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Hey everyone. Happy to answer any questions about this. Basically, we think that LinkedIn profiles don't do a good job of showing engineering skill (especially

• 9wzYQbTYsAIc 6y ago
  Please do not turn it into another Rolodex and competition for connections. It’s bad enough to know that connections could be mined through inference, but I’ll be leaving the second I find out you are turning into a social network. A nicely styled resume and showcase should do the trick nicely.
• dorkinspace 6y ago
  This should absolutely be opt-in, not opt-out. Were people that originally interviewed aware before their interview that their profile would become public at a later date?
  • wolfgang42 6y ago
    I interviewed with them last year, and just got this email. There may have been some of the usual boilerplate about “publish, disseminate, or publicly perform your content in order to provide our services” somewhere (actually, I recall a surprising lack of legalese) but there was absolutely not any attention drawn to the possibility that my profile would be shown to anyone other than the companies looking at the round of candidates I was included in.
    • Exolon 6y ago
      I didn't even "interview", just took one of their tests out of curiosity to see how I did. The announcement was especially unwelcome news given that I'm not even looking for another job.
• hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  The objection seems to be that this is automatic, with opt out, instead of with opt in. Another commenter makes the point that the opt out button is difficult to find. Those are the issues you should address.
  • ashtonkem 6y ago
    I have a hard time not believing that the opt out button is hard to find on purpose.
    • bauerm97 6y ago
      Anybody know where the fuck the opt out button is? I literally can't find it on mobile Edit: For anyone else struggling to find it, look for the box with the heading "Profile URL". There's a link in the upper right corner of the box that says "Visibility Settings". It's light grey text and kinda hard to notice that's a link. Just for anyone else, if you're forcing users to opt out of something like this it should be a BIG BUTTON AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE.
• web007 6y ago
  How do you justify opt-out versus opt-in for publicizing this info? Do you not see the potential harm in "ammon is looking for a job" showing up to someone you work with?
  • kxr 6y ago
    They did, but they weighed this against launching with X thousand “active” profiles and decided it was worth the outrage. $GROWTH
• barry-cotter 6y ago
  When are you going to be available outside the US? If you were going to offer the service how much would it cost to have you do the interview/skills assessment as a service if you’re not going for other markets any time soon?
• northern-lights 6y ago
  If I opt-out and make my profile non-public, what kind of information in the profile will still be public? Because, in the "Visibility" link in the profile builder says: Your public profile will be invisible and will not appear in public search engines. This simplified version of your Triplebyte profile showcases your technical achievements based on actual skills, not pedigree (it does not contain your score details, job status, or preferences). Turn your visibility “ON” in order to share your unique Triplebyte profile URL on job applications, LinkedIn, GitHub, and other platforms. However, "Learn More" says the URL will be inaccessible when not Public. So, which is it?
• yaacov 6y ago
  Thanks for coming to answer questions here even though you’re likely to get dragged through the mud for this decision. FWIW, I agree with other commenters that this is a betrayal of trust but I don’t have anything original to add.
  • ammon 6y ago
    Well, sorry that you feel this way. I don't agree right now (clearly). But I'll certainly take this seriously and think more about it/listen to feedback. We're talking about relatively basic profiles, to give us the canvas to launch public achievement badges (that we hope allow us to better help people who don't have traditional credentials). My view, building this, is that we're not displaying anything more private than hundreds of other companies. Stack Overflow has public profiles. Hacker Rank has public profile. AngelList has public profiles. Even HN has public profiles. We are launching public profiles for a product that has not had them in the past, and I get that that's a more sensitive thing to do. What we've focused on to keep that from harming anyone is what data we include in the profiles. I wish we'd include more details about that in the email.
    • wolfgang42 6y ago
      All of these companies have opt-in profiles. When you sign up for the service, you can tell already what you’re getting into and what will be displayed. As far as I’m aware, none of them started as an unrelated service that suddenly announced they were going to make a public site and seed it with information from anyone who’d ever interacted with them.
    • yaacov 6y ago
      First off, thanks again for taking the time to speak with us on HN. I think you’re missing/avoiding the issue that people might want to hide the very fact that they have a Triplebyte account at all. It implies that they have job hunted in the last 5 or so years, and someone who’s been at a single company for longer than that might not want that information to be available. I work at Google, and I can tell you as a fact that our Privacy Working Groups would never let us launch something like this without explicit user consent.
• hysan 6y ago
  What’s the next step from here? Public profiles themselves aren’t very useful in of themselves. Asking as someone who has been on the platform for a while but has not found any success through it. I have other thoughts but would like to hear your plans before adding.
  • ammon 6y ago
    We plan to add more engineering-specific sections to the profiles. I think there's a lot of room to just display what matters to engineers/eng hiring managers better. Then we want to use the profiles to push the industry to look beyond traditional credentials (school, work at top companies). Recruiters say that they want to do this, but we need to get them off of LinkedIn where everything is designed around the traditional credentials.
    • gherig4 6y ago
      How's it feel? When is the apology coming?
    • hysan 6y ago
      That’s an interesting thought, but I haven’t seen any change in both attitude and the interviewing process from companies on TripleByte. Do you have any hard numbers showing that companies are willing to walk the walk instead of just talk?
    • aerioux 6y ago
      1/2 of the triplebyte recruiters that reach out to me don't even reply
    • bigiain 6y ago
      > I think there's a lot of room to just display what matters to engineers/eng hiring managers better. There's no doubt a lot of truth there. What matters a lot to engineering managers are the answers to questions like "What other roles is this candidate interviewing for?" "How well did this candidate do in their Triplebyte interviews for our competitors?" "What are the salary ranges of other roles this candidate has clicked on or applied for?" Will that also form part of every user's public profile, with the same "1 week to opt out, 30 days to enable opt out" process? Or will that data only be available to hiring managers with Triplebyte Premium accounts?
• karterk 6y ago
  Please make this opt-in and not opt-out.
  • Zekio 6y ago
    well if they have European users they basically have to make it opt-in
    • bialpio 6y ago
      Not really. Depending on what you mean by European users, GDPR may not apply here (if GDPR was what you were alluding to).
      • devilmoon 6y ago
        Gdpr 100% applies here to any user residing in the EU, and as one I find it appalling that this is opt-out. Further, I couldn't find an option to delete my account, which is another clear violation of GDPR. I wonder how long before they get hit with a juicy fine.
        • bialpio 6y ago
          Yeah, my understanding is that if they did not make an attempt to block EU citizens from using the site then GDPR does apply. The problem is that IIRC, when I was singing up they were explicitly serving only few cities in the US. Might be misremembering though, it was a while back.
      • xtracto 6y ago
        Do you think American anti-hacking/DMCA/etc laws do not apply to people living overseas? (like Gary Mckinnon for example). Corporations don't get to choose, either laws apply or they don't apply internationally.
        • bialpio 6y ago
          If I recall correctly, the corporations that explicitly do not aim to serve EU citizens (and make reasonable attempts to block them) do not need to follow GDPR. Then there's a matter of enforcement - I don't think EU can do anything to a company that does not have any presence in the EU. IANAL, but I am an EU citizen living in the US so it would be great if I'm mistaken here. :-)
• gherig4 6y ago
  Lock-in to your platform sounds even worse than LinkedIn. How long before we all get an apology email, "Upon careful reconsideration...", 72 hours?
  • netsharc 6y ago
    It'll be "We heard our community's feedback.". "Many of you responded passionately to our announcement.". God damn corporate spin pretending nothing bad ever happens..
• remote_phone 6y ago
  What a foolish decision to make. Knowing what you know about HN users, did you expect that this would go well? You can pretty much assume that Triplebyte will be persona non grata henceforth, especially as word spreads that you are publicly exposing people and only giving 1 week to opt out. Extremely foolish and really shines a bad light on your decision making capabilities. Why would I put my trust in a company that is so shady? You will change this bad decision and apologize, but you have betrayed the trust of all the people who have used you. Even if you change your policy now, we know you will change it back in the near future. No one will use your services again, because of this betrayal. You just killed your entire company in one fell swoop. I’m shocked that someone associated with YC could make such a demonstrably poor decision.
  • errantspark 6y ago
    A lot of people go through YC and while their filter is better than most I assure you this is hardly the most shockingly stupid thing I've seen someone in YC do, ever heard of Meta? That was a dumpster fire from start to finish.
    • Judgmentality 6y ago
      Yeah, but one of the TripleByte founders used to be a YC partner, so it's a little different.
      • errantspark 6y ago
        Oooooh, fair enough, I didn't realize that.
      • borski 6y ago
        Actually, he’s a current YC partner again: https://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-aaron-and-harj/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-aaron-and-harj/
    • christopoulos 6y ago
      I’m curious on Meta, got a link?
• domador 6y ago
  I'm interested in knowing whether you surveyed at least some of your users (random ones, who aren't coworkers or acquaintances) what they thought about the change you just announced. I can understand that as a company you may wish for secrecy before you make a strategic move such as this one, but this sounds like the kind of change that'd be good to ask users about before doing it. Or maybe this didn't seem like a controversial move to you guys? (If so, bummer, but I hope you can still prevent or fix a potentially serious mistake.) FWIW, I hadn't heard of TripleByte before, but this is not a good way of hearing about it, nor would it encourage me to become a user, if people's fears match what you're actually planning to do. If they're correct, it sounds like you're about to intentionally or accidentally implement a dark pattern. I hope that's not the case.
• prawn 6y ago
  I can appreciate that it's an exciting opportunity for your business, but your failure to read the room here seems spectacular. My jaw dropped at each of your responses failing to understand why people were concerned and react appropriately. Hopefully there's something in the explanation of new functionality that's been missed and it's a misunderstanding?!
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• insomniacity 6y ago
  I absolutely would have used TB for my next job search, when the time was right. Now I absolutely would not. Dead simple.
• idoby 6y ago
  Others have addressed the obvious privacy issues, so let me address your logic on the business side of things. I apologize in advance for the tone, but your move with exposing profiles made me angry. Good thing my TB profile is fake (and performs worse than my actual, real life resume despite all the embellishments) 1) There is no lock in - I can move on and off LI whenever I want, and have. I've exported my data and used it to create my own resume site with analytics that I send out to companies. I can see who viewed my CV, when, and whether or not they actually read through it or bounced immediately. I've also learned to track the progression of my candidacy through the organization using this trick (recruiters tend to view my CV on their Windows desktop during work hours, hiring managers tend to check out resumes in the evening on their iPhones or Macbooks, engineers/tech leads tend to use Macbooks, desktop Macs or Android phones in the morning or during lunch time. Usually when I've hit the engineering lead I tend to get invited to interview). It's extremely easy to create your own CV website for free (github/lab pages) that's versioned by git and deployed automatically using a CI script. 2) You're attacking the tech hiring problem from the wrong angle, like everyone else. There is no issue with discovery of candidates and employers. LI and stackoverflow, etc do a great job of approximating this O(N^2) exposure process, the filtering and sifting. The ACTUAL problem is on the hiring end - companies won't take a chance on non-traditional candidates (not talking about race and gender here, more about credentials). You have to start by chipping away at the costs of showing competence for a candidate (the traditional way to do this is to get a three- or four-year degree that's either expensive in terms of time and money, or useless, and if you get a degree with a low score, doubly so, even though you might be a better programmer than the people who scored over 90%). This will only happen by convincing hiring orgs to hire non-traditional candidates, and this requires establishing a very strong signal/noise ratio for candidates coming from your hiring channel. Before you start PRing me about how great TB is at this - no it isn't. Not any better than leetcode etc, and those are terrible at predicting engineering competence.
  • pieteradejong 6y ago
    "used it to create my own resume site with analytics that I send out to companies. I can see who viewed my CV, when, and whether or not they actually read through it or bounced immediately" I'd be super interested to learn more about how you did that.
• aidos 6y ago
  Geeks don’t dislike LinkedIn because the formatting isn’t right, they dislike it because of the dark patterns. If that’s the measure with which you’re trying to compete with LinkedIn, it’s safe to call this one a win.
• throwphoton 6y ago
  You're missing the point by focusing on the job search information specifically. Any information provided without a clear understanding that it would be made public should not now be made public by default, even if it is just a name and some badges.
• jobhunter01 6y ago
  (posting from a throwaway account, but long time HN user). Well, I was just about to go through your process, since you announced that you are opening to remotes (I'm in the EU), but now I've requested that you delete my profile. No way I want my current employer to know I'm looking, especially in the current climate where job hunting is difficult. As other people have mentioned, you now have a deeper problem than entering a new market. You just broke your users trust. And the sad thing is that this was a real opportunity, because linkedin sucks. Unfortunately what you failed to realise is that there is appetite to switch from linkedin to a more honourable company. Not to an equally or more dishonest one. Most likely your staff were trying to warn you about this from the beginning, and it would be worth your time reflecting on why you didn't take note of that more deeply. I know you are looking for actionable routes to save your company right now. In my opinion, the loss of trust is so bad that only a pretty costly signal will now cause people to reevaluate. The one that springs to mind is for you, Ammon, to announce that you are stepping down as CEO and starting a search for someone who is committed to privacy to take on the role.
  • dmak 6y ago
    How did you request your profile to be deleted?
    • 7fYZ7mJh3RNKNaG 6y ago
      https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center
    • pipework 6y ago
      In the meantime, I updated my profile data to express that I feel Ammon betrayed us. I'm not trusting them to delete my information cleanly, so it's one step closer to change it beforehand.
• empath75 6y ago
  I have a triplebyte account and would love for you to take on LinkedIn, but it absolutely needs to be opt-in. Sorry if that makes things inconvenient for you, but I’m going to delete my account if you go through with this.
• ashtonkem 6y ago
  You can’t unilaterally decide to give me a public profile; that is a trust ruining decision that you’ve made. If you gave me the option to make one, we could talk. But by making that decision for me, I now have to view you as a fundamentally un-trustworthy party.
• sidlls 6y ago
  Employees require discretion and privacy when they are searching for a new job. Do you need us to enumerate the reasons for this? This new approach is unethical and completely tone-deaf, at best.
• friendlybus 6y ago
  It would have been more productive to say nothing and just plow on, than attempt these comments.
• seebs 6y ago
  I think it would make more sense to make this opt-in. For instance, I set my profile not to be displayed a while back, but when I checked on this new thing, it was set to make at least some part of the profile public by default. Keep in mind that Triplebyte profiles have no reason to exist except people looking for work, and that most people have a reason to want to be sure that a current employer does not have an easy way to find out that they're looking for work. I can have a HN account and it doesn't make anyone think I'm looking for work, but if an employer sees my profile on Triplebyte, it tells them at the very least that I was at some point looking for work. If they see it on Triplebyte after having previously not seen it, it tells them that something changed recently. I would definitely think this should be an opt-in thing.
• mylons 6y ago
  get lost dude. your org has been parasitic since day 1.
• bogomipz 6y ago
  >"Basically, we think that LinkedIn profiles don't do a good job of showing engineering skill...:" So that's your bar, a growth-hacking dumpster fire? >"LinkedIn profiles have become the default engineering resume (despite the fact that most engineers are not particularly happy with their LinkedIn profile)." No they haven't. You know what the default engineering resume is? The one you have on your hard drive that you share at your discretion. I'm quite surprised at how oblivious you seem to be of the issue of user trust.
• alasdair_ 6y ago
  You just lost any trust and goodwill that Triplebyte built up with myself or any of my engineer friends. Here is that problem: people gave you their data because you told them that you would make it available to companies that were NOT our current employers or the general public. None of us agreed to let you post the fact that we were actively seeking employment. You betrayed our trust and are using data none of us agreed you could use in the way you are using it.
• Xelbair 6y ago
  Isn't this basically a GDPR violation as you didn't acquire consent for sharing data with such purpose(public display of a profile)?
• pipework 6y ago
  No one asked you to broadcast our progress on your platform or participation in it. I made sure to not only make my account not look it's mine, I used every control to lower its impact on my footprint and pushed my peers to. From today onward Triplebyte has established its place in the lexicon as a ghetto self-serving linkedin wannabe. Good job.