
An open letter from the founders of Scribd to those of you who didn't get into YC - snowmaker
"The best place to work, if you want to start a startup, is probably a startup. In addition to being the right sort of experience, one way or another it will be over quickly. You'll either end up rich, in which case problem solved, or the startup will get bought, in which case it it will start to suck to work there and it will be easy to leave, or most likely, the thing will blow up and you'll be free again." - PG<p>So you didn't get into YC.  We all know it probably isn't your fault - PG admits that with so many applicants, the choice becomes increasingly arbitrary.  The question is: what do you do now?  If you're a hacker, you're probably weighing three options: (1) Start your startup anyway; 
(2) Work for Google, Apple, etc; or 
(3) Work at someone else's startup<p>If you want to do 1, more power to you.  It would have been easier with YC, but if you work hard you could still pull it off.  Unfortunately, too many great programmers see only options 1 and 2, and forget that the next best thing to starting your own successful startup, is getting in on someone else's while it's still young.  It's also a great path to eventually starting your own company.<p>Although Scribd now has 8 people, working at Scribd is a lot more like doing your own startup than working at a big company.  This is true in terms of the work environment: at Scribd you'll work with a bunch of YC hackers, you'll have a huge impact on the product, and you won't have to deal with management or bureaucracy.  But - and this is often overlooked - it is also true economically.  Valuations are always debatable, but the cash value of the equity you would get in Scribd is actually higher than the cash value of the equity you would get in a new YC startup, which is only about $125K.  At Scribd we'll either all get rich or we all won't, and you'll participate in that.<p>Scribd was originally started by the merger of two Y Combinator companies, and since then, everyone who has joined has either been a YC applicant or someone who started a company themselves.  YC startups often "cannibalize" each other in that way, and it makes sense.  We want to keep this trend going, and right now we need help more than ever to scale our insanely fast-growing website and to develop the technology that is going to revolutionize the way that documents are shared on the Web. <p>If you are interested, send us an email at hackers@scribd.com, or just call Trip's cell phone at 617-335-6685.  Feel free to get in touch about anything, even if you just want some advice about what to do now.  For more details about working at Scribd and our uncorporate culture, check out our jobs page: <a href="http://www.scribd.com/static/jobs" rel="nofollow">http://www.scribd.com/static/jobs</a><p>Sincerely,
Trip, Jared, and Tikhon
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nolanbrown23
So let me ask everyone who reads this, why would you not want to work for
Scribd?

As clear by this ad, Scribd doesn't seem to be your typical company (which is
a good thing). The boss is someone social (ie. actually wants to talk to
people with real, live speech), they've got balls enough to tell you the truth
("We'll either all get rich or we all won't"), and even if Scribd is the worst
failure in business history, you probably met/know some pretty cool people.

To many YC-wannbes focus on the code, the image, the company, the money but
have no understanding that the best thing in a startup is always the people.
If people stop taking everything so fucking serious, you might actually
unclentch and have fun.

I wish there were more companies like Scribd, and yes I definently wish I
worked for one (sadly I'm in the Navy). Trust me when I say if your <25,
apply; don't think, just do it.

~~~
plinkplonk
"I wish there were more companies like Scribd, and yes I definently wish I
worked for one"

I echo the regret! The startup scene in Bangalore(ideas, people , funding etc)
is utterly pathetic. The options are to suffer years of yucky jobs in the USA
(all the while praying for the green card to come through) or work in one of
the local outsource farms.

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ardit33
Good job Scribd. I aplaud your seriousity and maturity you are showing(even if
you guys are really young), yet you can have fun also. Honestly, your page and
everything you guys said, makes me think your company is a good place to work
for. Unlike the Xobni video, which raised too many eyebrows, you guys seem to
be say the right things, and having the right attitude.

I am not looking for a job, but if I was, I would have applied for you guys.

~~~
Jaggu
Yep, After reading detail and checking their site - I am tempted to apply for
this job but I won't because still I am not at a stage to decide between own
startup vs joining startup.

~~~
eusman
If you worked for a YC funded company, probably it could help you get funding
from YC itself if you left at some point and needed it...

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henning
I wish all jobs ads were like this.

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npk
Curious: How many phone calls do you get? I find phone calls so intrusive -- I
can't imagine getting calls from random hackers looking for a job :)

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joeguilmette
any advice for non-hackers trying to start up?

our rough plan is to find a hacker to make a beta/demo for us based on our
design, and ride that demo into seed funding, which we'll use to hire some
hackers, and ride that into a VC.

are we missing something? it's obviously a bit different than what this crowd
generally does, but, do you see any fundamental flaws in this approach?

~~~
gscott
I would suggest laying out your design in html using a WYSIWYG tool like
DreamWeaver. Also write down the "business rules" for each page like "user
signs up here, is provisioned an account, is sent an email, and then is
forwarded to the administration area"

Then hire someone off of Craigslist (or similar venue) to add a backend to it.
If you could spend one or two thousand you could get enough put together to
have a demo to show others.

~~~
joeguilmette
right now what we're doing is 1 step below that.

we're laying everything out in this program called conceptdraw, hoping we can
give that document to a developer and be like "see, this is what we want."

that's a great suggestion though, we might end up having to do that.

~~~
kogir
No offense, but I would have posted almost the exact same "advice" as a
sarcastic joke.

If you follow that advice, make sure that you don't make the mistake of
thinking that you can build the real service on top of whatever the guy from
craigslist throws together.

I don't think you'll have much luck unless you can find one or more coders
who're as excited about your idea as you are, and who you respect enough to
treat as equals.

I've seen a few friends take coding jobs like the one you're planning to fill,
and while they got their pay, the people who hired them never truly got what
they wanted.

~~~
mynameishere
I knew of one such instance where a bunch of MBAs outsourced their idea to a
_single_ Indian coder. He did a passable job, but the app was full of bugs.
And _that's_ when they realized that a .war file doesn't contain source code.

------
aston
What YC companies merged to make Scribd?

~~~
snowmaker
Hulist, Hackerarchy and JobBook are the official YC companies to merge into
Scribd. Tricloud and Nanobeep were great YC applicant companies that joined
us, and Buzzshout was a non-YC but very cool company whose founder is now with
us.

~~~
plusbryan
It doesn't seem honest to say that Hulist+Hackerarchy+JobBook=Scribd. That's
like saying 0+0+0=1. ;-)

~~~
derefr
The whole is more than the sum of its parts?

Or you should be casting to float ;)

~~~
plusbryan
Of course. You miss my meaning. Scribd = 1 (ie. cool company doing good
things), and 0's being unsuccessful attempts. We're allowed unsuccessful
attempts. I sure have a couple under my belt. ;-)

I understand what point the Scribds' are trying to make, but knowing their
history, I just thought I'd call them out on their white lie.

------
endlessvoid94
i cant believe you posted your cell #.

get ready to change your number.

~~~
rms
this isn't justin.tv

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AaronS
I don't think Scribd has much of a chance against the Open Library:

<http://www.openlibrary.org/>

~~~
mattjaynes
Great point - check out the traffic comparison on Alexa:
<http://tinyurl.com/2mdocw>

Not a chance ;)

~~~
AaronS
We all know Alexa is useless:

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/13/alexa-says-youtube-
is-n...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/13/alexa-says-youtube-is-now-
bigger-than-google-theyre-wrong/)

The chart you mention just shows that Open Library users have enough common
sense not to install that crappy spyware Alexa toolbar.

~~~
mattjaynes
Good point.

Apparently they also have enough common sense to prevent their ISP's from
logging their traffic and sending it to compete.com ;)

<http://tinyurl.com/2rvfxu>

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brenda90210
> PG admits that with so many applicants, the choice becomes increasingly
> arbitrary.

No no no -- PG was _very_ insistent that YC's selection process is
specifically NOT arbitrary. Where do you find anything he said to the
contrary?

~~~
euccastro
I think the phrase is 'fraught with error'.

