I feel like I'm missing something. Why would you ever respond to that listing? No meaningful description of the company, no outstanding benefits, just the promise of being overworked?
In addition to attracting qualified candidates, good job listings repel those who don’t agree with them. No one wants to sift through hundreds of applications.
Here’s the main mission filter: “to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.”
technical filter: “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time”
and culture filter: “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.”
If you didn’t get these things or why they were important, early Amazon wasn’t for you.
On the other hand, if you saw these lines and said “holy cow this is the future and I want to be a part of this”, then you’d roll the dice and apply.
This style of recruiting isn’t a numbers game and doesn’t appeal to the average person.
“to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.” - In 1994, this would have intrigued me, in 2004 I would view with skepticism, in 2014 I would laugh
“you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” - No matter the era, this kind of language is a big red flag to me - More often than not people who say this have no idea what they're talking about, the kind of people who call themselves "idea men"
“Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” - meaningless phrase
I don't know how recruiting messages were in 1994, but unless this is the Velvet Underground of influential recruiting messages (not many people got this email, but those who did started startups of their own) this reads like a generic recruiting email. Given the state of things in 1994 the "pioneer commerce on the Internet" would be interesting enough to learn more though.
It was 1994. There weren't that many jobs for UNIX-oriented C/C++ developers, working on large scale problems for the internet.
In 1994, MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 were the most popular desktop operating systems. Most internet access was dial-up. Windows 95 was yet to be released. Steve Jobs was working on NeXT and wouldn't return to Apple for another 3 years. The GNOME project didn't even start until 1997, which is 3 years later. Python 2.0 wouldn't be released for 6 years, in 2000. Heck, Netscape Navigator's first version wasn't even out yet (not for a few months) -- there were no distinctly popular browsers other than, perhaps, Mosaic, released only a year earlier.
No one was building web apps yet; pg started Viaweb in 1995, one year later. Internet commerce was not at all an obvious idea. Very few people were working on "internet companies", and very few people yet were working primarily on UNIX (outside of open source hobbyists). This job posting was appealing to UNIX enthusiasts and academic computer scientists who were hoping to turn their hobbies into a lucrative day job, in a world where 90%+ of "computer jobs" were rudimentary IT schlep.
The entire culture you describe in your comment -- of companies needing to distinguish themselves via strong benefits and mission alignment -- wouldn't grow up for a few years. This wasn't a job posting among a sea of web startup job postings; this was, instead, one of the earliest web startup job postings in a sea of enterprise IT management and DOS/Windows desktop software development postings.
The "competition" for these developers was startup versions of companies like Redhat and Netscape (maybe), of which there were only a handful of comparables. A good documentary you can watch to put yourself more into the mindset of this period of developer history is "Revolution OS" (2001): https://watch.amazon.com/detail?gti=amzn1.dv.gti.cf101954-e0... (Amazon Prime Video) -or- https://imdb.com/title/tt0308808/ (IMDB)
Great answer, I'd add one more thing: startups used to be much more attractive financially.
In the 90s a big company software job would put food on the table but would not make you particularly well off. Startups, by contrast, would often load you up with equity and have a liquidity event in 2-3 years. Growing up in the bay area during this time I know a lot of programmers who became wealthy during this period by just picking good startups.
Contrast to today where you need to wait a decade to find out if your options are worth anything, and even if the company is worth hundreds of millions you may still get screwed if the founders promised their VCs it'd be worth billions.
Good question. Of course in retrospect getting that job would make you one of the all time highest earners in the software industry.
I think it is also quite clever, the only people who would ever respond to this are exactly the people you would want. The core promise here is being able to work on something which might change the world.
What you're missing is that in 1994 the only people who were into these things are the people who would consider this job post a challenge.
Nobody went into that part of IT for money back then. People who did went to IBM, Microsoft and Oracle instead, if they wanted to work in such a nerdy field at all.
>You must have
experience designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable)
systems, and you should be able to do so in about one-third the time
that most competent people think possible.
I wonder if working nights and weekends was a bonus? What's wrong with being competent and putting out a reasonable amount of work and not being overworked and under pressure?
If you listen to the war stories, a large number of other successful tech companies or products like Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, the original iPhone, the original Blackberry, the post-iPhone Android, etc. would nove have been successes if everyone had strictly done their 9-5, Mo-Fr.
Success often means racing to get to market with significant lead over your competitors who are also working on solving the same problems you are and are most likely not sticking to the 9-5, mo-fr schedule either. Which is why probably not many market successes came out of Europe where everyone works 40h tops, unless it's their own company/passion project.
I was blown away by how many people in the original iPhone team claimed lost their marriages due to spending so much time grinding to iron out all the last minute issues and get the phone out the door on time. Jensen Huang said in the beginning their team was iterating to ship a new GPU design every 6 months with a tiny team. I bet everything I own they were not doing only 40h weeks back then.
I'm not endorsing this practice, which is why I don't work in start-ups, but succes in this racket for early stage start-ups was often correlated with burning the midnight oil and it seems like a lot of people were willing to make the sacrifice for enough equity in their mission to "change the world" and "make it".
Yea but it's also the reason a ton of start ups fail. I've run the gambit of startups. The biggest reason I've seen them struggle or fail is,
1. Over engineering too early.
2. Making bad decisions because everyone is exhausted and pissed off.
3. Everyone racing to "seize power" rather then focussing on the product or actual customer wins. IE, a bunch of antisocial engineers end up in people leader roles because they are good engineers rather then tech. Leadership.
Number 2 is a serious problem. The things I've had bosses pulling 80 hour weeks say to me and others has been astounding. Like if you wrote them down and showed them to a fifth grader they'd think you were insane.
Maybe then. Right now you can work 30 hours, party and then get bought by another VC operated company.
This is what was missing when Apple and Amazon started and for the last decade this dirty VC business has stifled innovation and made people look only for an exit. That is why the biggest companies in the VC era has been companies like Uber and AirBnb instead of Apple and Amazon.
There's nothing wrong with that, go get a job at any bigco and enjoy decent income at low variability.
OTOH if you put in the same amount of effort as most other people, you'll get the same results as most other people. That was not enough for highly ambitious people like Bezos, so he sought to build a team of other highly ambitious people to take a big bet with.
The people replying to this ad are now multi-millionaires/billionaires. If you want to work a reasonable amount of work you can do it at a normal company, and get a reasonable amount of money in return.
I don't think the ad is asking for people who are willing to work three times longer hours, it's asking for people who can produce three times the output in the same hours.
Hiring C/C++/Rust devs and retraining (stupefying) them where necessary is prob a lifehack to get top talent without having to sift through 1000s of Js resumes.
Readit News
In addition to attracting qualified candidates, good job listings repel those who don’t agree with them. No one wants to sift through hundreds of applications.
Here’s the main mission filter: “to help pioneer commerce on the Internet.”
technical filter: “you should be able to do so in about one-third the time”
and culture filter: “Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.”
If you didn’t get these things or why they were important, early Amazon wasn’t for you.
On the other hand, if you saw these lines and said “holy cow this is the future and I want to be a part of this”, then you’d roll the dice and apply.
This style of recruiting isn’t a numbers game and doesn’t appeal to the average person.
I see stuff like this weekly
"blablabla need skilled engineers for my unique brilliant idea company blabla"
Nothing is exciting about this
“you should be able to do so in about one-third the time” - No matter the era, this kind of language is a big red flag to me - More often than not people who say this have no idea what they're talking about, the kind of people who call themselves "idea men"
“Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers.” - meaningless phrase
I don't know how recruiting messages were in 1994, but unless this is the Velvet Underground of influential recruiting messages (not many people got this email, but those who did started startups of their own) this reads like a generic recruiting email. Given the state of things in 1994 the "pioneer commerce on the Internet" would be interesting enough to learn more though.
In 1994, MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 were the most popular desktop operating systems. Most internet access was dial-up. Windows 95 was yet to be released. Steve Jobs was working on NeXT and wouldn't return to Apple for another 3 years. The GNOME project didn't even start until 1997, which is 3 years later. Python 2.0 wouldn't be released for 6 years, in 2000. Heck, Netscape Navigator's first version wasn't even out yet (not for a few months) -- there were no distinctly popular browsers other than, perhaps, Mosaic, released only a year earlier.
No one was building web apps yet; pg started Viaweb in 1995, one year later. Internet commerce was not at all an obvious idea. Very few people were working on "internet companies", and very few people yet were working primarily on UNIX (outside of open source hobbyists). This job posting was appealing to UNIX enthusiasts and academic computer scientists who were hoping to turn their hobbies into a lucrative day job, in a world where 90%+ of "computer jobs" were rudimentary IT schlep.
The entire culture you describe in your comment -- of companies needing to distinguish themselves via strong benefits and mission alignment -- wouldn't grow up for a few years. This wasn't a job posting among a sea of web startup job postings; this was, instead, one of the earliest web startup job postings in a sea of enterprise IT management and DOS/Windows desktop software development postings.
The "competition" for these developers was startup versions of companies like Redhat and Netscape (maybe), of which there were only a handful of comparables. A good documentary you can watch to put yourself more into the mindset of this period of developer history is "Revolution OS" (2001): https://watch.amazon.com/detail?gti=amzn1.dv.gti.cf101954-e0... (Amazon Prime Video) -or- https://imdb.com/title/tt0308808/ (IMDB)
In the 90s a big company software job would put food on the table but would not make you particularly well off. Startups, by contrast, would often load you up with equity and have a liquidity event in 2-3 years. Growing up in the bay area during this time I know a lot of programmers who became wealthy during this period by just picking good startups.
Contrast to today where you need to wait a decade to find out if your options are worth anything, and even if the company is worth hundreds of millions you may still get screwed if the founders promised their VCs it'd be worth billions.
Good question. Of course in retrospect getting that job would make you one of the all time highest earners in the software industry.
I think it is also quite clever, the only people who would ever respond to this are exactly the people you would want. The core promise here is being able to work on something which might change the world.
Nobody went into that part of IT for money back then. People who did went to IBM, Microsoft and Oracle instead, if they wanted to work in such a nerdy field at all.
I wonder if working nights and weekends was a bonus? What's wrong with being competent and putting out a reasonable amount of work and not being overworked and under pressure?
Success often means racing to get to market with significant lead over your competitors who are also working on solving the same problems you are and are most likely not sticking to the 9-5, mo-fr schedule either. Which is why probably not many market successes came out of Europe where everyone works 40h tops, unless it's their own company/passion project.
I was blown away by how many people in the original iPhone team claimed lost their marriages due to spending so much time grinding to iron out all the last minute issues and get the phone out the door on time. Jensen Huang said in the beginning their team was iterating to ship a new GPU design every 6 months with a tiny team. I bet everything I own they were not doing only 40h weeks back then.
I'm not endorsing this practice, which is why I don't work in start-ups, but succes in this racket for early stage start-ups was often correlated with burning the midnight oil and it seems like a lot of people were willing to make the sacrifice for enough equity in their mission to "change the world" and "make it".
1. Over engineering too early. 2. Making bad decisions because everyone is exhausted and pissed off. 3. Everyone racing to "seize power" rather then focussing on the product or actual customer wins. IE, a bunch of antisocial engineers end up in people leader roles because they are good engineers rather then tech. Leadership.
Number 2 is a serious problem. The things I've had bosses pulling 80 hour weeks say to me and others has been astounding. Like if you wrote them down and showed them to a fifth grader they'd think you were insane.
This is what was missing when Apple and Amazon started and for the last decade this dirty VC business has stifled innovation and made people look only for an exit. That is why the biggest companies in the VC era has been companies like Uber and AirBnb instead of Apple and Amazon.
OTOH if you put in the same amount of effort as most other people, you'll get the same results as most other people. That was not enough for highly ambitious people like Bezos, so he sought to build a team of other highly ambitious people to take a big bet with.
Quite a few who answered ads just like it worked years below market rate only to see their theoretical equity dissolve, though.
A 3x SWE can't produce 3x if they are in 6hrs of meetings a day. Likewise a 1x SWE can't produce 10x even working 12hour days.
> Your compensation will include meaningful equity ownership.
I wonder to what that turned out today...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26006656
EDIT: There’s also an interview of Amazon employee #1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12437322
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