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Anti-Application video for YC120

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Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#51

Post by nudpiedo »

Everyone knows there is a tone of bullshit at time to recruit, but recruiters, and human resources in general, need to justify their job and authority based on psychological assumptions put out of context. Or even just pure bias.

The range of valid people for a job or a task is always very wide, and they with they could somehow purge the bottom of the applicant pools. The truth is that they have no idea because even the less innovative person, with some apparent red flags, given the right circumstances, could surpass the people who apparently qualified better.

It's true that attitude is very important, but even people working only for a salary can innovate, alone or in team, and accidentally ending up doing something greater than expected. In the other hand, why is this obsession of linking innovation with business success? Steve Jobs damaged the IT culture way too much, and he even wasn't the mythological creature commonly believed.

P.D. Diversity of thought, personality and attitude... does this diversity matter as well?

Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#52

Post by kazagistar »

PavlovsCat wrote: post #24
dm3730 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love Bryan Cantrill for being that classy bad-ass engineer with so much integrity. I have never worked with Bryan. What's the general opinion about Valerie's statements about working with him. https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/10/22/why-i-wont-be-atte... https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2018/07/01/bryan-cantrill-has...

The acceptance of this declaring people as "horrible human beings" by mostly anonymous decree, and then creating a fashion where "the worst thing this did/said" is brought up by people who are X degrees removed from even that, every time the unperson does or say anything , I find much worse than being a caustic prick, which at least is hard limited to the actions of one person. Even if the person should be really bad…

So because someone is privileging you over others, you find it easy to forgive harms they might have committed against others.

I see reasons why there might be value in a more nuanced approach then erasing all work of someone who unrepentantly behaves poorly, but this doesn't seem like it is the right reasoning.

Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#53

Post by pluto9 »

This is needelessly contrarian. Really, he's offended because someone implied that individuals could be great? They never said teams couldn't be, but unless he's planning to bring his team of kernel developers from 15 years ago to YC, the question is about him, not them. In any case, I'm sure it would be acceptable, maybe even expected, to credit his team when talking about his accomplishments. No need to be "offended".

"The implication here is that my obituary should say I was at the YC 120".

I see no reason to think this. Does he assume YCers are a bunch of heartless workaholics who value professional accomplishment above all else, things like family and community be damned? This is a "get to know you" type question. They want to know what's important to you. That's all.

I also find the grandiloquence about his heroism in "standing up for Silicon Valley" pretty ironic after he put so much effort into showing how humble he was in the first question.

I don't know what was going through this guy's head, but the sole function of this video seems to be as a soapbox to talk about what a man of integrity he is.

Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#54

Post by haberman »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #42
haberman wrote: post #10

If a potential investor asks you basic questions about your ambitions and you interpret it as "offensive" and "an attack on Silicon Valley", and you end up at William Shockley, I think that says more about you than them. Bryan is clearly passionate about his beliefs, which probably works great for people who share them. Sometimes I wonder if 2013 Bryan ( https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Ben-Noordhuis-decide-to-leave-...…

Digging up people's distant pasts to use as ammunition against them in the present is a dick move. I don't know anything about Bryan, and I think this particular video is so-so on its own merits, but I don't think that it's appropriate to bring up an email he sent in 1996 to dismiss his arguments.

I would completely agree with you except that this person has made a point of being a zero-tolerance firebrand instead of extending charity and a presumption of good faith. I think it is fair to highlight the hypocrisy of that.

I think we all deserve the benefit of the doubt, and it has made me angry when I've seen Bryan judge others so harshly and unfairly, just as it made me angry when I saw the way he treated David Miller in 1996. For what it's worth I didn't "dig up" anything, I remember these incidents from around the time they happened.

It's particularly disheartening for me because I have huge respect for his engineering skills. DTrace is extremely impressive work.

Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#55

Post by nerflad »

caseymarquis wrote: post #31

Question 2 is "What have you done so far that shows your potential for greatness, adjusted for whatever life circumstances you were born into?" TBH, I'm not sure I would want a ticket to the narcissist convention that question implies. The obituary question is a great question IMO.

The only way I could comfortably answer that question is "Irrespective of greatness or potential for it, here's a list of projects I've done/been involved in and am proud of:".

The "adjusted for privilege" bit seems to be trying to discourage people from talking about where they went to college. It is definitely an awkward question and I think Bryan was right to skewer it.

Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#56

Post by haberman »

eurticket wrote: post #33
haberman wrote: post #10

If a potential investor asks you basic questions about your ambitions and you interpret it as "offensive" and "an attack on Silicon Valley", and you end up at William Shockley, I think that says more about you than them. Bryan is clearly passionate about his beliefs, which probably works great for people who share them. Sometimes I wonder if 2013 Bryan ( https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Ben-Noordhuis-decide-to-leave-...…

We could all possibly fire our past selves for things we currently don't agree with, that's why we call them mistakes and not certainties. Some of us are able to learn from failures and regrets through trial and error, the consequences and being more aware we could be hurting others. Unfortunately, past blunders are easily referenced, overly embellished + manipulated and quickly judged in the present, as if it were a…

> Some of us are able to learn from failures and regrets through trial and error, the consequences and being more aware we could be hurting others.

Is it possible that the making of this video is one of those instances where a person could be hurting others?

Do you think that this video was extending charity to the people at YC?

Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#57

Post by angersock »

haberman wrote: post #54
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digging up people's distant pasts to use as ammunition against them in the present is a dick move. I don't know anything about Bryan, and I think this particular video is so-so on its own merits, but I don't think that it's appropriate to bring up an email he sent in 1996 to dismiss his arguments.

I would completely agree with you except that this person has made a point of being a zero-tolerance firebrand instead of extending charity and a presumption of good faith. I think it is fair to highlight the hypocrisy of that. I think we all deserve the benefit of the doubt, and it has made me angry when I've seen Bryan judge others so harshly and unfairly, just as it made me angry when I saw the way he treated Davi…

[dead]

Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#58

Post by chriselles »

Perhaps the application questions could have been further refined.

But perhaps the questions are intended to raise some people’s hackles.

I get temporarily disappointed every time I’m declined by YC, but I appreciate what they are trying to do in a number of ways:

Sharing everything(well, most things) they have learned with complete transparency.

Constantly talking down Seed/Series A valuations in aggregate because they see the crazy.

Experimenting with universal basic income(UBI) using their own money in what appears to me as an attempt to apply the scientific method to public policy lobbying.

So I can excuse YC for some application questions that might come across as pretentious or more likely to appeal to the self aggrandizing.

Two thins I’d like to see with YC120 are:

1) livestream the weekend as it could help with building attendees networks

2) Use YC120 applicant/application pool(with applicants permission) with data anonymised as an experiment on applicants/applications.

Re: Anti-Application video for YC120

#59

Post by PavlovsCat »

kazagistar wrote: post #52
PavlovsCat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The acceptance of this declaring people as "horrible human beings" by mostly anonymous decree, and then creating a fashion where "the worst thing this did/said" is brought up by people who are X degrees removed from even that, every time the unperson does or say anything , I find much worse than being a caustic prick, which at least is hard limited to the actions of one person. Even if the person should be really bad…

So because someone is privileging you over others, you find it easy to forgive harms they might have committed against others. I see reasons why there might be value in a more nuanced approach then erasing all work of someone who unrepentantly behaves poorly, but this doesn't seem like it is the right reasoning.

> So because someone is privileging you over others,

What? What does this have to do with anything I wrote?

> this doesn't seem like it is the right reasoning.

Then simply quote me, instead of totally butchering what I said and then calling that not right.

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