13 ms·
Need a Job? Build Something Cool.
i.e.
Feross (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678111) gets an offer:
From Chad Hurley's Twitter:
"Hey @FreeTheFeross! Loving YouTube Instant... http://feross.net/instant/ Want a job? ;)"
- jmarbach 16y agohttp://twitter.com/Chad_Hurley/status/24129459657 http://twitter.com/Chad_Hurley/status/24129459657
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y agoClickable: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678111 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678111 http://feross.net/instant/ http://feross.net/instant/
- PatHyatt 16y agoVery nice. Congrats Feross on your success and serious offer?
- DanHulton 16y agoThis? Works so well, though not necessarily as written. I built and launched Bill On Site about a year ago (http://www.billonsite.com/ http://www.billonsite.com/), and it's leading the top of my resume. I've gotten every job I've applied for largely based on the strength of having done that. The fact that you can start AND finish a large project on your own speaks volumes over other guys who are basically unproven quantities without similar references.
- petervandijck 16y ago"The fact that you can start AND finish a large project on your own speaks volumes." It totally does. Passion counts for much, and it's just so hard to find.
- sabat 16y agoWas this a serious offer?
- drtse4 16y agohttp://twitter.com/Chad_Hurley/status/24134092111 http://twitter.com/Chad_Hurley/status/24134092111
- jamespitts 16y agoI can't agree with this enough. I'm kind of an old-timer web developer and have built about one new web concept every 3 or 4 years. While none of these ventures have made me a millionaire, each one did teach me new skills and lead directly to my next job. Most recently it was a very fluffy "video sharing" rails app, built in 2007. It helped me get a good gig that buffered me through the first half of the great recession. Now I'm back to doing what I like doing best... investing time in learning and build-cool-thinging. I really can't lose. And, as a last note, building something is a very good cover for being, er, "in between jobs"... and a lot cheaper than grad school :)
- blhack 16y agoI've seen this sentiment expressed here, as well as a few other places. [1]Nothing matters more to employers than seeing that you actually have a passion for building things. There are a lot of people who have got certifications up to their eyes, but don't really care too much about tech. There is a huge difference between the person that goes home and spends their nights working on a building cookie-baking-robot, or the next big social-networking website, and somebody that goes home and watches the TV. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with watching TV, just that having somebody who likes doing the type of work you're hiring them to do so much that they actually do it even when they don't have to is going to go a long way towards motivating them. It also means that they, typically, are good independent learners. I imagine that this is a hugely important trait in an industry where doing things that might seem kindof insane (like running a data-store that hasn't even reached a 1.0 release yet) is considered normal. [1]Obviously, within reason. If you've got a passion for building things, but you think that a server is somebody that brings you food at a restaurant, you might not be well suited to a system administrator position. (Or maybe this is all just wishful thinking. I love building things, but haven't yet gotten my dream job.)
- yread 16y agohaving somebody who likes doing the type of work you're hiring them to do so much that they actually do it even when they don't have to is going to go a long way towards motivating them I do pretty much the same thing at work and during the evenings but working on my own stuff, with me being the boss is just so much better for motivation that there is no comparison. I do perhaps twice as much during 4 hours in the evening than I do during my work day.
- edanm 16y agoYes, but that's irrelevant. The question is, how much do you get done during the day compared to other people who don't do anything at home.
- kaisdavisOR 16y agoNothing matters more to employers than seeing that you actually have a passion for building things This is as true outside of technical fields. I've been giving talks at Career Centers about communicating passion to find a job after college, and the thing that is most attractive to employers is creating something or communicating passion. And Feross? Outstanding. In the next talk I give, you're in the spotlight. Congratulations!
- rythie 16y agoThe question is, if you can build something cool (and importantly get press), why just settle for just a job?
- jrockway 16y agoBecause 99% of people make more money collecting a salary than they do being bought by Google.
- swombat 16y agoReally? Where's that number coming from? Seems to me that if you build a startup that's acquired by Google (say for the relatively small sum of $5m after a couple of years) that's still a whole lot more than you would have earned as a salary - even if you're a cofounder with just 50%. And on top of that you end up getting another good salary from Google as well once they acquire you.
- coliveira 16y agoHe probably wanted to say is that on average people make more money from salaries. For each company that is acquired by Google many others don't go anywhere.
- wushupork 16y agoAgreed. Counting on getting bought by Google as an exit strategy is like saying winning the lottery is the retirement plan.
- swombat 16y agoThat's not the terms that jrockway used though. He said: Because 99% of people make more money collecting a salary than they do being bought by Google. He directly compared collecting a salary to being bought by Google, he did not compare earning a salary to starting your own company. The latter would be a fair statement, but if you are going to get bought by Google, chances are you will make more money than by earning a salary (unless you're an investment banker).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- djb_hackernews 16y agoFor other people who don't know who Chad Hurley is, he is the CEO of YouTube.
- fezzl 16y agoAnd Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook.
- MrAlmostWrong 16y agoThe other side of this is having the company duplicate what you did and you are still out of a job.
- mmphosis 16y agoNeed to Build Something Cool? Quit your Job.
- NationalHQ 16y agoSuch a sentiment presumes programmers have all the cool ideas.
- tigerthink 16y agoHow's that, exactly?
- mortenjorck 16y agoI think this can be true, to a point. The danger is in getting lazy. Time for my story: Last October, I released a concept video of a next-generation desktop UI that garnered a surprising amount of blog coverage. Within a week, I had received emails from people at Google, Apple, and Microsoft, as well as a few startups. As you might imagine, I was rather excited. This was exactly what I'd hoped might be a result of the video: I'd get noticed, talked about, and picked up by an industry leader. Yet here I am, nearly a year later, still at my old job. What happened? I'd figured I had it in the bag, that all I had to do was put my best foot forward and I'd be well on my way to my dream interaction design career. In truth: I got lazy. The interview at Google the next month went well, but a month after that, I got the bad-news call. Apple took me through a series of wide-spaced phone screens that never went anywhere, only to restart the recruitment process for a different division several months later, finally getting bumped by an internal candidate. Microsoft got lost in the shuffle, I went through some disjointed recruitment processes at a few startups with a bit of contract work, but finally, even that went quiet. Where did I go wrong? I think I assumed I'd gone far enough for the time being, that this one video marked my arrival and that was it. But I lost my momentum. Lengthy recruiting processes can make it seem like you have time to kill, but you don't! I shouldn't have missed a beat; I should have doubled down on my concept and explored it even further instead of pinning my hopes on getting hired somewhere cool. My advice to Feross or anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation: Don't stop now!
- waterlesscloud 16y agoAm I the only one who thinks this indicates a serious flaw in hiring processes more than anything else?
- nostrademons 16y agoNot necessarily. Hiring processes aren't just designed to identify good candidates. They're designed to identify good candidates who want to work for you. Someone who's highly skilled but only marginally interested in what you're doing will probably be a worse employee, over the long run, than someone who's marginally skilled but highly interested in what you're doing. When you let the ball drop in a hiring process (as I did when applying to FriendFeed, sigh...ah well, maybe it was my subconscious telling me something), you're saying you're not really all that interested in the company.
- stevederico 16y agodo we know if @FreeTheFeross is on HN?
- feross 16y agoI am. :)
- pgr 16y agoI did go down this path with http://www.errorlevelanalysis.com/ http://www.errorlevelanalysis.com/, hoping that the development time would pay off and bring in future work. So far it's just been a tool that reddit and 4chan use to spur on comment wars. Building something cool that has actual utility to someone, may be a better strategy.
- tereno 16y agoI'd say kudos to the lad for his work. It's a fairly decent idea but I personally wouldn't use it. Never really like any of those "play something random" stuff. Someone out there might love this idea though. With Google Instant, I felt that the speed of change was quite drastic. Every single letter I typed caused the UI to change. Don't really fancy it now but we'll see!
- known 16y agoCan Feross get a job in YouTube had he gone through the usual recruitment process? I'd say a big no.
- feross 16y agoHi everyone, I'm the author of YouTube Instant. Thanks for all the nice comments. This discussion has been quite interesting to read.
- niico 16y agoScrew degrees, screw fancy pants resumes. BUILD and build it now. Ever heard the phrase MAKE WHAT PEOPLE WANTS? And....... go!