Yeah, I'm confused as to why this was so shocking to the point where it was circulated and warranted a blog post. I've written equally as innocent "just looking to be around talented folks even if it means.." cover letters to companies I respected. In fact, that's what a lot of the design agencies I've worked for got the most of.
I am even more confused why this is on top of HN receiving so many votes in the past hour.
Is the email really that unique? It seems pretty standard to me and even looks like boilerplate from one of those "how to write a cover letter for internships" articles out there.
I suspect that a large chunk of HN's lurkers are thwarted engineers, who got recruited out of college by IBs and are trapped in the world of finance by their bloated compensation packages, now living the carefree life of the programmer vicariously by hanging around here.
Not sure which carefree life of the programmer you're talking about -- do you mean the one where you work at a startup, constantly aware of the risk of showing up to a locked door from mass layoffs, expected to work crazy hours out of devotion and loyalty, loaded with stock options that will likely be worthless, even if the company gets purchased on its way out?
Bingo. I think there's a lot of vicariousness going on all round here. It's a pervasive problem with the internet.
I tried to replace the last line with one about how I am partly hanging around here vicariously living the life of a cleverer and more highly paid programmer, but I couldn't make it work so I just got rid of it. Hmmmm.
