Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Men wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring.

adgrok.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 117 posts

Re: Men wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring.

#11

Post by spitfire »

limedaring wrote: post #9
antongm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headliner is an apocryphal quote from Ernest Shackleton, leader of a doomed but famous Antarctic expedition in 1914. Nothing about the current state of tech was implied, nor about our desired employee pool. Obviously we welcome one and all.

Don't think it's obvious, if you just look at the headline. Is the integrity of the quote more important than looking non-biased against women programmers?

Yes, the integrity of the quote is more important than alienating a very few people who don't know history.

Aside: I wouldn't want to work with someone who got wound up about something like this.

Re: Men wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring.

#12

Post by sabj »

antongm wrote: post #7
varaon wrote: post #3

Nice, but you'd be much better off with "Good men and women wanted for hazardous journey." There may be statistically fewer women in tech, but you'll never hear from them with a title like that!

The headliner is an apocryphal quote from Ernest Shackleton, leader of a doomed but famous Antarctic expedition in 1914. Nothing about the current state of tech was implied, nor about our desired employee pool. Obviously we welcome one and all.

I got the quote, appreciated the reference.

Unfortunately for the purposes of this argument, am male. I would say that I'm OK with the quote for artistic purposes, perhaps vary the call to action in other contexts to avoid arousing any problems of bias...

[O__o]

Re: Men wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring.

#14

Post by mike_h »

limedaring wrote: post #9
antongm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headliner is an apocryphal quote from Ernest Shackleton, leader of a doomed but famous Antarctic expedition in 1914. Nothing about the current state of tech was implied, nor about our desired employee pool. Obviously we welcome one and all.

Don't think it's obvious, if you just look at the headline. Is the integrity of the quote more important than looking non-biased against women programmers?

I usually come out pretty strongly against programmer-culture misogyny, however subtle, but here we're talking about a pretty famous quotation and I would answer to your question, "yes". There's a difference between sexism and historically-weighted badassness.

One could argue there's a literacy-filter being applied here more than a gender-filter.

Re: Men wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring.

#17

Post by CWuestefeld »

antongm wrote: post #7
varaon wrote: post #3

Nice, but you'd be much better off with "Good men and women wanted for hazardous journey." There may be statistically fewer women in tech, but you'll never hear from them with a title like that!

The headliner is an apocryphal quote from Ernest Shackleton, leader of a doomed but famous Antarctic expedition in 1914. Nothing about the current state of tech was implied, nor about our desired employee pool. Obviously we welcome one and all.

It may be worth noting that although the expedition was a failure, that was pretty much a matter of bad luck with the behavior of the ice floes.

And as awful an experience as it must have been for the men involved, it's also worth noting (perhaps especially in this context) that not a single person lost his life, owing largely to some incredible leadership from Shackleton, and amazing skills from much of his crew.

Re: Men wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring.

#18

Post by jacquesm »

limedaring wrote: post #9
antongm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The headliner is an apocryphal quote from Ernest Shackleton, leader of a doomed but famous Antarctic expedition in 1914. Nothing about the current state of tech was implied, nor about our desired employee pool. Obviously we welcome one and all.

Don't think it's obvious, if you just look at the headline. Is the integrity of the quote more important than looking non-biased against women programmers?

> Is the integrity of the quote more important than looking non-biased against women programmers?

Yes, absolutely. It also pre-selects for those that have a sense of humor.

If I were a woman - which I'm not - I would definitely play that to my advantage in my application.

Re: Men wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring.

#19

Post by arethuza »

antongm wrote: post #7
varaon wrote: post #3

Nice, but you'd be much better off with "Good men and women wanted for hazardous journey." There may be statistically fewer women in tech, but you'll never hear from them with a title like that!

The headliner is an apocryphal quote from Ernest Shackleton, leader of a doomed but famous Antarctic expedition in 1914. Nothing about the current state of tech was implied, nor about our desired employee pool. Obviously we welcome one and all.

Anyone seeking to lead other can do a lot worst than trying to learn from Ernest Shackleton

"but when you are in a hopeless situation, when you are seeing no way out, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton"

Re: Men wanted for hazardous journey: AdGrok (YC S10) is hiring.

#20

Post by jacquesm »

antongm wrote: post #7
varaon wrote: post #3

Nice, but you'd be much better off with "Good men and women wanted for hazardous journey." There may be statistically fewer women in tech, but you'll never hear from them with a title like that!

The headliner is an apocryphal quote from Ernest Shackleton, leader of a doomed but famous Antarctic expedition in 1914. Nothing about the current state of tech was implied, nor about our desired employee pool. Obviously we welcome one and all.

Super quote, especially given the bits I remember about the 'endurance expedition', that's as nice a metaphor of what it can be like to run a startup.

Hope you end up better than Shackleton and crew and succeed!

Post reply on HN