I do. I was going to bail from this thread, but it sounds like you see the great potential that this idea can have, if it can work. The truth is that it works. Okay then, one last try:
Set up a system that can spin up a droplet for a remote candidate. Any time a candidate expresses interest in your company, spin up an instance and email them a link to it.
What does the link do? That depends on your company. Are you making an iOS app? Then the link takes them to where they can download source code for a fake, hypothetical iOS app. It says "X, Y, and Z bugs exist. Find them and fix them. Then add a feature: here is a clear description of what to add."
When the candidate is done doing this, they zip up their code and send it back to you.
If it sounds way more effective to look at that than to look at resumes, it is. If it sounds like it will repel candidates, well... Two things. First, if you're chasing a specific developer, then that isn't really the normal hiring process. You want them already. This pipeline is for everyone else. It makes no sense to subject them to a work hire test when you're actively seeking them out.
Here's the other point. The type of candidates you will find with this method will shock you. They will be so skilled that it won't matter whether they're called a senior or fresh out of college. You'll know immediately that you want them.
Everything I've described up to this point is a remote process. There is no on-site work hire test. By the time they come on site, you're mainly checking they can show up, and telling them about your company. You're no longer trying to filter them based on ability; they already demonstrated it.
Let's say your company's website is the primary focus, not an iOS app. Ok. The link will take the candidate to a hypothetical, fake website built with a similar framework. Again, it will have multiple bugs and a missing feature. Tell them what the bugs are, and tell them what the feature needs to do. Then have them send you their code when they're done.
I feel like at this point no one will even try to do this. You can think of so many reasons not to try: it takes too much work, it will scare too many people off, it will... Etc.
These reasons turn out to be largely fake or mistaken. Try it. Invest the resources to build this pipeline, tell HN when it's ready, and you win.
If this sounds prohibitive or unlikely, remember how counter-intuitive the most effective techniques in life are. Penicillin was discovered by accident. It sounds pretty unlikely that it would work. Same deal here.
I've explained this as clearly as I can. It's up to everyone else to either try it or to watch others win after they try it. Because the filter I've explained is the only way to let talent find you.
The type of people you'll discover will range from passive people who found the process amusing, to well-off senior developers who are demonstrating why you should pay them X equity or Y salary, to high school dropouts who turn out to be one of the most valuable people that join your team.
I'm not even going to touch the topic of what tech companies currently do. It doesn't matter. I've described what works, and if whoever reads this suppresses their instincts and builds this, they will discover it's practically the key to winning.
Our culture is rejecting the one effective test we have.
Do we care about equality, or not? I tried not mentionining this aspect, hoping people would realize on their own. But a remote work hire test is also mostly anonymous. It doesn't matter whether you're black, white, male, or female. All that matters is whether you can do the work.
On the flipside, what you're saying is that you genuinely want to spend a vacation day meeting a new company instead of with your family or working on your own projects.
And it's like, if you think you're a good dev, why wouldn't you leap at the opportunity to show it off? I get that it's a little annoying to spend a few hours on it, but the standard interview is literally random noise. Why subject your future to a random process?
I don't know. I respect your view. I'm going to bow out now. Have a good week.
Also a case study on how not to store passwords. They enforce a maximum length on the user's password. It's something short, like 12 chars. The only reason they would enforce a maximum length is if they were storing the plaintext password in a database somewhere.
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I'm sorry to be a downer, but there needs to be a reality check, because future open source projects can learn a thing or two from this.
This project is unlikely to be successfully funded. In fact, "unlikely" is a mild word for just how unlikely it is to succeed.
Problem #1 - No clear value demonstration to the end user. The video is... not very good. The primary reason it's not very good is because it's asking people to read. People react instinctively to faces, to the sound of a person's voice, and to feeling connected with them. It's no coincidence that virtually every successful Kickstarter campaign contains monologues by their campaign creators. Thus, while there may be a value proposition embedded somewhere in the video, it's probably lost on most people who watch it because they just aren't really identifying with what is being presented.
Problem #2 - a $25 minimum price point. The gamedev industry has repeatedly proven that by enabling people to contribute $5 and $10, you reap about 20-40% more income than you otherwise would have. This truth isn't restricted to the domain of gamedev. The evidence for this is that virtually every successful Kickstarter project has low-tier contribution levels, often contributing a significant amount to the bottom-line of projects that aren't going to deliver a tangible product. E.g. this may not be so important for projects like Soylent, where the end-user will receive something tangible, but it's pretty important for most projects that weren't set up with the goal of taking preorders.
Problem #3 - Too high of a threshold for funding. $50k is not reasonable when the value proposition is so unclear. I could see this project reaching $5k or maybe even $10k. But it's not reasonable to calculate how much it would cost you to work on it, and then use that as the funding goal. "What would the crowds be willing to pay?" takes priority over "How much would this cost me in terms of my time, and what is my time worth?"
If the government steps in to "de-anonymize" bitcoin, then people will simply begin using tumbling services. People don't use those services right now because there's no impetus to. But as soon as the trust inherent to the public ledger is violated by creating a large-scale effort to track the flow of bitcoin, then people will counter that action with tumblers.
Offtopic, but please consider writing some blog posts or articles about your experiences working on nuclear submarines. That just sounds so cool, and while the work is probably dull, I'd nonetheless be fascinated to read some detailed stories.
I have been too. I was surprised to find that HN didn't show up on Google a couple weeks ago. Yes, it looks like I was wrong. No, pg isn't changing titles because of SEO.
The movement to undermine US freedom and privacy has been focussed and well-funded since 9/11, under both Bush and Obama and involving more than just the NSA.
If that's true, then why don't they just, you know, end privacy? Tptacek was right when he said:
Obama could give a speech in the Rose Garden this week carefully explaining that NSA requires access to American communications, all of them, in order to defend the country against terrorist attacks, and that while privacy is "important", the expectation of perfect privacy in your cell phone and Internet communications isn't reasonable because it helps terrorist cells without providing much benefit.
I would recoil from such a speech, but the public probably would not.
The American public currently has a weak expectation of privacy in their electronic communications. But they make virtually no meaningful demand for that privacy. Thwarting terror attacks are a much higher priority to them. Want evidence of that? Well, the body-conscious, vain, generally out-of-shape American public routinely submits to electronic strip searches to get onto airplanes. You think they care if someone's screening their calls to catch Abu Shahid?
They would accept that argument. And with that acceptance, the expectations of privacy and the notion of what "reasonable" searches are would be, in short order, redefined --- those rights being explicitly predicated on contemporary mores by the Constitution.
When I look at it from this angle, it becomes apparent that while privacy is inconvenient to the USG, and something they feel they have to work around, it's not something they're intent on eliminating. Despite the rhetoric from the tech punditry, the USG has not stated that it's reasonable for them to surveil US citizens; their defense has instead been that they are not surveilling them. I too think that's a falsehood, but it's truth or falsity is not the only thing that matters about it.
If you're looking for more feedback: I got a homepage that was very clear, and immediately intrigued me. I clicked "Try now." That took me to a signup form at which point I immediately closed the window.
You should try to make some kind of demo available for the user without having to do anything except click once.
Will WalMart fail but be replaced by manufacturers selling direct to end-users and disintermediate Amazon? I have no idea, but it's no less plausible than Amazon driving absolutely everyone out of business.
Seems unlikely, because the main reason to go to Walmart or Best Buy is to get the product the same day you want it, and also to see it in person before buying it. Amazon won't drive everyone else out of business until they offer both of those.
Tor has been analyzed extensively by cryptographers and security researchers; there is literally a mountain of published research about it.
And that research says that if an entry node and an exit node are both under control of an adversary, then that adversary can deannonymize the target.
I don't know enough about it, but I know that deannonymizing someone is a matter of resources, not a matter of ability. And the USG has a lot of resources.
Set up a system that can spin up a droplet for a remote candidate. Any time a candidate expresses interest in your company, spin up an instance and email them a link to it.
What does the link do? That depends on your company. Are you making an iOS app? Then the link takes them to where they can download source code for a fake, hypothetical iOS app. It says "X, Y, and Z bugs exist. Find them and fix them. Then add a feature: here is a clear description of what to add."
When the candidate is done doing this, they zip up their code and send it back to you.
If it sounds way more effective to look at that than to look at resumes, it is. If it sounds like it will repel candidates, well... Two things. First, if you're chasing a specific developer, then that isn't really the normal hiring process. You want them already. This pipeline is for everyone else. It makes no sense to subject them to a work hire test when you're actively seeking them out.
Here's the other point. The type of candidates you will find with this method will shock you. They will be so skilled that it won't matter whether they're called a senior or fresh out of college. You'll know immediately that you want them.
Everything I've described up to this point is a remote process. There is no on-site work hire test. By the time they come on site, you're mainly checking they can show up, and telling them about your company. You're no longer trying to filter them based on ability; they already demonstrated it.
Let's say your company's website is the primary focus, not an iOS app. Ok. The link will take the candidate to a hypothetical, fake website built with a similar framework. Again, it will have multiple bugs and a missing feature. Tell them what the bugs are, and tell them what the feature needs to do. Then have them send you their code when they're done.
I feel like at this point no one will even try to do this. You can think of so many reasons not to try: it takes too much work, it will scare too many people off, it will... Etc.
These reasons turn out to be largely fake or mistaken. Try it. Invest the resources to build this pipeline, tell HN when it's ready, and you win.
If this sounds prohibitive or unlikely, remember how counter-intuitive the most effective techniques in life are. Penicillin was discovered by accident. It sounds pretty unlikely that it would work. Same deal here.
I've explained this as clearly as I can. It's up to everyone else to either try it or to watch others win after they try it. Because the filter I've explained is the only way to let talent find you.
The type of people you'll discover will range from passive people who found the process amusing, to well-off senior developers who are demonstrating why you should pay them X equity or Y salary, to high school dropouts who turn out to be one of the most valuable people that join your team.
I'm not even going to touch the topic of what tech companies currently do. It doesn't matter. I've described what works, and if whoever reads this suppresses their instincts and builds this, they will discover it's practically the key to winning.