
Need a Job? Build Something Cool. - kfarzaneh
i.e.<p>Feross (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678111) gets an offer:<p>From Chad Hurley's Twitter:
"Hey @FreeTheFeross! Loving YouTube Instant... http://feross.net/instant/ Want a job? ;)"
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mortenjorck
I think this can be true, to a point. The danger is in getting lazy.

Time for my story:

Last October, I released a concept video of a next-generation desktop UI that
garnered a surprising amount of blog coverage. Within a week, I had received
emails from people at Google, Apple, and Microsoft, as well as a few startups.

As you might imagine, I was rather excited. This was exactly what I'd hoped
might be a result of the video: I'd get noticed, talked about, and picked up
by an industry leader.

Yet here I am, nearly a year later, still at my old job. What happened? I'd
figured I had it in the bag, that all I had to do was put my best foot forward
and I'd be well on my way to my dream interaction design career. In truth: I
got lazy.

The interview at Google the next month went well, but a month after that, I
got the bad-news call. Apple took me through a series of wide-spaced phone
screens that never went anywhere, only to restart the recruitment process for
a different division several months later, finally getting bumped by an
internal candidate. Microsoft got lost in the shuffle, I went through some
disjointed recruitment processes at a few startups with a bit of contract
work, but finally, even that went quiet.

Where did I go wrong? I think I assumed I'd gone far enough for the time
being, that this one video marked my arrival and that was it. But I lost my
momentum. Lengthy recruiting processes can make it seem like you have time to
kill, but you don't! I shouldn't have missed a beat; I should have doubled
down on my concept and explored it even further instead of pinning my hopes on
getting hired somewhere cool.

My advice to Feross or anyone else who finds themselves in a similar
situation: Don't stop now!

~~~
ojbyrne
I wouldn't classify holding down a fulltime job while doing a side project AND
going through fairly rigorous recruiting processes as anywhere near lazy.

~~~
bootload
_"... holding down a fulltime job while doing a side project AND going through
fairly rigorous recruiting processes as anywhere near lazy ..."_

I'd agree but @mortenjorck probably means _"focused"_. One of the things I
noticed reading the description was it sounded similar to how Linux started -
Linus stayed on task with the OS but released early and often (with the help
of GNU). I bet the _"hiring plebs"_ at SoftCo. would have been going overtime
if the idea was distributed and used by increasing numbers of users.

------
blhack
I've seen this sentiment expressed here, as well as a few other places.

[1] _Nothing_ matters more to employers than seeing that you actually have a
passion for building things. There are a lot of people who have got
certifications up to their eyes, but don't really care too much about tech.

There is a huge difference between the person that goes home and spends their
nights working on a building cookie-baking-robot, or the next big social-
networking website, and somebody that goes home and watches the TV.

I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with watching TV, just that having
somebody who likes doing the type of work you're hiring them to do so much
that they actually do it _even when they don't have to_ is going to go a long
way towards motivating them. It also means that they, typically, are good
independent learners. I imagine that this is a hugely important trait in an
industry where doing things that might seem kindof insane (like running a
data-store that hasn't even reached a 1.0 release yet) is considered normal.

[1]Obviously, within reason. If you've got a passion for building things, but
you think that a server is somebody that brings you food at a restaurant, you
might not be well suited to a system administrator position.

(Or maybe this is all just wishful thinking. I love building things, but
haven't yet gotten my dream job.)

~~~
kaisdavisOR
_Nothing matters more to employers than seeing that you actually have a
passion for building things_

This is as true outside of technical fields. I've been giving talks at Career
Centers about communicating passion to find a job after college, and the thing
that is most attractive to employers is creating something or communicating
passion.

And Feross? Outstanding. In the next talk I give, you're in the spotlight.
Congratulations!

~~~
blhack
If you don't mind my asking, how do you get this type of thing across on a
resume?

Some people have told me to wrap my personal projects up as a "company" and
say that I am employed by myself, basically list it as a job.

~~~
mkramlich
The fact that you have to even ask this question (I've been in same boat) is
evidence that traditional resumes and hiring mindsets are broken and archaic.
The "X years of experience in Y" concept being probably the poster boy.
Because what does X mean? Is X years by Bob equivalent to X years by Steve?
What if X years in Y yields greater mastery than A years in B, because the
former occurred later in their career, or because B was more difficult?

For example, I wrote a lot of C code in the 90's, but never "professionally"
and so I periodically encounter recruiters whose brain just implodes at that
concept. How could I possibly know C if I never did it for a paycheck? Is he
lying? Talk about an insane world view.

------
jamespitts
I can't agree with this enough. I'm kind of an old-timer web developer and
have built about one new web concept every 3 or 4 years. While none of these
ventures have made me a millionaire, each one did teach me new skills and lead
directly to my next job.

Most recently it was a very fluffy "video sharing" rails app, built in 2007.
It helped me get a good gig that buffered me through the first half of the
great recession.

Now I'm back to doing what I like doing best... investing time in learning and
build-cool-thinging. I really can't lose.

And, as a last note, building something is a very good cover for being, er,
"in between jobs"... and a lot cheaper than grad school :)

------
rythie
The question is, if you can build something cool (and importantly get press),
why just settle for just a job?

~~~
jrockway
Because 99% of people make more money collecting a salary than they do being
bought by Google.

~~~
swombat
Really? Where's that number coming from?

Seems to me that if you build a startup that's acquired by Google (say for the
relatively small sum of $5m after a couple of years) that's still a whole lot
more than you would have earned as a salary - even if you're a cofounder with
just 50%. And on top of that you end up getting another good salary from
Google as well once they acquire you.

~~~
philwelch
$2.5m for one successful 3 year startup is 833,000 per year. So let's say
every year you spend working on a successful startup, you earn $900,000,
adding in a salary during those 3 years and rounding up for fun.

But every year you spend working on a _failed_ startup, you might only earn
$50,000 (let's assume you can draw a small salary off of investors or
revenue). And let's also say there's a 10% chance of success. The EV for
spending a year on startup(s) wound be $95,000, which is probably within
wiggle room of what you could earn with a salary.

However, that's average. If you're clever and determined, your chance won't be
10%. At 25%, the EV goes up to $262,500 per year. That's a hard salary to get.
But few people are sufficiently awesome to have a 25% shot, I suspect. (It's
hard to say because there aren't many truly large sample sizes out there yet.)

~~~
sunir
If one in ten Internet startups were acquired by Google, I'd short Google's
stock. The likelihood of being acquired is closer to one in one thousand.

~~~
philwelch
I've been thinking about this, but really I'm not so sure we're talking about
the same number. It's close to one in one thousand to have your first or
second startup acquired, maybe, but at a certain level of competence it's not
unreasonable to expect a $5m exit somewhere within your first ten startups.

~~~
sunir
It's very unlikely you'll get through 10 startups without having to spend your
own money since a three time loser is not going to get investment very easily.

Your average net income over the period of time it takes you to get a $5M exit
will probably exceed your earnings from that exit, which will likely be less
than $1M.

The point is that startups are not an easy or guaranteed way to make killer
money. That's gold rush thinking. Think about how many startups (thousands)
are in Silicon Valley right now and how many have exited in the last 5 years
(dozens).

Don't get me wrong. Live the dream. I'm working at my 6th startup, and I just
started my first one. But don't do it for the money. Do it because you're
creating something you believe should exist in the world.

------
DanHulton
This? Works so well, though not necessarily as written.

I built and launched Bill On Site about a year ago
(<http://www.billonsite.com/>), and it's leading the top of my resume. I've
gotten every job I've applied for largely based on the strength of having done
that.

The fact that you can start AND finish a large project on your own speaks
volumes over other guys who are basically unproven quantities without similar
references.

~~~
petervandijck
"The fact that you can start AND finish a large project on your own speaks
volumes."

It totally does. Passion counts for much, and it's just so hard to find.

------
djb_hackernews
For other people who don't know who Chad Hurley is, he is the CEO of YouTube.

~~~
fezzl
And Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Clickable:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1678111>

<http://feross.net/instant/>

------
mmphosis
Need to Build Something Cool? Quit your Job.

------
feross
Hi everyone, I'm the author of YouTube Instant. Thanks for all the nice
comments. This discussion has been quite interesting to read.

------
PatHyatt
Very nice. Congrats Feross on your success and serious offer?

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MrAlmostWrong
The other side of this is having the company duplicate what you did and you
are still out of a job.

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tereno
I'd say kudos to the lad for his work. It's a fairly decent idea but I
personally wouldn't use it. Never really like any of those "play something
random" stuff. Someone out there might love this idea though. With Google
Instant, I felt that the speed of change was quite drastic. Every single
letter I typed caused the UI to change. Don't really fancy it now but we'll
see!

------
pgr
I did go down this path with <http://www.errorlevelanalysis.com/>, hoping that
the development time would pay off and bring in future work. So far it's just
been a tool that reddit and 4chan use to spur on comment wars.

Building something cool that has actual utility to someone, may be a better
strategy.

------
jmarbach
<http://twitter.com/Chad_Hurley/status/24129459657>

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niico
Screw degrees, screw fancy pants resumes.

BUILD and build it now.

Ever heard the phrase MAKE WHAT PEOPLE WANTS?

And....... go!

------
NationalHQ
Such a sentiment presumes programmers have all the cool ideas.

~~~
tigerthink
How's that, exactly?

------
known
Can Feross get a job in YouTube had he gone through the usual recruitment
process? I'd say a big no.

------
stevederico
do we know if @FreeTheFeross is on HN?

~~~
feross
I am. :)

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sabat
_Was_ this a serious offer?

~~~
drtse4
<http://twitter.com/Chad_Hurley/status/24134092111>

