "Why not keep up with new technologies?" It's work, that's why. Sure, it can be fun and fulfilling but I already spend 55-60 hours a week doing this stuff, and I have other interests. Am I really expected to do all of this stuff on the side just to get a job at a highly desirable place like a YC startup? Let's use star fighter as an example. I already work in financial services. To some people who work on apps and user interface design and have never worked in financial services before, I could get the appeal of working on something new... But to me, star fighter is just doing my job outside of work hours in an attempt to get another job. I would rather keep solving problems at my own company, and increase my value to them in the process... ...but that means I'll just write more "Enterprise" Java, and not learn new things! It's a catch-22.