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Youtube Instant creator gets instant job offer
- zerosandones 16y agoGood for him and all, even though the search results were: 1) Painfully slow compared to Instant's realtime. 2) Only one at at time. 3) Text. (People respond to visual cues, and for a vid site, better to have thumbnails display in the results with captions.)
- InfinityX0 16y agoMinimum viable product, heard of it?
- zerosandones 16y agoFunctionality, heard of it?
- KeithMajhor 16y agoa DAY!
- bhjodokast 16y agoI agree! That is great API programming. Not everyone develops the APIs, some develop for the APIs. Made my day!
- peteypao 16y agoUm, it's not a serious product if you couldn't tell.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- KeithMajhor 16y agoHe made it in a day.
- zerosandones 16y agoAnd I’m sure they'll give him time to work it out further, but is this the innovation YouTube is looking for? Hard to believe their UX people and dev teams haven’t already toyed with something like this.
- KeithMajhor 16y agoHe threw something together that people could get a feel for. I'll concede that it was hardly usable given the performance. But it was only a demo, enough of one to show just how usable the real thing could be.
- zerosandones 16y agoI'd agree, proof of concept did the job, just saying, it seems like something they had to have considered at some point internally. As doty said, they're hiring the person though. ;-p
- doty 16y agoI don't think this was a technology acquisition. :) I'm pretty sure they just want the person.
- sliverstorm 16y agoI get the feeling you're just bitter they didn't hire you instead. http://xkcd.com/192/ http://xkcd.com/192/
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- studer 16y agoIt's using existing mechanisms in YouTube's JSON API to find suggestions and play them. All the true "magic" is provided by YouTube's engineers. Not to take it away from someone who writes the right lines of JavaScript at the right time, but you don't have to place the guy on a pedestal. The real lesson here is for yourself and others here who think like you -- if you tell yourself that things like this take superhuman efforts, how will you ever be able to produce something creative yourself?
- cristinacordova 16y agoit was clearly hacked to show proof of concept. site is getting lots of traffic which would explain the slow results.
- metamemetics 16y agoI actually think it's interface is vastly superior to Google, Facebook, and YouTube. Zero clutter. Entertaining (I lolled at much higher rate). No interface elements distracting from the content (video). edit2: had mentioned an error the site was having, but it appears to be fixed now.
- what 16y agoIt was slow because he was going through his server to get the query suggestions from Youtube and lots of people were on it. It's been updated to get the suggestions directly from the source and it's significantly faster. Google's servers can handle the load better :)
- feross 16y agoYou are correct! I even ran into issues when Google automatically blocked my server for making too many repeated requests to the search suggestions endpoint. However, I rewrote the site to query YouTube directly for search suggestions, eliminating the round-trip to my server. Now, all the magic happens in each visitor’s browser, so it’s faster and Google can’t block it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- SandB0x 16y agoYes, we know, we know - the existing discussion is at #5 on the front page. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679845 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679845
- palish 16y agoActually, I didn't know.
- gojomo 16y agoIs YouTube exempt from Google's lengthy indirect hiring processes?
- jrockway 16y agoProbably not. But when the CEO knows someone who he wants to hire, the rules can be bent. Remember, a lot of people working at Google got there via acquisitions. And they are afforded all the rights of "normal" employees that had 10 weeks of interviews (including moving to a "normal" team). I assume Google's official hiring process is mostly for recent college grads, because they don't have any experience (or code) to prove that they know anything. Once you are established, via reputation or open source or otherwise, I'm sure the rules are more flexible. (I bet Guido didn't have to explain linked lists on a whiteboard.)
- nerfhammer 16y agoAcquisition employees still have to go through a round of intense interviews in order to continue through the acquisition
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- bconway 16y agoAnd the number of acquisitions that Google has started and not completed because of an employee interview (excluding something like outright fraud)?
- philwelch 16y agoI parsed it as the employee has to interview for their particular job to continue, not for the acquisition to continue.
- nostrademons 16y ago
- Mazy 16y agoRegardless of whether or not YouTube could build this with the team they have, it makes perfect sense to me that they'd want to hire a smart, self-motivated person who's passionate about their product.
- sliverstorm 16y agoMust have been one of the most exciting days of his life. Not just the job, but the recognition for something cool he made!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- feross 16y agoI'm the author of YouTube Instant. You're right - the last two days have been the most exciting of my life! I'm still high on adrenaline from the whole ordeal. I never expected my little hack to make it this big, and for that I'm grateful. I just finished recounting my last two days running YouTube Instant here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683100 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683100
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- djacobs 16y agoCongrats! Worst part of the article: "Aboukhadijeh announced the launch of YouTube Instant on Y Combinator’s Hacker News feed, a news aggregation site similar to Digg and Reddit."
- spoiledtechie 16y agoWhich means that the YouTube CEO is scouring Hacker News.
- mey 16y agoWhich I hope wouldn't surprise anyone.
- siculars 16y agoScouring? Doubtful. Maybe he's just clicking around like everyone else.
- tensafefrogs 16y agoOr, the link was shared within YouTube/Google quite a bit.
- code_duck 16y agoJust like being a rock star, successful CEOs continue to be normal people, which is for some reason surprising to the public, and their former peers.
- jrockway 16y agoWhy? Do you really think we are much different than Digg or Reddit? The main difference is that we value slightly longer comments. (But so does Slashdot, and they have a lot more users.)
- code_duck 16y agoLonger comments, they are only LONGER? Slightly longer??
- 16y ago
- jacquesm 16y agoSo, did he accept ?
- tchae 16y agoI know Feross Aboukhadijeh personally. He graduated from my high school a year before me. For those who are talking about the "lengthy hiring processes", he just completed an internship at Google this summer. He also founded http://www.freetheflash.com/ http://www.freetheflash.com/ and http://www.studynotes.com/ http://www.studynotes.com/. Check out his impressive resume at http://www.feross.org/Resume_Feross_Aboukhadijeh.pdf http://www.feross.org/Resume_Feross_Aboukhadijeh.pdf He's definitely more than capable of producing at his new YouTube gig (assuming he will take it).
- minalecs 16y agoCongrats to the creator of Youtube Instant. "Everytime Google or Facebook hires someone another startup dies" - may have not quoted right, but you get the idea.
- PedroCandeias 16y agoNot sure I agree with you there, mate. Plenty of startups have been founded by people who cut their teeth at these companies. I know 19yr-old founders are all the rage, but there's a lot to be said about getting some experience before doing the whole startup thing.
- newobj 16y ago"want a job?" means "want to interview for a job?"
- scorpion032 16y agoYes, when a recruiter is saying that. It's different when it is the CEO saying it.
- charlesju 16y agoI'm sure this guy has no problem finding a job at any company he wants probably doing anything he wants. I don't understand why this is such a big deal.
- spinchange 16y agoKudos to Feross! An inspiring story.
- bhjodokast 16y agoThat is a great story!
- RomanAClef 16y agoVery cool. Didn't think it be such as big deal, since others have already played around with the official Youtube player and API. For example: http://www.yvoschaap.com/youtube/ http://www.yvoschaap.com/youtube/, http://www.flatvid.com http://www.flatvid.com.
- feross 16y agoHi everyone, I'm the creator of YouTube Instant. Thanks for all the nice comments. This discussion has been quite interesting to read. Great feedback.
- genystartup 16y agowhat's next? twitter instant?? suggests a tweet for you. I will actually like to see/indulge in a stab at that.
- rakkhi 16y agoBig congrats man