4 ms·

I feel like I'm missing something. Why would you ever respond to that listing? No meaningful description of the company, no outstanding benefits, just the promi

I feel like I'm missing something. Why would you ever respond to that listing? No meaningful description of the company, no outstanding benefits, just the promise of being overworked?

xyzelement 3y ago
It's interesting to observe that the person who this language did resonate with is likely a billionaire now.
- cafebabbe 3y ago
  Survivorship bias is always interesting to observe.
  - valval 3y ago
    Do you think Amazon survived because of Jeff Bezos or survivorship bias?
Dwolb 3y ago
Yup you’re missing something. In addition to attracting qualified candidates, good job listings repel those who don’t agree with them. No one wants to sift through hundreds of applications. Here’s the main mission filter: “to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” technical filter: “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” and culture filter: “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” If you didn’t get these things or why they were important, early Amazon wasn’t for you. On the other hand, if you saw these lines and said “holy cow this is the future and I want to be a part of this”, then you’d roll the dice and apply. This style of recruiting isn’t a numbers game and doesn’t appeal to the average person.
- hardware2win 3y ago
  Ehh, I think you are making this up and your theory is sound just because Amaz turned out big I see stuff like this weekly "blablabla need skilled engineers for my unique brilliant idea company blabla" Nothing is exciting about this
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    I feel like a lot of those look like imitations of the concept. I've certainly seen some wording like that which was transparently not relevant to the job.
  - wittycardio 3y ago
    [dead]
- cafebabbe 3y ago
  Now let's have look at similarly-worded ads for the 2000s dotcoms
  - baxtr 3y ago
    On the other hand: if no-one ever tried something new, all would be the same always.
- klik99 3y ago
  “to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” - In 1994, this would have intrigued me, in 2004 I would view with skepticism, in 2014 I would laugh “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” - No matter the era, this kind of language is a big red flag to me - More often than not people who say this have no idea what they're talking about, the kind of people who call themselves "idea men" “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” - meaningless phrase I don't know how recruiting messages were in 1994, but unless this is the Velvet Underground of influential recruiting messages (not many people got this email, but those who did started startups of their own) this reads like a generic recruiting email. Given the state of things in 1994 the "pioneer commerce on the Internet" would be interesting enough to learn more though.
  - _ea1k 3y ago
    IDK, if someone advertised an AI job like this in 2023, I bet it'd pique some people's interest.
    - Dwolb 3y ago
      You’re on target. sama on this: “want to be stressed, watch some GPUs melt, and have a fun time? good at doing impossible things? send evidence of exceptional ability to chatgpt-eng@openai.com” [1] [1] https://twitter.com/sama/status/1630724485828714497?lang=en https://twitter.com/sama/status/1630724485828714497?lang=en
      - klik99 3y ago
        That sama tweet is very effective, he's known to be the real deal, his startup is known to have external funding and therefore validating, and the humor shows the work environment. A real equivalent would be a nobody, with no external funding (first external funding of amazon was 1995), promising equity and requiring a move. Let's say you got an email 2 years ago from someone you've never heard of saying: "Self-funded startup seeks extremely talented developers to work on AI. You must have experience building large and complex, yet easily maintainable systems, and work in 1/3 time that others say is possible. Top-notch communication skills are required. Familiarity with [the technology you'll be building for] would be helpful but is not necessary. Must be willing to move to Seattle." Not quite as interesting as sam altmans tweet...
constantcrying 3y ago
>Why would you ever respond to that listing? Good question. Of course in retrospect getting that job would make you one of the all time highest earners in the software industry. I think it is also quite clever, the only people who would ever respond to this are exactly the people you would want. The core promise here is being able to work on something which might change the world.
_visgean 3y ago
my guess is that 1994 was very different and maybe ecommerce sounded way more exciting
pixelmonkey 3y ago
It was 1994. There weren't that many jobs for UNIX-oriented C/C++ developers, working on large scale problems for the internet. In 1994, MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 were the most popular desktop operating systems. Most internet access was dial-up. Windows 95 was yet to be released. Steve Jobs was working on NeXT and wouldn't return to Apple for another 3 years. The GNOME project didn't even start until 1997, which is 3 years later. Python 2.0 wouldn't be released for 6 years, in 2000. Heck, Netscape Navigator's first version wasn't even out yet (not for a few months) -- there were no distinctly popular browsers other than, perhaps, Mosaic, released only a year earlier. No one was building web apps yet; pg started Viaweb in 1995, one year later. Internet commerce was not at all an obvious idea. Very few people were working on "internet companies", and very few people yet were working primarily on UNIX (outside of open source hobbyists). This job posting was appealing to UNIX enthusiasts and academic computer scientists who were hoping to turn their hobbies into a lucrative day job, in a world where 90%+ of "computer jobs" were rudimentary IT schlep. The entire culture you describe in your comment -- of companies needing to distinguish themselves via strong benefits and mission alignment -- wouldn't grow up for a few years. This wasn't a job posting among a sea of web startup job postings; this was, instead, one of the earliest web startup job postings in a sea of enterprise IT management and DOS/Windows desktop software development postings. The "competition" for these developers was startup versions of companies like Redhat and Netscape (maybe), of which there were only a handful of comparables. A good documentary you can watch to put yourself more into the mindset of this period of developer history is "Revolution OS" (2001): https://watch.amazon.com/detail?gti=amzn1.dv.gti.cf101954-e017-40e5-b1ad-b5a583f0228f https://watch.amazon.com/detail?gti=amzn1.dv.gti.cf101954-e0... (Amazon Prime Video) -or- https://imdb.com/title/tt0308808/ https://imdb.com/title/tt0308808/ (IMDB)
- w0m 3y ago
  thank you for a great summary.
- Hermitian909 3y ago
  Great answer, I'd add one more thing: startups used to be much more attractive financially. In the 90s a big company software job would put food on the table but would not make you particularly well off. Startups, by contrast, would often load you up with equity and have a liquidity event in 2-3 years. Growing up in the bay area during this time I know a lot of programmers who became wealthy during this period by just picking good startups. Contrast to today where you need to wait a decade to find out if your options are worth anything, and even if the company is worth hundreds of millions you may still get screwed if the founders promised their VCs it'd be worth billions.
senko 3y ago
What you're missing is that in 1994 the only people who were into these things are the people who would consider this job post a challenge. Nobody went into that part of IT for money back then. People who did went to IBM, Microsoft and Oracle instead, if they wanted to work in such a nerdy field at all.

I feel like I'm missing something. Why would you ever respond to that listing? No meaningful description of the company, no outstanding benefits, just the promise of being overworked?

xyzelement 3y ago

It's interesting to observe that the person who this language did resonate with is likely a billionaire now.

cafebabbe 3y ago
Survivorship bias is always interesting to observe.
- valval 3y ago
  Do you think Amazon survived because of Jeff Bezos or survivorship bias?

Dwolb 3y ago

Yup you’re missing something. In addition to attracting qualified candidates, good job listings repel those who don’t agree with them. No one wants to sift through hundreds of applications. Here’s the main mission filter: “to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” technical filter: “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” and culture filter: “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” If you didn’t get these things or why they were important, early Amazon wasn’t for you. On the other hand, if you saw these lines and said “holy cow this is the future and I want to be a part of this”, then you’d roll the dice and apply. This style of recruiting isn’t a numbers game and doesn’t appeal to the average person.

hardware2win 3y ago
Ehh, I think you are making this up and your theory is sound just because Amaz turned out big I see stuff like this weekly "blablabla need skilled engineers for my unique brilliant idea company blabla" Nothing is exciting about this
- _ea1k 3y ago
  I feel like a lot of those look like imitations of the concept. I've certainly seen some wording like that which was transparently not relevant to the job.
- wittycardio 3y ago
  [dead]
cafebabbe 3y ago
Now let's have look at similarly-worded ads for the 2000s dotcoms
- baxtr 3y ago
  On the other hand: if no-one ever tried something new, all would be the same always.
klik99 3y ago
“to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” - In 1994, this would have intrigued me, in 2004 I would view with skepticism, in 2014 I would laugh “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” - No matter the era, this kind of language is a big red flag to me - More often than not people who say this have no idea what they're talking about, the kind of people who call themselves "idea men" “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” - meaningless phrase I don't know how recruiting messages were in 1994, but unless this is the Velvet Underground of influential recruiting messages (not many people got this email, but those who did started startups of their own) this reads like a generic recruiting email. Given the state of things in 1994 the "pioneer commerce on the Internet" would be interesting enough to learn more though.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  IDK, if someone advertised an AI job like this in 2023, I bet it'd pique some people's interest.
  - Dwolb 3y ago
    You’re on target. sama on this: “want to be stressed, watch some GPUs melt, and have a fun time? good at doing impossible things? send evidence of exceptional ability to chatgpt-eng@openai.com” [1] [1] https://twitter.com/sama/status/1630724485828714497?lang=en https://twitter.com/sama/status/1630724485828714497?lang=en
    - klik99 3y ago
      That sama tweet is very effective, he's known to be the real deal, his startup is known to have external funding and therefore validating, and the humor shows the work environment. A real equivalent would be a nobody, with no external funding (first external funding of amazon was 1995), promising equity and requiring a move. Let's say you got an email 2 years ago from someone you've never heard of saying: "Self-funded startup seeks extremely talented developers to work on AI. You must have experience building large and complex, yet easily maintainable systems, and work in 1/3 time that others say is possible. Top-notch communication skills are required. Familiarity with [the technology you'll be building for] would be helpful but is not necessary. Must be willing to move to Seattle." Not quite as interesting as sam altmans tweet...

constantcrying 3y ago

>Why would you ever respond to that listing? Good question. Of course in retrospect getting that job would make you one of the all time highest earners in the software industry. I think it is also quite clever, the only people who would ever respond to this are exactly the people you would want. The core promise here is being able to work on something which might change the world.

_visgean 3y ago

my guess is that 1994 was very different and maybe ecommerce sounded way more exciting

pixelmonkey 3y ago

It was 1994. There weren't that many jobs for UNIX-oriented C/C++ developers, working on large scale problems for the internet. In 1994, MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 were the most popular desktop operating systems. Most internet access was dial-up. Windows 95 was yet to be released. Steve Jobs was working on NeXT and wouldn't return to Apple for another 3 years. The GNOME project didn't even start until 1997, which is 3 years later. Python 2.0 wouldn't be released for 6 years, in 2000. Heck, Netscape Navigator's first version wasn't even out yet (not for a few months) -- there were no distinctly popular browsers other than, perhaps, Mosaic, released only a year earlier. No one was building web apps yet; pg started Viaweb in 1995, one year later. Internet commerce was not at all an obvious idea. Very few people were working on "internet companies", and very few people yet were working primarily on UNIX (outside of open source hobbyists). This job posting was appealing to UNIX enthusiasts and academic computer scientists who were hoping to turn their hobbies into a lucrative day job, in a world where 90%+ of "computer jobs" were rudimentary IT schlep. The entire culture you describe in your comment -- of companies needing to distinguish themselves via strong benefits and mission alignment -- wouldn't grow up for a few years. This wasn't a job posting among a sea of web startup job postings; this was, instead, one of the earliest web startup job postings in a sea of enterprise IT management and DOS/Windows desktop software development postings. The "competition" for these developers was startup versions of companies like Redhat and Netscape (maybe), of which there were only a handful of comparables. A good documentary you can watch to put yourself more into the mindset of this period of developer history is "Revolution OS" (2001): https://watch.amazon.com/detail?gti=amzn1.dv.gti.cf101954-e017-40e5-b1ad-b5a583f0228f https://watch.amazon.com/detail?gti=amzn1.dv.gti.cf101954-e0... (Amazon Prime Video) -or- https://imdb.com/title/tt0308808/ https://imdb.com/title/tt0308808/ (IMDB)

w0m 3y ago
thank you for a great summary.
Hermitian909 3y ago
Great answer, I'd add one more thing: startups used to be much more attractive financially. In the 90s a big company software job would put food on the table but would not make you particularly well off. Startups, by contrast, would often load you up with equity and have a liquidity event in 2-3 years. Growing up in the bay area during this time I know a lot of programmers who became wealthy during this period by just picking good startups. Contrast to today where you need to wait a decade to find out if your options are worth anything, and even if the company is worth hundreds of millions you may still get screwed if the founders promised their VCs it'd be worth billions.

senko 3y ago

What you're missing is that in 1994 the only people who were into these things are the people who would consider this job post a challenge. Nobody went into that part of IT for money back then. People who did went to IBM, Microsoft and Oracle instead, if they wanted to work in such a nerdy field at all.