
Ask HN: Why are YC startups so secretive in Job postings? - middayc
I see Job postings of 2 YC startups on front page (and I think I remember few similar) and no company names / urls / ...  just wondering? :)
======
spolsky
It's a pretty bad strategy for hiring great programmers. Given how many cool,
interesting, VC-funded startups are hiring, good developers can work literally
anywhere they want. A job description that doesn't reveal the company or at
least the general domain is likely to just be ignored. When I started my job
board, I had a rule that the company name had to be on the posting. When I let
one company avoid this rule by posting as a "stealth startup" I got tons of
email complaints and the stealth startup got no applicants.

~~~
pg
When startups that have launched in the press post jobs, they invariably do
include their names:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs>

It's only the unlaunched ones that don't. Those have to weigh the benefits of
launching vs the costs. Usually they launch soon anyway (we encourage startups
to launch quickly) and can then give their names in jobs posts. So a post like
this is not the last chance a startup will have to hire people; it's just a
chance for them to attract a few adventurous ones a month early.

Empirically, they are in fact able to attract good people, which is why they
continue to do it. A posting by an unnamed startup may not work on a job board
where anyone can post, but here it has worked well for years.

~~~
gcheong
Why are comments disabled on job postings?

~~~
pg
As I've explained before, jobs aren't stories. Though jobs get displayed like
stories and get inserted into the frontpage feed along with them, they're a
different type of object. The reason I didn't give them comments was that I
thought of them as ads, not content.

~~~
diego
I would like to see comments on job postings. I don't consider them ads, to me
they are interesting content. Even if they were ads, what's intrinsically
wrong about enabling comments in ads? There's already a system in place for
dealing with inappropriate comments and it works well.

~~~
tptacek
If HN allowed comments on YC job posts, people would use the comments to post
job ads for their own companies ("we're doing something similar, &c &c,
contact us at &c &c"). This would significantly dilute the value of the YC job
ads.

The inevitable discussion about how we could just have an etiquette of _not_
doing that, or a guideline for not doing that, or a new kind of flag button
for that, or or or, will just serve to illustrate how much simpler a solution
just not allowing comments on those posts is.

These posts aren't hurting you. My bet is most HN people actully think they're
a benefit of HN --- early access to YC jobs! This is a fake controversy. Can
we think about tolerating the YC job ads in terms of "least we can do for
running HN"?

~~~
pg
This most recent case suggests another problem with adding comments to jobs,
at least for startups that hadn't launched yet: a few jerks would make a game
of trying to out them. Which would mean such startups couldn't be as specific
in job posts, lest they give away something that identified them.

~~~
danest
I posted the thread on asking what the startup was and I certainly didn't mean
to be a jerk towards the new company. I was mostly curious because they got so
much traction so fast and was willing to learn on how they achieved it. I
apologize pg and YC W11 startup.

------
swombat
Announcing YC funding is a media event that can be leveraged, just like a
launch.

They want to make use of that event and release that information at the right
time, to make the right kind of splash. Chances are only their closest friends
know that they have YC funding, because if it leaked to, say, TechCrunch, they
would lose the advantage of being able to announce their YC funding at the
most advantageous time for them.

The ideas are obviously not stealth ideas if they have 20m uniques in 6 weeks.

~~~
physcab
I'm sorry, but this notion that a company can be made by a leveraged media
event is stupid. Companies are made by having great products. If you have a
great product, it doesn't matter when you show it off because there will
always be an opportunity for getting new users.

This goes for hiring new employees too. Even if your beta version sucks and
you aren't ready to show it off, yet its a product that works and fixes
problems, job candidates will find a way to apply.

~~~
webwright
"If you have a great product, it doesn't matter when you show it off..."

I can refute your comment with one word: Apple.

Do you think their "leveraged media events" aren't effective? I used the
believe (as you do) in the "Product Uber Alles" philosophy- no longer. Product
is indeed the most important thing with the highest leverage. But it's not the
only thing, and ignoring skillsets and tactics that can give you an advantage
is silly.

Think of non-product bits as multipliers. If I have great PR, bizdev,
marketing, pricing, etc., I can often beat a better product in the market.

There are zillions of markets where crappy/mediocre products are at or near
the top of the heap.

~~~
physcab
My comment refers to startups. When you're building a company from the ground-
up having a great product will sell itself. You don't get bizdev deals,
advertising deals, or users talking about your product if it sucks. I work for
a startup that hardly gets any press and you know what, it's cool, because we
still manage to grow by 20% a month because our product is great.

~~~
swombat
My suggestion would be: get the PR for that startup sorted out (it doesn't
have to be hard!), and turn the 20% monthly growth into 40% monthly growth.

------
middayc
Just FYI. This tweet triggered my question

"YCombinator companies are so amazing to work for that they can't be bothered
to tell you who they are in a job posting."

<https://twitter.com/#!/kneath/status/16366870550548480>

------
kalvin
Wow, did the Ask HN on "what is the YC W11 social network startup that's
hiring called" get deleted? There were at least a dozen comments on it last
night, it was high up the front page, and now I can't find it.

~~~
sharadgopal
This is the one with the comments that got killed:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2021100>

------
webwright
The question you're asking is, "why does it make sense for YC companies to be
in stealth mode?" Sometimes it makes sense to be stealthy, and occasionally
you need to hire folks when you're in that state. It's certainly a handicap
(as spolsky says elsewhere in this thread, what kind of hotshot would want to
interview without knowing ANYTHING about a company?).

Good post on benefits of stealth mode here:
[http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode-
trada%E2%8...](http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode-
trada%E2%80%99s-position-on-staying-stealth/)

~~~
apgwoz
If the ad in question is the w11 yc social network, the growth and traffic
already acquired makes it not really stealthy, right?

~~~
webwright
Nope-- that means it's launched but still flying under quite a few radars. I'd
wager plenty of people don't know about its traffic or YC backing.

------
retube
I'm glad someone else feels the same way. My angle is: these ads expect people
to give up all their personal details, without revealing any of their own. I'm
sure they miss out as a result. (One posting sounded almost spammy - "we're
the next big social network" etc etc. No-one's gonna respond to that unless
they know who you are, can check a website etc).

Edit: or maybe that's the point - if you don't know who the poster is, you're
not worthy of applying.

------
piramida
Find it interesting, too. 'We need a dedicated person with lots of experience
to work full time with uncertain perspectives on a problem that unknown "we"
who probably have done nothing before believe has lots of potential. We will
probably have money some time in the future too'.

Maybe they are betting on curiosity? :)

------
Mz
Maybe I never learned the secret handshake* or something, because I was a
homemaker for eons, but I find _all_ job postings pretty opaque. So I don't
see what the big deal is (that some specific piece of info is being left out).

* From what I have read, I am not so sure it's "just me". For example, I've read plenty of anecdotes where someone went in to some field with grand visions only to discover that their visions don't remotely match the day-to-day details of their actual work.

~~~
gcheong
Which is why it helps to have a company name so you can do some investigation
beyond the job posting to see if there is something that remotely interests
you about the company. At the least you could find a webpage that has some
marketing speak about what it is they do or hope to do or you may be able to
ping your network to find someone who can give you the inside scoop.

~~~
Mz
Again, I may have missed the secret handshake because even internal job
postings at the company I currently work for (and have for over four years)
baffle me. I frequently talk to people at work and ask them what they do and
get a title, which typically means nothing to me, and then I ask again "But
what do you _do_?" Even the job I have currently has changed a good deal in
the time I have been in it. I find the whole thing difficult to fathom. Again,
stuff I have read suggests my befuddlement is hardly unique.

If it helps you enormously to know the company name, you have some kind of
advantage over me.

Peace.

------
jacquesm
Because it may be that they are vulnerable to others copying concept and/or
giving away hints about the direction they plan to take based on the types of
positions they're hiring for.

Playing your cards close to your chest usually does not hurt.

~~~
nprincigalli
This snippet from <http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html> comes to mind:

    
    
      > During the years we worked on Viaweb I read a lot of job descriptions. A
      > new competitor seemed to emerge out of the woodwork every month or so. The
      > first thing I would do, after checking to see if they had a live online
      > demo, was look at their job listings.  After a couple years of this I could
      > tell which companies to worry about and which not to. The more of an IT
      > flavor the job descriptions had, the less dangerous the company was. The
      > safest kind were the ones that wanted Oracle experience. You never had to
      > worry about those. You were also safe if they said they wanted C++ or Java
      > developers. If they wanted Perl or Python programmers, that would be a bit
      > frightening-- that's starting to sound like a company where the technical
      > side, at least, is run by real hackers. If I had ever seen a job posting
      > looking for Lisp hackers, I would have been really worried.

~~~
eurohacker
what about php

~~~
AlexC04
I don't know why this is voted down. I'll go on record as someone who's
currently working primarily in PHP and though the phrase "when all you've got
is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" is certainly true ... PHP has a lot
of advantages for hacking.

Free, with robust sets of libraries, frameworks and support in the community.
Used by a number of "big guys" (Facebook springs to mind) ... furthermore ...
it's 'forgiving' in terms of rapid development.

It has brackets (a small thing I know - but I think better with brackets)

Certainly, if I'm looking around for "my next language" - I think
Node.js+MongoDB might be the most exciting stuff out there. But again -
there's an advantage for rapid development in PHP on this one. I can get
ridiculous bandwidth and storage on a $10 hosting plan if I develop in PHP -
wheras if I'd like to take on node.js I've got to buy actual server accounts
(not a significant increase in price - but actually a huge leap up in required
knowledge).

What about PHP indeed? Or maybe"why not PHP?"

With respect to PG's position, I _think_ he comes from a LISP background - so
for his purposes, it's the hammer & nail scenario. His knowledge of LISP makes
him aware of what a powerful tool it is (wheras to me - it's just about
talkin' funny)

With respect to the other 'hacker languages' it's probably that the
differences between .py and .php aren't significant enough to mention both.

PHP is the best tool if it's what you know.

I really don't know why you were downvoted for what seems a legitimate
question. But who cares? At the end of the day, Hacker News Karma is roughly
as valuable as owning in World of Warcraft ... people who're involved care but
the rest of the world will really wonder what you're excited about.

------
wallflower
It's not a big filter but not mentioning specifics filters out some who lack a
sense of curiosity and adventure.

~~~
agotterer
I'm not sure developers want a sense of of adventure when it comes to job
descriptions. Relatively speaking, most job posts are about the same. I can't
imagine many great developers read a job post and are so excited by the
description they have to email in to find out more details. This is why
recruiters have a tough time finding great developers. How many great
developers read a job description from a recruiter and are so excited they
take the time to seek out the company name?

