Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nirvana | Hacker News Reader

Maybe it's just because I'm "old" or have been around the block, but hyperbole in a job description really turns me off. The harder the sell, the less I trust the seller. Actually this is true everywhere.

Further, you can tell us what the business is, and what is compelling about it, without giving up the secret sauce. You can even mention the secret sauce without giving up the secret.

EG, if your startup was google: We're building a revolutionary search engine using the social proof inherent in the web to give people results that are far more relevant than Yahoo and Inktomi. There, did I give away the page rank algorithm? No, but I did reveal the compelling advantage that google had: they figured out how to derive social proof from the web... which at the time was unheard of.

Even if that's too revealing.... at least talk about your technology stack. If you write a 500 word essay and the only mentions of technology is that you use "rails/node.js" -- something at first blush seems like not a choice but a pair of choices-- you're being evasive one something you have no reason to be evasive on. "We're using rails to host the primary web app, and node.js to run a really nice realtime updating system, blah blah blah."

You can talk about that... and you are giving candidates an opportunity to know what you're like based on your technology choices and how you talk about technology.

I am also old and have been around the block. There's a chance I hold the record for having the most kids of any founder in a YC batch, which I think is astonishingly cool...

I think it's rare that startups have anything as ground breaking as page rank, and even rarer that it seems ground breaking to anyone else at the time. If we had some specific formula for growing environment saving bacteria from leftover banana peels, we'd tell you for sure.

What we really have is a set of guiding principles, indicators that tell us we're pointed roughly where we should be pointed, and lots of things we want to try to get there.

The tech details weren't meant to be evasive as much as de-emphasized. They're there because we think good candidates might find those specific technologies interesting. We had variants on the description with many more specifics, but none of them seemed entirely important at the time. I do like talking tech, though, so here's an exhaustive look:

* We use CoffeeScript at several levels and happen to think it's pretty awesome. Anything that we could have done in JS has been done in CoffeeScript instead, this includes super tight ad serving javascript, the frontend code for our user facing apps, etc.

* We have two major classes of users, those who use our tools to do better advertising, and those who see ads. The "magic" for the first class is whatever the latest release candidate of Rails 3.1 is (rc5 maybe?), the second is the Node.js version that Heroku's Cedar stack supports (0.4.6 I think).

* Both apps feed copious amounts of information into a backend Mongo replica set, and the Node layer leans on Redis for some things.

* We've done limited data visualization with that d3 toolkit I mentioned. We feel that data viz is often underrated, but an extremely useful thing for us to devote resources to. If we could justify buying the entire New York Times data visualization team we'd do so.

I agree that startups won't likely have something as ground breaking as page rank. I only referred to that example because I knew everyone would know the algo. I merely meant to illustrate "show us how you're doing a new take on X" rather than "show us you've got something ground breaking". I also free that something that is groundbreaking may not seem so at the time.

If my rails/node reference was to you, it wasn't meant personally. Just as an example that struck me, and one of many.

The four bullet points are very useful, and more importantly they are genuine. That's really good about them. They give me a good perspective on where your business is at, and where you're thinking right and where I think you've made a wrong choice.

I think I didn't mention that one of the more important piece of information one can get form a job listing is whether the owners of the company have their heads up their asses. Seeing that you made what I consider a "wrong" choice reminds me of that. (And I don't think you have your heads up your asses, but that's the kind of situation that developers really want to avoid... ad asks for "rock stars" and mentioned cutting edge technologies and languages, and then you find out you'r doing ASP programming.) Those four bullet points make the company real in my head.. if that makes any sense.

> Maybe it's just because I'm "old" or have been around the block, but hyperbole in a job description really turns me off.

It's not just you being "old", and it's not just job descriptions. The negative effects of obvious hyperbole in web ads is well documented.

FWIW, I think both of the job ads cited in startupcto's original post are poor, though one is clearly much worse than the other. (I'm willing to provide specific criticisms, but I won't do so here unless someone asks me to.)

Please email syncretic.sausage@gmail.com with any helpful feedback, particularly about things that seem hyperbolic.

The irony of our post sounding hyperbolic is that "dragging advertising into the modern world" often means getting rid of ads that make peoples' eyes bleed, visual hyperbole just doesn't work that well.

You have mail. :-)

Good point. If your startup requires utmost secrecy to succeed, then you are going to have a hard time. And there are often many startups pursuing similar projects. A market without any competitors might not be a good market.

And, please, no job descriptions involving rock stars or code ninjas! :)

One of the big rules of YC is "being in YC is newsworthy, don't waste that unless you're getting news".

YC is awesome, but it definitely causes scrutiny where it wouldn't otherwise exist. Having to be a little sneaky with job posts is one of the few downsides of that attention.

Also, we're hiring gourmet code chefs if you prefer them to ninjas.

YC is losing it's cool factor IMO. The startups are a letdown, especially this year. The ideas and business models are weaksauce. They're paraded out like rock bands but haven't earned that distinction with many of us.

YC startups aren't newsworthy until they earn it.

But we're building a Facebook for bartenders and hairdressers as soon as Dispora releases something that works and we can theme it with ads. It's not the Moon landing, but how is that not newsworthy?

Add taxi drivers to the mix. I've got the theory hairdressers and taxi drivers have a better sense of the moods and attitudes of society than anyone, even politicians.

In aggregate, their opinions and predictions might be a peek around the corner of time.

I like your idea too (sorta) although I think you'll pivot into a matchmaking service in time.

Every social app is a dating site.

When any company says they want to hire someone who thinks they'rea rock star it actually gauarantees they won't be able to hire the real thing.

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