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Reading your answers below, I feel you haven't really addressed the issue of breach of company policies / confidentiality, and specifically about people being p

Reading your answers below, I feel you haven't really addressed the issue of breach of company policies / confidentiality, and specifically about people being paid for it. It is true that many people will, for free, help their friends get interviews at the companies they work for. This does not mean that doing the same thing for money would be acceptable to their employer. To use a distasteful analogy: in the US, two consenting adults having sex is legal - two consenting adults having sex where one pays the other for the 'service' is not. So I think there will definitely be a subset of companies and employees where this will be a problem. One way to allow this subset of employees to take part in your service might be to offer some (non-political) charitable donation in exchange for their time. That way they can contribute, feel like they did some good in the world, and still be able to say to their employer (if it ever came up) that they didn't receive any compensation in exchange for helping potential new hires. Assuming for now that the basic business is legal, and that the only issue is compliance with company policies, another potential 'hack' might be to just let people get 'karma' that builds up in their account at The Lobby, that can be converted at any time into cash. Then the people providing this info could choose to 'cash out' later, when they leave the company, or use it to pay for intel about other companies when they themselves are looking to move Feel free to contact me if you want to chat :)

dchhugani 8y ago
Hello! Appreciate your deep dive on the thread and agree that if we look at bits and pieces of my comments, it's not totally clear. So let me write up a unified answer here. In some cases, this is definitely against the company's policy. For those companies, we focus on former employees most of which are no longer bound by any contract (if any). We protect our insider's identity and that leaves them protected, but we also encourage them to check with HR to make sure they're allowed to do this. I already addressed the ethical/moral bits - we are simply giving more people access to the same insights you would get if you had a friend on the inside. You're just paying for it in this one interaction, whereas the privileged person paid for it by being born into or falling into the right circles (higher kindergarten, middle school, high school, college tuition, and being in the right families or circles). Without The Lobby - the alternative is to live your life cold emailing and trying to find these connections, which is both inefficient and in our view very different. If you get some of these folks to answer you - you're not sure if they're going to be helpful or just discount you as a non-eligible candidate because you don't have what they're looking for. Being in a friendly dynamic where their goal is to help you makes this the opposite. In terms of legal risks, please look up GLG, AlphaSights, and other expert networks. They have been doing this in what I consider to be a real ethical gray area with higher up executives and much larger dollar sums - and still is legal. Let me be really clear here - I'm not agreeing with what they do, I'm just pointing to it as an example where this has worked with much more sensitive information than "interview prep" and has maintained to protect its supply side and operate, which is why I'm confident we will be able to as well. The only thing I hope this thread proves is that HN or those seeing The Lobby execute is that we have the right intentions. That goes a long way - whether you agree with our particular approach or not. This was a personal problem, and our solution we've seen solve a real problem mainly as an information gap. Solutions like the ones you're suggesting on karma points or donating to charities as suggested below are on our roadmap- but for now we're staying focused on making this work well first :). Hope this answers the question and if anyone wants to chat on this topic further - please reach out! deepak@thelobby.io

dchhugani 8y ago

Hello! Appreciate your deep dive on the thread and agree that if we look at bits and pieces of my comments, it's not totally clear. So let me write up a unified answer here. In some cases, this is definitely against the company's policy. For those companies, we focus on former employees most of which are no longer bound by any contract (if any). We protect our insider's identity and that leaves them protected, but we also encourage them to check with HR to make sure they're allowed to do this. I already addressed the ethical/moral bits - we are simply giving more people access to the same insights you would get if you had a friend on the inside. You're just paying for it in this one interaction, whereas the privileged person paid for it by being born into or falling into the right circles (higher kindergarten, middle school, high school, college tuition, and being in the right families or circles). Without The Lobby - the alternative is to live your life cold emailing and trying to find these connections, which is both inefficient and in our view very different. If you get some of these folks to answer you - you're not sure if they're going to be helpful or just discount you as a non-eligible candidate because you don't have what they're looking for. Being in a friendly dynamic where their goal is to help you makes this the opposite. In terms of legal risks, please look up GLG, AlphaSights, and other expert networks. They have been doing this in what I consider to be a real ethical gray area with higher up executives and much larger dollar sums - and still is legal. Let me be really clear here - I'm not agreeing with what they do, I'm just pointing to it as an example where this has worked with much more sensitive information than "interview prep" and has maintained to protect its supply side and operate, which is why I'm confident we will be able to as well. The only thing I hope this thread proves is that HN or those seeing The Lobby execute is that we have the right intentions. That goes a long way - whether you agree with our particular approach or not. This was a personal problem, and our solution we've seen solve a real problem mainly as an information gap. Solutions like the ones you're suggesting on karma points or donating to charities as suggested below are on our roadmap- but for now we're staying focused on making this work well first :). Hope this answers the question and if anyone wants to chat on this topic further - please reach out! deepak@thelobby.io