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The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

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Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#31

Post by tswartz »

donretag wrote: post #11

I used to work for a company that was purchased by a Multi Level Marketing cough pyramidscheme cough company similar to Herbalife. They purchased us for our technology to power their platform. There was supposed to be very little overlap with their business, so I did not feel too worried about it. As time went on, our focus was more on how to sell more of the parent company's products. I also learned more on how the…

Now I'm curious... How did they sell the change in focus to your team/company? What aspects about MLM did you find most surprising?

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#32

Post by batbomb »

donretag wrote: post #11

I used to work for a company that was purchased by a Multi Level Marketing cough pyramidscheme cough company similar to Herbalife. They purchased us for our technology to power their platform. There was supposed to be very little overlap with their business, so I did not feel too worried about it. As time went on, our focus was more on how to sell more of the parent company's products. I also learned more on how the…

In Utah County, by chance?

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#33

Post by mk89 »

danenania wrote: post #27
notacoward wrote: post #15

Reminds me a bit of an experience I had at an event around 2000 or so. Most of the folks there were heavily academic, but at lunch I found myself sitting with one of the organizers who was clearly cut from different cloth, so I asked what he did the rest of the year. After a couple of rounds of vague responses about how he helped companies use email to get in touch with potential customers, it finally dawned on me th…

You talk as if the 'rest of us' in tech are so innocent and pure. Spam is small potatoes compared to the ethical violations many big tech companies get up to on a daily basis.

indeed! But the question is ... can tax evasion be considered an ethical violation? :)

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#35

Post by BradyDale »

randlet wrote: post #6
tonyarkles wrote: post #2

Maybe I just forget what it's like to be a beginner, but how on earth do you work on Ad Injection software and not realize that you're working on Ad Injection?!

I find it difficult to understand how you would even interview & accept a job without understanding what the company did.

I got the impression it's just super fun. We're doing ad syndication! We sell space on websites! We have an innovative peer disruption space sorting alorithm optimizer!

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#36

Post by pyrophane »

danenania wrote: post #27
notacoward wrote: post #15

Reminds me a bit of an experience I had at an event around 2000 or so. Most of the folks there were heavily academic, but at lunch I found myself sitting with one of the organizers who was clearly cut from different cloth, so I asked what he did the rest of the year. After a couple of rounds of vague responses about how he helped companies use email to get in touch with potential customers, it finally dawned on me th…

You talk as if the 'rest of us' in tech are so innocent and pure. Spam is small potatoes compared to the ethical violations many big tech companies get up to on a daily basis.

Yea, good point. We live in an age when a whole set of duplicitous practices are now just referred to as "growth hacking"

Re: The Perks Are Great, Just Don’t Ask What We Do

#39

Post by usrusr »

randlet wrote: post #6
tonyarkles wrote: post #2

Maybe I just forget what it's like to be a beginner, but how on earth do you work on Ad Injection software and not realize that you're working on Ad Injection?!

I find it difficult to understand how you would even interview & accept a job without understanding what the company did.

Once you learn that they are selling ads on websites, "what does the company do to earn money" seems to be sufficiently answered.

Also I would strongly suspect that most traders of stolen goods (ad spots, in this case) would have a path for legitimately acquired merchandise as well, not only for plausible deniability but also because they sure would not mind paying their bills in a clean way, they just failed to resist the lure of the extra cash. With that in place, you'd have to actually work in the shady part to know about it, or have bird's eye numbers of the whole company where you might see that output does not match the legitimate input.

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