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Comment by rantfoil | Hacker News Reader

This was a total oversight by us -- we didn't really mean "REQUIREMENT" in the sense. Of course that's insane. This is something that we actually discussed with our friends (some of them from Hacker News too). The top CS school discussion DID come up.

Here was our thinking: the true hacker badasses out there will see that and not really give a crap. They know they're good, and will just glide over that line.

What we really mean is: we want people who are smart and amazing.

I can show chat transcripts with dcurtis if you care to follow up with me directly (we really did discuss whether that line should stay or go). garry@posterous.com

But the point is: Mea culpa, we posted it at 2 AM and it was a mistake to put this down as a "requirement". It's absolutely a 'plus'.

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The best hackers I know didn't necessarily graduate top in the class. A few did and a few didn't. The ones who didn't were usually contributing in other ways - open source or small businesses (sometimes startups but not necessarily). As you stated, most hackers who didn't would ignore any requirements and apply because they wanted to work on posterous.

Here are some of my own personal opinions on hiring / schools / etc.

Which school you graduated from and rank is rarely even discussed when hiring coders with a few years experience. After 2 years no one will ask you where you graduated in your class. After 8 years no one will care where you went to school, other than possibly as a plus. It's not a decision maker at that point. What the applicant did between graduation and applying to the job is really what matters. This seems to be different for other areas of study (and graduate degrees of course). But this is my experience with coders (bachelor degree holding computer scientist and the like). Both hiring and being one.

An individual's family situation, both financial and otherwise, can effect their decisions on schools. Some oft overlooked hackers went to state or local colleges for reasons outside of their control. An example - I knew someone in high school that got into MIT and Northwestern (Chicago area). They ended up cranking through the local college (Northern Illinois University) in 3 years instead. His family had a business and he had to be there to run it. After he finally found someone to manage the family business he ended up being successful and promoted up the chain in a huge company. There are plenty of opportunities outside of the norm. But the burden is on the person applying to show that they are worth investigating further.

[EDIT: Syntax]

Agree 100% -- these are all significant considerations.

I know this whole situation has pissed some people off. But what's sort of hilarious is that until today I had no clue (or I just forgot) that Garry and maybe Sachin went to Stanford. That part of the job posting, as interpreted by many of the people here, felt like reading a torture manual by the Dalai Lama - it just isn't their style at all.

Regarding college: I know Sachin sold computers and had a hell of a time dealing with Paypal as a fledgling entrepreneur and Garry...umm Garry was in chess club? I don't know - college discussions just didn't come up much.

The Posterous guys certainly don't "act" (and by act I mean the generalizations spelled out in these comments) like they went to one of those schools, let alone "elitist". Besides, most of the time when we hung out, they were more interested in talking about ideas or learning about my boring Ohio background.

So if you're hesitant to apply because of this situation, don't be. And if you do not want to take my word for it, I'd be more than happy to email you a list of references of my friends & family that have dealt with Garry and/or Sachin including my parents and a girl friend in Chicago that had problems setting up her Posterous. Or just ask Livingston - she loooves Garry.

As always dan at the domain for ticketstumbler.

But because of the Dunning-Kruger effect, such an advertisement will generally bring in lots of folks who _think_ they are good but are not perceptive enough to understand their weaknesses.

at least now you have your iterative feedback...

We try to iterate fast on Posterous... really with everything. =)

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