4 ms·

> What were your priors? The better question is: Where did your priors come from? Every big tech company invests a lot of time and money into projecting a goo

> What were your priors? The better question is: Where did your priors come from? Every big tech company invests a lot of time and money into projecting a good reputation on the internet. It's basically table stakes for competitive hiring these days. This includes everything from making a founder a celebrity in tech circles or on Twitter, to posting fake Glassdoor reviews (and getting negative reviews removed). The worst company I worked for would periodically send e-mails to everyone reminding us about the NDAs we signed and implying that they'd sue anyone who talked to the press or wrote negative things about the company online. If you're making judgements based on the frequency of good versus bad posts, your opinions are going to be dominated by companies pushing positive PR for themselves. The strangest thing about the negative Stripe posts is that I haven't seen many Stripe employees (other than executives) show up and say that these anecdotes are surprising. I have, however, seen several anecdotes in this thread and others noting that Stripe's hiring process is notoriously chaotic and flawed. I don't really know the truth. I'd lean toward assuming these are abnormal experiences, but I wouldn't discard them entirely just because they're not what you expected to hear. What you expect to hear about a big company is largely a function of deliberate PR pushes these days.

rp1 5y ago
Re. employees not showing up to defend the company: I always find it weird when people do that. There are only downsides to speaking about your company publicly.
- ljm 5y ago
  It's enough to just have execs stepping in IMO, since they are pretty much top of the ladder. The only thing I'll learn from random Stripe employees is commentary in the vein of "works on my machine!" Disgruntled ex-employees will leave bad feedback, people who have invested a lot of themselves in the company will leave good feedback (and perhaps not even see some of the problems others see).
- antoniuschan99 5y ago
  Since there were throwaway accounts speaking negatively about the company, I was looking for the opposite, throwaway accounts (from employees) speaking positively about the company. Not sure if they ended up posting but when I was reading the thread there weren't any.
- _moof 5y ago
  Indeed. There's also the question of whether it's worth the effort. Most of what I've read here about companies I've worked for has been, shall we say, imaginative. Occasionally it's been downright conspiracy theory. When I've been tempted to try to set the record straight, after thinking it through I find--forgive me if this comes across as cynical--that the amount of work it would take far outweighs how much I care what strangers think about the things I work on. It's much easier, and probably healthier, just to close the tab and carry on with more important things. (In spite of this I confess that I devoured the Stripe thread alongside a heaping bowl of popcorn. Some combination of Gell-Mann amnesia and a vulgar taste for tabloid gossip, I guess.)
  - hyperxy 5y ago
    I thought it was more than a little bizarre, in a thread where people are tlaking about being brain raped by the brothers (YC pr had me convinced, too, I had no clue), the YC people that show up to defend him are: the CEO of Coinbase, a guy that's know for running a scam and defending himself on Twitter (rebranded) and that PG had the nerve to defend in essay about "Haters", and the lead mod, who isn't obviously a mod until he is. What kind of people are you guys attracti9ng? They all this unaware? I'm just an outsider, but you all look like you are full of shit.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
Fair point on PR, but re: >> I haven't seen many Stripe employees (other than executives) show up and say that these anecdotes are surprising. ... Do people normally do that? With verifiable, named accounts? Personally, as an employee, I would feel profoundly uncomfortable to publicly comment on such matters of my company; and may well be explicitly and clearly forbidden from doing so. Plus, most people would only really have their own experience to relate, and I at least would be reluctant to share anecdata as useful evidence. (and then there's a matter of time and prioritization; heck, I work for IBM -- if I tried to counter every negative comment on IBM on Hacker News, that'd be my six new full time jobs, even though I've personally had brilliantly positive experience over two decades and deeply respect all of my colleagues :D )
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Can / should you be forbidden from talking about your hiring process, while still employed by that company? It seems pretty scummy to prohibit or penalize employees for talking about their initial hiring interactions with the company. Especially if they keep their remarks to the period prior to their officially being hired. At that point... you weren't an employee. And it's pretty odd for a company to assume they have a right to your silence, covering a period before you had entered into a contractual relationship with them and they were paying you.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    This is FAR beyond my area of expertise; but I think a lot of companies have some sort of... "branding" clause I'll call it these days; what your expected behaviour on social media with respect to company brand is. Yes, I've read Snowcrash, yes we live in dystopian future; at the same time, if I try to be a devil's advocate and simplify it to very basics - if I'm running a two person shop, and one of them is saying bad things about my/our company... I wouldn't really be excited about working with them either, would I? I ran a photography side business for a while, and if my assistant had feedback to share with me, awesome; on the other hand, if they went on Tweeter and criticized our working, what's my motivation to call them up and work closely with them again? :-/ Things get far murkier at larger companies of course, and there's labour law etc, but I imagine there'd always be some tension in speaking negatively about your employer. (Edit: As for "talking about hiring process" specifically, that may get even trickier; unless you're an HR manager actually familiar and proficient and authorized to formally represent hiring process to prospective candidates, you may cause untold amount of ruckus even with best intentions in describing your limited perspective on the hiring process to people - setting up incorrect expectations or even accidentally prejudicing against the company in any potential latter lawsuit. Just because Person A has had specific experience in hiring, in no way guarantees that Person B will, but it can and has easily been interpreted that way when Person A says "Company A hiring practices are as such").
Rastonbury 5y ago
I don't think it's strange, they don't have visibility into all teams and interactions. I interviewed with Stripe around 8 months ago and I think the recruiters are one of the better ones. I do see a deliberate effort to make it a good experience. While prepping, I reached out to friends of friends at Stripe and they were helpful going out of their way to ensure I was prepared. Didn't get the job but they seem like a nice bunch.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  My interview experience with Stripe was about the same: nice bunch, did OK on the problems but... They were surprised that even though I said I could program in TypeScript that I didn't know any of the old style JavaScript meta magic (While I used TypeScript as a programming language, I wasn't particularly versed in web). Also, I failed the mandatory HTTP test (everyone had to do a problem related to HTTP, even they were interviewing for a compiler job). That was all very odd, and I think Google was a better fit for me anyways after going through that.

rp1 5y ago

Re. employees not showing up to defend the company: I always find it weird when people do that. There are only downsides to speaking about your company publicly.

ljm 5y ago
It's enough to just have execs stepping in IMO, since they are pretty much top of the ladder. The only thing I'll learn from random Stripe employees is commentary in the vein of "works on my machine!" Disgruntled ex-employees will leave bad feedback, people who have invested a lot of themselves in the company will leave good feedback (and perhaps not even see some of the problems others see).
antoniuschan99 5y ago
Since there were throwaway accounts speaking negatively about the company, I was looking for the opposite, throwaway accounts (from employees) speaking positively about the company. Not sure if they ended up posting but when I was reading the thread there weren't any.
_moof 5y ago
Indeed. There's also the question of whether it's worth the effort. Most of what I've read here about companies I've worked for has been, shall we say, imaginative. Occasionally it's been downright conspiracy theory. When I've been tempted to try to set the record straight, after thinking it through I find--forgive me if this comes across as cynical--that the amount of work it would take far outweighs how much I care what strangers think about the things I work on. It's much easier, and probably healthier, just to close the tab and carry on with more important things. (In spite of this I confess that I devoured the Stripe thread alongside a heaping bowl of popcorn. Some combination of Gell-Mann amnesia and a vulgar taste for tabloid gossip, I guess.)
- hyperxy 5y ago
  I thought it was more than a little bizarre, in a thread where people are tlaking about being brain raped by the brothers (YC pr had me convinced, too, I had no clue), the YC people that show up to defend him are: the CEO of Coinbase, a guy that's know for running a scam and defending himself on Twitter (rebranded) and that PG had the nerve to defend in essay about "Haters", and the lead mod, who isn't obviously a mod until he is. What kind of people are you guys attracti9ng? They all this unaware? I'm just an outsider, but you all look like you are full of shit.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

Fair point on PR, but re: >> I haven't seen many Stripe employees (other than executives) show up and say that these anecdotes are surprising. ... Do people normally do that? With verifiable, named accounts? Personally, as an employee, I would feel profoundly uncomfortable to publicly comment on such matters of my company; and may well be explicitly and clearly forbidden from doing so. Plus, most people would only really have their own experience to relate, and I at least would be reluctant to share anecdata as useful evidence. (and then there's a matter of time and prioritization; heck, I work for IBM -- if I tried to counter every negative comment on IBM on Hacker News, that'd be my six new full time jobs, even though I've personally had brilliantly positive experience over two decades and deeply respect all of my colleagues :D )

ethbr0 5y ago
Can / should you be forbidden from talking about your hiring process, while still employed by that company? It seems pretty scummy to prohibit or penalize employees for talking about their initial hiring interactions with the company. Especially if they keep their remarks to the period prior to their officially being hired. At that point... you weren't an employee. And it's pretty odd for a company to assume they have a right to your silence, covering a period before you had entered into a contractual relationship with them and they were paying you.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  This is FAR beyond my area of expertise; but I think a lot of companies have some sort of... "branding" clause I'll call it these days; what your expected behaviour on social media with respect to company brand is. Yes, I've read Snowcrash, yes we live in dystopian future; at the same time, if I try to be a devil's advocate and simplify it to very basics - if I'm running a two person shop, and one of them is saying bad things about my/our company... I wouldn't really be excited about working with them either, would I? I ran a photography side business for a while, and if my assistant had feedback to share with me, awesome; on the other hand, if they went on Tweeter and criticized our working, what's my motivation to call them up and work closely with them again? :-/ Things get far murkier at larger companies of course, and there's labour law etc, but I imagine there'd always be some tension in speaking negatively about your employer. (Edit: As for "talking about hiring process" specifically, that may get even trickier; unless you're an HR manager actually familiar and proficient and authorized to formally represent hiring process to prospective candidates, you may cause untold amount of ruckus even with best intentions in describing your limited perspective on the hiring process to people - setting up incorrect expectations or even accidentally prejudicing against the company in any potential latter lawsuit. Just because Person A has had specific experience in hiring, in no way guarantees that Person B will, but it can and has easily been interpreted that way when Person A says "Company A hiring practices are as such").

Rastonbury 5y ago

I don't think it's strange, they don't have visibility into all teams and interactions. I interviewed with Stripe around 8 months ago and I think the recruiters are one of the better ones. I do see a deliberate effort to make it a good experience. While prepping, I reached out to friends of friends at Stripe and they were helpful going out of their way to ensure I was prepared. Didn't get the job but they seem like a nice bunch.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
My interview experience with Stripe was about the same: nice bunch, did OK on the problems but... They were surprised that even though I said I could program in TypeScript that I didn't know any of the old style JavaScript meta magic (While I used TypeScript as a programming language, I wasn't particularly versed in web). Also, I failed the mandatory HTTP test (everyone had to do a problem related to HTTP, even they were interviewing for a compiler job). That was all very odd, and I think Google was a better fit for me anyways after going through that.