4 ms·

The Poaching of a Talented Intern

28 points by argumentum 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
hnwh 14y ago
Patrick's version sounds less rosy
- epoxyhockey 14y ago
  Yes, I feel like Patrick's version of the story should have been linked: http://startupquant.blogspot.com/2012/10/snapbite-or-how-one-becomes-adult.html http://startupquant.blogspot.com/2012/10/snapbite-or-how-one... Reading the currently linked story implies that everything was rosy after accepting the internship. But after reading his own account of being laid-off shortly after taking the position, I would think that a humble founder would be slightly embarrassed that they just recruited someone and had to lay them off just days later. Why even publish this email chain?
  - argumentum 14y ago
    It is linked.. it is in the first paragraph of the article.
pwingo 14y ago
Hello HN! I'm Patrick from this thread. I agreed to having this thread published because I thought it might do good for interns out there. Not everyone works for very established tech companies, and there's inherently more risk in that. However, there's a lot of potential to learn from the experience as well. Some things that I hope people take away form this thread: - The dream is out there, but don't let anyone sell it to you easily. Do the research, check your facts, and be aware. However, people in Silicon Valley are generally good people, and they remember and understand what it is like to be young and not know what to do. I always will. - Do what you think is the right thing: I would never have left my prior engagement if my would-be boss had not okayed it (we had a very long conversation at the time). This is a small world, and your word holds a lot of weight. It's probably best not to throw your word around when you can't keep your promises. - Take a risk, once you feel you're ready for it. By venturing into the unknown, a lot could have happened to me, but I felt prepared to take on any challenges. I am under the impression that not taking a conscious, calculated risk (with positive expected value) is the biggest risk of all Cheers, Patrick
- 46Bit 14y ago
  As someone who interned at a YC S12 this summer, this is spot on. Patrick's summed it up, really: you can find an awesome company where you finish up not believing how much you learnt in 3 months. I did! Just think carefully about what you're getting yourself into. I flew across from the UK for it, having never been West of Yellowstone, and by god did it pay off.
- otakucode 14y ago
  After reading your take on the matter, I've got to say it sounds like on the whole you had a great experience. Being able to tolerate uncertainty like you did is something a lot of people simply cannot do, and they get in the habit of avoiding it early on. It's what keep a lot of people in jobs where they are seriously underappreciated. Also, on an entirely unrelated-to-the-industry note, young people rarely get the chance to meet and get to know (much less live with!) people significantly different from themselves. It's a very rewarding experience, and I'd expect you'll see benefits of it for decades to come. Many people today come out of college without ever having dealt on a personal basis with anyone but their peer group and a few dozen adults who were all in positions of authority over them. That's not very conducive to understanding the commonalities and compatibilities amongst all people.
- tzs 14y ago
  > I would never have left my prior engagement if my would-be boss had not okayed it (we had a very long conversation at the time). Once you broached the subject, did he really have any choice? At that point, he has to question whether your heart would be in it if you came to work for him, and whether you might bring down the rest of the team. At this point, you are likely getting the OK regardless of whether it is just a minor inconvenience to him or a major blow.
  - pwingo 14y ago
    I think it depends on the way you broach the subject. I made sure that he knew my heart would be in whatever job I was doing, and that I would be perfectly happy to remain in New York. But, you make a valid point. The discussion itself makes it very hard to say "no." I made serious errors in my judgement of the situation, and I wanted this post to inform people about those errors so that they don't make them as well. I hope people (including myself) can learn both from what I did right and what I did wrong.
nedwin 14y ago
Just so I'm clear this is what I understand of the situation: You convinced a guy to reneg on a contract he had signed to join your company. You convinced him by telling him what a great opportunity your company could offer him. A few days later you let him go because you couldn't sustain him with work. Am I missing something?
- argumentum 14y ago
  No, nothing missing. Except that the knowledge that we couldn't sustain his work was not available when we made the offer. That is life. That is risk. That is startups. If you want to do something great, risk is a necessary condition, because everything ordinary could be done by just hard work and no risk..
otakucode 14y ago
I've never worked for a startup, or even interned for that matter, so I'm a bit curious. I know it's illegal to have an unpaid intern work on anything that actually has value to the business. Wouldn't that be difficult for a startup? Is this law just generally flaunted or do startups have to take some precautions?
- 46Bit 14y ago
  Generally SV interns are paid something on the order of $3000/month, higher at the Googles and so forth.
  - otakucode 14y ago
    I was slapping my forehead as soon as I submitted my question, thinking I might be way off base even thinking that startup interns were commonly unpaid. Thanks for your great answer!
  - philsnow 14y ago
    I don't know what Google internships pay these days, but when I did mine, during those four months, I was paid in the same pay range as full time employees in an equivalent position. They even let me take three weeks of (unpaid) time off during my internship to get married and go on my honeymoon.
pfisch 14y ago
This whole thing raises a bunch of red flags imo. First of all you guys seem to be very morally flexible in general. There needs to be a lot of trust in employer-employee relationships. "I totally understand about not wanting to go back on your word. But remember, you aren't really doing that. When you signed the contract, you really believed that you wanted that job. Now you dont. Human being can change their mind, it's not ethically wrong to do so." This is like saying you aren't responsible for any commitments you make and can change your mind whenever you want. What if you change your mind about paying your interns? I mean you totally intended to compensate them when you hired them, but you know, you are a human being so you can really just change your mind whenever. This combined with the massive cheap intern labor pool makes you guys seem pretty sketchy. Like you basically want employees but you don't want to pay them or share equity. I don't know if those things are true, but that is the vibe I got. Also bragging about stealing an intern from another company kinda reinforces that image. Also trying to develop the major parts of brand new systems with 8 interns and 3 full times sounds insane to me and kind of like you are just trying to get tons of super cheap labor as if you can replace 1 experienced developer with 5 interns and get the same results. I'm not entirely sure what you intend to do with a bunch of short term interns and like 3 fts to manage them while simultaneously running an entire company but it certainly raises red flags.
- pfisch 14y ago
  Just to clarify I think what Patrick did is fine since he went and talked to the other CEO and they agreed, but the way Arjun went about inciting him to do it seemed sketchy.
  - argumentum 14y ago
    Well, this is Arjun, I put the whole conversation, unedited, up for a reason... so that people can decide for themselves. I'm not happy that you think it's sketchy, but it's your right to say that if you believe it. No one is a perfect ethical person, and making ethical decisions is non-trivial. There are ethical problems with your approach as well... in the sense that if I were NOT to try an incite Patrick to leave I would not be giving him the free choice to listen to my argument and make his own decision. To say that Patrick is not capable of a reasoned decision would be patronizing, though I am not accusing you of that in any way. The root of all ethics can only be free choice. In that sense, I had the free choice to try and convince Patrick, and he had the free choice to try and be convinced.
dinkman 14y ago
Cool article -- I think the most important thing going into any job is that you're absolutely enthralled with the opportunity. Patrick, it's never easy and the real world is complicated. As much as "YOLO" has become overplayed, I do believe that time is our greatest asset. As for hiring interns based on emails... well... :)
argumentum 14y ago
I would like to add that if you read the first link in the article, I admit to serious mistakes. I'm not posting this to paint a rosy picture of what happened.. it sucked. In fact, that's why me and Patrick agreed to post this... it was a learning experience to all involved. I was a student my whole life until this startup, and I admit to naiveté, but not maliciousness. And though I didn't intend to, I made terrible mistakes that affected the lives of others, especially the interns. At the same time, I saw an opportunity to meet and work with on equal terms with young and talented hackers and undergrads (which was my comfort zone as a graduate student). I was lucky to get into YC (who isn't) and saw an chance to share this luck with others. I was told time and time again by my co-founders that productivity would suffer, especially since we didn't have a solid idea yet, but I thought that the extra energy would help us get to that state in spite of slowed productivity. For purely selfish reasons, I also anticipated that this would make my own summer more enjoyable.
kami8845 14y ago
I enjoyed reading both blog posts. Thanks for the transparency, Patrick and Arjun
readymade 14y ago
I initially bristled at the word "poaching", since it implies ownership. But I'm actually far more repulsed by the fact that he laid the kid off just a few days later. Ethics protip: don't try to convince someone to leave behind a paying job offer and move across the country if you're on that shaky of ground.
tzs 14y ago
I'm curious what waiters would think of the startup's product. It sounds like it would make it so the customer doesn't need to interact with their waiter to order, and that the software would also take over much of the role of recommending items to the customer. That leaves the waiter to just be someone to carry food to the table. I'd expect people would tip such waiters less, or even not at all. This would probably annoy the waiters. Would that be enough to sink it, or are waiters low enough on the restaurant totem pole that the restaurant owners would still be interested?
- argumentum 14y ago
  That leaves the waiter to just be someone to carry food to the table. Or, it could give them more time to talk to and engage with customers on a more equal level.

28 points by argumentum 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

hnwh 14y ago

Patrick's version sounds less rosy

epoxyhockey 14y ago
Yes, I feel like Patrick's version of the story should have been linked: http://startupquant.blogspot.com/2012/10/snapbite-or-how-one-becomes-adult.html http://startupquant.blogspot.com/2012/10/snapbite-or-how-one... Reading the currently linked story implies that everything was rosy after accepting the internship. But after reading his own account of being laid-off shortly after taking the position, I would think that a humble founder would be slightly embarrassed that they just recruited someone and had to lay them off just days later. Why even publish this email chain?
- argumentum 14y ago
  It is linked.. it is in the first paragraph of the article.

pwingo 14y ago

Hello HN! I'm Patrick from this thread. I agreed to having this thread published because I thought it might do good for interns out there. Not everyone works for very established tech companies, and there's inherently more risk in that. However, there's a lot of potential to learn from the experience as well. Some things that I hope people take away form this thread: - The dream is out there, but don't let anyone sell it to you easily. Do the research, check your facts, and be aware. However, people in Silicon Valley are generally good people, and they remember and understand what it is like to be young and not know what to do. I always will. - Do what you think is the right thing: I would never have left my prior engagement if my would-be boss had not okayed it (we had a very long conversation at the time). This is a small world, and your word holds a lot of weight. It's probably best not to throw your word around when you can't keep your promises. - Take a risk, once you feel you're ready for it. By venturing into the unknown, a lot could have happened to me, but I felt prepared to take on any challenges. I am under the impression that not taking a conscious, calculated risk (with positive expected value) is the biggest risk of all Cheers, Patrick

46Bit 14y ago
As someone who interned at a YC S12 this summer, this is spot on. Patrick's summed it up, really: you can find an awesome company where you finish up not believing how much you learnt in 3 months. I did! Just think carefully about what you're getting yourself into. I flew across from the UK for it, having never been West of Yellowstone, and by god did it pay off.
otakucode 14y ago
After reading your take on the matter, I've got to say it sounds like on the whole you had a great experience. Being able to tolerate uncertainty like you did is something a lot of people simply cannot do, and they get in the habit of avoiding it early on. It's what keep a lot of people in jobs where they are seriously underappreciated. Also, on an entirely unrelated-to-the-industry note, young people rarely get the chance to meet and get to know (much less live with!) people significantly different from themselves. It's a very rewarding experience, and I'd expect you'll see benefits of it for decades to come. Many people today come out of college without ever having dealt on a personal basis with anyone but their peer group and a few dozen adults who were all in positions of authority over them. That's not very conducive to understanding the commonalities and compatibilities amongst all people.
tzs 14y ago
> I would never have left my prior engagement if my would-be boss had not okayed it (we had a very long conversation at the time). Once you broached the subject, did he really have any choice? At that point, he has to question whether your heart would be in it if you came to work for him, and whether you might bring down the rest of the team. At this point, you are likely getting the OK regardless of whether it is just a minor inconvenience to him or a major blow.
- pwingo 14y ago
  I think it depends on the way you broach the subject. I made sure that he knew my heart would be in whatever job I was doing, and that I would be perfectly happy to remain in New York. But, you make a valid point. The discussion itself makes it very hard to say "no." I made serious errors in my judgement of the situation, and I wanted this post to inform people about those errors so that they don't make them as well. I hope people (including myself) can learn both from what I did right and what I did wrong.

nedwin 14y ago

Just so I'm clear this is what I understand of the situation: You convinced a guy to reneg on a contract he had signed to join your company. You convinced him by telling him what a great opportunity your company could offer him. A few days later you let him go because you couldn't sustain him with work. Am I missing something?

argumentum 14y ago
No, nothing missing. Except that the knowledge that we couldn't sustain his work was not available when we made the offer. That is life. That is risk. That is startups. If you want to do something great, risk is a necessary condition, because everything ordinary could be done by just hard work and no risk..

otakucode 14y ago

I've never worked for a startup, or even interned for that matter, so I'm a bit curious. I know it's illegal to have an unpaid intern work on anything that actually has value to the business. Wouldn't that be difficult for a startup? Is this law just generally flaunted or do startups have to take some precautions?

46Bit 14y ago
Generally SV interns are paid something on the order of $3000/month, higher at the Googles and so forth.
- otakucode 14y ago
  I was slapping my forehead as soon as I submitted my question, thinking I might be way off base even thinking that startup interns were commonly unpaid. Thanks for your great answer!
- philsnow 14y ago
  I don't know what Google internships pay these days, but when I did mine, during those four months, I was paid in the same pay range as full time employees in an equivalent position. They even let me take three weeks of (unpaid) time off during my internship to get married and go on my honeymoon.

pfisch 14y ago

This whole thing raises a bunch of red flags imo. First of all you guys seem to be very morally flexible in general. There needs to be a lot of trust in employer-employee relationships. "I totally understand about not wanting to go back on your word. But remember, you aren't really doing that. When you signed the contract, you really believed that you wanted that job. Now you dont. Human being can change their mind, it's not ethically wrong to do so." This is like saying you aren't responsible for any commitments you make and can change your mind whenever you want. What if you change your mind about paying your interns? I mean you totally intended to compensate them when you hired them, but you know, you are a human being so you can really just change your mind whenever. This combined with the massive cheap intern labor pool makes you guys seem pretty sketchy. Like you basically want employees but you don't want to pay them or share equity. I don't know if those things are true, but that is the vibe I got. Also bragging about stealing an intern from another company kinda reinforces that image. Also trying to develop the major parts of brand new systems with 8 interns and 3 full times sounds insane to me and kind of like you are just trying to get tons of super cheap labor as if you can replace 1 experienced developer with 5 interns and get the same results. I'm not entirely sure what you intend to do with a bunch of short term interns and like 3 fts to manage them while simultaneously running an entire company but it certainly raises red flags.

pfisch 14y ago
Just to clarify I think what Patrick did is fine since he went and talked to the other CEO and they agreed, but the way Arjun went about inciting him to do it seemed sketchy.
- argumentum 14y ago
  Well, this is Arjun, I put the whole conversation, unedited, up for a reason... so that people can decide for themselves. I'm not happy that you think it's sketchy, but it's your right to say that if you believe it. No one is a perfect ethical person, and making ethical decisions is non-trivial. There are ethical problems with your approach as well... in the sense that if I were NOT to try an incite Patrick to leave I would not be giving him the free choice to listen to my argument and make his own decision. To say that Patrick is not capable of a reasoned decision would be patronizing, though I am not accusing you of that in any way. The root of all ethics can only be free choice. In that sense, I had the free choice to try and convince Patrick, and he had the free choice to try and be convinced.

dinkman 14y ago

Cool article -- I think the most important thing going into any job is that you're absolutely enthralled with the opportunity. Patrick, it's never easy and the real world is complicated. As much as "YOLO" has become overplayed, I do believe that time is our greatest asset. As for hiring interns based on emails... well... :)

argumentum 14y ago

I would like to add that if you read the first link in the article, I admit to serious mistakes. I'm not posting this to paint a rosy picture of what happened.. it sucked. In fact, that's why me and Patrick agreed to post this... it was a learning experience to all involved. I was a student my whole life until this startup, and I admit to naiveté, but not maliciousness. And though I didn't intend to, I made terrible mistakes that affected the lives of others, especially the interns. At the same time, I saw an opportunity to meet and work with on equal terms with young and talented hackers and undergrads (which was my comfort zone as a graduate student). I was lucky to get into YC (who isn't) and saw an chance to share this luck with others. I was told time and time again by my co-founders that productivity would suffer, especially since we didn't have a solid idea yet, but I thought that the extra energy would help us get to that state in spite of slowed productivity. For purely selfish reasons, I also anticipated that this would make my own summer more enjoyable.

kami8845 14y ago

I enjoyed reading both blog posts. Thanks for the transparency, Patrick and Arjun

readymade 14y ago

I initially bristled at the word "poaching", since it implies ownership. But I'm actually far more repulsed by the fact that he laid the kid off just a few days later. Ethics protip: don't try to convince someone to leave behind a paying job offer and move across the country if you're on that shaky of ground.

tzs 14y ago

I'm curious what waiters would think of the startup's product. It sounds like it would make it so the customer doesn't need to interact with their waiter to order, and that the software would also take over much of the role of recommending items to the customer. That leaves the waiter to just be someone to carry food to the table. I'd expect people would tip such waiters less, or even not at all. This would probably annoy the waiters. Would that be enough to sink it, or are waiters low enough on the restaurant totem pole that the restaurant owners would still be interested?

argumentum 14y ago
That leaves the waiter to just be someone to carry food to the table. Or, it could give them more time to talk to and engage with customers on a more equal level.