Carlos sounds like a wanker who spends too much time reading trust fund assholes on gawker bitch (and lie! Hi Sam) about startups.
Way over here in reality: I've worked for 6 startups, some you've heard of, and some you haven't. At the smallest I was employee 6; at the largest ~60. Now, I'm not claiming I've never seen unprofessional behavior, but
1 - the interview process has been pretty obvious. Yes, I've grabbed dinner with founders at one company. What the hell do you think eating dinner with two people you just met to discuss their company is, exactly?
2 - In 6 startups, I've never gone drinking with the team before starting, nor do I know of anyone who has. None of my friends from those startups who are on im right now has either.
3 - At one startup, some engineers went to strip clubs. Not my thing. No known ill effects.
4 - I don't go drinking with coworkers except maybe once every three months. And drinking means 1-2 beers then out; it's been probably 3 years since I spent a whole night drinking with coworkers. No known ill effects.
5 - perhaps some people should leave sf and see the peninsula and valley. There's a whole world of startups here that have 30+ year old employees, some with kids. At many of these adult companies it's fine to come in around 9, bust ass, and walk out the door at 5:30. If you don't fuck around with pingpong and scooters all goddamn day, you'll find you don't have to spend 12 hours in the office to get your job done. Me personally: no fucking scooters, no ping pong. No known ill effects.
6 - I do wonder if Carlos would complain similarly if an employee came to an interview severely underdressed and the company held it against him or her. Probably not. So learning not to wear a 3-piece suit to a startup interview is just part of the gig. Do, oh, 60 minutes of reading on the internet and you'll probably be fine. Hell, email your damn recruiter and ask. He or she really wants you to get that job.
7 - For ultra-small startups, recruiting from social circles is just part of the deal. I imagine very few tiny companies really hire randoms off the internet, or whatever people did before craigslist and dice.
8 - whining about white and asian males is fine, but how on earth did he miss indian males? Has he ever seen the valley?
9 - on a serious note, it's really weird how startup demographics mirror cs degree demographics.
10 - and while I do strongly believe we should make the industry more inclusive -- holding tiny startups responsible for not creating a recruiting pipeline back to high school is ridiculous. I'm not sure where social responsibilities kick in; it's some gradient between the 1 person company and the $10B corp. But the small startups don't have the resources to do much about it.
10 ... But the small startups don't have the resources to do much about it.
This is not about moral obligations. It's about how stupid it is to use such a subjective filter for potential hires while lying to yourselves how “open” and “cool” you are.
are you from the UK? In the US, colloquially, asian == japan, korea, china, vietnam, cambodia, laos and indian = people from india. Or perhaps you would call them south-east asian? But you would never call a person from india as asian.
Do note that I mentioned 6 companies in which I have personal knowledge, while this article only mentions 42 floors (ie I presented 500% more actual examples than the author). Even if you where to believe all 7 companies the author has worked at -- counting the mugs on the about page -- are such bad startups, we still have nearly equal datasets. And that's not counting other startups I know about because friends are founders.
So yes, this hasn't happened to me, and I presented much more or, at bare minimum, the same actual data points.
Way over here in reality: I've worked for 6 startups, some you've heard of, and some you haven't. At the smallest I was employee 6; at the largest ~60. Now, I'm not claiming I've never seen unprofessional behavior, but
1 - the interview process has been pretty obvious. Yes, I've grabbed dinner with founders at one company. What the hell do you think eating dinner with two people you just met to discuss their company is, exactly?
2 - In 6 startups, I've never gone drinking with the team before starting, nor do I know of anyone who has. None of my friends from those startups who are on im right now has either.
3 - At one startup, some engineers went to strip clubs. Not my thing. No known ill effects.
4 - I don't go drinking with coworkers except maybe once every three months. And drinking means 1-2 beers then out; it's been probably 3 years since I spent a whole night drinking with coworkers. No known ill effects.
5 - perhaps some people should leave sf and see the peninsula and valley. There's a whole world of startups here that have 30+ year old employees, some with kids. At many of these adult companies it's fine to come in around 9, bust ass, and walk out the door at 5:30. If you don't fuck around with pingpong and scooters all goddamn day, you'll find you don't have to spend 12 hours in the office to get your job done. Me personally: no fucking scooters, no ping pong. No known ill effects.
6 - I do wonder if Carlos would complain similarly if an employee came to an interview severely underdressed and the company held it against him or her. Probably not. So learning not to wear a 3-piece suit to a startup interview is just part of the gig. Do, oh, 60 minutes of reading on the internet and you'll probably be fine. Hell, email your damn recruiter and ask. He or she really wants you to get that job.
7 - For ultra-small startups, recruiting from social circles is just part of the deal. I imagine very few tiny companies really hire randoms off the internet, or whatever people did before craigslist and dice.
8 - whining about white and asian males is fine, but how on earth did he miss indian males? Has he ever seen the valley?
9 - on a serious note, it's really weird how startup demographics mirror cs degree demographics.
10 - and while I do strongly believe we should make the industry more inclusive -- holding tiny startups responsible for not creating a recruiting pipeline back to high school is ridiculous. I'm not sure where social responsibilities kick in; it's some gradient between the 1 person company and the $10B corp. But the small startups don't have the resources to do much about it.