
Tell HN: Interviewed with Triplebyte? Your profile is about to become public - winston_smith
Fortunately this email made it through my spam filter. Looks like they want to take on LinkedIn and are planning to seed it by making existing accounts public unless you opt OUT within the next week:<p>Hey [redacted],<p>I’m excited to announce that we are expanding the reach of your Triplebyte profile. Now, you can use your Triplebyte credentials on and off the platform. Just like LinkedIn, your profile will be publicly accessible with a dedicated URL that you can share anywhere (job applications, LinkedIn, GitHub, etc). When you do well on a Triplebyte assessment, your profile will showcase that achievement (we won’t show your scores publicly). Unlike LinkedIn, we aim to become your digital engineering skills resume — a credential based on actual skills, not pedigree.<p>The new profiles will be launching publicly in 1 week. This is a great opportunity to update your profile with your latest experience and preferences. You can edit your profile privacy settings to not appear in public search engines at any time.<p>Our mission is to build an open, valuable, and skills-based credential for all engineers. We believe that allowing Triplebyte engineers to publicly share their profiles and skills-based credentials will accelerate this mission.<p>Thanks,<p>Ammon
Co-founder &amp; CEO, Triplebyte
======
nabilhat
Assume for a moment I'm a bad-faith, nosy employer who reads HN on a Saturday
morning. All it takes for me to match up my little stack of current employee's
resumes is a person's city of residence, skills, and employment dates. If I'm
that kind of employer, that's enough to raise my red flags. If prior employers
are named outright, that's a 100% ID. If employment dates are paired with
employment location, that's a 100% ID.

I've known employers like this. I've worked for employers like this. Employers
are already monitoring social media. Third party services are paid by
employers to monitor for staff that might be looking at other jobs. Recruiters
make it their mission to know who's looking and what employers are likely to
need their services in the near future. This is much of why trust and
discretion is the most important asset on both sides of hiring related
activities.

Triplebyte burning down their reputation as a recruitment avenue is one thing.
Locking job searchers into reputation and livelihood risks inside Triplebyte's
own reputation dumpster fire, on the friday before a holiday weekend, during
historic unemployment levels, in the middle of a fucking pandemic, is
unforgivable. The CEO showing up in person with hamfisted gaslighting
(seriously?) in the middle of this self made disaster makes me hope those
comments don't get flagged out of future HN search results.

~~~
TAForObvReasons
> those comments don't get flagged out of future HN search results.

Triplebyte is a YC company and HN is a YC site, so economic interests are
aligned with nuking highly critical comments

~~~
dang
That's a natural assumption, but if you think a step further it's not hard to
see why it's false: you shouldn't optimize for local optima, especially if
doing that would ruin your global optimum. When you have a goose that lays
golden eggs, don't risk the goose for an egg.

YC's economic interest in HN is having it be a happy, thriving community. That
dominates all other considerations put together. A fast way to ruin that would
be to destroy the community's good faith by suppressing negative posts about
YC or YC startups. In addition to being wrong (we wouldn't want to belong to
such a community ourselves), it would be dumb. If anyone wants more
explanation there are posts about HN vis-à-vis YC's business interests going
back years:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20yc%20business%20interests&sort=byDate&type=comment).
See also
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20curiosity%20optimiz&sort=byDate&type=comment),
which describes the simple way we try to optimize this (simple in principle,
though not in execution). And see [https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-
announcements/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements/) from 2015
about HN's editorial independence.

(Edit—because I've been wanting to write about this for some time and this may
as well be the place:)

The above is the answer I always give to questions of how HN serves YC's
business, because it's true and it's solid economics. It's the right answer to
give to anyone who's looking at the question through a cynical economic lens
(as we all have been trained to do) since it basically says "we can be even
more cynically self-interested by not doing that".

However, I also always feel a little bad after giving that answer because it's
not the deeper truth. The deeper truth is that we just feel this way. HN and
YC grew up together. In a way they are siblings, and one doesn't exploit one's
sibling. Or, to switch metaphors: because HN and YC grew together, the
connections between them are complex and organic, like the connections between
brain hemispheres. If you get in there and start snipping and moving things
around, you'll probably lobotomize yourself.

If you want a hard-nosed business reason for how HN makes money for YC, one
is: it leads to people starting startups that wouldn't otherwise exist, and it
leads to YC funding startups that it wouldn't otherwise get to fund. That's
how HN adds to YC's core business (edit: but see [1] below). I use that
reasoning to explain to people why we don't need to sell ads on HN or do other
things to monetize it or drive growth. Again, though, it doesn't capture how I
(and I think most at YC) really think and feel about HN. The deeper truth is
the two have always been together and we can't imagine them otherwise.

In other words, the value of HN to YC is intangible. That affects how we
operate HN. If the value were tangible, then snipping things and moving them
around and generally being bustling and managerial would be the way to go, or
at least the most likely thing that people inside a business would do. But
since it's intangible, all that kind of thing gets supplanted by a general
feeling of "this is good, don't fuck it up". Since the main indicator of
whether we're fucking it up or not is the community, the way HN can most add
value to YC is by keeping the community happy. Happiness means interest (HN is
supposed to be interesting) and trust (a community can't exist without trust).

This is not a paradise that will last forever—it's a historical accident that
an internet forum ended up in a sweet spot vis-à-vis the company that owns it,
where the business is better off optimizing for the forum being good and happy
than by banner ads or growth hacking. But we all know that it's an honor to
get to be stewards of a community in that way, and while nothing lasts
forever, we want to keep it going as long as possible, and maybe longer than
one could reasonably have thought possible.

[1] edit: for some reason I forgot to mention the three formal things that HN
also gives to YC: job ads for YC startups, Launch HN posts for YC startups,
and displaying YC founder usernames in orange to other YC founders. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23293437](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23293437)
for more.

~~~
erulabs
While I have a handful of YC friends and certainly admire a lot of the YC
higher-ups, I will say for me and my co-founder, it was probably more HN that
caused us to apply to YCS19 than anything else. Meeting PG/PB was icing on the
cake, not the impetus. Thanks for all your hard work on HN - it's a really
wonderful piece of the net!

~~~
1cvmask
You need to get a new SSL certificate for erulabs.com

~~~
erulabs
Thanks for the reminder!!

------
aidos
Wow. Thanks for this. I ignored the email because Triplebyte just feels a bit
spammy to me now so I mentally block it out.

Have logged in to stop this from happening and currently apparently I'm "Open
to discussing new opportunities", which is news to me. On trying to change it
to "Not interested in any new opportunities" there's a dropdown that says "I’d
be open to new opportunities in:" and most you can set it to is 2 years. These
are whole new dark patterns.

UPDATE You can turn off the setting they're talking about by going to [0] and
then clicking the little grey "Visibility settings" under the Profile URL
section.

UPDATE There's a delete your account option on this page [1], though YMMV:

>> Government identification may be required and we may ask you for more
information in order to verify your identify

[0]
[https://triplebyte.com/candidates/profile_builder](https://triplebyte.com/candidates/profile_builder)

[1] [https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center](https://triplebyte.com/privacy-
center)

~~~
heliodor
Since account deletion is such a hurdle, edit your profile to replace your
name and info with profanity and let's see how Google and the various content
filters will like that once the profile goes public.

~~~
optimiz3
Replace the information with that of a SDN (Specially Designated National)* if
you really want to cause trouble!

*Don't actually do this unless you want a visit from a 3 letter agency.

~~~
drivingmenuts
Then explain to the agent "I've been in quarantine for a while now and I was
lonely. Want a beer?"

I'm pretty sure they'll leave. Might not even file any paperwork on that.

------
wolfgang42
I interviewed via Triplebyte last year, and thoroughly enjoyed the service.
Before this I would have (and did) wholeheartedly recommended them to anyone;
the process was great from the candidate’s perspective and I also have
confidence in their ability to accurately evaluate candidates’ skills.

After this announcement, though, I’m afraid that faith has completely
crumbled. Even if Ammon had showed up in this thread and immediately announced
that this was a terrible idea and they were rolling it back immediately, the
mere fact that they were _considering_ doing this is a huge blow. It doesn’t
help that I skimmed the email when I got it this afternoon and didn’t even
realize it was an opt-out; it was only when I saw this thread that I took a
closer look and realized that the email was lacking a CTA button at the bottom
for a reason. That seems incredibly shady to me and instantly changed my
impression of the company.

Take heed, other companies: it only takes an instant to destroy your company’s
reputation, and it’s incredibly difficult to win back that confidence.

~~~
ganstyles
For what it's worth, this was what happened to me. They regularly send
marketing emails and updates, which I skim from time to time. It wasn't until
I saw this thread that I realized that one particular email out of the (
_actually checks notes_ ) 62 (!!!) unsolicited emails they've sent me in the
last 12 months was this important.

~~~
bootlooped
For me, it seems like the emails picked up a lot in the last 2 months. I
attributed this to covid aka a lot of people instantly out of work. The most
cynical take is that they increased email frequency so this would be more
likely to fly under the radar. I am not even sure I believe that though.

------
peteretep
The fundamental disconnect here is that Ammon seems to think this data belongs
to him, for uses he deems appropriate, rather than belonging to his users.

This works for Facebook and LinkedIn because of network effects, but not for
some random staffing agency with a tech gimmick. If Adecco or MichaelPage did
this it’d attract the attention of ambitious public prosecutors worldwide.

It’s almost a shame, as the idea itself doesn’t seem terrible, but the auto-
enrolment and dark patterns for removal makes this whole thing feel like a New
Digg moment.

~~~
derivagral
Isn't this legally the case? There's a random place on the internet and people
upload details. Not payment info, and I honestly am not clear on how much the
rest is protected (USA). This is exactly what Zuckerberg called people "dumb
fucks" for, and I don't think anything (legally) has changed.

I'm on your side as far as the "why the hell is this the case", but I think
this is the world that (USA and others) live in.

~~~
wilde
I filed an FTC complaint. I'd encourage other concerned folks do the same,
since out of court settlements with the FTC are how this is currently
adjudicated in the US.

~~~
heavyset_go
As an advocate of involving the FTC in such situations, done. Thanks for the
reminder.

------
ganstyles
This is horrible, what a breach of trust. I used TB to stealthily interview
for jobs, had a good experience. Recommended them to others. Now I see that if
I hadn't seen this post, I wouldn't have known about this and those details
would have been public, which had the potential to seriously undermine me at
my current position. I'll opt out tomorrow, but according to others it sounds
like the visibility link was somewhat hidden. At least with this they're well
on the way to becoming the next LinkedIn, at least by their practices. What a
dark pattern.

~~~
ammon
Your Triplebyte profile will NOT contain any data/details about you or your
job search that will undermine you at your current employer. We should have
included a screenshot and more details in the email. I'll talk to my team
about following up with more details tomorrow. We are talking about a
lightweight profile, like your Stack Overflow or HN profile, to provide us the
canvas to release badges. That's it.

~~~
iovrthoughtthis
Hey! Welcome to your first PR disaster.

I would suggest you step away from any scripts and turn on the company ears.
Simply explaining what is going on more “clear” and repeating it more often
probably won’t get you anywhere good.

Why does this make your users uncomfortable? How can you work with them to
achieve your product goals without undermining your relationship with them?

Good luck!

~~~
kerkeslager
I strongly object to characterizing this situation as a PR disaster. The
problem isn't that TripleByte is perceived as doing something unethical. The
problem is that what TripleByte is doing _is_ unethical.

~~~
philwelch
You’re not wrong, and as far as you and I are concerned, that is the problem.

From TripleByte’s perspective it is a PR disaster, or at least we should treat
it as such. Appealing to TripleByte’s internal moral compass is unlikely to
succeed since they’ve demonstrated that they don’t have one. So we resort to
appealing to their self-interest, since that is something they care about.

~~~
kerkeslager
I'm not ready to write people off and conclude that the Triplebyte team have
no moral compass. Certainly many business people do lack a moral compass, and
they show a lot of the signs. But writing off people as simply bad people is a
pretty extreme step.

But whether these particular business people have a moral compass or not is
irrelevant to whether we should be discussing this as a moral or strategic
mistake:

1\. If they have a moral compass, then the strategic mistake pales in
comparison to the ethical mistake, and they'll get that. We should be
encouraging people to listen to their conscience, not teaching them to equate
their conscience with selfishness.

2\. If they don't have a moral compass, then we shouldn't even be talking to
them, we should be talking to each other about how we dis-empower them and
remove them from positions where they can do harm. Even if we persuade a
narcissist or sociopath that it's in their best interest to do the right thing
in one situation, they'll just be presented with a new situation where they
think it's not in their best interest to do the right thing. If they really
are just bad people, they should be treated as the blight on society that they
are.

~~~
philwelch
> I'm not ready to write people off and conclude that the Triplebyte team have
> no moral compass.

I’m not going to pronounce any absolute judgment or certainty about this, but
I think it’s a serious possibility for us to consider.

> If they don't have a moral compass, then we shouldn't even be talking to
> them, we should be talking to each other about how we dis-empower them and
> remove them from positions where they can do harm.

I won’t ever use TripleByte again; will you?

> Even if we persuade a narcissist or sociopath that it's in their best
> interest to do the right thing in one situation, they'll just be presented
> with a new situation where they think it's not in their best interest to do
> the right thing.

I never accused anyone of being a narcissist or sociopath. Those are
relatively extreme conditions. I’m simply describing people who have bad
intrinsic moral character. And the world is filled with these people. As a
society, we elicit good behavior out of these people by creating and applying
incentives. It turns out that PR is one such incentive. Laws are another.

------
inimino
Ammon's previous venture was Socialcam [1], of which Wikipedia says

> Socialcam's popularity on Facebook suddenly increased in the spring of 2012,
> via unusually aggressive actions to induce contacts to join. It was
> criticized as "invasive" and a "bully" by many reviewers, for sharing what
> users were viewing without them realizing that that would happen.

It was only after articles like "Why I Hate Socialcam Even If It Might Be the
Next Instagram"[2] (spoiler alert: it was not) started appearing that Ammon
and friends sold to Autodesk for $60 million. I'm sure that investment worked
out swimmingly for Autodesk. Win some, lose some, eh? But hey, at least Ammon
got some resources out of it, which he went on to use to make the world a
better place, and some valuable life lessons about privacy and honesty and
respect, right? Right, Ammon?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcam#Criticism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcam#Criticism)

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/04/30/why-i-
hate...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/04/30/why-i-hate-
socialcam-even-if-it-might-be-the-next-instagram/)

~~~
ss3000
Who knew Triplebyte was another social media company in stealth mode all this
time?

Brilliant launch strategy, coming out of stealth and dragging all of its users
out of stealth along with it. /s

~~~
runawaybottle
Oh man, bait and trap? Is it so hard for a company to just have humble
ambitions? Is it so bad to be a simple business that optimizes the recruitment
process? Must it to be a multi billion dollar LinkedIn competitor?

------
arcturus17
Wow, what a dumpster fire.

The CEO coming in here and trying to defend that this is _actually a great
idea_ is only making things worse.

I'm guessing they don't operate in Europe, because this would be a massive
violation of many European and national privacy regulations.

Maybe they should take a hint from this - the fact that they can pull it off
in the US doesn't mean it's morally acceptable.

~~~
DethNinja
If they ever interviewed an engineer from EU then what they are doing is very
much illegal, it doesn’t matter even if company is based on USA.

~~~
MandieD
Engineer _in_ the EU, even if they are US citizens - there are over 100,000 US
citizens in Germany, not counting current military or their dependents.

------
kylebarron
Hard to find the opt-out button. You have to sign in, go to your "profile
builder" [0], and then click the very low contrast "Visibility settings"
button just below the top of your profile.

[0]:
[https://triplebyte.com/candidates/profile_builder](https://triplebyte.com/candidates/profile_builder)

~~~
ALittleLight
Easier to find the "delete account" link...

[https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center](https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center)

~~~
u08ywo
It takes 30 days for any of these, actions to take place, but the window in
which it was announced is a week. Something seems off.

~~~
deepaksurti
And you need to have logged in already for the delete to work, after which you
get an email to approve the request which ends up with this notice of
requiring government id as well. Govt Id, really, what are they thinking here?

```

We're processing your request and should be done within 30 days.

We will verify your request using the information associated with your
account. Government identification may be required and we may ask you for more
information in order to verify your identify.

```

Triplebyte has definitely been the worst experience I have ever had, in fact
they are so bad, i would rate them below the other unprofessional recruiters
we all come across!

~~~
slater_gordon
This corresponds to the 30 days allowed for GDPR:

"Under Article 12.3 of the GDPR, you have 30 days to provide information on
the action your organization will decide to take on a legitimate erasure
request. This timeframe can be extended up to 60 days depending on the
complexity of the request"

I deleted my account today and will issue a GDPR request if It doesn't get
deleted.

~~~
ErwinBell
Problem is, you'll never know. Companies simply append 'deleted' to your email
address or other data in your record. This then makes the system reply there
is no account.

You think it's actually gone while they still have your data. You should do
the GDPR request no matter what and hope they're honest in responding to
that...

------
Nezteb
I have a few guesses about this:

1\. Triplebyte knew this would cause some outrage, especially on HN and
Reddit. 2\. Triplebyte did some calculations and predicted that doing this on
a Friday and only giving people a week to opt-out would result in the fewest
number of opt-outs. 3\. Triplebyte assumed that many of those outraged online
would delete their accounts. 4\. Despite all of the above, Triplebyte
calculated that this move would make them more money in the long run.

I’m also guessing that these profiles will serve ads. I bet Triplebyte will
offer “premium” plans for both job seekers and employers so that they can
directly contact you more easily.

I hope this change incorporates necessary privacy measures for job seekers. I
hope that this doesn’t become a 1-to-1 LinkedIn competitor that only seeks to
get clicks and ad revenue. Only time will tell. I’m very skeptical but I won’t
rage yet. I’ll opt out for now and see how it goes...

~~~
neilv
> _doing this on a Friday_

Was it Friday of a three-day weekend? That's one of the best news dump days of
the year.

~~~
xnyan
Yep, Monday is a holiday (if you happen to have a job, and have a job that
gives paid holidays)

------
mrnobody_67
WOW!

Amazing that company founded by a former YC Partner could be so tone deaf.
Just because their business is failing and they want to pivot into a LinkedIn
competitor does't make it my problem.

Dark opt-out patterns send on a FRIDAY before a 3 day long weekend to hide
facts from us, with crazy convoluted methodology for deleting accounts, and
buried opt-out...

This is shady as hell, and thinking that you can "explain" it to us here and
that we are wrong and you are right, and if we had just a little more "Facts"
we'd change our mind, tells me everything I need to know about the leadership
and future of this company

------
asidiali
Triplebyte was already a joke, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Their whole “Fast Track” program claiming to allow you to skip technical
interviews is a total fraud of a marketing ploy.

They make you take a 2 hour live coding interview with a Triplebyte engineer,
with the promise that if you pass, you won’t need to do any more technical
interviews with companies through Triplebyte, only “final-round personality-
style on-sites”.

The reality is that any company who contacts you is STILL going to run you
thru their entire interviewing process. The extra 2 hour interview with
Triplebyte is literally pointless - and any company you try to discuss this
“policy” with will be caught confused and off guard.

It’s no surprise to me that a company that blatantly lies about their offering
would do some crap like this.

Shame on Triplebyte for their fraudulent and dishonest nature.

~~~
bootlooped
"They make you take a 2 hour live coding interview with a Triplebyte engineer,
with the promise that if you pass, you won’t need to do any more technical
interviews with companies through Triplebyte, only “final-round personality-
style on-sites”."

I was never given the impression that there would be no more technical
interviews after the Triplebyte one. They were always crystal clear with me
that there would be 2 steps for each company: a 30 minute non-technical "pitch
call", and a final all-day onsite. They never implied the onsite was non-
technical, and I never took it to be.

I think the value proposition is that you skip almost all of the back and
forth footsie before the onsite. In my experience it was worth it. There were
some companies I interviewed with, not through Triplebyte, where I had 7 or 8
calls before they would bring me onsite. I get it, they want to make sure
they're sure before they pay for a hotel and a flight, but it is a big hassle.

~~~
asidiali
Thanks for sharing! They told me there would be a 30m pitch call followed by
an all day of on-sites _that were explicitly not whiteboarding sessions or
technical assessments_. Also, I still did have several back and forth calls
with companies I was connected with - it wasn’t just the one half-hour call
and then on-sites.

Here’s the exact email from TripleByte upon passing the quiz:

“ Here's how it works: 1\. We'll show your profile to companies that are
likely a good fit. 2\. The companies will request interviews with you. 3\.
You'll be able to review the requests, and accept the ones you're interested
in. After you accept an interview request, the next step is an introductory
phone call where you and the company get to know one another. The companies
that work with us all agree to skip technical screening, and take you right to
the final interview (saving you time). To get started, complete your profile
so that we can find the right companies and roles for you. After you complete
your profile, you'll also gain access to our exclusive Triplebyte Alum Slack
community, which can help support you throughout your career.”

> The companies that work with us all agree to skip technical screening, and
> take you right to the final interview (saving you time).

Define technical screening? To me this means that I’m already technically
screened. They also have changed their copy. The copy on their landing site
around FastTrack used to be much more explicit around skipping all technical
assessments.

~~~
kyleashipley
Most companies define their process as something like Phone Screen (recruiter)
-> Technical Screen (engineer via phone or take-home project) -> On-Site (mix
of culture + tech). Triplebyte helps you skip those first two steps.

I agree that the terminology could be more clear, but it seems like they
borrowed existing lingo from recruiters here.

~~~
perl4ever
I haven't tried Triplebyte, but my reaction is that obviously I'd _want_ to
skip the on-site tech part and not the others, so I could probably be tripped
up by my expectations even if the actual way it worked was mostly disclosed.

------
Raed667
I tried deleting my account and apparently it takes 30 days for some reason!
That looks so shady!

    
    
      We're processing your request and should be done within 30 days.
    
      We will verify your request using the information associated with your account. Government identification may be required and we may ask you for more information in order to verify your identify.
    
      Any questions? Email us at privacy@triplebyte.com

~~~
odensc
> Government identification may be required

Ah yes, the classic "send us more of your PII to delete your information."
I've ran into that too many times.

~~~
m11a
It's a horrible way companies try to discourage data subjects from exercising
their rights.

This is not lawful under both the GDPR and the CCPA. If Triplebyte follow
through with their request against an EU or California resident, they'd be
breaking data protection laws.

If comments here are any indication, too many people, being unaware of their
rights, may fall for it though.

~~~
darekkay
_> This is not lawful under both the GDPR and the CCPA._

INAL, but from my understanding that's exactly what GDPR itself suggests to
do:

 _> The controller should use all reasonable measures to verify the identity
of a data subject who requests access, in particular in the context of online
services and online identifiers._

Thats mainly because [2]:

 _> There is a very real concern of fraudulent requests from bad actors, who
might use a customer’s data for nefarious purposes._

While it's great to know that noone else is able to delete my account, it
still feels shady af.

[1] [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj#d1e1374-1-1](https://eur-
lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj#d1e1374-1-1)

[2] [https://konfirmi.com/blog/gdpr-personal-data-id-
verification...](https://konfirmi.com/blog/gdpr-personal-data-id-verification-
compliance/)

~~~
gruez
Is there a privacy preserving alternative to sending a scan of your drivers
license/passport? Can you get a notary to attest your identity, and you send
them the notarized request?

~~~
Raed667
If the ID wasn't required for the account creation, why is it needed for the
deletion?

------
csdreamer7
So I wasn't sure where to opt-out at first.

I clicked privacy center, ( [https://triplebyte.com/privacy-
center](https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center) ), couldn't find the option,
but chose 'Opt out of Personal Information Sharing' because why not?

After clicking the button I had to click a confirmation email to get this
approved. Then it said it would happen within 30 days and I may be required to
show govt ID.

Why? I am already verified with my login account. It is not like I am doing
something sensitive like changing a password or email. And what is this about
needing to show govt id? They have zero reason to need govt ID to opt out of
'Personal Information Sharing' of all things.

Honestly tempted to just delete my profile. (That may also require govt ID.)

~~~
throwbacktictac
Indeed, it does require a gov't ID to delete you profile. Triplebyte is
starting to look like Keyser Soze here :)

~~~
wolfgang42
That’s particularly strange given that they didn’t even need me to show ID for
them to get me a job. The first time during the entire process that anyone had
any proof of my legal existence was when I filled out my I-9 so I could get a
paycheck. They flew me across the country for interviews and invited me to the
Triplebyte office for dinner on nothing more solid than my email address and a
friendly face.

~~~
remote_phone
It’s not strange. It’s artificial friction to make it harder to opt out. It’s
obvious they don’t want people to opt out so they make it very difficult to do
so. What a shady company.

~~~
wolfgang42
Yeah, I was using “strange” in a pointedly ironic sense. There’s no good way
to spin the juxtaposition between the two standards.

------
haram_masala
This is awful. And announcing this late on a Friday is what news organizations
call “taking out the trash,” publicizing something when people aren’t paying
attention.

~~~
ammon
Really sorry that you think this is awful. Certainly do opt-out. I think that
taking on LinkedIn and creating a better engineering resume is a good thing to
do. I can assure you that the Friday announcement is a result of our team
grinding to hit a planned release week, not anything other than that (I would
have loved to get this out earlier in the week)

~~~
interactivecode
Hey Ammon, the idea is good, it's solid. Nothing bad there. I think everyone
knows LinkedIn has it's issues. But like come on. Why make everyone's private
job search public? by default no less!?

How can we trust triplebite with our career, finance information and personal
information when you pull these kinds of moves. Make a good product. If it's
actually good people will sign up.

~~~
ammon
We're not making anyone's job search details pubic. All that the profile will
show is that an engineer created a Triplebyte profile at some point in the
past, and any badges they earned.

~~~
remote_phone
“We aren’t making anyone’s subscription status public. All that their profile
will show is the fact at some point in time they registered an account on
Pornhub with their email address and real name, and any badges they earned.”

------
cubicPangolin
Registered on hacker news JUST to post this. I saw this email earlier today,
skimmed it and thought "hmm cool they're competing with Linkedin or something"
and then immediately forgot. I had absolutely no idea they were going to
exploit my data and breach my expectations of privacy to drive traffic to
their website (an issue in and of itself). And the part where they tell you to
go ahead and opt out is hidden in there! Really not good

~~~
steveoc64
"breach my expectations of privacy"

Q: where did these expectations of privacy come from ?

~~~
localcrisis
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23280811](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23280811)

------
odensc
Funny how this[1] is their modal when you log in.

[1]: [https://i.imgur.com/0J4sVlX.png](https://i.imgur.com/0J4sVlX.png)

~~~
wolfgang42
Transcription:

> Welcome to Triplebyte

> As part of this exclusive network of engineers:

> \- Companies reach out to you

> \- You control what companies see

 _> \- Your profile is private_

> Now, let’s take a look at your new dashboard.

> [Next]

------
sulam
If you, like most people in this thread, find this incredibly unethical and/or
potentially damaging to your relationship with your current employer and as a
result you are trying to delete your account, do one thing first:

Obfuscate your information before you hit the delete button!

Change your name, change your address, change the email to a throwaway, etc.

Yes, they -might- delete your information when you ask, but do they deserve
your trust that they will get this right? If you are deleting your account you
implicitly are saying you don’t trust their ability to manage this situation
the way you would.

Keep in mind one likely outcome of this event is that they go out of business.
Whoever buys their assets may well end up with a trove of data that includes
your details.

~~~
Xelbair
and what does stop them from using backups with unchanged data anyways?

At least for internal/statistical purposes.

~~~
EmilioMartinez
Nothing if they take the trouble to make it work. This is just stocastic
damage control, reducing somewhat the likelyhood of your real info being used,
and there are many reasons why it probably works.

------
bmdavi3
The audacity of the plan itself. The dark patterns. The doubling-down-admit-
no-wrong-non-apology defense of it all by the person in charge.

It all feels like quite the specimen - something that should be preserved for
study by future generations. For what not to do, but also because sometimes
its nice to have a prototypical example of unethical, tone deaf, short sighted
trickery and how it can destroy a company. All in one self-contained package.

So maybe that's the gift Triplebyte leaves us with.

------
rs23296008n1
Wow. Plenty of angry people in my circles.

Apparently deletion requires ID or something. Um... thats less good. I vaguely
understand why if it was needed to sign up. [addendum: nope!]

Suggest you think carefully about your next step if you have an account. Maybe
gibberish your account to whatever extent you see fit, update the email
address somewhere less identifying (perhaps sneakemail) and go on with your
life. Assume all details will be sold (you mean you didn't already?!)

I think they are out of touch with their userbase. Or they have even more
plans their userbase won't like.

Addendum:

There's an option to control public visibility. Opt-out but this is only
partial details. I would not rely on that "partial" aspect.

Worse still: if you want to "not be contactable for new opportunities" that
only lasts for 24 months at max. You can't select a "not wanting offers at
all". Minimum is 1 month.

This means you could be inadvertantly outed as "looking for opportinities"
without even knowing it.

~~~
wolfgang42
_> I vaguely understand why if it was needed to sign up._

Nope! Triplebyte flew me across the country, put me up in a hotel, and
otherwise arranged a job for me with nothing more than my email address and a
phone number. The first time I had to provide ID in the entire process was
when I filled out the I-9 form on my first day at the company that had hired
me.

~~~
rs23296008n1
Sounds like a good experience. I don't have anything to do with them so color
me surprised.

I've got around 150 messages and more within last few hours of our little
group - all very unhappy. The irc server #rant channel is getting loud.

Edit: 150 and growing (growling?).

~~~
wolfgang42
Yeah, up until a couple hours ago I had nothing but praise for them. They made
the whole process go extremely smoothly, answered all the questions I had and
gave me a ton of advice on the whole process, and their screening process was
not only great from the my perspective but also gave me confidence in the
quality of all their candidates. Then this happened.

~~~
rs23296008n1
You can't even permanently opt-out of "seeking opportunities". Be careful with
that account. Could get you in some trouble depending on employer.

------
blunte
I interviewed for their generalist interviewer offer that they were
advertising heavily a couple of years ago. I aced the lengthy and nontrivial
generalist quiz, and then waited for a callback.

Two weeks later I sent a polite email to check in. No reply. Repeat two weeks
later.

About two months later I received a reply that said the positions were filled,
but that they would love to offer me as a candidate to US companies. This was
useless to me as I live in Europe.

I believe the interviewer position was a sham, and they were just eating
people's time in order to get detailed developer data.

~~~
NightlyDev
"I aced the lengthy and nontrivial generalist quiz"

I actually think everyone aced it and ends up in the 80-100 percentile group.
"This site says I know more than 80-100% of users" is good for word of mouth
marketing.

~~~
blunte
As I recall, the test had some medium depth questions on SQL, unix shell
commands, programming, architecture, and more, and the entire test was timed
at 20 minutes iirc.

In hindsight, it was actually a pretty good quiz for judging if a candidate
knew a good bit about many different areas of development, architecture, and
sysadmin.

I know I aced the test not because they told me I did, but because I knew the
answers to the questions.

Perhaps my enjoyment of the quiz and the possibility of having an interviewer
role set me up for greater disappointment that the whole thing turned out to
be (or seem to be) a sham.

------
gitgud
I remember doing the Triplebyte quiz a few years ago and getting the response:

> _" We really appreciate you taking the time to complete our quiz and coding
> problems. Unfortunately we couldn't accept your application this time."_

It didn't show a score or anything, so I had no idea what I should improve on
or what I was good at.

Pretty sure they hide the results so people can't cheat, but the whole
experience left me feeling pretty inadequate and stupid for even trying...

After reading the comments from one of the founders in these threads, I
wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

~~~
joelhaasnoot
They also don't serve a lot of regions and still bait you into creating a
profile...

~~~
flareback
Yep, they didn't have any positions in the area I live in.

------
ruperp
Seems like an unfortunate decision. Opt-in would have been the more
respectable move here.

~~~
pmiller2
Maybe, but, depending on how it's implemented, these profiles might
technically be "public" but not indexed by Google or have easily guessed URLs.
In any case, it seems like the only information this would leak beyond what
would be on a LinkedIn profile is the fact that you've taken a TripleByte
assessment and done well. That seems pretty innocuous.

~~~
haram_masala
No, the profiles have other information too, like what geographical regions
you want to work in, what kind of job you’re looking for, etc. This could give
away information to one’s employer that they might have preferred to keep
quiet. I predict that a nonzero number of people will be harmed, embarrassed
or at least inconvenienced by this.

~~~
pmiller2
Counterpoint: they may not display everything you see when you log in to
TripleByte. You're complaining about something that hasn't happened to anyone
and may not happen at all. This time next week, you may have a valid argument,
but not yet.

~~~
wolfgang42
I’d much rather know that _now,_ rather than waiting until after it’s already
happened to find out whether or not it’s a privacy violation.

~~~
pmiller2
Have you tried asking?

~~~
wolfgang42
I don’t think I should need to. If a company is going to unexpectedly publish
information about me on short notice, the onus is on them to consider the
implications and explain what they’re doing.

~~~
pmiller2
Okay, so, you're concerned about a _potential_ privacy violation, but won't
take steps to find out if there is one to begin with? I don't have a lot of
sympathy for that position. Go and fill your TripleByte profile with
misinformation if it suits you, I suppose.

Edit: I missed that there's a privacy setting to make the profiles non-
searchable. So, I guess you care enough to complain on the internet, but not
enough to even ask if there's a privacy violation? Seems like there's a name
for that.

~~~
wolfgang42
Just saw your edit. My emphasis continues to be on _unexpected_ and _short
notice,_ with an added _obscure_ (notice that you missed it too) and _opt-
out_. I should not need to be prepared to jump at a moment’s notice any time
someone decides they want to “accelerate [their] mission.” (And I _am_ going
to opt out—or, more likely, delete my account altogether—but that doesn’t mean
I can’t also complain on the Internet.)

------
askar_yu
When big companies do, it's understandable - they know they can get away with
it and they often do. But what makes these beloved and trusted folks commit
such actions? (I've never used TB, but had heard so many good stories about
them and had put them in my mind into that category of companies that almost
send a handwritten note to their first 100 users, etc.)

Are we (users) perhaps partly to blame? Maybe we do let them get away and they
know that? How many people are really going to delete their profile now?
(instead of just opting out) Perhaps we should be more principled in our
response to such things? Imagine they lose 90% of their user base because of
this idiocy. May be that'd serve as a broader lesson of real ethics?

I remember well when Quora forced me to install their app on mobile (not just
a reminder pop-up, they blocked the page fully) - I sweared to never use them
ever again. I kept my promise for a year or so, and then somehow went back to
reading it later; so I am guilty myself of not being principled. But these
sort of decisions really really puzzle me.

~~~
DangitBobby
The Quora thing was baffling to me. There fortunately is a querystring
parameter, something like `block_mobile=1` that you can remove from the URL
and keep using without the app.

------
d23
I was also recently spammed by an ex employee that appears to have ex-
filtrated my personal data. I notified Triplebyte and received no response.

~~~
jacquesm
If you are in the EU notify your local data privacy watchdog.

------
jwilber
Email released the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. What are the odds!

------
andr
If this inspires you to delete your profile, according to the help section,
the only way to do it is by emailing candidate.support@triplebyte.com.

~~~
kashishhora
You can delete your account via [https://triplebyte.com/privacy-
center](https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center).

~~~
throwbacktictac
This doesn't seem to work. I requested to delete my profile but I didn't get a
confirmation email. However, when I requested to make my profile invisible I
immediately received an email confirmation.

~~~
kxr
Clicked on the delete confirmation link, yet I can still login just fine?

~~~
dredds
There was another site that had 30 day deletion policy, but if you logged in
during the 30 days then deletion was automatically cancelled. Squirrelly
behavior obviously.

~~~
kxr
I think that's what's going on here. Got another email today letting me know
that my request to delete my account is complete, yet I could reset my
password just fine.

------
egberts1
Thank God, I used a fake profile. I sailed the interview to 2nd stage but they
couldn’t figure out how to interview a deaf SW engineer.

~~~
scandox
Is that a difficult problem? I'd be interested to hear what they got stuck on.
I guess I naively imagine that in a world of text chat and voice to text it
would be pretty doable.

~~~
egberts1
They only initiate that phone call. I’ve explained that I can arrange for an
interpreter by my side if they would give me a phone number in which I could
initiate the call. But ... nope.

~~~
scandox
So pure can't-be-arsed by the sounds of it

------
sohamsankaran
If I understand this correctly, if you 1) did a Triplebyte assessment, and 2)
didn't do especially well, it would be possible to figure this out from your
profile from the lack of badges.

This seems like the sort of information that people would want to keep
private.

~~~
dsincl12
That's one version. Another one could be, you're having a great career at a
company, suddenly your profile goes public and shows that you are looking for
a job outside the company. Someone in your current company notices and now
your career will screech to a halt even though you where never really that
serious about it. There are so many bad versions on of how this could
unfold...

------
lianmunoz
Not that I'm at all excusing all the shadiness of this opt-out nonsense, but
just wanted to throw out that the notice that they _may_ require ID to delete
your account might be coming from the California Consumer Privacy Act. Source:
[https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-01-01...](https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-01-01/ccpa-
california-internet-rights-what-you-need-know)

------
zackshcrodinger
Registered an account just to post this. I used to like this company but it is
now dead to me, I will never have anything to do with it ever again and I will
urge people I know to stay away from it.

This is abusive and evil.

------
sp527
This is utterly amazing. He just blew up his company with one horrible
decision. It’s over. The people they rely on (talented software engineers) are
almost all one or two degrees away from HN. They’ll never trust TripleByte
again. I expect you’ll see TripleBytes partner companies start to distance
themselves next week as well.

------
OoTheNigerian
Ammon,

You are Tinder/Ashley Madison stating you want to tackle Facebook and become a
social network overnight by making all profiles made in private public.

And your tone deaf response is to keep repeating "WE ARE NOT PUTTING DETAILS
JUST YOUR NAME".

Well, what should people that have been married for 15 years do?

While this is so disappointing is that you could have easily executed this by
making it opt it. Possibly with a new name.

Email everyone and say we are starting byte.com - LinkedIn for Engineers. A
load of people would have signed up and you take it from there.

But you wanted to take the lazy way out and think about today only.

Be smart and retreat.

------
neilv
Considering this apparent questionable behavior, and the dark patterns people
are mentioning on HN... was the original business entirely legitimate?

I've found the currently en vogue leetcode grinding and whiteboard hazings to
be questionable, and I'm wondering this scandal will prompt anyone to
reconsider the whole sketchy institution of software developer "tech tests".

------
Etheryte
For anyone from Europe, in addition to deleting your account [1], I strongly
urge you to write privacy@triplebyte.com with a GDPR request. Given Regulation
2016/679 [2], you have the right to:

\- request a full copy of any information held about you (article 15)

\- withdraw consent and request deletion of any information about you (article
17)

\- object any further processing of your data, including making it public
(article 21)

Playing with people's data like this is not okay and personally I plan to take
them to court if they don't comply.

[1] [https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center](https://triplebyte.com/privacy-
center)

[2] [https://gdpr-info.eu/](https://gdpr-info.eu/)

------
wrecursion
Wow....

Good thing this was on HN, because I marked TB as spam quite some time ago,
and would have never seen this email.

Now it's going to take them 30 days to delete my account and I may need to
provide Government ID to complete this process???? LMFAO. That is outrageous.

This is vile and disgusting. I hope TB crumbles to dust for this betrayal of
its users.

------
kerpele
Wow, looks like triplebyte profile settings page is full of dark patterns.
Like, setting yourself as not interested in offers will forcefully revert back
after a time period, and that even though there’s a checkbox for opting in to
being shown to companies you can’t save the profile without giving consent.

:(

------
Larrikin
What a shame. I hadn't used this site and it seemed like it may have been a
good resource, but the backlash in this thread combined with the official
response to the backlash and the dark patterns implemented in all parts of the
process guarantees I'll never make an account.

------
marcinzm
TripleByte has taken on $50 million in funding and covid is deeply slowing
down hiring. I'm guessing this is the desperate phase of company growth as
they try to pivot to increase growth metrics. I'm curious if they would have
done it had covid not happened.

~~~
prepend
I was surprised by the level of funding for a recruiting company. Their model
is really costly too because they have at least one two-hour Skype screening
interview for potential candidates and I imagine they need lots of those to
present a few candidates for interview.

Even though headhunter fees can be high (10-30% back when I used to use them),
this seems tough to scale unless their thought was they would capture all the
headhunters in the world (eg, google eating classifieds).

I don’t think that’s possible with a process that requires so much manual
effort. I read about their aim for using AI, but just the cost of developing a
usable training model to reduce the need for in person screens requires, what,
hundreds of thousands of successful placements.

I remember needing 100 phone screens for 20 phone interviews for 5 in person
interviews for 2 offers.

Assuming anyone I trust to do Skype phone screens is at least $100/hour,
that’s $200 x 2 hours x 20 just = $40k for screening. Even if they break even
with placement fees, that’s not an amazing margin to warrant such investment.

Seemed like AI buzz overfunding.

------
dep_b
Personally I actually even asked them to make my profile publicly accessible
as I hoped it would help a bit to prevent having to take all of those
unnecessary tests, again and again every time I apply somewhere. Same goes for
my Toptal profile, you have to pass a bar to get in there so it has value.
People repeatedly mentioned me they found me there. The interview I had with
Triplebyte was pretty good in my opinion, got great feedback from the test and
I generally felt it was a reliable company.

It's a pity they are starting to do stuff like this. I'm not sure if it's a PR
blunder or a pattern emerging but the damage has been done.

------
agentultra
What does “based on actual skills,” mean?

I’ve seen the kind of code competitive programming sites put up and the
solutions people share. There is a complete disregard for best practices.
Memory leaks are common in solutions. APIs that should be using const or
references to prevent errors. In competitive coding all that matters is
finding a solution. But in industry there’s much more to it than that: how do
services like Triblebyte present that?

------
bit_logic
This behavior from Triplebyte is unacceptable. If you live in California,
there is CCPA now with financial penalties for companies that don’t comply.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act)
It’s similar to Europe’s GDPR. CCPA allows sending a deletion request and they
will be fined if they don’t comply.

Looking at their privacy page:
[https://triplebyte.com/privacy](https://triplebyte.com/privacy)

It mentions these options for deleting:

[https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center](https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center)

privacy@triplebyte.com

By CCPA law, they must acknowledge and comply with a deletion request within a
time limit. The fines can add up very quickly per user request if they don't
comply.

EDIT: Updating my post since I looked at the deletion request forms for some
other sites and it seems similar. Probably try the form first and if it
doesn't work, then the email.

~~~
heliodor
They deleted my account within a few hours today even though they say it may
take 30 days and require ID.

------
sensible123
I don't get the hate in this thread. Every time I've interacted with Ammon
I've never sensed any ill intent. Dude legitimately wants to help developers
get jobs.

I got the same email and just cleaned up my profile. It took at most 15
minutes. A lot less time than however long all the haters have spent
commenting on the issue.

The feedback from HN could have been better. Dogpiling is a very low form of
feedback.

------
fhgkhljl
"Our mission is to build an open, valuable, and skills-based credential for
all engineers" \- this is literally a copy of the other yc startup hackerrank.
In fact their ceo said at a public event the skills-based credential will be
called a hackerscore. Every developer will have a public hackerscore.
Companies would pay for developers based on hackerscore. So like if your
hackerscore was 1500 you would get offers for $150,000, if your hackerscore
was 2000, you get the $200,000 offers, so on. Sort of like an SAT or GRE
score. You could link your hackerscore to your hackernews account for more
karma. Like if you made smart comments on hackernews your hackerscore would go
up by a few points. If you solved more puzzles on hackerrank your hackerscore
goes up. If you help more people on Stackoverflow your hackerscore goes up.

Are the triplebyte guys calling it hackerscore as well or is it triplerank or
some such? I personally think the underlying motivation is sound but first you
need to earn the trust of the community.

~~~
quickthrower2
Not “Black Mirror” at all then lol!

------
rajacombinator
Way to kill off all the goodwill your company had built in the community.
Another money printing company killed by VC funding.

------
lienne
God I hate Triplebyte for this sneaky move. I will never sign up

~~~
quickthrower2
I hate them for destroying a great idea. I was keeping an occasional eye on
when they’d go international.

------
zatel
I interviewed with triplebyte last fall. I passed all the automated testing
and did ok on the real person one (not being formally trained I struggle with
concepts I've never applied in a real project). After they told me I wasn't
yet good enough for their fast track program I emailed them to have my profile
deleted.

I assumed they were doing this already tbh. They sent an email back saying my
account was deleted and I haven't gotten this email. I guess now I'll get to
see if they really did delete it.

This news does make me consider re applying for triplebyte. Showcasing skill
is a pain point when I've applied for positions (sure a github & some links
but who knows who really did any of that).

I can't think of a worse way to handle this though.

------
pleasecalllater
I don't know the US law. I'm just wondering... if US companies have to ensure
their software is fine according to GDPR for Europe clients, I'm wondering how
it is with other law.

The other law I'm thinking about is the general rule that for every change in
a contract all parties must agree. It is normal that I get a letter from my
bank "We are changing the rules, here you have 30 days to say you don't agree.
If you won't, we'll assume you agreed. If you won't agree, your account will
be closed.". So, I can say I don't agree. Here, they just assumed I agree.

Any change, like the one Triplebyte made, is not legal here without my
consent. Yet, they made it.

I'm wondering what else they would change. I don't want to wake one Sunday
morning to notice that they I'm charged a couple of millions because they
changed the rules during the previous night.

I'm not going to show then any of my IDs. Just no. Knowing all information
from my ID here has a similar power to knowing SSN in US. Instead, I just
devastated my profile. There is no real information anymore. I'm wondering
about adding some longer description that I'm protesting against their change
of rules. I'm wondering how they would react to this. Maybe it is the way to
delete my account, who knows.

------
bobblywobbles
Thank you for posting this.

I had considered Triplebyte as a platform to use years ago but never got
around to filling it all out. I _did_ see this email but didn't really think
about it until I read this article.

No doubt, this move was made to incentivize more cash flow for Triplebyte.
I've lost my trust in the company and will not be recommending them to anyone
I speak to again.

Customers will use your service, if they trust you and you provide value.
Pulling sneaky things like this to keep your shareholders happy are not the
things I want to be apart of. If you can't make money, why not consider
offering Triplebyte to be paid, instead of going behind our backs in a sneaky
way trying to sell our personal data.

------
nperez
I have come very close to taking an interview with them, but something always
seemed off. The aggressive advertising campaigns, the claims of how easy they
can make the process..

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

------
PaulHoule
"Hiring is broken", right up there with "Does your content marketing strategy
need an API?", "Seniors in Norwich can..." , and "Throw out this one vegetable
now!"

~~~
juped
Everyone who says hiring is broken has a brilliant idea to break it even
further.

~~~
quickthrower2
And they’ll create a company with the name coming from a common English word.
I guess triplebyte is an old school 2 word combo.

------
davidajackson
I have found that Triplebyte's emails are kind of spammy because they send so
many. Before this point that made me a bit on edge. Now I very glad I didn't
have time to finish any of those quizzes and will definitely not be using the
product. I also believe that any employer who looks at any solid resume would
know that the candidate knows how to find the minimum value in an array (an
example question), so I could never understand why asking questions like that
was adding any value and it made me skeptical.

------
dswilkerson
FYI because of this hacker news post, I just wrote Triplebyte as follows:

    
    
      I saw a post on Hacker News that Triplebyte is going to be
      posting to the interenet [sic] the profiles of people who
      have interviewed with you.  I do not give you permission
      to post any information about me and explicitly request
      that you do not.  Please acknowledge this request.
    

The reply offered to delete my account, and I said yes. They replied that they
had deleted my account.

------
javajosh
May I humbly recommend that rather than delete your account, that you modify
it to have noisy data. This would have a much more positive impact, I think,
than a deletion.

~~~
TechBro8615
I changed my name to "delete my account", set profile data to junk, switched
to a throwaway email, and changed my avatar to a picture of a ballsack in a
cup. That should sort it.

------
weeksie
I took one of their dev quizzes when they launched just for the hell of it and
entered my name as "Die in a Fire" which gives me a giggle every time I get an
update from them. This time around, it was even funnier. I have such a dislike
for middleman industries like recruiting. I know they provide real value but
once one of them gets hold, it's almost inevitable they'll use their market
position to squeeze everybody involved.

------
thrower123
They are really putting the smtp servers to work this week, I've been getting
two or three emails a day from Triplebyte, spamming about these changes.

If they are really doing remote jobs, maybe I'll have to look again, but when
I aced their silly test and got interviewed originally, they only worked in
the Bay Area, Seattle, and NYC, and I'd rather pull out my toenails with hot
pincers than relocate to any of those places.

------
f2000
Was in job search late last year so not much to worry about. But abuse me and
you lose me, goodbye triplebyte, we hardly knew each other and never will.

------
grawprog
>Is it confidential? Yes. We will not share any information about you with
companies until you’re ready. We will also ask you for companies to block in
case your current or past employers are on our platform.

Hmmm think they're going to need to change up their homepage. This doesn't
seem very accurate at all anymore.

Actually, keeping this on now even after they've made this decision seems
pretty disingenuous.

------
cnst
Anyone remembers Google Buzz?

Google Legal will until 2031 or so.

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2011/10/ftc-g...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-
releases/2011/10/ftc-gives-final-approval-settlement-google-over-buzz-rollout)

Guess who'll be counting to 2040 if everything goes according to plan next
week?!

------
r00t_
This should become a new web app, or something. A podcast, email newsletter,
what have you. I.E. How Not to Ruin a Company Which gives examples of
companies doing what what Ammon did, etc. Pretty cool, IMO! Hahhahahaha.
(sorry,just finished watching the Last Airbender, so I'm a little
jumpy/laughy).

------
ratherbefuddled
I've always found TripleByte's marketing-disguised-as-help left some vague
sense of distrust with me. I think it was pretending to have some deep insight
about recruitment that never felt in the least bit believable. I guess the
instinct was trustworthy, unlike them.

------
atarian
You just saved my job. Thanks a lot.

------
737min
This is awful... And really hard to understand how they could expect this to
go well - it seems like Triplebyte just doesn’t understand engineers and
engineering culture.

I expect a fully anonymous service like interviewing.io to get a lot more
signups after this fiasco.

------
alextheparrot
I did a couple interviews through Triplebyte in 2017 (Purge emails every few
years), but can’t remember which email/single sign-on provider I registered
with...

Anyone have ideas on how to figure that out without accidentally registering
and exacerbating the problem?

~~~
Zekio
don't most SSO providers keep track of that to some degree?

which means you might be able to find it there, other than that maybe try
'forgot password' usually my go to solution.

------
freshbagels
I find it strange that they'd tarnish their reputation to try and compete with
LinkedIn, but they seem to be a LinkedIn data partner? (not sure exactly what
that entails).

Open your console on their site and paste this in:

window._linkedin_data_partner_id

Is there something else at play here?

------
mping
Kinda reminds me when LinkedIn invited your Gmail contacts without your
consent. I think fb did something similar in the beginning. So the lesson is
that if you want to grow quickly you do a land grab, just stomping on your
user's rights.

------
johnmarcus
Ooohh, I got lucky. After I evaluated the platform a few months ago I asked
for my account to be deleted, something about the whole platform felt off.
They don't measure so many of the most important success factors for good
engineers.

------
togusa2017
Thank you OP. It was in my spam and now i know that i will avoid Triplebyte
like plague.

------
silverreads
Really bad move. Shows the investors are putting the squeeze on them for new
revenue, what they can do is now more important to them than what they should
do. Well, good thing I used my 'junk mail' domain to sign up with them.

------
bagels
Thank you for posting this.

I read the first sentence, and falsely concluded that they were just
pointlessly offering some oauth service. There's too much email that it's easy
to get away with something like this without users realizing it.

------
jagtesh
You're missing an important argument. You could have had a profile there from
before you joined the current employer. And now you're just maintaining it.
Doesn't mean you're actively looking for new job.

------
steve_adams_86
I'm blown away that I can't go ahead and delete my account. Seriously? I opted
out of this change, but at this point I don't trust that to be respected
anyway. I really want my account deleted immediately.

~~~
steve_adams_86
False alarm, it's been deleted 4 hours later. There isn't as much friction as
it seemed like there could be.

------
skaul
If you want to submit an account deletion request, you can do so here:
[https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center/](https://triplebyte.com/privacy-
center/)

------
Operyl
Jesus, what a horrific way to opt out. "Visibility" as the same contrast as
text? Great way to kill _all_ motivation to use this company going forward.
Weren't they in one of the YC groups?

------
alasdair_
I just deleted my account. This is bullshit.

(The account deletion page is buried in a link to a link to a faq page on
privacy and is blocked by a captcha, which is also bullshit).

------
rootsudo
Delete account here: [https://triplebyte.com/privacy-
center](https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center)

------
bogomipz
Wow, the tone deafness, the betrayal of user trust, the dark patterns, the
Friday before a long weekend email dump. Everything about this is just shitty.

------
getajobinx
Always been cautious of platforms that track your application history etc -
it's all data - it was likely to be used for gain at some point!

------
bogomipz
Wow, tone deafness, the betrayal of user trust, the dark patterns, the Friday
before a long week email dump. Everything about this is just shitty.

------
cryptonector
So... you post a profile on triplebyte hoping to get recruiter interest, and
maybe a new job, but prefer that your current employer not find out. How would
that work, exactly? After all, your current employer may have recruiters who
look at triplebyte and who aren't stupid.

The privacy issue is overdone: your profiles must be as good as public
already. That said, the company should have educated its users first, so they
understand this.

------
crabasa
I'm not optimistic in Triplebyte's ability to execute here because I think
they fundamentally think of developers as "content" and recruiters as the
primary customer.

Shameless plug:

If anyone would like to create a developer profile that you have full control
over and that doesn't expose you to recruiter spam, please check out what I'm
building at [https://fizbuz.com](https://fizbuz.com).

~~~
slow_donkey
Unfortunately that's the easiest way to build a real business around
recruiting. Same with car sales. If you do your job well, the user won't come
back for a few years. Therefore the user has to be the recruiting companies
which guarantee repeat business

------
oceanghost
Paranoia pays off again.

I signed up and did a couple of test with a fake name/e-mail just to see what
the company was about.

------
blunte
If the anecdotes in Glassdoor about triplebyte are true, this behavior and its
CEO response are no surprise.

------
pier25
I also received this email but I'm pretty sure I never signed up to TripleByte
or used its service.

------
sdan
Thought this was a criticism post... until I realized it was CEO himself
talking about why this is good

------
yagobski
This company is a scam. They even don't allow me to remove my account.

------
barbarbar
I would assume this would illegal in EU due to GDPR. The idea that one should
perform an action in order to avoid it appears insane.

------
rebase-vc
just came here to add that the problem is that the default is to make the
profile URL publicly visible. the default should be that it is INVISIBLE and
then the user opts into visibility

------
vkat
ugh! If not for hacker news front page, I would have ignored this.

------
danielmarkbruce
I'd guess there is a class action lawsuit coming.

------
pot8n
Usually job listing, SEO, web crawling, VPN and many other very low-barrier-
to-entry companies are founded and run by the worst and most contemptible of
all people. Dude, it's like a pattern!

------
yagobski
This company is a scam i can even delete my account.

------
trplthrowaway
I take this to be a criminal threat to dox users.

------
babesh
It’s all about the $$$$$$. Privacy be damned.

------
blickentwapft
No wonder people don’t trust tech companies.

------
tlogan
I understand that Triplebyte is in trouble due to Coronavirus and they will do
anything necessary to stay alive. Even if their "product shift” actions are
not ethical: they really have nothing to lose.

What I do not understand how this is legal? We have all these new laws
("California Consumer Privacy Act" of 2020, GDPR, etc.) and it seems like this
kinda of actions are legal. The goal of these laws is to protect us against
companies which have nothing to lose and they are force to do things which are
considered non-ethical.

------
CawCawCaw
This is poor. Really, really poor.

------
mylons
every interaction i’ve had with triplebyte has been shit. glad to know
nothing’s changed.

------
secfirstmd
Pretty sure this a big GDPR violation

------
throwbacktictac
I'm curious about why this post appears to be on it way to being flagged off
of the home page. It's valuable information and is likely very relevant to the
HN community. Thanks for the heads up @winston_smith.

~~~
dang
It set off the flamewar detector. We review submissions that are affected by
that software, and turn it off for threads that aren't flamewars. I've done so
for this one. Other than that, moderators didn't touch this post or (as far as
I know) even see it.

~~~
zkim
Hey that's neat, I didn't know HN had a flamewar detector. How does it work?
Content matching and post frequency?

~~~
thaumasiotes
I know at some point there was a penalty attached to articles that had more
comments than upvotes.

This struck me as incredibly unnatural, since I frequently comment and very
rarely upvote an article. I don't really see what the one metric has to do
with the other.

But apparently everyone else has a different model of HN in mind.

~~~
tomhoward
I think there's a lot of variance in the way people use HN (I don't upvote
stories much either, though plenty must, given the vote counts we see), but
dang has had plenty of time (i.e., nearly 8 years in the job) to observe what
combination of upvotes, comments and other behaviour may indicate a possible
flamewar.

------
redis_mlc
> Your profile is about to become public

That's pretty horrible.

But I have to ask ... since my understanding is that hiring companies make you
redo the technical interviews again, what is the point of doing the Triplebyte
interview process at all?

Also related, there was a startup that was scraping your Linkedin status and
sending that to employers who subscribed, effectively doing the same thing
Triplebyte is planning to do. There was quite an uproar over that, too.

Speaking of Linkedin, your employer can view your profile if it's public, so
again, similar problem to what Triplebyte is doing.

~~~
wolfgang42
The hiring company has to follow a standardized flow for any candidates they
get through Triplebyte. Triplebyte does their own evaluation and reports the
results, and then each hiring company is only allowed to do a short non-
technical[1] phone screen plus a single day of onsite interviews before either
rejecting the candidate or extending an offer.

[1] and they enforce this—they specifically ask the candidate to report any
technical questions asked during the phone call.

~~~
SilasX
"Only" a single day of onsite (presumably technical) interviews? Doesn't that
kind of defeat the purpose of Triplebyte, which is to "O(1)" your job search,
i.e. avoid a long interview process with each company?

~~~
ganstyles
Maybe. I did TripleByte, the usual process everyone is talking about. That led
to 30 minute calls with a bunch of potential employers, then I selected 2-3 of
them to do on-sites. The on-sites were single day technical whiteboarding
sessions + lunch (taking 6-8 hours total, exhausting), then I got offers from
those companies.

When I've gone to FAANG companies, I've gone through a lot more per company to
receive an offer. Multiple visits to each campus, lunches, technical sessions,
spanning potentially weeks or months. Overall I think TB saved a lot of time
and I really enjoyed the process.

Of course, now they've really shot themselves in the foot.

------
bJGVygG7MQVF8c
I deleted my profile with these people over a year ago, yet I got this email
too. Hmm...

------
napoleoncomplex
nope

------
togusa2017
why is this post not on the frontpage of HN ? Very strange.

~~~
ashtonkem
Dang covered it higher up, it triggered a flame war detection script for a
bit.

------
newbie22
I am so disgusted by triple byte. Fuck this site that doesn't have a care in
the world about it's users and using slimy techniques to prey on unsuspecting
users.

------
omarish
Everyone here needs to relax. Go hate on someone else. It takes 5 seconds to
disable the public URL.

------
libso
Chill everyone. Ammon didn't mean to betray anyone's trust. He just executed
public profiles feature very poorly and compared them to profiles on anonymous
platforms which was naive. Before a lot of people see this and delete their
profile if I were him I'd do this>

+Continue keeping it an opt-out feature. But give a long lead time. A month or
two. Regular emails warning that profile will go public and a personalized
screenshot of what exactly would be included. +If users want to approve the
public profile, they will stop receiving these emails. They should also be
able to choose who to show in their profiles. +If users forget to approve or
deny, make an extremely minimalist profile public with only initials of the
name listed.

~~~
kerkeslager
> Ammon didn't mean to betray anyone's trust.

Sure, they sent out an innocuous-looking email that didn't actually describe
the important details of what was happening, on a Friday, hid opting out in
low contrast on a page where it would be unexpected to find it, and made
deleting accounts so difficult that I would have never found it if someone
hadn't posted it here, and it requires a government ID to do it.

But sure, all these dark patterns were unintentional--they _didn 't mean to_.

------
ammon
Hey everyone. Happy to answer any questions about this. Basically, we think
that LinkedIn profiles don't do a good job of showing engineering skill
(especially for self-taught people or people from non-traditional
backgrounds). I'm excited to just build better support for showing side
projects and GitHub contributions. LinkedIn profiles have become the default
engineering resume (despite the fact that most engineers are not particularly
happy with their LinkedIn profile). But there's lock-in. I hope that we have
enough scale to be able to chip away at this.

~~~
remote_phone
What a foolish decision to make. Knowing what you know about HN users, did you
expect that this would go well? You can pretty much assume that Triplebyte
will be persona non grata henceforth, especially as word spreads that you are
publicly exposing people and only giving 1 week to opt out.

Extremely foolish and really shines a bad light on your decision making
capabilities. Why would I put my trust in a company that is so shady?

You will change this bad decision and apologize, but you have betrayed the
trust of all the people who have used you. Even if you change your policy now,
we know you will change it back in the near future. No one will use your
services again, because of this betrayal. You just killed your entire company
in one fell swoop.

I’m shocked that someone associated with YC could make such a demonstrably
poor decision.

~~~
errantspark
A _lot_ of people go through YC and while their filter is better than most I
assure you this is hardly the most shockingly stupid thing I've seen someone
in YC do, ever heard of Meta? That was a dumpster fire from start to finish.

~~~
Judgmentality
Yeah, but one of the TripleByte founders used to be a YC partner, so it's a
_little_ different.

~~~
borski
Actually, he’s a current YC partner again:
[https://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-aaron-and-
harj/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-aaron-and-harj/)

