10 ms·

Consider this a job offer to work at 42Floors

180 points by jaf12duke 14y ago

bvlaar 14y ago
Congrats Dan! Regardless if you take it or not, you're on a great path. This post by Jason speaks for itself. Keep it up
deleted 14y ago
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jhuckestein 14y ago
If you're interested in the mentioned The War for Talent conference, just click the link in the article and you'll receive a speaker discount of 25%. Not sure if this was intentional ;)
jwoah12 14y ago
It's refreshing to see this sort of tactic on the end of the employer because it shows that the process really is a two-way street. The potential employee is as valuable to the company as the company is to the employee (in a good match). It would be nice to see the current hiring paradigm (company holds all the cards) evened out.
- chrislomax 14y ago
  It's not uncommon at our works when we ask a potential employee to come and work for us that they tell us they want to think it over to make sure it is what they want also. We endeavour to hire talented staff so it's only natural that they have had other offers. From our point of view we have never held the cards really. I suppose that is why you have to offer health policy's, pensions etc, to sweeten the deal.
dustingetz 14y ago
Dear 42 Floors: why exactly do you think you need rockstar software talent? Your execution is obviously phenomenal, but it's not like you need a team of <del>haskell/clojure ninjas</del> grizzled enterprise vets who know how to tackle ridiculous complexity of integrating dozens of services against ever changing requirements. edit: all i'm trying to say is there are top 90% devs, and 99% devs, and 99.9% devs... not exactly sure that 42Floors needs them. if they did need them, they wouldn't be saying things like > We can't compete with Google or Facebook on salary. We > can't compete with being a founder on equity. So the most > important thing I have left is my ability to commit to an > individual employee's personal development 99.9ers don't need you for personal development. Sounds like they're trying to get young potential while its cheap. Nothing wrong with that, but when we discuss it, we should say it like it is. by the way, I quit my 90% job to do hacker/school this summer, I intend to come out a 99er with mad functional programming chops, looking to join a team of 99.9ers so i can someday become one.
- cpher 14y ago
  I agree. The product is very valuable, and with the right execution and marketing they'll do well. But I can't figure out why companies like this--let's be honest, 80% of YC-funded companies-- need the "best and brightest." I ask this honestly...why would the best and brightest want to work for consumer-facing companies with minimal salary and the equivalent of a lottery ticket for cashing out in 4-5 years? Maybe I just don't get the SV hype--I'm from Chicago. I thought we were past the rockstar/ninja stuff. Don't you just need people who can, ya know, "deliver" and "execute your tasks efficiently." Maybe even scale your app to multiple EC2 servers. And maybe if they're really motivated, contribute to your "vision." I'll admit that my "lifestyle" business plans are basically the same-- a fairly simple B2B CRUD app that hopefully gains traction when I release it. But I would never even think of courting the kind of talent I would expect to be attracted to NASA, SpaceX, <insert green energy startup here>, etc. What am I missing?
  - vaksel 14y ago
    because it seems like half the time, companies are partially bought for the talent...so if you can get a much better developer it helps adds to the valuation. but yeah quite often it seems like these companies with thousands of developers...could be run with a 20 times smaller team
    - cpher 14y ago
      So, you're saying that people are, in effect, building lottery tickets when they create start-ups? Is no one interested in building businesses anymore?
      - Natsu 14y ago
        A team of good programmers is valuable in its own right, unlike a lottery ticket.
      - ma2rten 14y ago
        This how it works with VC funded companies, you either need to sell them or go public. The VCs need to get a return on their investment. Since there are only 1,000 companies or so going public per year, selling to another company is your best bet. And if you do that you might as well do so for the best possible price. I don't think this is bad per se.
deleted 14y ago
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nanijoe 14y ago
Crap..I did not know Dan Shipper was a real person for a minute. I thought Shipper" was a reference to a fictitious person who regularly "ships" products.
- markbao 14y ago
  Funnily enough, that's what Dan does.
  - jbenz 14y ago
    The term for this is 'aptronym'. Famous examples include former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and former MLB pitcher Jack Armstrong. Added in the just past few years: Usain Bolt and Bernie Madoff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym
    - mattmanser 14y ago
      Seriously? Let's not over-sell the guy here, he does enough of that himself. His last post was the 'hello, I know nothing at all about the real world' post. Also, look who didn't actually write wheremyfriends.be but is taking the credit for it? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245016 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245016 Yes, Mr. Dan 'I didn't actually ship it' Shipper.
      - ajaymehta 14y ago
        Hey, no need for the vitriol. Dan, Wesley and I all did wheremyfriends.be -- Wesley was the submitter of the post you linked to, and mentioned both of us in the product description. We worked together on a bunch of apps and over the summer, and Dan returned to school and continued to work on Airtime while Wesley and I just graduated from the latest YC class. As far as I know, Dan has never misrepresented his work and has extremely high integrity and character.
        quintendf 14y ago
justjimmy 14y ago
Refreshing read – the part about how employers need to actively court employees, how those top of their game are less likely to send out resumes, etc. But I feel some points are on the way to being old and cliched (like the terms 'rockstars' and 'ninjas'.) Not just from 42Floors but other recruitment post descriptions. I'm referring specifically to the perks and 'freedom' the companies promise. ie: Unlimited Holiday/Vacations days! Work on anything you want! Make your own projects! Don't sign anything. Total freedom! I never worked at any place that offered these perks (I'm not that awesome yet) but do people really take advantage of them? Isn't it kind of weird to offer those perks – what exactly are is the company hiring for then? Doesn't it come off as lack of focus if employees can do whatever they want? (Unless they're in the R&D department, or they can do whatever they want 20% of the time) It's also like the perk of having access to a game room filled with XBox's. I interviewed at a place where there was an XBox in the center of the work area – how will anyone feel comfortable playing in there, surrounded by others working away. It just feels like a gimmicky perk. Personally, a better perk would be access to a nice bathroom with a shower for those late nights when I need to refresh.
- jetti 14y ago
  Some of those perks I understand are useful and there to help the employees (such as the unlimited vacation, the catch is that typically you have to be able to finish your work on time). Others, are just clever schemes to make employees stay at work longer and be ok with it. "Doesn't it come off as lack of focus if employees can do whatever they want?" I know I spend some time hashing something out that is unrelated to my job just because it crossed my mind and it is just too awesome not to work on at the moment. The 20% policy just says, "hey it's ok to do that and why don't you show it to us so we can make even more money off your previously non-work related thoughts".
- pyoung 14y ago
  The 'Unlimited Holiday/Vacation days' particularly bugs me. In a competitive work environment, it is not uncommon for people to go for years without taking a some decent time off (I did that). If it wasn't for our 'use it or lose it' policy (we are allowed to accrue up to twice our yearly amount before we get cutoff), I would probably never go on vacation. I have a feeling that people who work at companies with the unlimited policy probably take fewer vacation days than normal folks, just because no one wants to be 'that guy' who abuses the perk. Anyone have experience with it?
zmitri 14y ago
Hiring very talented young people out of college is an easy way for companies to get lots of value for cheap. If you haven't read pg's "Hiring is Obsolete", I suggest you do because it more or less explains why someone like Dan shouldn't take this offer: http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html For someone in college this type of stunt could be quite intimidating, and mentorship is appealing, but (in general) people will be more willing to help you out when you are doing your own thing than if you are working for someone else. Also note that it does not mention that he can continue to work on his own company, which (to me) is what appears to make him happy. Why put your life on hold for someone else when you've already got so much going for you and an entrepreneurial attitude in the first place?
ajaymehta 14y ago
Dan is a brilliant young dude and a great friend who totally deserves this recognition, whether he takes this offer or -- knowing him -- continues to work on making his own projects amazing.
- pleahy 14y ago
  Well said! :)
  - byalice 14y ago
    :D
JPKab 14y ago
As a 30 year old with a wife, kid, and semi soul-sucking full time data job, this post causes me to feel both inspired and regretful. This guy would NEVER hire me, which I guess I should feel bummed about, but instead I'm just fired up. I will continue to get home, do the dad/husband thing, and then from 8:15 to 11:30, work on my projects. Wake up at 5, do it all over again. I HOPE I will one day be half as good as this Dan Shipper kid (whose posts I really like by the way, particularly his 2016 not 2012 post) I hope I can get job offers like this one day, so that I can turn them down. Not saying that a company like this isn't awesome (I'm sure it is), but if you're good enough to get hired by them, then you shouldn't be hired by anyone. You should be hiring.
- mahyarm 14y ago
  There are many startups where the average age group is young families with kids. The majority of people I work with are 30/40 somethings, and it started with 30/40 somethings and we started 2/3 years ago. You'll find those family startups more in the south bay and peninsula. SF is far more attractive to singles, and they move down to the south bay to start their families.
- jaf12duke 14y ago
  Age and having a wife and kid has zero effect on our hiring decisions. Our age range right now cover 19 to 32, with one married, and one engaged.
  - angelbob 14y ago
    You're up in SF, alas. I need to start building a good list of awesome companies who are in the South Bay and Peninsula, just because I can't be the only one looking. Not that the City isn't nice. It's just a long commute from Fremont.
  - DanBC 14y ago
    32 year olds were born in the same year Madonna made her debut. The commodore 64 was introduced. The Falklands / Malvinas were invaded / reclaimed. Lawn Chair Larry flew his ballon-chair. Ozzy Osborne bit the head off a bat. John Belushi died. CDs started mass production. That's your upper age? I feel so old right now.
droithomme 14y ago
Smart guys, this is the way to do recruitment.
tatsuke95 14y ago
>"You're only a sophomore in college, but you've already started several companies." Pray tell, how are those companies doing? What are their financials? How many people are in their employ? Oh, right, I forgot. A "business" in the Valley involves none of the things that it does anywhere else in the world.
- Aqua_Geek 14y ago
  To me, the difference lies in starting a "company" vs starting a "business." For the former, you need do little more than fill out some paperwork.
- sskates 14y ago
  I don't know why you feel the need to hate on his success because he doesn't have any employees. It's as if whatever he built counts for nothing. Whatever you did while you were a sophomore in college it probably wasn't anything close to what Dan has achieved. From his blog: "a little app I built in a few days to review websites that's grossed a few thousand dollars to date" and "I programmed and sold apps for BlackBerry and iPhone including the first BlackBerry anti-theft program called FindIt". So yeah, he's made money. I know I was still finding my way in college at that point, cruising by in my classes without much to show for it.
  - tatsuke95 14y ago
    I'm not knocking the guy's talents. I'm knocking what is considered "a few companies".
    - mkramlich 14y ago
      I have nothing ill to think of Mr. Shipman either, he's probably both a nice guy and a smart guy. But I do agree with you that there's a recent trend going on over the last year or so with people (especially younger people, and especially web programmers) who create a few different small websites and then present themselves as having started/built/run/sold businesses. Lots of CEOs of, well, simple Rails apps. "I'm the CEO of a WordPress blog!" There are things we can say which can be strictly true, but which waters down and muddles the meaning and importance of what the words originally meant. Which makes it hard to separate signal from noise. Which is bad.
stiller 14y ago
It's a nice social hack: Appeal to everyone's need to be recognized. But they don't offer anything unique: The ability to work on cool projects, on open source projects, to be able to pursue one's interests. All this can be had at one of the big players. Interestingly and rather unsurprisingly, the do not appeal to his entrepreneurial spirit: "Help us create the business that we can't create without you and share with us the value which you add". That would be the really daring approach: A public offering of co-foundership.
Porter_423 14y ago
We need more like-minded individuals like Jason Freedman, people who see a new paradigm of social interaction with socially connected people. I am fantastic with customers/clients/guests and the like, I never bring problems to work as I start every day as a new beginning. But when it comes to interviewing, I have a hard time plugging in keywords that an interviewee while in a closed eerily quiet office. We all need ambience, lets have an interview over lunch with an optional beer. Hell I'll pay for it. It would be a supreme first impression for both employer and employee, as you would learn a little about how each others' mindset works...OK I'm done.
bloat 14y ago
It's nice of you to put your recruitment email at the bottom of the post, but the only message I'm getting from this post is that you needn't bother applying until you're already a startup founder, or have written several books, or have a million downloaded app, or whatever the qualification is these days. Is that really the message you want to send? "Hey, Almost Everybody! We're not interested in you!" All the programmers who go to work everyday, do a damn good job, but don't follow it up with a daily blog post, or a screencast, or a brand new Haskell library. Are we not worth considering?
- chastened 14y ago
  Ah, let the kids have their fun playing 'Company' with their Daddy's money. Stick with doing productive work, society needs you, and those of us who know what you do day in day out to keep the machines running, we thank you.
- will_work4tears 14y ago
  Seems to me mediocre or even merely competent is the new terrible.
  - bloat 14y ago
    Yes, and I'm not evening talking about mediocrity. I'm talking about excellent developers - people like me who've spent ten to twenty years developing high performance, high reliability apps that run in very demanding environments. These people would bring masses of skill and experience. Despite the OP's comment above this sort of hiring prioritises younger people who have time to do all the extra-curriculars, not the older developers with families and all sorts of other commitments.
benologist 14y ago
I really don't get why startups completely repurpose their blog for HN. What's 42floors supposed to be exactly, randomstartupblog.com that secretly rents office space?
Suncho 14y ago
Dear 42 Floors: People are probably more likely to take your job offers seriously once you figure out that "awhile" is an adverb, "a while" is a noun and there's no context in which "for awhile" is grammatically correct.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- marcamillion 14y ago
  There is always that douchebag that tries to completely subvert the spirit of the effort for some trivial technicality that doesn't matter eh.
starrhorne 14y ago
The site hasn't really changed in the month since launch. It's hard to believe that's possible with 2 devs + a designer on-board. (I'm personally involved in this space, so I've been keeping an eye on the site, and have a good idea of what can be shipped in a month) It looks suspiciously like they burned through a lot of money developing the initial site and now are looking for a cheap way to continue development. Going after someone still in college is one way to do that I guess. Anyway, maybe I'm wrong, and they're working on some new super-secret v2 that will blow everything out of the water.
- jaf12duke 14y ago
  Yep. You're wrong. We'll prove it in the next week.
  - starrhorne 14y ago
    Nice affiliate site. I'd bet commission junction has some relevant offers you could promote.
wavephorm 14y ago
We can't compete with being a founder on equity. Why not? If you need quality developers OFFER THEM FUCKING EQUITY!! They'll listen, trust me. Offer them 0.07% equity and the most talented developers out there will brush you off and joke about you while downing beers with their friends on the weekends.
- donw 14y ago
  Say that Dan were to sign up tomorrow. Right now, 42Floors has a five-person team. While I'm not entire sure about the company structure, it looks like Jason and Alex are the cofounders. Let's assume a pretty optimal funding scenario: YC took 6%, and the next 400k cost them 9%. Figure the employee stock pool is somewhere around 5%, leaving 80% to split between the two cofounders. Dan may be awesome, but I don't really see a spare 10% or 20% in there for an employee. Dan may be awesome and talented, but you don't bring in people post-funding at that kind of equity stake, unless they've got some insane track record (and rolodex) that justifies it, and even then, getting the board to greenlight things would be a tough sell. There's only so much room in the CAP table to hand out equity to employees. What they can offer, and what is a big deal, is giving Dan the freedom to maximize his own potential, and to get paid for it. That's not a small offer, and even with the small mountain of opportunity I have on the table right now, I would think very deeply about working at 42Floors if they approached me like this. It's classy, and honest. I like that.
  - mbesto 14y ago
    Dan may be awesome, but I don't really see a spare 10% or 20% in there for an employee. But if "Dan" (insert any developer here) gets them to their overall goal (exit?) than why shouldn't he get a piece of the pie.
    - donw 14y ago
      A piece, certainly, but employee-sized pieces top out around 2%.
      - 14y ago
pinchyfingers 14y ago
OT: If my name were Jason Freedman, I couldn't bring myself to name a company "42Floors", since a guy name Jason Fried has already made "37signals" a household name.
- AVTizzle 14y ago
  Heh. There's a lot of excellent discussion in all these comments, but when i read the post, I couldn't escape this point.
gadders 14y ago
This kind of reminds of those big, public marriage proposals that people make at Sports games. If the answer's a no, it could be... awkward.
egypturnash 14y ago
Am I the only person who feels really embarrassed for everyone involved? This is not the kind of thing that should be done in public. If you want to court someone then get in touch with them and make some real offers. If they say "no" even after you've made a couple bigger offers then respect that, and move on with your life.
- alaithea 14y ago
  No, you're not the only one. It brings to mind an awkward, overly public marriage proposal. Not something I'd want to be on the receiving end of. And if the other party turns them down, the rejection is just that much more awkward.
robatsu 14y ago
I've worked at places that "only hired the best" and such. I think this kind of mantra coming from employers is as much self promotion as it is a statement of policy. As in, our stuff must be wonderful, we only hire the best. But really, having a plan that requires that everyone be an Einstein is somewhat limited - a more robust organization is one that can accommodate & make maximum use of what skills an individual has. Obviously this has its limits, but making a condition of success that everyone has to be a potential Nobel Prize winning renaissance man is a bit limiting as well. One alternative to this is the strategy explained by Lieutenant Keefer in the "The Caine Mutiny": "The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots" If you can set something like that up, you are golden, the supply of idiots being much more plentiful and cheap than geniuses.
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  This is exactly it. The initial work in designing your processes should be difficult and require rare skills. Executing those processes should be relatively boring and easy.
ryguytilidie 14y ago
Recruiter here. The first thing I think when I read this is "my god this seems like a great place for people who are really junior. What on earth does some super senior engineer want as far as "personal development" goes when you clearly think they are at the top of the field?" I really wish more Silicon Valley companies were willing to take a risk on some fresh young talent instead of everyone contacting the same 200 rockstars 258020823 times. Be creative. I see no reason this person would join the company from that letter.
ScotterC 14y ago
I had the pleasure of employing Dan as an intern last summer. He's absolutely top notch and I wish there was some way I could have kept him.
tlogan 14y ago
Let me translate this: We can't compete with Google or Facebook on salary. -> We cannot raise money enough of capital from smart people with money but we think you are stupid to join us (otherwise you will be one of "smart people with money"). We can't compete with being a founder on equity -> We want to be rich ... that is pretty much the only reason why we are doing this. So the most important thing I have left is my ability to commit to an individual employee's personal development -> You will work min 70 hours a week.
gcb 14y ago
Wouldn't be too impressed by a job offer that can't offer a good pay or equity... I mean, their target is already pumping out his ideas as companies as far as i can incur from the post... what exactly is in it for him besides ego stroking?

180 points by jaf12duke 14y ago

Congrats Dan! Regardless if you take it or not, you're on a great path. This post by Jason speaks for itself. Keep it up

deleted 14y ago

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jhuckestein 14y ago

If you're interested in the mentioned The War for Talent conference, just click the link in the article and you'll receive a speaker discount of 25%. Not sure if this was intentional ;)

jwoah12 14y ago

It's refreshing to see this sort of tactic on the end of the employer because it shows that the process really is a two-way street. The potential employee is as valuable to the company as the company is to the employee (in a good match). It would be nice to see the current hiring paradigm (company holds all the cards) evened out.

chrislomax 14y ago
It's not uncommon at our works when we ask a potential employee to come and work for us that they tell us they want to think it over to make sure it is what they want also. We endeavour to hire talented staff so it's only natural that they have had other offers. From our point of view we have never held the cards really. I suppose that is why you have to offer health policy's, pensions etc, to sweeten the deal.

dustingetz 14y ago

Dear 42 Floors: why exactly do you think you need rockstar software talent? Your execution is obviously phenomenal, but it's not like you need a team of <del>haskell/clojure ninjas</del> grizzled enterprise vets who know how to tackle ridiculous complexity of integrating dozens of services against ever changing requirements. edit: all i'm trying to say is there are top 90% devs, and 99% devs, and 99.9% devs... not exactly sure that 42Floors needs them. if they did need them, they wouldn't be saying things like > We can't compete with Google or Facebook on salary. We > can't compete with being a founder on equity. So the most > important thing I have left is my ability to commit to an > individual employee's personal development 99.9ers don't need you for personal development. Sounds like they're trying to get young potential while its cheap. Nothing wrong with that, but when we discuss it, we should say it like it is. by the way, I quit my 90% job to do hacker/school this summer, I intend to come out a 99er with mad functional programming chops, looking to join a team of 99.9ers so i can someday become one.

cpher 14y ago
I agree. The product is very valuable, and with the right execution and marketing they'll do well. But I can't figure out why companies like this--let's be honest, 80% of YC-funded companies-- need the "best and brightest." I ask this honestly...why would the best and brightest want to work for consumer-facing companies with minimal salary and the equivalent of a lottery ticket for cashing out in 4-5 years? Maybe I just don't get the SV hype--I'm from Chicago. I thought we were past the rockstar/ninja stuff. Don't you just need people who can, ya know, "deliver" and "execute your tasks efficiently." Maybe even scale your app to multiple EC2 servers. And maybe if they're really motivated, contribute to your "vision." I'll admit that my "lifestyle" business plans are basically the same-- a fairly simple B2B CRUD app that hopefully gains traction when I release it. But I would never even think of courting the kind of talent I would expect to be attracted to NASA, SpaceX, <insert green energy startup here>, etc. What am I missing?
- vaksel 14y ago
  because it seems like half the time, companies are partially bought for the talent...so if you can get a much better developer it helps adds to the valuation. but yeah quite often it seems like these companies with thousands of developers...could be run with a 20 times smaller team
  - cpher 14y ago
    So, you're saying that people are, in effect, building lottery tickets when they create start-ups? Is no one interested in building businesses anymore?
    - Natsu 14y ago
      A team of good programmers is valuable in its own right, unlike a lottery ticket.
    - ma2rten 14y ago
      This how it works with VC funded companies, you either need to sell them or go public. The VCs need to get a return on their investment. Since there are only 1,000 companies or so going public per year, selling to another company is your best bet. And if you do that you might as well do so for the best possible price. I don't think this is bad per se.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

nanijoe 14y ago

Crap..I did not know Dan Shipper was a real person for a minute. I thought Shipper" was a reference to a fictitious person who regularly "ships" products.

markbao 14y ago
Funnily enough, that's what Dan does.
- jbenz 14y ago
  The term for this is 'aptronym'. Famous examples include former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and former MLB pitcher Jack Armstrong. Added in the just past few years: Usain Bolt and Bernie Madoff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym
  - mattmanser 14y ago
    Seriously? Let's not over-sell the guy here, he does enough of that himself. His last post was the 'hello, I know nothing at all about the real world' post. Also, look who didn't actually write wheremyfriends.be but is taking the credit for it? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245016 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2245016 Yes, Mr. Dan 'I didn't actually ship it' Shipper.
    - ajaymehta 14y ago
      Hey, no need for the vitriol. Dan, Wesley and I all did wheremyfriends.be -- Wesley was the submitter of the post you linked to, and mentioned both of us in the product description. We worked together on a bunch of apps and over the summer, and Dan returned to school and continued to work on Airtime while Wesley and I just graduated from the latest YC class. As far as I know, Dan has never misrepresented his work and has extremely high integrity and character.
      - quintendf 14y ago

justjimmy 14y ago

Refreshing read – the part about how employers need to actively court employees, how those top of their game are less likely to send out resumes, etc. But I feel some points are on the way to being old and cliched (like the terms 'rockstars' and 'ninjas'.) Not just from 42Floors but other recruitment post descriptions. I'm referring specifically to the perks and 'freedom' the companies promise. ie: Unlimited Holiday/Vacations days! Work on anything you want! Make your own projects! Don't sign anything. Total freedom! I never worked at any place that offered these perks (I'm not that awesome yet) but do people really take advantage of them? Isn't it kind of weird to offer those perks – what exactly are is the company hiring for then? Doesn't it come off as lack of focus if employees can do whatever they want? (Unless they're in the R&D department, or they can do whatever they want 20% of the time) It's also like the perk of having access to a game room filled with XBox's. I interviewed at a place where there was an XBox in the center of the work area – how will anyone feel comfortable playing in there, surrounded by others working away. It just feels like a gimmicky perk. Personally, a better perk would be access to a nice bathroom with a shower for those late nights when I need to refresh.

jetti 14y ago
Some of those perks I understand are useful and there to help the employees (such as the unlimited vacation, the catch is that typically you have to be able to finish your work on time). Others, are just clever schemes to make employees stay at work longer and be ok with it. "Doesn't it come off as lack of focus if employees can do whatever they want?" I know I spend some time hashing something out that is unrelated to my job just because it crossed my mind and it is just too awesome not to work on at the moment. The 20% policy just says, "hey it's ok to do that and why don't you show it to us so we can make even more money off your previously non-work related thoughts".
pyoung 14y ago
The 'Unlimited Holiday/Vacation days' particularly bugs me. In a competitive work environment, it is not uncommon for people to go for years without taking a some decent time off (I did that). If it wasn't for our 'use it or lose it' policy (we are allowed to accrue up to twice our yearly amount before we get cutoff), I would probably never go on vacation. I have a feeling that people who work at companies with the unlimited policy probably take fewer vacation days than normal folks, just because no one wants to be 'that guy' who abuses the perk. Anyone have experience with it?

zmitri 14y ago

Hiring very talented young people out of college is an easy way for companies to get lots of value for cheap. If you haven't read pg's "Hiring is Obsolete", I suggest you do because it more or less explains why someone like Dan shouldn't take this offer: http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html For someone in college this type of stunt could be quite intimidating, and mentorship is appealing, but (in general) people will be more willing to help you out when you are doing your own thing than if you are working for someone else. Also note that it does not mention that he can continue to work on his own company, which (to me) is what appears to make him happy. Why put your life on hold for someone else when you've already got so much going for you and an entrepreneurial attitude in the first place?

ajaymehta 14y ago

Dan is a brilliant young dude and a great friend who totally deserves this recognition, whether he takes this offer or -- knowing him -- continues to work on making his own projects amazing.

pleahy 14y ago
Well said! :)
- byalice 14y ago
  :D

JPKab 14y ago

As a 30 year old with a wife, kid, and semi soul-sucking full time data job, this post causes me to feel both inspired and regretful. This guy would NEVER hire me, which I guess I should feel bummed about, but instead I'm just fired up. I will continue to get home, do the dad/husband thing, and then from 8:15 to 11:30, work on my projects. Wake up at 5, do it all over again. I HOPE I will one day be half as good as this Dan Shipper kid (whose posts I really like by the way, particularly his 2016 not 2012 post) I hope I can get job offers like this one day, so that I can turn them down. Not saying that a company like this isn't awesome (I'm sure it is), but if you're good enough to get hired by them, then you shouldn't be hired by anyone. You should be hiring.

mahyarm 14y ago
There are many startups where the average age group is young families with kids. The majority of people I work with are 30/40 somethings, and it started with 30/40 somethings and we started 2/3 years ago. You'll find those family startups more in the south bay and peninsula. SF is far more attractive to singles, and they move down to the south bay to start their families.
jaf12duke 14y ago
Age and having a wife and kid has zero effect on our hiring decisions. Our age range right now cover 19 to 32, with one married, and one engaged.
- angelbob 14y ago
  You're up in SF, alas. I need to start building a good list of awesome companies who are in the South Bay and Peninsula, just because I can't be the only one looking. Not that the City isn't nice. It's just a long commute from Fremont.
- DanBC 14y ago
  32 year olds were born in the same year Madonna made her debut. The commodore 64 was introduced. The Falklands / Malvinas were invaded / reclaimed. Lawn Chair Larry flew his ballon-chair. Ozzy Osborne bit the head off a bat. John Belushi died. CDs started mass production. That's your upper age? I feel so old right now.

droithomme 14y ago

Smart guys, this is the way to do recruitment.

tatsuke95 14y ago

>"You're only a sophomore in college, but you've already started several companies." Pray tell, how are those companies doing? What are their financials? How many people are in their employ? Oh, right, I forgot. A "business" in the Valley involves none of the things that it does anywhere else in the world.

Aqua_Geek 14y ago
To me, the difference lies in starting a "company" vs starting a "business." For the former, you need do little more than fill out some paperwork.
sskates 14y ago
I don't know why you feel the need to hate on his success because he doesn't have any employees. It's as if whatever he built counts for nothing. Whatever you did while you were a sophomore in college it probably wasn't anything close to what Dan has achieved. From his blog: "a little app I built in a few days to review websites that's grossed a few thousand dollars to date" and "I programmed and sold apps for BlackBerry and iPhone including the first BlackBerry anti-theft program called FindIt". So yeah, he's made money. I know I was still finding my way in college at that point, cruising by in my classes without much to show for it.
- tatsuke95 14y ago
  I'm not knocking the guy's talents. I'm knocking what is considered "a few companies".
  - mkramlich 14y ago
    I have nothing ill to think of Mr. Shipman either, he's probably both a nice guy and a smart guy. But I do agree with you that there's a recent trend going on over the last year or so with people (especially younger people, and especially web programmers) who create a few different small websites and then present themselves as having started/built/run/sold businesses. Lots of CEOs of, well, simple Rails apps. "I'm the CEO of a WordPress blog!" There are things we can say which can be strictly true, but which waters down and muddles the meaning and importance of what the words originally meant. Which makes it hard to separate signal from noise. Which is bad.

stiller 14y ago

It's a nice social hack: Appeal to everyone's need to be recognized. But they don't offer anything unique: The ability to work on cool projects, on open source projects, to be able to pursue one's interests. All this can be had at one of the big players. Interestingly and rather unsurprisingly, the do not appeal to his entrepreneurial spirit: "Help us create the business that we can't create without you and share with us the value which you add". That would be the really daring approach: A public offering of co-foundership.

Porter_423 14y ago

We need more like-minded individuals like Jason Freedman, people who see a new paradigm of social interaction with socially connected people. I am fantastic with customers/clients/guests and the like, I never bring problems to work as I start every day as a new beginning. But when it comes to interviewing, I have a hard time plugging in keywords that an interviewee while in a closed eerily quiet office. We all need ambience, lets have an interview over lunch with an optional beer. Hell I'll pay for it. It would be a supreme first impression for both employer and employee, as you would learn a little about how each others' mindset works...OK I'm done.

bloat 14y ago

It's nice of you to put your recruitment email at the bottom of the post, but the only message I'm getting from this post is that you needn't bother applying until you're already a startup founder, or have written several books, or have a million downloaded app, or whatever the qualification is these days. Is that really the message you want to send? "Hey, Almost Everybody! We're not interested in you!" All the programmers who go to work everyday, do a damn good job, but don't follow it up with a daily blog post, or a screencast, or a brand new Haskell library. Are we not worth considering?

chastened 14y ago
Ah, let the kids have their fun playing 'Company' with their Daddy's money. Stick with doing productive work, society needs you, and those of us who know what you do day in day out to keep the machines running, we thank you.
will_work4tears 14y ago
Seems to me mediocre or even merely competent is the new terrible.
- bloat 14y ago
  Yes, and I'm not evening talking about mediocrity. I'm talking about excellent developers - people like me who've spent ten to twenty years developing high performance, high reliability apps that run in very demanding environments. These people would bring masses of skill and experience. Despite the OP's comment above this sort of hiring prioritises younger people who have time to do all the extra-curriculars, not the older developers with families and all sorts of other commitments.

benologist 14y ago

I really don't get why startups completely repurpose their blog for HN. What's 42floors supposed to be exactly, randomstartupblog.com that secretly rents office space?

Suncho 14y ago

Dear 42 Floors: People are probably more likely to take your job offers seriously once you figure out that "awhile" is an adverb, "a while" is a noun and there's no context in which "for awhile" is grammatically correct.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
marcamillion 14y ago
There is always that douchebag that tries to completely subvert the spirit of the effort for some trivial technicality that doesn't matter eh.

starrhorne 14y ago

The site hasn't really changed in the month since launch. It's hard to believe that's possible with 2 devs + a designer on-board. (I'm personally involved in this space, so I've been keeping an eye on the site, and have a good idea of what can be shipped in a month) It looks suspiciously like they burned through a lot of money developing the initial site and now are looking for a cheap way to continue development. Going after someone still in college is one way to do that I guess. Anyway, maybe I'm wrong, and they're working on some new super-secret v2 that will blow everything out of the water.

jaf12duke 14y ago
Yep. You're wrong. We'll prove it in the next week.
- starrhorne 14y ago
  Nice affiliate site. I'd bet commission junction has some relevant offers you could promote.

wavephorm 14y ago

We can't compete with being a founder on equity. Why not? If you need quality developers OFFER THEM FUCKING EQUITY!! They'll listen, trust me. Offer them 0.07% equity and the most talented developers out there will brush you off and joke about you while downing beers with their friends on the weekends.

donw 14y ago
Say that Dan were to sign up tomorrow. Right now, 42Floors has a five-person team. While I'm not entire sure about the company structure, it looks like Jason and Alex are the cofounders. Let's assume a pretty optimal funding scenario: YC took 6%, and the next 400k cost them 9%. Figure the employee stock pool is somewhere around 5%, leaving 80% to split between the two cofounders. Dan may be awesome, but I don't really see a spare 10% or 20% in there for an employee. Dan may be awesome and talented, but you don't bring in people post-funding at that kind of equity stake, unless they've got some insane track record (and rolodex) that justifies it, and even then, getting the board to greenlight things would be a tough sell. There's only so much room in the CAP table to hand out equity to employees. What they can offer, and what is a big deal, is giving Dan the freedom to maximize his own potential, and to get paid for it. That's not a small offer, and even with the small mountain of opportunity I have on the table right now, I would think very deeply about working at 42Floors if they approached me like this. It's classy, and honest. I like that.
- mbesto 14y ago
  Dan may be awesome, but I don't really see a spare 10% or 20% in there for an employee. But if "Dan" (insert any developer here) gets them to their overall goal (exit?) than why shouldn't he get a piece of the pie.
  - donw 14y ago
    A piece, certainly, but employee-sized pieces top out around 2%.
    - 14y ago

pinchyfingers 14y ago

OT: If my name were Jason Freedman, I couldn't bring myself to name a company "42Floors", since a guy name Jason Fried has already made "37signals" a household name.

AVTizzle 14y ago
Heh. There's a lot of excellent discussion in all these comments, but when i read the post, I couldn't escape this point.

gadders 14y ago

This kind of reminds of those big, public marriage proposals that people make at Sports games. If the answer's a no, it could be... awkward.

egypturnash 14y ago

Am I the only person who feels really embarrassed for everyone involved? This is not the kind of thing that should be done in public. If you want to court someone then get in touch with them and make some real offers. If they say "no" even after you've made a couple bigger offers then respect that, and move on with your life.

alaithea 14y ago
No, you're not the only one. It brings to mind an awkward, overly public marriage proposal. Not something I'd want to be on the receiving end of. And if the other party turns them down, the rejection is just that much more awkward.

robatsu 14y ago

I've worked at places that "only hired the best" and such. I think this kind of mantra coming from employers is as much self promotion as it is a statement of policy. As in, our stuff must be wonderful, we only hire the best. But really, having a plan that requires that everyone be an Einstein is somewhat limited - a more robust organization is one that can accommodate & make maximum use of what skills an individual has. Obviously this has its limits, but making a condition of success that everyone has to be a potential Nobel Prize winning renaissance man is a bit limiting as well. One alternative to this is the strategy explained by Lieutenant Keefer in the "The Caine Mutiny": "The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots" If you can set something like that up, you are golden, the supply of idiots being much more plentiful and cheap than geniuses.

SatvikBeri 14y ago
This is exactly it. The initial work in designing your processes should be difficult and require rare skills. Executing those processes should be relatively boring and easy.

ryguytilidie 14y ago

Recruiter here. The first thing I think when I read this is "my god this seems like a great place for people who are really junior. What on earth does some super senior engineer want as far as "personal development" goes when you clearly think they are at the top of the field?" I really wish more Silicon Valley companies were willing to take a risk on some fresh young talent instead of everyone contacting the same 200 rockstars 258020823 times. Be creative. I see no reason this person would join the company from that letter.

ScotterC 14y ago

I had the pleasure of employing Dan as an intern last summer. He's absolutely top notch and I wish there was some way I could have kept him.

tlogan 14y ago

Let me translate this: We can't compete with Google or Facebook on salary. -> We cannot raise money enough of capital from smart people with money but we think you are stupid to join us (otherwise you will be one of "smart people with money"). We can't compete with being a founder on equity -> We want to be rich ... that is pretty much the only reason why we are doing this. So the most important thing I have left is my ability to commit to an individual employee's personal development -> You will work min 70 hours a week.

gcb 14y ago

Wouldn't be too impressed by a job offer that can't offer a good pay or equity... I mean, their target is already pumping out his ideas as companies as far as i can incur from the post... what exactly is in it for him besides ego stroking?