8 ms·

Ask HN: Why are YC startups so secretive in Job postings?

77 points by middayc 16y ago

I see Job postings of 2 YC startups on front page (and I think I remember few similar) and no company names / urls / ... just wondering? :)

middayc 16y ago
Just FYI. This tweet triggered my question "YCombinator companies are so amazing to work for that they can't be bothered to tell you who they are in a job posting." https://twitter.com/#!/kneath/status/16366870550548480 https://twitter.com/#!/kneath/status/16366870550548480
jacquesm 16y ago
Because it may be that they are vulnerable to others copying concept and/or giving away hints about the direction they plan to take based on the types of positions they're hiring for. Playing your cards close to your chest usually does not hurt.
- nprincigalli 16y ago
  This snippet from http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html comes to mind: > During the years we worked on Viaweb I read a lot of job descriptions. A > new competitor seemed to emerge out of the woodwork every month or so. The > first thing I would do, after checking to see if they had a live online > demo, was look at their job listings. After a couple years of this I could > tell which companies to worry about and which not to. The more of an IT > flavor the job descriptions had, the less dangerous the company was. The > safest kind were the ones that wanted Oracle experience. You never had to > worry about those. You were also safe if they said they wanted C++ or Java > developers. If they wanted Perl or Python programmers, that would be a bit > frightening-- that's starting to sound like a company where the technical > side, at least, is run by real hackers. If I had ever seen a job posting > looking for Lisp hackers, I would have been really worried.
  - middayc 16y ago
    ha interesting :)
  - eurohacker 16y ago
    what about php
    - AlexC04 16y ago
      I don't know why this is voted down. I'll go on record as someone who's currently working primarily in PHP and though the phrase "when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" is certainly true ... PHP has a lot of advantages for hacking. Free, with robust sets of libraries, frameworks and support in the community. Used by a number of "big guys" (Facebook springs to mind) ... furthermore ... it's 'forgiving' in terms of rapid development. It has brackets (a small thing I know - but I think better with brackets) Certainly, if I'm looking around for "my next language" - I think Node.js+MongoDB might be the most exciting stuff out there. But again - there's an advantage for rapid development in PHP on this one. I can get ridiculous bandwidth and storage on a $10 hosting plan if I develop in PHP - wheras if I'd like to take on node.js I've got to buy actual server accounts (not a significant increase in price - but actually a huge leap up in required knowledge). What about PHP indeed? Or maybe"why not PHP?" With respect to PG's position, I think he comes from a LISP background - so for his purposes, it's the hammer & nail scenario. His knowledge of LISP makes him aware of what a powerful tool it is (wheras to me - it's just about talkin' funny) With respect to the other 'hacker languages' it's probably that the differences between .py and .php aren't significant enough to mention both. PHP is the best tool if it's what you know. I really don't know why you were downvoted for what seems a legitimate question. But who cares? At the end of the day, Hacker News Karma is roughly as valuable as owning in World of Warcraft ... people who're involved care but the rest of the world will really wonder what you're excited about.
    - wmil 16y ago
      PHP was a one person project until 1998, the article talks about Viaweb from 95-97.
- moe 16y ago
  If that was the reason then why are they telling the positions they're hiring for? The only thing that they're not telling is their identity, which should be fairly easy for a curious competitor to google - or to social engineer by e-mail.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    > If that was the reason then why are they telling the positions they're hiring for? I've yet to see a job posting that did not have that bit of information in it. Sort of helps when you let your prospective hires know what you're looking for ;)
- nir 16y ago
  Few webapp concepts can't be reimplemented in a short amount of time. Seems to me often the key is in user base and quality of execution (tech & non-tech) which stealth doesn't really help with. Of course startup founders can think differently and may be right, I just think the support for this in the community is amusing in light of the "radical transparency" chic we're all into now - do YC startups have more important/valid secrets than the US government?
- brown9-2 16y ago
  I can't imagine how simply sharing the name of your company could be anything like "revealing" your cards.
  - iamwil 16y ago
    With a name, you can use it to start looking for all sorts of other information.
    - AlexC04 16y ago
      As a "potential employee" I think that additional information is critical to convincing me of the stability of the company. If I think they're going to be around long enough to pay the cheques etc... I know that many companies don't post their name, but from the point of view of someone who's been looking around - I think it's critical for me to be sold on the product & culture of the company. Irrelevant at the end of the day though ... if they don't want to publish their name, it's likely that it's not a good fit for people who care about knowing the name. (I know that's such a circular definition that it's almost useless - but - in my head it makes a lot of sense) :)
Mz 16y ago
Maybe I never learned the secret handshake* or something, because I was a homemaker for eons, but I find all job postings pretty opaque. So I don't see what the big deal is (that some specific piece of info is being left out). * From what I have read, I am not so sure it's "just me". For example, I've read plenty of anecdotes where someone went in to some field with grand visions only to discover that their visions don't remotely match the day-to-day details of their actual work.
- gcheong 16y ago
  Which is why it helps to have a company name so you can do some investigation beyond the job posting to see if there is something that remotely interests you about the company. At the least you could find a webpage that has some marketing speak about what it is they do or hope to do or you may be able to ping your network to find someone who can give you the inside scoop.
  - Mz 16y ago
    Again, I may have missed the secret handshake because even internal job postings at the company I currently work for (and have for over four years) baffle me. I frequently talk to people at work and ask them what they do and get a title, which typically means nothing to me, and then I ask again "But what do you do?" Even the job I have currently has changed a good deal in the time I have been in it. I find the whole thing difficult to fathom. Again, stuff I have read suggests my befuddlement is hardly unique. If it helps you enormously to know the company name, you have some kind of advantage over me. Peace.
piramida 16y ago
Find it interesting, too. 'We need a dedicated person with lots of experience to work full time with uncertain perspectives on a problem that unknown "we" who probably have done nothing before believe has lots of potential. We will probably have money some time in the future too'. Maybe they are betting on curiosity? :)
swombat 16y ago
Announcing YC funding is a media event that can be leveraged, just like a launch. They want to make use of that event and release that information at the right time, to make the right kind of splash. Chances are only their closest friends know that they have YC funding, because if it leaked to, say, TechCrunch, they would lose the advantage of being able to announce their YC funding at the most advantageous time for them. The ideas are obviously not stealth ideas if they have 20m uniques in 6 weeks.
- physcab 16y ago
  I'm sorry, but this notion that a company can be made by a leveraged media event is stupid. Companies are made by having great products. If you have a great product, it doesn't matter when you show it off because there will always be an opportunity for getting new users. This goes for hiring new employees too. Even if your beta version sucks and you aren't ready to show it off, yet its a product that works and fixes problems, job candidates will find a way to apply.
  - zaidf 16y ago
    I'm sorry, but this notion that a company can be made by a leveraged media event is stupid. Companies are made by having great products. The two aren't mutually exclusive. A company could be made by a leveraged media event and by having a great product.
  - webwright 16y ago
    "If you have a great product, it doesn't matter when you show it off..." I can refute your comment with one word: Apple. Do you think their "leveraged media events" aren't effective? I used the believe (as you do) in the "Product Uber Alles" philosophy- no longer. Product is indeed the most important thing with the highest leverage. But it's not the only thing, and ignoring skillsets and tactics that can give you an advantage is silly. Think of non-product bits as multipliers. If I have great PR, bizdev, marketing, pricing, etc., I can often beat a better product in the market. There are zillions of markets where crappy/mediocre products are at or near the top of the heap.
spolsky 16y ago
It's a pretty bad strategy for hiring great programmers. Given how many cool, interesting, VC-funded startups are hiring, good developers can work literally anywhere they want. A job description that doesn't reveal the company or at least the general domain is likely to just be ignored. When I started my job board, I had a rule that the company name had to be on the posting. When I let one company avoid this rule by posting as a "stealth startup" I got tons of email complaints and the stealth startup got no applicants.
- swombat 16y ago
  Actually, if I wasn't busy and on another continent, I would apply based on this ad. I don't think it's a bad strategy at all, given the cachet of YC. Also, it's likely that they are doing other things too to look for great hires, not just this HN posting. Edit: Not trying to imply that I am a "great programmer"... just providing a data counterpoint that they will probably get people who have other options too applying to this to at least check it out.
- pg 16y ago
  When startups that have launched in the press post jobs, they invariably do include their names: http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs It's only the unlaunched ones that don't. Those have to weigh the benefits of launching vs the costs. Usually they launch soon anyway (we encourage startups to launch quickly) and can then give their names in jobs posts. So a post like this is not the last chance a startup will have to hire people; it's just a chance for them to attract a few adventurous ones a month early. Empirically, they are in fact able to attract good people, which is why they continue to do it. A posting by an unnamed startup may not work on a job board where anyone can post, but here it has worked well for years.
  - gcheong 16y ago
    Why are comments disabled on job postings?
    - pg 16y ago
wallflower 16y ago
It's not a big filter but not mentioning specifics filters out some who lack a sense of curiosity and adventure.
- agotterer 16y ago
  I'm not sure developers want a sense of of adventure when it comes to job descriptions. Relatively speaking, most job posts are about the same. I can't imagine many great developers read a job post and are so excited by the description they have to email in to find out more details. This is why recruiters have a tough time finding great developers. How many great developers read a job description from a recruiter and are so excited they take the time to seek out the company name?
kalvin 16y ago
Wow, did the Ask HN on "what is the YC W11 social network startup that's hiring called" get deleted? There were at least a dozen comments on it last night, it was high up the front page, and now I can't find it.
- ry0ohki 16y ago
  I had the same question, presumably with 20M pageviews it's not a secret...
- smokinn 16y ago
  If this is what you're talking about http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020416 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020416 it's still on the front page. It never had any comments though. The one thing I really think should be changed on HN is this job posting with no comments nonsense.
- gokhan 16y ago
  Dead, if you're talking about this one. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020543 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020543
- anon1289 16y ago
  That's www.likealittle.com
  - hugh3 16y ago
    I just looked at that site. It looks clever (but it could use some prettying up). Why didn't they mention their name in the job posting, then? I would totally work for them, were it not for the fact that I already have a job and a skillset completely orthogonal to anything they might want.
    - DanielN 16y ago
      They pretty clearly are in some form of stealth mode. My guess, from looking at their site is that they have some competitors. Go through the schools enabled and there are some pretty glaring omissions. Quite a few very large state schools that are not listed while very small schools surrounding them are included (look at California, Missouri, Florida and Georgia). This is just speculation, but it would be my guess that they are either dealing with a few smaller competitors or one big one.
webwright 16y ago
The question you're asking is, "why does it make sense for YC companies to be in stealth mode?" Sometimes it makes sense to be stealthy, and occasionally you need to hire folks when you're in that state. It's certainly a handicap (as spolsky says elsewhere in this thread, what kind of hotshot would want to interview without knowing ANYTHING about a company?). Good post on benefits of stealth mode here: http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode-trada%E2%80%99s-position-on-staying-stealth/ http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode-trada%E2%8...
- apgwoz 16y ago
  If the ad in question is the w11 yc social network, the growth and traffic already acquired makes it not really stealthy, right?
  - webwright 16y ago
    Nope-- that means it's launched but still flying under quite a few radars. I'd wager plenty of people don't know about its traffic or YC backing.
retube 16y ago
I'm glad someone else feels the same way. My angle is: these ads expect people to give up all their personal details, without revealing any of their own. I'm sure they miss out as a result. (One posting sounded almost spammy - "we're the next big social network" etc etc. No-one's gonna respond to that unless they know who you are, can check a website etc). Edit: or maybe that's the point - if you don't know who the poster is, you're not worthy of applying.

77 points by middayc 16y ago

I see Job postings of 2 YC startups on front page (and I think I remember few similar) and no company names / urls / ... just wondering? :)

middayc 16y ago

Just FYI. This tweet triggered my question "YCombinator companies are so amazing to work for that they can't be bothered to tell you who they are in a job posting." https://twitter.com/#!/kneath/status/16366870550548480 https://twitter.com/#!/kneath/status/16366870550548480

jacquesm 16y ago

Because it may be that they are vulnerable to others copying concept and/or giving away hints about the direction they plan to take based on the types of positions they're hiring for. Playing your cards close to your chest usually does not hurt.

nprincigalli 16y ago
This snippet from http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html comes to mind: > During the years we worked on Viaweb I read a lot of job descriptions. A > new competitor seemed to emerge out of the woodwork every month or so. The > first thing I would do, after checking to see if they had a live online > demo, was look at their job listings. After a couple years of this I could > tell which companies to worry about and which not to. The more of an IT > flavor the job descriptions had, the less dangerous the company was. The > safest kind were the ones that wanted Oracle experience. You never had to > worry about those. You were also safe if they said they wanted C++ or Java > developers. If they wanted Perl or Python programmers, that would be a bit > frightening-- that's starting to sound like a company where the technical > side, at least, is run by real hackers. If I had ever seen a job posting > looking for Lisp hackers, I would have been really worried.
- middayc 16y ago
  ha interesting :)
- eurohacker 16y ago
  what about php
  - AlexC04 16y ago
    I don't know why this is voted down. I'll go on record as someone who's currently working primarily in PHP and though the phrase "when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" is certainly true ... PHP has a lot of advantages for hacking. Free, with robust sets of libraries, frameworks and support in the community. Used by a number of "big guys" (Facebook springs to mind) ... furthermore ... it's 'forgiving' in terms of rapid development. It has brackets (a small thing I know - but I think better with brackets) Certainly, if I'm looking around for "my next language" - I think Node.js+MongoDB might be the most exciting stuff out there. But again - there's an advantage for rapid development in PHP on this one. I can get ridiculous bandwidth and storage on a $10 hosting plan if I develop in PHP - wheras if I'd like to take on node.js I've got to buy actual server accounts (not a significant increase in price - but actually a huge leap up in required knowledge). What about PHP indeed? Or maybe"why not PHP?" With respect to PG's position, I think he comes from a LISP background - so for his purposes, it's the hammer & nail scenario. His knowledge of LISP makes him aware of what a powerful tool it is (wheras to me - it's just about talkin' funny) With respect to the other 'hacker languages' it's probably that the differences between .py and .php aren't significant enough to mention both. PHP is the best tool if it's what you know. I really don't know why you were downvoted for what seems a legitimate question. But who cares? At the end of the day, Hacker News Karma is roughly as valuable as owning in World of Warcraft ... people who're involved care but the rest of the world will really wonder what you're excited about.
  - wmil 16y ago
    PHP was a one person project until 1998, the article talks about Viaweb from 95-97.
moe 16y ago
If that was the reason then why are they telling the positions they're hiring for? The only thing that they're not telling is their identity, which should be fairly easy for a curious competitor to google - or to social engineer by e-mail.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  > If that was the reason then why are they telling the positions they're hiring for? I've yet to see a job posting that did not have that bit of information in it. Sort of helps when you let your prospective hires know what you're looking for ;)
nir 16y ago
Few webapp concepts can't be reimplemented in a short amount of time. Seems to me often the key is in user base and quality of execution (tech & non-tech) which stealth doesn't really help with. Of course startup founders can think differently and may be right, I just think the support for this in the community is amusing in light of the "radical transparency" chic we're all into now - do YC startups have more important/valid secrets than the US government?
brown9-2 16y ago
I can't imagine how simply sharing the name of your company could be anything like "revealing" your cards.
- iamwil 16y ago
  With a name, you can use it to start looking for all sorts of other information.
  - AlexC04 16y ago
    As a "potential employee" I think that additional information is critical to convincing me of the stability of the company. If I think they're going to be around long enough to pay the cheques etc... I know that many companies don't post their name, but from the point of view of someone who's been looking around - I think it's critical for me to be sold on the product & culture of the company. Irrelevant at the end of the day though ... if they don't want to publish their name, it's likely that it's not a good fit for people who care about knowing the name. (I know that's such a circular definition that it's almost useless - but - in my head it makes a lot of sense) :)

Mz 16y ago

Maybe I never learned the secret handshake* or something, because I was a homemaker for eons, but I find all job postings pretty opaque. So I don't see what the big deal is (that some specific piece of info is being left out). * From what I have read, I am not so sure it's "just me". For example, I've read plenty of anecdotes where someone went in to some field with grand visions only to discover that their visions don't remotely match the day-to-day details of their actual work.

gcheong 16y ago
Which is why it helps to have a company name so you can do some investigation beyond the job posting to see if there is something that remotely interests you about the company. At the least you could find a webpage that has some marketing speak about what it is they do or hope to do or you may be able to ping your network to find someone who can give you the inside scoop.
- Mz 16y ago
  Again, I may have missed the secret handshake because even internal job postings at the company I currently work for (and have for over four years) baffle me. I frequently talk to people at work and ask them what they do and get a title, which typically means nothing to me, and then I ask again "But what do you do?" Even the job I have currently has changed a good deal in the time I have been in it. I find the whole thing difficult to fathom. Again, stuff I have read suggests my befuddlement is hardly unique. If it helps you enormously to know the company name, you have some kind of advantage over me. Peace.

piramida 16y ago

Find it interesting, too. 'We need a dedicated person with lots of experience to work full time with uncertain perspectives on a problem that unknown "we" who probably have done nothing before believe has lots of potential. We will probably have money some time in the future too'. Maybe they are betting on curiosity? :)

swombat 16y ago

Announcing YC funding is a media event that can be leveraged, just like a launch. They want to make use of that event and release that information at the right time, to make the right kind of splash. Chances are only their closest friends know that they have YC funding, because if it leaked to, say, TechCrunch, they would lose the advantage of being able to announce their YC funding at the most advantageous time for them. The ideas are obviously not stealth ideas if they have 20m uniques in 6 weeks.

physcab 16y ago
I'm sorry, but this notion that a company can be made by a leveraged media event is stupid. Companies are made by having great products. If you have a great product, it doesn't matter when you show it off because there will always be an opportunity for getting new users. This goes for hiring new employees too. Even if your beta version sucks and you aren't ready to show it off, yet its a product that works and fixes problems, job candidates will find a way to apply.
- zaidf 16y ago
  I'm sorry, but this notion that a company can be made by a leveraged media event is stupid. Companies are made by having great products. The two aren't mutually exclusive. A company could be made by a leveraged media event and by having a great product.
- webwright 16y ago
  "If you have a great product, it doesn't matter when you show it off..." I can refute your comment with one word: Apple. Do you think their "leveraged media events" aren't effective? I used the believe (as you do) in the "Product Uber Alles" philosophy- no longer. Product is indeed the most important thing with the highest leverage. But it's not the only thing, and ignoring skillsets and tactics that can give you an advantage is silly. Think of non-product bits as multipliers. If I have great PR, bizdev, marketing, pricing, etc., I can often beat a better product in the market. There are zillions of markets where crappy/mediocre products are at or near the top of the heap.

spolsky 16y ago

It's a pretty bad strategy for hiring great programmers. Given how many cool, interesting, VC-funded startups are hiring, good developers can work literally anywhere they want. A job description that doesn't reveal the company or at least the general domain is likely to just be ignored. When I started my job board, I had a rule that the company name had to be on the posting. When I let one company avoid this rule by posting as a "stealth startup" I got tons of email complaints and the stealth startup got no applicants.

swombat 16y ago
Actually, if I wasn't busy and on another continent, I would apply based on this ad. I don't think it's a bad strategy at all, given the cachet of YC. Also, it's likely that they are doing other things too to look for great hires, not just this HN posting. Edit: Not trying to imply that I am a "great programmer"... just providing a data counterpoint that they will probably get people who have other options too applying to this to at least check it out.
pg 16y ago
When startups that have launched in the press post jobs, they invariably do include their names: http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs It's only the unlaunched ones that don't. Those have to weigh the benefits of launching vs the costs. Usually they launch soon anyway (we encourage startups to launch quickly) and can then give their names in jobs posts. So a post like this is not the last chance a startup will have to hire people; it's just a chance for them to attract a few adventurous ones a month early. Empirically, they are in fact able to attract good people, which is why they continue to do it. A posting by an unnamed startup may not work on a job board where anyone can post, but here it has worked well for years.
- gcheong 16y ago
  Why are comments disabled on job postings?
  - pg 16y ago

wallflower 16y ago

It's not a big filter but not mentioning specifics filters out some who lack a sense of curiosity and adventure.

agotterer 16y ago
I'm not sure developers want a sense of of adventure when it comes to job descriptions. Relatively speaking, most job posts are about the same. I can't imagine many great developers read a job post and are so excited by the description they have to email in to find out more details. This is why recruiters have a tough time finding great developers. How many great developers read a job description from a recruiter and are so excited they take the time to seek out the company name?

kalvin 16y ago

Wow, did the Ask HN on "what is the YC W11 social network startup that's hiring called" get deleted? There were at least a dozen comments on it last night, it was high up the front page, and now I can't find it.

ry0ohki 16y ago
I had the same question, presumably with 20M pageviews it's not a secret...
smokinn 16y ago
If this is what you're talking about http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020416 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020416 it's still on the front page. It never had any comments though. The one thing I really think should be changed on HN is this job posting with no comments nonsense.
gokhan 16y ago
Dead, if you're talking about this one. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020543 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020543
anon1289 16y ago
That's www.likealittle.com
- hugh3 16y ago
  I just looked at that site. It looks clever (but it could use some prettying up). Why didn't they mention their name in the job posting, then? I would totally work for them, were it not for the fact that I already have a job and a skillset completely orthogonal to anything they might want.
  - DanielN 16y ago
    They pretty clearly are in some form of stealth mode. My guess, from looking at their site is that they have some competitors. Go through the schools enabled and there are some pretty glaring omissions. Quite a few very large state schools that are not listed while very small schools surrounding them are included (look at California, Missouri, Florida and Georgia). This is just speculation, but it would be my guess that they are either dealing with a few smaller competitors or one big one.

webwright 16y ago

The question you're asking is, "why does it make sense for YC companies to be in stealth mode?" Sometimes it makes sense to be stealthy, and occasionally you need to hire folks when you're in that state. It's certainly a handicap (as spolsky says elsewhere in this thread, what kind of hotshot would want to interview without knowing ANYTHING about a company?). Good post on benefits of stealth mode here: http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode-trada%E2%80%99s-position-on-staying-stealth/ http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode-trada%E2%8...

apgwoz 16y ago
If the ad in question is the w11 yc social network, the growth and traffic already acquired makes it not really stealthy, right?
- webwright 16y ago
  Nope-- that means it's launched but still flying under quite a few radars. I'd wager plenty of people don't know about its traffic or YC backing.

retube 16y ago

I'm glad someone else feels the same way. My angle is: these ads expect people to give up all their personal details, without revealing any of their own. I'm sure they miss out as a result. (One posting sounded almost spammy - "we're the next big social network" etc etc. No-one's gonna respond to that unless they know who you are, can check a website etc). Edit: or maybe that's the point - if you don't know who the poster is, you're not worthy of applying.