Resumes suck for hiring engineers
In this experiment, I wanted to see how good engineers and recruiters were at resume-based candidate filtering. Going into it, I was pretty sure that engineers would do a much better job than recruiters. However, that’s not what happened at all. As it turned out, people were pretty bad at filtering resumes across the…
Developer Anxiety, we’re not alone
CAEP international paid agriculture exchange programs.
Making Your Writing Work Harder For You
Using teaching -- via writing, speaking, and the like -- to sell more software.
This email may be worth millions of dollars in sales
We were comparing two SaaS applications. One gave us a better quote, so we asked the second if they would match it. They wouldn’t, but their founder, wrote us an email explaining: Why their...
Lazy Expert Syndrome
We all eventually suffer from "lazy expert syndrome." The best way to snap out of it and grow is to mentor someone new to your field.
I Don’t Want to Hire Women
Commenting on this thread is closed. If you still feel that you have something important to contribute, post your comment in this spillover thread: SPILLOVER THREAD. I don’t want to hire any more w…
There are no B players
“Only hire A players! Fire the B players!” “If you hire B players, then they will hire C players!” “Over time, the A players will get frustrated with the B players and will leave to go to other companies and you’ll be left only with B and C players,
Leaving Google
As of March 17th I’ll be an ex-employee. It’s an amicable separation in the face of irreconcilable differences: I wouldn’t move to California and Google wouldn’t open a Vancouver office. I haven’t decided what to do next.
"We need a pony. And the moon on a stick. By next Thursday."
So, the US Secret Service has issued a requirement for software that can detect sarcasm in tweets . And lo, there was much rejoicing in the land, especially among post-doc researchers looking for grant money to pursue research in algorithmic applications of semiotics with a side-line in heuristic knowledge processing…
Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO
Mozilla prides itself on being held to a different standard and, this past week, we didn’t live up to it. We know why people are hurt and angry, and they ...
Early Days on Street View
A friend was asking about the early Street View timeline, which prompted a trip down memory lane. It's been at least five years for most of...
How to Minimize Politics in Your Company (2010)
Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The
Welcome, Ali
Edit: Ali is now the CEO of YC Continuity [http://ycombinator.com/continuity] I’m delighted to announce that Ali Rowghani is joining YC as a part-time partner. He will mostly focus on helping our alumni that are a few years out of YC scale their companies, but I’m sure the current batch will enjoy getting to know him…
The Builder's High
When I am in a foul mood, I have a surefire way to improve my outlook – I build something. A foul mood is a stubborn beast and it does not give ground easily. I
Welcome new YC team members
We have a bunch of new additions to the YC team to announce. Scott Bell is joining the YC software team. He was a co-founder of Skysheet from YC W09. He’s coming to YC from Houston where he was doing consulting and Lisp hacking. Dalton Caldwell is becoming a partner. He was the cofounder and CEO of imeem (acquired by…
409A as a Service: Cash Cows Get Slaughtered
Background: 409A is a set of tax rules passed, in part, to stop companies from avoiding taxes through issuing underpriced (cheap) equity as compensation. While well-intentioned, it spawned a cottage industry of third-party valuation firms/i-bankers who charge companies, including startups, thousands (sometimes…