Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill • Hacker News Board

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#61

Post by nemild » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:36 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #15

mabbo wrote: post #2

As a developer in the Toronto area, I suspect I would be working for Top Hat if their recruiters were better. I've had two or three interactions with them and each time they completely dropped the ball. Extra funding is great, but if they can't hire, they can't use it.

I went through the interview process with them several years ago (when they were still called Top Hat Monocle). I basically got very positive feedback from the interview process, until I had to interview with the CEO. Apparently the reason given by the CEO for torpedoing me was that I didn't have enough projects on my Github account so I didn't "love the web" enough. Take from that what you will about their attitude…

The other thing to be aware is that the rationalization may be different than the reality of why he didn't choose you. The CEO may have found this an easier way to reject you.

In YC, there was this saying (in the context of VCs): believe the rejection, but not the reason. There's little upside in being honest.

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#62

Post by mcbits » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:36 PM UTC

619deathstar wrote: post #7

bfirsh wrote: post #4

This story has a bunch of internal hyperlinks, but none pointing at the actual product. To save a Google: https://tophat.com An aside: why is news on the web still so bad at this? Presumably because sites are incentivised to not let people leave through an external link? Is there a way to incentivise better linking?

Opening links in a new tab with the target="_blank" attribute in your html tag? Keeps the user on the main site in a different tab, and when they close out the new tabs page, they are kicked back into the original site.

Warning: Always add rel="noopener noreferrer" if you use target="_blank". Otherwise the target site could redirect the main site to a phishing page or worse.

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#63

Post by nickpsecurity » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:37 PM UTC

plafl wrote: post #48

surge wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Not every project can be in a public repo, are all their projects on open repos? Some of us host our own or use different sites because we've been using git longer than github. Also, love the "web". It's called the Internet, are you a tech CEO or not? I love how critical they are because you didn't conform to their specific idea of how coders share their code and communicate. Someone can be pro open source…

Maybe the CEO made the decision subconsciously and later rationalized the decision

Vast majority of people's decisions are made this way. CEO's are no different. Might be more so if they're moving super-fast managing a startup. So, this possibility should always be considered even if not stated as either the reason or a reason something happened.

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#64

Post by canistr » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:38 PM UTC

pyre wrote: post #18

danielhooper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I called them out on this in one of the Who's Hiring posts they always comment on. This seems like a reallllyyyy obvious problem for them...

This reminds me of people calling out DeviantArt several years ago in Who's Hiring posts, and their hiring practices. Which culminated in this blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3061860

What's interesting to me about the discussion in this article is how many people talked about wanting to adopt Google/Amazon's hiring process and how they liked the 7 interviews/whiteboarding way more than take-home assignments.

Call me weird, but I prefer the assignments than the mindless discussions about balancing trees and Big-Oh notation.

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#65

Post by jsonne » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

It's ambitious and I wish them the best of luck. However, as someone who has worked in the space, they're going to run into a very real problem that the textbook industrial complex maintains its stranglehold because of the very real financial incentives it gives professors etc. Add that in with the fact that content isn't all that expensive to create in the first place, getting students to adopt is expensive, and it's a very noisy marketplace, they're going to have an uphill battle.

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#66

Post by _23sd » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

senior_james wrote: post #20

I think it's great that they are trying to disrupt the textbook industry. However, the industry is so large and the majority of US universities are so entrenched, it's going to be an uphill battle. There have been many startups that attempted this and all have failed (or the VCs just wanted a payout and were bought for millions when the big publishing companies felt threatened). It's like trying to disrupt Ticketmast…

With how much adjunctization stands to save universities, I doubt software licenses are even on the radar for administrators. And if you don't want to piss off the tenured faculty while trying to shut down unionization, don't tell them to cut back on the books and software.

>If we had no federal student loan program...

Not a silver bullet. How sure are you that private lenders wouldn't fill the void with higher interest loans that people would still be willing to take? There are already examples of more "creative" financing schemes like income sharing, which could certainly expand as well if the more attractive federal loans disappeared. Demand for college degrees stays sky high whatever you do.

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#67

Post by coldpie » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:40 PM UTC

VT_Drew wrote: post #58

coldpie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, physical textbooks have never blocked me from using Linux, nor has physical paper coursework...

Exactly. >Even as the big publishers work to increase the proportion of sales that come from digital products, they’re still largely dependent on physical books. The other issue the large sum of money they want to charge per book. The cost of the books is so high that it is propping up "physical book" market. Mostly because publishers have offered no way to resell your digital or ebook. Lots of students buy used text…

Yeah, I was kind of hoping when I read the article title that this was someone actually making an impact in the school text space, but it seems to just be more of the same shitty software that provides no advantage over actual books, just with a different cost structure. Woo.

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#68

Post by randomdata » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:45 PM UTC

evilduck wrote: post #59

latch wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it's ridiculous to get to be turned down for that reason at that point. If that was their attitude, they could at least be efficient about it for their own sake and out candidates. But, in general, I think you should consider the other side of the argument. The "problem" is that people without public profiles are competing with people with. And if you're looking at candidates and someone has code online that…

I don't think it's reasonable at all unless you equally weigh other sources of evaluating coding ability. IMO it's the same as assuming all managerial applicants also have volunteer charity experience as a manager that they can document and show. Very few careers hinge on what you do in your spare time as long as that spare time isn't spent being a criminal. edit: hell, it's also already a norm that you have to perfo…

> It's ridiculous to expect an extensive spare-time open source effort plus 2-10 hours of free work for an interview.

It's a bit of a misnomer to think that businesses expect (or require, as some put it). In reality, they can only weigh their options. Of course, the more options they have, the more particular they can be. It is not unreasonable to think that they had many suitable candidates, and the one who had the most visible evidence of past work became the preferred choice of the group.

Mentioning to the OP what helped cinched the deal for what candidate did get the job may have just been meant as a point of information. Of course, it's difficult to say what really happened without being an observer to the events that took place.

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#69

Post by omouse » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:48 PM UTC

JabavuAdams wrote: post #53

I previously worked with their VP Engineering, at Janna Systems. A very, very sharp guy who's been through a couple of startups and exits. I've heard from a different friend that they're very results oriented w.r.t estimates, etc. It means that they get a lot of stuff done, but there's no time for research or non-approved exploration.

That makes it sound like a ticket-shop; you're treated like a bricklayer rather than a software engineer?

Re: Top Hat Raises $22M to Go After Pearson, McGraw-Hill

#70

Post by tempVariable » Wed, Feb 15, 2017, 4:49 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #2

As a developer in the Toronto area, I suspect I would be working for Top Hat if their recruiters were better. I've had two or three interactions with them and each time they completely dropped the ball. Extra funding is great, but if they can't hire, they can't use it.

Same here, in 2012. I talked with who I remember is one of the founders. I believe there were already in Toronto or in the process of moving from the Waterloo area.

It was very bad as far as whole process was concerned. I didn't mind though since they were in their infancy and I moved onto a different position anyway.