589 karma · joined January 15, 2011
Would be curious to find out if masters will work for $.05. Please keep me posted! :)
Could have made it into some folk's spam folders though. No data on that.
(fixed the typo...thanks!)
That said, it's clear neither the NYT nor the Daily Beast understand MTurk users - and because of that, they mistake a hobby for a job.
For many people in the US, MTurk isn't about making money, it's about doing something while you're bored. It's not a replacement for a job, it's a replacement for Farmville.
"Ever wonder what our labor market would look like without minimum wages or labor law protections?"
If Turkers were paid with a virtual currency, there would be no comparison to minimum wages - but because they're paid with cash, the puzzles/work exists in a weird world between work and play.
Also worth mentioning, I intentionally price my HITs low so as to target turkers who aren't looking to supplement their income. It only takes 5 minutes of trying to find one person's email address to realize $.03 isn't worth it - if your goal is to make money.
I may be still missing the boat, but if Turkers really are doing this as a hobby - is it still exploitative?
Stats on our campaign are here: http://screencast.com/t/5XizDvsvjP
API still works great. You can try it yourself: http://press.CustomerDevLabs.com
We ended up getting addresses for about half of the article authors.
More at: http://hiring.customerdevlabs.com/work-in-silicon-valley
Startup friends banding together to find great developers (and lure them to the valley).
We're looking for:
- Senior devs (3 - 7 years writing production code)
- With strong CS fundamentals
- And shipping experience with Rails, Scala, Java, JavaScript and/or iOS
Happy to bring you here for an interview and, of course, relocate you if/when the time is right.
Just submitted to https://news.ycombinator.com/newest if you'd like to get the word out.
Who do you suggest I pass interested people along to?
There's a war on for talent now. Be careful what you wish for.
On the positive side there, there's an "energy" (please excuse hippie nonsense) to people here I haven't seen in other places. A kind personal momentum that is intoxicating - hard not to get crazy shit done around here.
Certainly not for everyone, including me on occasion, and it's got its downsides...but I haven't seen a place better for the ambitious to design their future than SV.
I predict, extravagant housing prices lead to the competitiveness of other technology markets. But for the next 5 years at least, feels like there will be more investors, buzz and energy in SV than anywhere else.
Higher perceived chance of success worth increased rent?
But doesn't address the bigger issue of smugness, which I've noticed too. Certainly something in the SV attitude that includes a holy-than-thou vibe, but now that I think about it, I get that vibe whenever I'm around successful entrepreneurs - no matter what city I'm in.
Re the living expenses - it's definitely a deterrent if you're starting your own company. If you're working for someone else though, from what I've seen, the increased pay more than offsets the increased cost of living.
Him: "The company is named Syncplicity" Them: "Simplicity?" Him: "No. SINK-plicity" Them: ??? Him: "We're Dropbox for enterprise" Them: Oh, I love Dropbox!