

Motivations of a Hacker - laurenceputra
http://nushackers.org/2011/04/motivations/

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shadowsun7
Hi all. I wrote the post above, so to provide some context:

1\. This was written with the Singaporean startup scene in mind. There are a
couple of differences re:the environment in Singapore vs the Valley. For
starters, students here prefer interning at banks, or other 'proper
companies', as opposed to startups. Second, the startups themselves are often
very new to the game. (Founders asking for NDAs are still a fairly common
occurrence.)

2\. Google SoC is doubly attractive because of the exchange rate. USD5000 is a
big thing when compared to the market rates in Singapore, and that still
doesn't factor in the benefits of learning from a large, well-managed OSS
project.

I wrote this primarily as a response to the number of companies that hit the
NUS Hackers mailing list with off-the-mark ads. I'm not sure if this would
help other companies looking to recruit hackers, but hopefully the context
would give you enough information to decide for yourself.

Plug: NUS Hackers is a student organization dedicated to the spread of OSS and
hacking in the National University of Singapore. We're affiliated with the
Singaporean Hackerspace (<http://hackerspace.sg/>) and both organizations
would be more than willing to show you around/lend you some help/introduce you
to people, should any HNer choose to drop by Singapore. :)

~~~
ruiwen
And here's another handy link from the Singaporean hacker/startup scene:
<http://connections.sg/>

All you need to know on one handy page =)

(I'm with HackerspaceSG too, so do ping me if anyone would like to pop by for
a visit =)

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mdwrigh2
While I agree that that solving an interesting problem is number one on the
requirements for hiring a hacker, the last point is way off the mark. "Take
the money off the table"? You can't match $5k for three months of work? I'm
sorry, but even students need to pay for living. I'd love to be able to work
for free on interesting problems, but it just isn't possible.

~~~
xuki
To give some perspectives, the article is written by someone in Singapore and
intern rate there is about SGD 1000 per month ~ 750 USD, so 5k USD is kind of
big deal for 3 months of work. I used to work for Apple Singapore for 800 SGD
per month.

Additional figures, fresh graduate CS major worth about 30k USD per year.

~~~
mdwrigh2
I had kind of figured he wasn't American, but also misunderstood what he meant
by "take it off the table". He's since updated it saying he meant to pay
market rates, which is absolutely correct. I think you just need to pay enough
to take the worry of being able to pay cost of living for the summer off the
table.

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j_baker
This ignores the number one rule of just about everything that involves
dealing with other people: know your audience. True, there are some
generalizations one could make about hackers. But by and large, we're all
different. Rather than trying to figure out what hackers want in general, try
to figure out what the hacker in front of you wants.

~~~
yason
But in practice, we're not at all that different. Every one of us personally
is a different, unique character but groups of people always share something:
the hacker subculture itself is defined by the _common traits_ of hackers.

The generalizations offered by the article were very aptly at a point; I
consider them ringing very much true.

I think the point of the article exactly was that you _will never_ get that
hacker in front of you talking with you and much less sitting down with you
unless you realize who you're dealing with.

------
pringle
The last paragraph of this article is where the inanity of this tiring line of
thinking really exposes itself.

Coding a a travel search engine in node.js might titillate a hacker, but what
on earth does that have to do with a founding a successful startup when
compared to things like product design, marketing, user experience, market
targeting, etc? Not a whole lot. Which is to say that no one set of priorities
or roles within a startup should be catered to or worshipped, at the cost of
sound strategy and direction for a startup.

Painting hackers as primadonnas who must be woo'd and courted as the top caste
of the startup community doesn't do hackers any favors, let alone all of the
other players necessary in a successful startup.

