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

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

#81

Post by earl »

Interesting -- cool job post.

What I would really like to see, although of course you may not want to disclose this, is what sort of projects this person would work on in the first couple of months.

For everybody else, I spent 2 years working on SEM and I think AdGrok is a great product, fwiw. See eg Clickable or KeyMetric as competitors; Clickable is self serve SEM on GYM, at least when I interviewed there. This is a much better interface and helps solve the biggest problem for small business sem, which isn't technical but is convincing people of value and helping nontechnical people use SEM without burning through too much money on account managers.

Too bad I hate writing web apps, because this looks like an awesome opportunity.

Are you planning on setting up call fowarding ala clickable / yodle / reachlocal? Overlaying that information would be awesome, though it's a huge pita...

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

#82

Post by JabavuAdams »

I used to think that programmers were smart because we could talk to machines.

The shallowness of a lot of the posts on this emotional and contentious topic reinforce what I've learned since: on average programmers are not that smart, which is why they need to talk to simple machines.

Basically, try to discuss something that ends in "ism", and otherwise reasonable people go all ape-shit.

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

#83

Post by ErrantX »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #29
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.

It's pretty obvious that your intent was innocent. But the fact that you didn't realize how awful a headline that is sends a different message. On the other hand, it's not just you guys -- i.e. you're no worse than the avg. tech company, FWIW. This is a classic example of the techie "we're a meritocracy, so we couldn't possibly be sexist" thinking that's so common. It's not the pat on the ass and glass-ceiling kind o…

It shouldn't be an awful headline; that's the sad thing. I submit that those taking issue with it (i.e. those pointing out a potential offence) are actually part of the problem.

One solution would be t encourage as many innocent headlines as it takes till it simple doesn't matter whether you say men, women or Martian - it just means people.... (unfortunately that means people will be offended, so possibly not the sanest approach)

Ascribing an intent to someone who clearly doesn't mean it is just not cricket :)

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

#84

Post by earl »

anigbrowl wrote: post #47
crux_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, call me too sensitive then: it is sexist. If they need to explicitly mention that "women are welcome" in a footnote, that pretty much confirms that their choice of headline is saying that women are somewhat less than welcome. I don't see why being too sensitive is seen as somehow worse in the startup/developer community than being too insensitive. You'd think it would be smarter to err in the other direction...

is saying that women are somewhat less than welcome. It's more of a signal to marketing professionals. That 'men wanted for hazardous journey' ad is famous enough to be cited in just about any textbook/college course on advertising and marketing - it generated a huge volume of replies when published, confounding the intuitive belief that effective advertising requires exclusive focus on the positive. They're seeking…

Perhaps I'm stupid, or maybe it's that I went to a state school, but I didn't recognize the quote.

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

#85

Post by crux_ »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #79
crux_ wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's hard wiring. Women = nurturing, communication. Men = hunt, build. Let's ignore all the mountains of evidence to the contrary and say that, on average, you are absolutely correct. Have you read Harrison Bergeron? Go on, it's easy to find on google. I'll wait. Okay, done? Good. Now think about this: No matter how correct you may be about genetic predestination, your sexist attitudes, and the actions you take bas…

Let's ignore all the mountains of evidence to the contrary and say that, on average, you are absolutely correct. Please, trot out some of the evidence. I can find plenty that agrees with his statement that men and women are wired differently. I'll get you started: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=men+and+women+... Aside from that, it makes zero sense from an evolutionary standpoint that both genders would ad…

I'm not interested in debating about just how different men and women are, and in which respects, and what parts are environmental and what parts genetic. At the end of the day it doesn't matter, which is why I said "let's ignore...".

If a woman wants to move beyond what is 'normal' for her gender, why is it acceptable to discriminate against her?

It doesn't matter a bit whether 'normal' is biological in origin or cultural.

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

#86

Post by steveklabnik »

crux_ wrote: post #75
steveklabnik wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know plenty of women that look at porn, one female friend continually makes jokes about raping me, and if you don't think that women talk about men when they're not around... Not that I totally disagree with you, and most of my peer group is under 30. Just saying.

> I know plenty of women that look at porn, one female friend continually makes jokes about raping me, and if you don't think that women talk about men when they're not around... Note: I'm talking about in professional settings. p.s.: watch out for your friend. ;)

While you're right that this isn't in a professional setting, I've also seen plenty of shenanigans on the job, too... admittedly, this has a lot to do with the individuals and the culture.

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

#87

Post by ErrantX »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #63
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, actually, it's not up to us to decide whether it is or it isn't. Bullshit. Who, other than me, should have the right to decide if my statement is too offensive to be spoken? It is absolutely up to the individual to decide if someone else's offense at your statements or opinions is due to oversensitivity or you being wrong. Who else should decide, if not the individual with the opinion in question?

Ok, first of all, I'm not trying to censor you -- I just want that to be clear. So, it's not a question of whether anything you say is "too offensive to be spoken". That was your interpretation -- not mine. Second, I don't believe that we can or should always avoid offending others -- we don't have a right to never be offended. What I am specifically focusing on is this attitude that "you shouldn't be offended" is co…

I think the rational argument is; if you are finding offense in an innocent phrase that was not intended (or even considered as) to imply a sexist attitude then you are a part of the problem you are observing.

If someone said this to belittle or discriminate; that should generate an outcry. Sadly; it does not because examples like this get the same treatment.

So, no, you probably shouldn't be offended by examples such as this. If you do; rational people will try to help by suggesting you are being over sensitive in an attempt to avoid future misunderstandings on your part.

(I'd also point out that suggesting intent in an utterly innocent phrase is not just over sensitive but outright rude to the person writing it)

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

#88

Post by JabavuAdams »

ErrantX wrote: post #83
JabavuAdams wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty obvious that your intent was innocent. But the fact that you didn't realize how awful a headline that is sends a different message. On the other hand, it's not just you guys -- i.e. you're no worse than the avg. tech company, FWIW. This is a classic example of the techie "we're a meritocracy, so we couldn't possibly be sexist" thinking that's so common. It's not the pat on the ass and glass-ceiling kind o…

It shouldn't be an awful headline; that's the sad thing. I submit that those taking issue with it (i.e. those pointing out a potential offence) are actually part of the problem. One solution would be t encourage as many innocent headlines as it takes till it simple doesn't matter whether you say men, women or Martian - it just means people.... (unfortunately that means people will be offended, so possibly not the san…

> Ascribing an intent to someone who clearly doesn't mean it is just not cricket :)

Sure, but it betrays a certain cluelessness. I.e. It's not so much that this is an outrageous headline -- ZOMG off with their heads, public apology, blah blah.

It's more a case of -- if they're clueless about this, then what else are they clueless about -- especially from the POV of a prospective female employee.

E.g. I know of a sweet old grandma who described the colour of her sofa as "nigger brown". She had no ill intent, and I don't ascribe any to her. BUT ... it's evidence that she may have other ideas that I may not agree with -- especially if she's my boss.

Evidence of cluelessness is ... at the very least ... evidence of cluelessness.

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

#89

Post by axod »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #74
axod wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a male. I don't give a flying fuck about 'culture'. There is no culture. It matters not a jot to me. It never has. Why should it??? I grew up hacking away on my own in my bedroom floor hunched in front of a PC making raycasting demos at 4am. WTF has culture got to do with me doing that??? Are you trying to say that I started programming because I was embraced by some culture??? Are you saying that women are put o…

You realize that the average man doesn't enjoy programming either, right? Why shit on the exceptional women who do? Also regarding kids -- my experience is that while there are differences in wiring, parents and friends do subtle things from even before birth that tend to skew things differently for different genders. Whoa anecdote deadlock. Why are you so angry? People rarely make sense when they're angry -- perhaps…

It's just so tiring people being offended by this sort of thing.

Also, TBH, I kinda find it offensive to suggest that the only reason I started programming was because I'm a male, and because there's apparently some 'male friendly culture'.

I'm angry because I hate the whole "Everyone is absolutely equal" movement. They're not. Everyone is not equal. We're all different. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. Embrace those differences. Especially in the sexes.

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

#90

Post by d0mine »

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 might be "urban legend" http://www.antarctic-circle.org/advert.htm
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