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Avi Bryant Joins Etsy
- untog 15y agoIMO the really big news here is where he'll be working for Etsy- which is to say remotely, on an island in British Columbia. A stunningly beautiful part of the world, and a really interesting outlook on working in the 21st century- a startup hub this is not. Everyone should read the end of his post where he discusses his reasons and plans for Galiano Island. I'll be interested to see how working remotely like this works out for both him and Etsy, because I wouldn't mind spending a little more time in the Gulf Islands myself one day...
- liyanchang 15y agoAgreed. As a soon to be college grad in CS, I've resigned myself to the spiky world theory and the fact that I'm going to spend the rest of my life in the tech hubs of SF, NYC, and maybe Boston. It's good to see someone is able to hack from an island.
- plinkplonk 15y ago"like Etsy sellers, who are empowered by the internet to run their businesses from anywhere, I’ll be working remotely, with only occasional trips to Etsy’s New York office. Not only that, but the default assumption for those on my team is that they, too, will be working from anywhere in the world." The bad news is that this attitude isn't very common yet among employers. The good news is that it is getting better all the time. I live in far away (wrt SF) Bangalore and just turned down a remote job offer from a great startup in SF. (nothing wrong with the job, I just didn't have the time).
- untog 15y agoI think it'll come with time. Startups are disproportionately staffed by young people who actively seek living in city hubs- I know I'm one of them. But as that population ages, priorities will change (having a family, etc.)- I'd like to believe that the industry can shape itself around the wishes of those who create it. We'll see.
- foolinator 15y agoEtsy has always had remote working coders and they've always been aggressive about hiring talent. Their CEO is a genius at doing this, which is a great trait for a tech leader.
- kelvie 15y agoI've been to Galiano a few times, and from what the locals tell me, the internet connections there are pretty crappy. It's fine at the resort inn next to the ferry terminal, though.
- dfischer 15y agoAt Hybridgroup (http://www.hybridgroup.com http://www.hybridgroup.com) we cater to that exact working environment where anyone can work from anywhere (For the most part. Timezone seems to be an issue so we stick to the Americas/Can for now +3/-3. You still have to treat it like an office.). It's a new age. The workplace of the future is everywhere.
- talentdeficit 15y agoGaliano isn't that remote. It's less than an hour from Vancouver International Airport by floatplane, or a couple hours from downtown Vancouver by the (2+ times daily) ferry. It is beautiful though, and I envy him. I have a place on Salt Spring Island (right next to Galiano) and I don't spend nearly enough time there
- untog 15y agoBy my standards, that's pretty remote. I used to live in Victoria and even that was cut off enough at times.
- mrgreenfur 15y agoExcuse my ignorance, but who is this and why is it interesting that he's working for Etsy?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- edragoev 15y agoAvi Bryant is the original creator of Seaside - an acclaimed Smalltalk Web framework. He was active in the Ruby community. The company he co-founded was acquired by Twitter. Then he worked in Tumblr ... So in a nutshell he is well known in the startup world. Or at least this is my impression.. .
- sebphfx 15y agoHe's the original co-founder of Seaside, the Smalltalk framework. He then went to work on a startup called DabbleDB and at Twitter. He's like the Steve Albini of the tech world. Really brilliant guy. He also gave a talk that was called "Rails is obsolete(so's everything else)" in 2010 I think.Check out his talks here: http://blog.redtexture.net/2010/10/30/avi-bryants-presentations/#Avi%20Bryant%27s%20Presentations http://blog.redtexture.net/2010/10/30/avi-bryants-presentati...
- michaelochurch 15y agoMy interaction with him is limited, but he's really sharp and a very nice guy in my experience. He's responsible, at least in some part if not mainly, for Twitter's adoption of Scala.
- srconstantin 15y agoEtsy is a form of "micro-work" but it's never been particularly good financially for people who sell stuff on Etsy. I wonder what they can do for connecting sellers to each other to pool supply costs and identify each seller's likely consumers.
- foolinator 15y agoBarely any sellers are profitable on etsy. They're all housewives or hipsters that sell at amazingly low profit margins. It's a steal if you want to buy handmade stuff though.
- srconstantin 15y agoI know! I love it as a place to shop, would never try to make money as a seller. But if they wanted to change that, they could -- run calculations for sellers as to how much they should charge to be profitable, all the stuff that the average seller wouldn't think about.
- foolinator 15y agoWhen you have a marketplace of 600K sellers, the competition is fierce. Etsy tries hard to make them profitable by offering classes online and attempts to lower costs of supplies. I hope they can find a way to pool the cost of materials to bring low cost overhead to sellers. That would make the industry explode.
- carmen 15y agoaliexpress,taobao,ebay,amazon-stores,paypal button,bitcoin,square in a busy location. lots of competition on the ad-hoc sale tip. tightly coupling this with a particular kind of item is not my cup of tea either
- smackfu 15y agoOTOH, you can easily be buying someone's first project, that would traditionally have been a total loss for them.
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- typicalrunt 15y agoMy congrats to Avi. I still remember working with him at UBC's IT department. He's an amazingly bright guy.
- yawn 15y ago"Not only that, but the default assumption for those on my team is that they, too, will be working from anywhere in the world." I'm curious if this team has already been formed or if he will be looking for developers. This sounds like an amazing opportunity.
- avibryant 15y agoIt has not been. I'm not starting myself until mid-June, and I do expect to be doing a bunch of hiring.
- rbxbx 15y agodo keep us in the loop :)
- whatamImissing 15y agoAvibryant: Etsy is great, but with the reasoning, why not Kiva?
- avibryant 15y agoKiva probably would have been worth a mention in my post, yes. Etsy is where I could see an obvious way for me to have an impact, and so could they.
- 100k 15y agoI appreciated reading about Avi's thought process in deciding what he wanted to do next. I'm in a similar place (minus the successful exit) and it's hard to figure out what is _worth_ working on. I'm contracting now, and it pays well and gives a lot of freedom to travel and just generally not work, but the projects are not exactly world-improving.
- fraserharris 15y agoThere is an opportunity for a service that handles the legal implications of remote workers. Some states have ruled that remote contract workers constitute a business presence. The implication is that they now have to collect & remit state taxes for online purchases. The service would legally employee the remote worker, setting them up as a contract worker, and handle the various state law quirks.
- jimm 15y agoI wonder how much of Etsy's enlightened attitude is because CEO Chad Dickerson was until recently the CTO.
- lukego 15y agoGreat writeup, Avi. Good luck with the new adventure, and thanks for telling me "you should start a company.." the last time we met, it was good advice to take :-)
- lucian1900 15y agoI think it would be interesting indeed to see small distributed shops like what Etsy has approach the efficiency of Amazon. I'm certain it's not possible to quite match it because of inherent limitations, but I'm very curious about what can be done.