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Ask HN: Would you ever join a porn startup?
The porn market is gigantic (conservatively $2.6 Billion in 2001). Let's say there existed an innovative and disruptive startup that did not engage in actual porn production, but added a new distribution mechanism and end-user application. Let's also say that it had some promising early traction.
If you got the opportunity to join such a startup, would you:
1.) even consider it, or
2.) be comfortable telling friends and family what you were working on?
- dannytatom 16y agoYes and yes, I even tried to get a development job for a porn site once before but never got an interview. :(
- mgkimsal 16y ago1. yes 2. yes, mostly. I'm not involved in the porn industry now, and still am not comfortable telling some of my family what I do. Not because I'm ashamed, just because it's not something some of them can easily grasp, and it's seen as a bit confusing. I just say "computers" and that's enough for that. So, I'd probably just say the same thing regardless.
- gexla 16y ago1. Maybe 2. Yes. This would depend on my choices. If I had two or more choices of a startup to join, my biggest concern would be the competition in the porn market. If the startup did come up with an innovative and disruptive idea, then it would likely be quickly copied, perhaps with better funded backing. If another choice of startups was equally innovative and disruptive in a different market (though still a market with potential) then that would probably be my first choice.
- noonespecial 16y agoIt'd be a last resort. Porn is supposedly innovative but its more like "Ferengi" innovation. A bunch of other people's technology duct-taped together quick-and-ugly with pure profit in mind. I don't think it would be very fulfilling.
- kineticac 16y agothe porn industry is basically an "industry" built upon a deadly sin that has a very powerful innate emotional grasp on some (maybe most) people. Any company you build upon that taps into some impulsive emotion is going to be pretty cool, but in this case, society just makes it seem like the dirt of technology companies. If you really understand porn, and you're not the kind of person to take on everything associated with it, go for it. But I think the question and suggestion is rather: "would you start a company based on an impulsive emotion, even if it's something society has branded as a sin?" I can see betting, smoking, drugs, that kind of thing all falling into the same category. If you're able to find something that hasn't been struck down as horrible, then go for it.
- ZachPruckowski 16y agoGiven the current job market in many areas, it's getting hard to blame people for taking jobs producing porn, much less distributing it. I think a lot of friends/family would buy that as an immediate justification. Further, porn companies tend to be on the bleeding edge in terms of tech innovation, so it's very possible whatever tech they're creating sees mass-market use in a few years, and then you're like the only guy who has years of experience in it. And that assumes you don't get a nice slice of the pie from the original company.
- spking 16y agoThat's an interesting angle. But if you're the guy with a few years headstart, do you think the stigma associated with porn might make some future employer hesitate in hiring you?
- netik 16y agoAs someone who's worked in the porn industry, I disagree with the comment that it's a "collection of other people's technology duct taped together." There was huge amounts of API work, design, scaling, distributed encoding and rendering farms, and a host of technology advances that we made to keep our sites functional. None of this was other people's tech. Think about all of the people who work in the gambling industry. It's quite similar.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoOn the internet, porn is about addiction. SO go ahead, and create a gambling site while you're at it.
- theBobMcCormick 16y agoI'm assuming then that for consistency you also wouldn't work for Zygna, Blizzard, or any social or MMO game companies? Or work for any alcohol or tobacco companies? What about Hostess or DQ? All of them are companies that knowingly benefit from and encourage addiction.
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoYes, I'd agree, "social" gaming is about addiction. In fact, there is little or no real social interaction going on - its the biggest doublespeak since 1984. Btw this site almost qualifies - I spend WAY too much time reading this stuff. And why is a moral code offensive to so many? I won't work on getting people addicting to junk for money - and get downgraded for mentioning it. Question: how many HNers do this for a living?
- theBobMcCormick 16y agoI'm not opposed to a moral code, in fact, I welcome it. I am opposed the the knee-jerk puritanical reaction that anything related to SEX is automatically immoral. To quote George Michael: "Sex is natural, Sex is good."
- JoeAltmaier 16y agoMy explicit point was, internet porn is an addiction factory. Porn in magazines, books, videos has a very healthy place - mostly because its social and portable. Porn on the internet has been neither. It is not designed creatively, for enjoyment socially, in venues suitable for sex.
- theBobMcCormick 16y ago
- theBobMcCormick 16y agoWhy not? At least it'd working for a company whose product I'm interested in. :-) Frankly, as long as the porn company was only doing relatively straight forward vanilla porn (no animals, no minors, etc), I'd have fewer "moral qualms" about working for a porn company than I would about working in the finance or "defense" industries.
- starkfist 16y agoThere aren't many liquidity events (snicker) in porn startups, so make sure you get paid a huge salary.
- safetytrick 16y agono, how could I explain that on a future resume?
- garply 16y ago"They offered me money in exchange for solving their technical problems. I did X, Y, and Z while there."
- theBobMcCormick 16y agoThe same way people with BP, BlackWater, Halliburton, etc. on their resume explain it?
- mwerty 16y ago1. Yes. 2. I would hide it or claim its a stealth project. Experience has taught that weirding out people is not the most efficient way of maintaining relationships.
- famfam 16y agoSure. Hiring?
- fookyong 16y agoI would jump at the chance. I would imagine that working 1 to 2 years at an adult internet startup would give you the most insane knowledge about direct marketing, maximising conversions and the dark underbelly of affiliate marketing. It would be an absolutely fascinating ride. Plus you're pretty much guaranteed revenue. There's a strong demand out there for porn, I hear :)
- hajrice 16y ago"working 1 to 2 years at an adult internet startup would give you the most insane knowledge about direct marketing, maximising conversions and the dark underbelly of affiliate marketing." I had a job offer from one porn tube site to work as a developer. I doubt that you'd learn those skills working as a dev. That being said +1 for the info.
- known 16y agoIsn't competition too high http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1703724&cid=32747546 http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1703724&cid=32747...
- jarin 16y agoI worked at a porn company and built probably the exact same thing you are building ( http://techcrunch.com/2008/10/08/come-and-get-it-naughty-america-is-building-an-itunes-for-porn/ http://techcrunch.com/2008/10/08/come-and-get-it-naughty-ame... ), so: 1) Yeah, if the salary is good, and 2) Friends: yes, Family: maybe
- spking 16y agoThanks for the link. Actually closer in spirit to another site mentioned in the comments of that post: http://www.heatseek.com/ http://www.heatseek.com/
- csomar 16y agoNo, I won't feel comfortable (work, friends, family, our culture). There are lot of other options, so I'll consider other ones.
- tetha 16y agoWell... You work at a startup which produces a website (for example) to distribute porn. You are kind of uncomfortable telling your grandma about this. This is understandable. However, you can reduce this. Why does the semantic of the images and videos distributed by your website matter? You are overall producing a distribution mechanism for various media, like images and video. To a certain degree, you can apply the same measures special forces or the mafia applies: You hide as little relevant details as possible to stay close to the truth, but to remain far away enough to be clear. So, as a first conclusion we can say: We could work there and not tell people, while telling people what we do, even our grandmother. Second, there is something which kinda aggravates me. "Oh my god! He helps others to distribute porn! He helps someone live their sexuality! Burn this (meta-)witches!". But I'm rather not gonna get worked up on that. Given these two, for me, there is clearly no problem in telling friends, and no problem in telling the family, even though it might be necessary to reduce the truth a bit depending on the person you are talking to. Second, considering it. Given the second point I made already, I can just ask: why not? You are just building a distribution platform (for example). This platform usually is independent of the contents it distributes. This might be porn as well as cute little kitten pictures. And again: What is bad about porn? so, tl;dr: 1) yes. 2) yes. as much as I can without offending someone.