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Would you have answered this job ad?

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Re: Would you have answered this job ad?

#41

Post by aswanson »

aswanson wrote: post #26

Maybe someone in the MA area will be kicking themselves for not answering this one in a few years: http://friendfeed.com/about/contact

As a clarification, I could see how this could read as a lame recruitment ploy for that company, and let me say that I am in no way affliated with friendfeed. I just wanted to point out that there are perhaps equivalent opportunities to the Amazon ad going on right now. Sorry to the friendfeed's if that happened.

I can't figure out any other reason why someone would downmod, but hopefully it wasn't because of that.

Re: Would you have answered this job ad?

#42

Post by nostrademons »

aswanson wrote: post #26

Maybe someone in the MA area will be kicking themselves for not answering this one in a few years: http://friendfeed.com/about/contact

I may be one of those someones in the MA area. ;-)

Actually, I can think of at least two offers that I may kick myself for not taking up. But if I did, I might kick myself for giving up my own startup. If only we all had 20/20 foresight...

Re: Would you have answered this job ad?

#43

Post by aswanson »

nostrademons wrote: post #42
aswanson wrote: post #26

Maybe someone in the MA area will be kicking themselves for not answering this one in a few years: http://friendfeed.com/about/contact

I may be one of those someones in the MA area. ;-) Actually, I can think of at least two offers that I may kick myself for not taking up. But if I did, I might kick myself for giving up my own startup. If only we all had 20/20 foresight...

If only we all had 20/20 foresight..

Yeah, not nearly enough of that going around.

Re: Would you have answered this job ad?

#44

Post by byrneseyeview »

mattjung wrote: post #12

He was obviously looking for the right people for the right OS and programming languages at that time for highly scalable communication systems. Would be interesting to compare that with job offers of competitors of that time (who were those, btw?).

I think there were a few technical bookstores online, but he was one of the very earliest, and certainly the first to try to have a larger scope (e.g. before it was 'let's sell our inventories online', Amazon's idea was 'let's sell every possible book online').

Interestingly enough, Amazon was (if I recall correctly) started as a research project: David Shaw (of the hedge fund D. E. Shaw) asked Bezos (then a VP there) for a list of ways to make money online. At the top of Bezos' list was bookstores. Shaw decided it wasn't worth the risk, Bezos decided it was, so Bezos left the company to found Amazon. Shaw ended up starting Juno, though, so it's not a total loss.

Re: Would you have answered this job ad?

#45

Post by angstrom »

mattjung wrote: post #12

He was obviously looking for the right people for the right OS and programming languages at that time for highly scalable communication systems. Would be interesting to compare that with job offers of competitors of that time (who were those, btw?).

Well, at that time they hadn't branched out. So it really would've been Barnes & Nobel, Borders, and small books stores.

Re: Would you have answered this job ad?

#47

Post by ggrot »

aneesh wrote: post #8

Probably not (much to my regret). The only distinguishing factor is Bezos' name, and that is obvious only in retrospect. I see too many ads like this everyday for any one to stand out. Anyway, I'm going to console myself by saying I would've replied and seen them in person, and immediately realized they were onto something huge, blah blah blah

There are some bits that stand out:

- experience designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable) systems. Mostly the yet maintainable bit.

- must be willing to relocate

- Well-capitalized, we will cover moving costs, meaningful equity ownership

- Alan Kay

- @netcom.com

Re: Would you have answered this job ad?

#48

Post by Harj »

aneesh wrote: post #34
vlad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You never see an ad saying "Startup looking for mediocre developers." Nothing about this one really resonates. Not true. Auctomatic had a job ad for a long time looking for a so-so developer. I answered it right away but was distracted from learning smalltalk at the time. Here it is: http://blog.auctomatic.com/?p=4 . It's hilarious.

Yeah, it is hilarious. I'm also pretty sure it's not serious.

yes. anyone who replied that ad thinking it was serious, we (unsurprisingly) didn't hire...
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