Ask HN: Why would Human Interest (YC SC15) make such arrogant statement? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why would Human Interest (YC SC15) make such arrogant statement?

2 pointsnudpiedo9 comments

They posted at HN a public rejection to people with certain personality traits (genuine tech geniuses with almost asperger syndrome) as if they were trying to score something, why didn’t they publish that on their private twitter? What do they earn from that? Does someone understand this marketing move? Aren’t they in fact publicly dismissing diversity?

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20590019

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Hi nudpiedo,

This is Paul from Human Interest. I'm a co-founder of the company and wrote the job post in question.

That job post was intended purely as a statement of our work culture. Our only goal in posting it was to attract the sort of folks who might enjoy working within that culture.

It's worth noting that there's a lot of cultural diversity between companies in the tech industry these days, and there are some in which "10x engineers" might thrive. And that's okay! We just wanted to find a way to catch the attention of people who might be a good fit for us.

I think a big part of building a company is deciding what you do (and don't) stand for. For example, Gusto, a company that we greatly admire, did so by saying that they were "not hiring hackers" (https://gusto.com/company-news/gusto-is-not-hiring-hackers). Again, there are plenty of companies that are.

YC kindly provides us the platform to advertise job postings on Hacker News, and doesn't allow direct comments on those job posts. I'm glad you posted this here on HN, because it gave me an opportunity to better explain where we're coming from.

Does that make sense? Let me know what you think -- I'm happy to chat more about this here or directly by email (paul@humaninterest.com).

Hi psawaya,

thanks for explaining yourself. I found your post, shocking to say the least, not because the dismiss against 10x productive introvert specialists does exist, but because your are posting that on the hacker news which is a forum born precisely in an environment of hacker culture and high tech cult which values and pursues the technical competitive advantages since its foundation (read Paul Graham's post as witness of how was it).

Such introverts are treasured in many companies, at IBM they used to call them "wild ducks" and managers were extra flexible with them, and the difficulties they face, especially since they could easily beat the averages, see things from perspectives ordinary people don't and easily outperform teams of well rounded bureaucrats for several reasons (even if it just for breaking protocols). And these people were the foundation of many large IT adventures, which ended up overcoming their communication issues after longer life experience than average people.

I hope it is not necessary to say that a "wild duck" only company would probably also be flawed, but banning people based on a stereotype was a bit too much, don't you think? Now you seem to have changed your mind... in any case if there was a judging because of a stereotype that will take longer to be corrected.

Good luck with your startup.

I don't see anything wrong with it. Honestly it is your post that sounds off to me. You're implying that somehow Human Interest is discriminating against people with Asperger's but there's nothing in their post that says that.

Well they are excluding a group of people based on some vague statements and stereotypes as if there was some evidence of I am not sure what exactly. Might not be asperguer but he personality described by the 10x engineer thread was the le of a compromised person.

Just had a look and came to the same conclusion as the OP, but I found these statements very odd from their page.

> ...And we come from diverse backgrounds.

Just not the “10x” types. So much for “diversity” and “inclusion”.

> ...We’re professionals who keep normal work hours, and are eager to mentor and be mentored.

Can’t they hire these “10x engineers” and mentor/coach them to have empathy?

I’ve seen some companies have and invest in diversity training, surely this can also be the case, I would argue it could make these engineers better engineers.

Not hiring these types promotes exclusion.

Ok, we've changed the title of that post from "Human Interest (YC S15) is not hiring 10x engineers" to "Human Interest (YC S15) is hiring non-10x engineers", which is surely more accurate anyhow.

I think it needs to be taken in the context of the twitter backlash against the 10x engineer tweet. The tweet was largely interpreted as "10x engineers are brilliant jerks". People have been writing about toxic environments created by brilliant jerks for years and I think Human Interest is just trying to avoid creating an environment like that.

If that's not how you want to work, that's alright, but casting is as discrimination feels like a stretch.

The context you mention promotes excluding a group of people based on some vague statements and stereotypes with no evidence, now a group of people will be judged for actions they did not commit and passionate compromised people with certain personality will be attributed some features they might not have. For me that’s same as judging blonde people or Irish or something in the lines.

Probably they just don’t deserve 10x engineers if they don’t know how to deal with actual diversity anyway.

I found it a bit odd as well. Maybe it was an odd/rude way of saying, “we accept all engineers...not just the 10x engineers”

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