Dear Facebook: Please Stop Trying to Steal My Co-Founder | Hacker News Reader

Dear Facebook: Please Stop Trying to Steal My Co-Founder

aarondinin.com

15 pointsapdinin33 comments

That flag is driving me insane, as well as the social bar and the moving "Aaron Dinin", takes up the entire page and won't get out of my way so I can read the text - some of us like reading on phones you know (iOS 5.1.1 here)

Absolutely agree. The constant "Get Started" fade in/out box was way too distracting. I haven't seen FlagTap on other sites, but hopefully the behavior isn't the norm!

It's even aggravating on a desktop. It's distracting, which makes it difficult to read the post. I clicked on it just out of hope that it would make it stop.

It's also a DOM disaster... for some curious reason, a new one is faded in and then faded out and hidden instead of being removed. What a nightmare.

Yay user feedback.

Fixed!

(We'll add an "x" to close it as well... shortly.)

It's still all in the way for me on iOS (when I zoom in to actually read)... but thank you for taking the feedback into account, it's good to see. Hopefully il be able to read the actual article soon :)

That's more the fault of my website than FlagTap.

Though I guess that still puts me at fault either way. I'll get it fixed ASAP.

Thanks again for the feedback!

I do not feel that this post deserves front page mention. Frankly, this reads as less about the co-founder being approached but rather the OP wishing to be poached as well.

It's not as though highly talented back end developers are lacking recruitment offers these days.

Ironically this post will result in more headhunters trying to cash in on your co-founder since you told them how good he is etc etc

That thought would have been helpful before I wrote the post. Damn.

The post looked more to me like a plea for them to start trying to call him as well.

Particularly the last line.

If your cofounder is ready to leave you for one of those companies, then it's only a matter of time before he leaves of his own accord.

Honestly, headhunter contacts are a dime a dozen. Front end, back end, whatever, if you have any visibility at all you get used to ignoring them pretty quickly.

Seriously, just having a basic LinkedIn profile will get you a couple recruitment messages a week. If your co-founder tempted by standard form letter recruitment emails then you have bigger problems.

So I decide to try and work out what flagtap actually is. The page which the flag link takes me to asks me to either login or sign up based on 3 images which promise to fulfill all my wildest dreams. No thanks.

So I cut the end off the URL and checked the front page, just a login screen. Oh, there's an about link down the bottom, that's what I'm after. Click. Huh, I need to login to see the about page?

Sigh.

Goodbye.

Thanks for the feedback, Fuzzwah. Yeah... we're still in a closed beta. Probably should have mentioned that in the post. Err... and on the site.

Umm... clearly it's a very early beta.

FlagTap is clearly at a very early stage... everything does have a beginning after all! =)

I dig FlagTap. I'd been looking for a decent way to incentivize the users of my dating site into reaching out to other users, and ended up building a rewards module myself. It's been a big hit on the site, but I'd much rather have something easier to implement in the future. Would you be able to do a custom implementation of FlagTap (custom gifts, matching palette, etc)?

Thanks for the feedback, Paul.

We kind of figured we'd need to add custom options, so it's good to hear people would like to see that sooner rather than later.

We'll get it implemented as soon as possible!

Something's fishy about this article...feels fabricated. Is this the only way to get attention for your sites on HN these days?

Yeah... when you write good articles that don't mention Facebook in the title, no one reads what you've written. I've got a bunch of those.

But, this is a 100% true story (except maybe the Adderall part I thought HN would appreciate.

> I was prepared for 48-hour, Adderall-fueld workdays

Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Or a recipe for a great time?

Yeah... Adderall only works effectively if you're getting good quality sleep. Also doesn't prevent you from falling asleep, thats called caffeine or provigil. Additionally, the dosage needed to keep you awake will also likely make you act like a distractable manic mess. that's also ignoring that if you're not sleeping, your backend shit can't be that tricky.

Point being, the metaphors in the blog post are both in bad taste (some people actually need adderall et al for medical reasons), the lifestyle described is unsustainable, and if I'm working with someone who's so widely sought, I'd be celebrating their awesome and feel flattered they think I'm worth their time.

Not sure what to think of this blog post. Though it appears flagtap.com does not currently load. So, about that office next to his...

Yeah, guess I should have scaled the servers before posting. Good lesson for next time.

Thanks for the feedback. I guess I'll be lucky to get a cubicle in the same building as him (though to be fair... I never called myself a server admin).

Every good cofounder is at risk to be hired away. You have to motivate them to stay.

Of course the post was written in jest.

Glad you appreciate the joke.

Yes... if anyone wants him to work for one of those companies less than me, it's him.

Your extremely talented cofounder put the punchline of intellisult below the fold at 1440x900. I thought the site was broken.

http://imgur.com/EKlmK

Edit: I also didn't see the green flag the first time. When I refreshed it showed up.

Good point. I'll pass that along.

And what about all those poor folks with 1024 x 768 monitors?

Thanks for the feedback and sorry for putting the punchline below the fold. At some point, I might improve Intellisult's UI, but that'll have to wait. For a silly site like that, and with a budget of $0, it's difficult to prioritize every detail just for providing people with some free entertainment.

If you'd like to contribute any good design ideas, I'd be happy to implement them when I have some free time. =)

And no green flag in the right margin for me... :(

(Latest Safari on Lion)

Is JS on? Works on all versions of Safari we've seen, including Lion.

Can I blame that on my co-founder? He's responsible for cross-browser issues :)

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