Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#21

Post by benbreen » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:17 AM UTC

ohquu wrote: post #18

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has no idea what the working environment is like, I'd love to hear some stories. What's day-to-day life like in that sort of job? I guess I'm just curious what the owners do to make it so unbearable to work there. And why they don't care.

After reading these other comments, I Googled David E. Shaw and found this: http://mathbabe.org/2012/04/05/it-sucks-to-be-rich/ . (WARNING: Not sure of the validity of these stories, but they're interesting.) > First example: David hires a Ph.D. in English literature (he has a thing for “geniuses”, even in the mail room) to test mattresses for him. So that person’s job is to sleep on 15 different mattresses, for 8 ni…

I commented earlier that I thought about applying to that classified job in 2007 - as it happens, in 2008 I briefly worked as the personal assistant to a personal assistant at D.E. Shaw. I was working alongside Harvard business school types, but doing the most trivial things. I literally had to run across midtown to deliver a six pack of Diet Dr. Pepper to one of Shaw's executives at one point. Half the people I met there were humanities PhD dropouts. I applied to humanities PhD programs while working there and sort of did the reverse.

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#22

Post by yesprocrast2 » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:19 AM UTC

gwern wrote: post #15

yesprocrast2 wrote: post #14

The answer is obvious and simple to anyone who has worked for "one of Wall Street's most successful entrepreneurs." These assholes churn through assistants like you wouldn't believe. Most quit, in spite of the high pay, out of basic self-respect. The others are fired during a tantrum. Most of these jagoffs have a few pending wrongful termination lawsuits at any given time. Just ask them, they'll probably brag about i…

You'd think that if the turnover was so bad that they had to have the ad literally 10 years running, at least one of the burnt assistants would've explained what's going on.

I'm sure many would talk privately, but not publicly. Not if they're hoping to get paid from their lawsuit or if they got paid to sign something. Or if they want to work for another firm, and have to worry about false rumors being spread.

They also know first hand how litigious and vindictive these guys get. My friend nearly killed himself as a result of being repeatedly dragged through the courts. He was forced to burn his life savings on lawyers, after his two asshole employers predictably turned on each other. And he was just a witness in the cases, a pawn, subject to torture by two of Wall Street's most successful entrepreneurs. They blew millions on lawyers and ruined lives, just to fuck with each other.

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#23

Post by Ryel » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:21 AM UTC

desdiv wrote: post #17

stevenjohns wrote: post #10

CTRL + F "Tue. Nov. 24th 2009" on that page. Apparently someone got into the Gmail account of one of the emails used for that ad and found various references to http://deshaw.com , as well as the various other people mentioning D.E Shaw in the comments. I guess that's the end of the mystery? Or am I missing something?

>CTRL + F "Tue. Nov. 24th 2009" Off topic, but is there a linking service where the reader can be directed to an arbitrary location within the page? In this case we could just click on the link and it'll directly take us to that particular comment? I'm just surprised that there's still no way for me to link someone to a particular paragraph within a Wikipedia article in the year 2014.

Let's say you're reading the Land Rover (automobile) Wikipage and you want to share the 'Timeline' section with someone.

Here is the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover

If you click this one below, you will be brought straight to the 'Timeline' section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover#Timeline

Just append your URL with the selector for a DOM Element with a unique ID. In this case, the 'Timeline' div has a unique ID of 'Timeline', so I've simply appended that to the URL.

Welcome to 2014 :)

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#24

Post by fleitz » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:25 AM UTC

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #16

yesprocrast2 wrote: post #14

The answer is obvious and simple to anyone who has worked for "one of Wall Street's most successful entrepreneurs." These assholes churn through assistants like you wouldn't believe. Most quit, in spite of the high pay, out of basic self-respect. The others are fired during a tantrum. Most of these jagoffs have a few pending wrongful termination lawsuits at any given time. Just ask them, they'll probably brag about i…

As someone who has no idea what the working environment is like, I'd love to hear some stories. What's day-to-day life like in that sort of job? I guess I'm just curious what the owners do to make it so unbearable to work there. And why they don't care.

It's super high risk, super high reward, super high pressure, basically the tech industry except the people don't pretend not to be douches. Hedge funds are the same as startups, 5 guys with 5 billion dollars who opened business two weeks ago.

Like the don't hire an asshole rule would be hire only assholes, and once in a while they'd hire someone who wasn't.

That said if you don't mind working with douches at least you'll be working with douches who aren't trying to pretend their running a 'family' as a company, which is refreshing when you're used to hearing about how the founders aren't really in it for the money but really want to 'change the world'. Financiers want to change the world too, namely, turn it into change and put that change in their pockets.

I worked on the outskirts of the finance industry, it was still pretty insane, but nothing like the guys actually in it.

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#25

Post by creamyhorror » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:31 AM UTC

At 3:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

For me, the experience was just as weird and intriguing as the ad itself. First off was the reception area. The cathedral ceilings throw scale completely off, dwarfing the visitor... http://tiny.cc/ne5pew It does convey a sense of power and high-tech savvy, but it also seemed dated. A young, very polished woman took my jacket. I looked her up later and she'd been a child actress in at least one film that I'd seen. Everyone was very nice in kind of a cult-y way. I was led to an office in the middle of a floor full of empty workspaces. The guy who interviewed me was a lawyer and said he still worked part-time on the side, and that that was an accepted part of the culture. Mr. Shaw had basically unlimited money thanks to the success of his hedge fund, but he did not have unlimited time. To create more time, they were staffing up for personal assistants who could handle everything from getting Knicks tickets to making dental appointments. We both figured out it wasn't a match early on, so we had a nice conversation instead. And somewhere in that building I guess my resume still sits...

edit: The thread started by yesprocrast2 covers the topic further. I guess working among geniuses for one of Wall Street's winners isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#26

Post by desdiv » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:36 AM UTC

Ryel wrote: post #23

desdiv wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CTRL + F "Tue. Nov. 24th 2009" Off topic, but is there a linking service where the reader can be directed to an arbitrary location within the page? In this case we could just click on the link and it'll directly take us to that particular comment? I'm just surprised that there's still no way for me to link someone to a particular paragraph within a Wikipedia article in the year 2014.

Let's say you're reading the Land Rover (automobile) Wikipage and you want to share the 'Timeline' section with someone. Here is the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover If you click this one below, you will be brought straight to the 'Timeline' section http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover#Timeline Just append your URL with the selector for a DOM Element with a unique ID. In this case, the 'Timeline' div h…

I'm trying to link to arbitrary paragraphs i.e. paragraphs without DOM selectors.

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#27

Post by patcon » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 4:51 AM UTC

desdiv wrote: post #17

stevenjohns wrote: post #10

CTRL + F "Tue. Nov. 24th 2009" on that page. Apparently someone got into the Gmail account of one of the emails used for that ad and found various references to http://deshaw.com , as well as the various other people mentioning D.E Shaw in the comments. I guess that's the end of the mystery? Or am I missing something?

>CTRL + F "Tue. Nov. 24th 2009" Off topic, but is there a linking service where the reader can be directed to an arbitrary location within the page? In this case we could just click on the link and it'll directly take us to that particular comment? I'm just surprised that there's still no way for me to link someone to a particular paragraph within a Wikipedia article in the year 2014.

I wouldn't recommend using it for anything that needs longevity, but this has been around for a free years:

http://marker.to/

I used to use a service called "yellow hilighter", but it died and all my links broke, so fair warning :)

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#28

Post by patcon » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:01 AM UTC

ohquu wrote: post #18

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has no idea what the working environment is like, I'd love to hear some stories. What's day-to-day life like in that sort of job? I guess I'm just curious what the owners do to make it so unbearable to work there. And why they don't care.

After reading these other comments, I Googled David E. Shaw and found this: http://mathbabe.org/2012/04/05/it-sucks-to-be-rich/ . (WARNING: Not sure of the validity of these stories, but they're interesting.) > First example: David hires a Ph.D. in English literature (he has a thing for “geniuses”, even in the mail room) to test mattresses for him. So that person’s job is to sleep on 15 different mattresses, for 8 ni…

Despite the absurdity of the reports, all i can think of is: DUDE, PUBLISH YOUR DATA.

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#29

Post by Kiro » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:38 AM UTC

desdiv wrote: post #17

stevenjohns wrote: post #10

CTRL + F "Tue. Nov. 24th 2009" on that page. Apparently someone got into the Gmail account of one of the emails used for that ad and found various references to http://deshaw.com , as well as the various other people mentioning D.E Shaw in the comments. I guess that's the end of the mystery? Or am I missing something?

>CTRL + F "Tue. Nov. 24th 2009" Off topic, but is there a linking service where the reader can be directed to an arbitrary location within the page? In this case we could just click on the link and it'll directly take us to that particular comment? I'm just surprised that there's still no way for me to link someone to a particular paragraph within a Wikipedia article in the year 2014.

I don't think that's technically possible.

Re: Who has been running this classified ad for more than ten years?

#30

Post by eru » Thu, Nov 06, 2014, 5:47 AM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #29

desdiv wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CTRL + F "Tue. Nov. 24th 2009" Off topic, but is there a linking service where the reader can be directed to an arbitrary location within the page? In this case we could just click on the link and it'll directly take us to that particular comment? I'm just surprised that there's still no way for me to link someone to a particular paragraph within a Wikipedia article in the year 2014.

I don't think that's technically possible.

Just needs browser support. A Chrome or Firefox extension could do.