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I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

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Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#151

Post by grosbisou »

tptacek wrote: post #78
simonswords82 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wanting to do the concept for Starfighter any injustice but I get the feeling it's as simple as they spent too much time on the tech and not enough on the business. A very easy mistake when the co-founders are technically minded.

It turns out --- I'm speaking for at least Erin and I, but I suspect to an extent Patrick too --- we don't have the stomach for the contingency recruiting model. Referring someone for an interview and watching them get turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying myself and getting turned down. Fuck that. It's a job that is possible to do and possible to do well and my life is too short…

> Referring someone for an interview and watching them get turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying myself and getting turned down.

Wow it actually makes a lot of sense. Especially since you seemed to handpick candidates and vouch for them from a technical point of view.

I wonder if classic recruiters have this problem as they (most of the time) just bet on the number and are not invested personally.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#152

Post by csomar »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #70
nrb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, in Illinois it costs more than that just to file your LLC and reserve your company name.

Wow, why is it so expensive? In the UK you fill out a form online and within 24hours it's setup. It costs £12 so approx $15.

I thought the problem comes with the fillings/taxes you have to do after you create the company.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#153

Post by cperciva »

idlewords wrote: post #58

I don't see any advantage in incorporation if you want to run your own private business, but I'm willing to accept that I'm being the weirdo here.

I incorporated Tarsnap Backup Inc. five years ago (to the day!) largely for tax paperwork purposes. By being a separate legal entity it became possible to do things like having Tarsnap register to collect sales taxes without having Colin register to collect sales taxes. But the company was running quite successfully as a sole proprietorship until that point.

Probably more important, although I didn't realize it at the time, is that being a corporation gave Tarsnap more credibility, especially when dealing with other corporations. I saw a sharp increase in the number of large users of Tarsnap after it I incorporated it.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#154

Post by Alex3917 »

tptacek wrote: post #78
simonswords82 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wanting to do the concept for Starfighter any injustice but I get the feeling it's as simple as they spent too much time on the tech and not enough on the business. A very easy mistake when the co-founders are technically minded.

It turns out --- I'm speaking for at least Erin and I, but I suspect to an extent Patrick too --- we don't have the stomach for the contingency recruiting model. Referring someone for an interview and watching them get turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying myself and getting turned down. Fuck that. It's a job that is possible to do and possible to do well and my life is too short…

Given that you and Patrick have spent the last several years advocating billing by value instead of by time/skills, why did you decide to start a business trying to convince people that the best way to get paid more was by improving their tech skills? Granted learning stuff is often a good thing and there is clearly some connection between skills and value so I don't think there was anything wrong with the concept itself, but the fact that it was both of you running it seemed at the least off-brand.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#155

Post by fecak »

owathray123 wrote: post #119

I for one am more than faintly relieved that Starfighter has fallen. It looked to me like an attempt to find the most direct way possible to parlay the prominent position that Thomas and Patrick have in this community into cash - by literally selling its members. There's a line that's crossed here between being a member of HN buoyed up by the good wishes and advice of your fellows, and using the community as a resour…

Their good standing in the community would have obviously helped them approach players/candidates (or at least led to a high response rate - even if the response was 'no thanks'), but it's unfair to accuse them of selling out the community. They built a free game, and the way I understood it was that players of that game might get a congrats when reaching a certain level, and that might be followed by a "Hiya" from Patrick saying something along the lines of "you're a good player, and if you're interested in jobs we can help you with that too".

Getting that "Hiya" from Patrick was basically the cost of the game - not unlike having to watch an ad - which I think players should be fine with if they really like the game and also understand that the business is indeed a recruiting venture.

At least that was my understanding based on what I read and a couple conversations with Patrick.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#156

Post by tptacek »

fecak wrote: post #150
tptacek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out --- I'm speaking for at least Erin and I, but I suspect to an extent Patrick too --- we don't have the stomach for the contingency recruiting model. Referring someone for an interview and watching them get turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying myself and getting turned down. Fuck that. It's a job that is possible to do and possible to do well and my life is too short…

I met with Patrick for a couple hours this spring to talk about Starfighter and recruiting and such (I've been in recruiting for almost 20 years), and I shared some of the challenges the industry has faced. Patrick shared some anecdotes about his brief experience (at the time) on the recruiting side of the business, and it does take some time to get to the point where you don't take rejection personally. Recruiting i…

That's really interesting! Our experience was: we didn't need to do any outbound sales work at all (our entire client base was cold inbounds), and we could close a contract with 1-2 phone calls. Our referrals I think with 1 exception? all got interviews.

But we're sourcing non-traditional candidates, and the --- you know what, I'm getting ahead of myself on a blog post I'm still tuning up.

In any case, that might explain what was so painful about the business for us: we had high frequency exposure to the worst part of it.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#157

Post by duked »

I'm happy for Patrick.

I have to say, to me the downfall of starfighter was predictable. I LOVED microcorruption it was something I could get in fairly quickly and enjoy. But starfighter was requiring too much commitment to get the basics of operation and if I'm looking for a job I'd rather invest that time into brushing up my algorithms (since that's the hiring criteria these days...) rather than reading some background to play a "game" to eventually beat challenges and maybe get a job interview :/

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#158

Post by tptacek »

Alex3917 wrote: post #154
tptacek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out --- I'm speaking for at least Erin and I, but I suspect to an extent Patrick too --- we don't have the stomach for the contingency recruiting model. Referring someone for an interview and watching them get turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying myself and getting turned down. Fuck that. It's a job that is possible to do and possible to do well and my life is too short…

Given that you and Patrick have spent the last several years advocating billing by value instead of by time/skills, why did you decide to start a business trying to convince people that the best way to get paid more was by improving their tech skills? Granted learning stuff is often a good thing and there is clearly some connection between skills and value so I don't think there was anything wrong with the concept it…

I remain confused by all the weird things people think we were trying to do with that business. "Trying to convince people that the best way to get paid more was by improving their tech skills" is one of those things. Whatever it is that got published that created this impression, I disavow.

I feel like, doing recruiting through work sample challenges is basically 80-90% of my whole brand.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#159

Post by ZoF »

superuser2 wrote: post #137
stdclass wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Austria, you don't need any capital at all, to start a EPU (One-Person-Company) which is really convenient.

In most states you can freely run a business under your own name, and if you'd like a business name to be simply an alias for yourself (not a separate legal person) a Doing Business As arrangement is trivial, fast, and cheap. But the whole point of a company is limited liability, an entity which can own property, sue and be sued, etc. separately from its collection of owners.

Yep, pretty much this, it's the limited liability you incorporate for.

Re: I’m Joining Stripe to Work on Atlas

#160

Post by tptacek »

gknoy wrote: post #145
tptacek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It turns out --- I'm speaking for at least Erin and I, but I suspect to an extent Patrick too --- we don't have the stomach for the contingency recruiting model. Referring someone for an interview and watching them get turned down was, for me at least, about 80% of the psychic cost of applying myself and getting turned down. Fuck that. It's a job that is possible to do and possible to do well and my life is too short…

I realize this is a completely selfish request, but is there a chance that the challenges and games you made will continue to be available, or self-hostable? :-D I now regret not having participated in the CTFs that you three built.

The answer about the existing challenges is "I don't know".

But the answer about will there be challenges we maintain is "very yes".

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