Suckers wanted.

November 5, 2001 2:10 PM

Suckers wanted. Or, as my friend put it, Company that thinks it's still 1995 ISO engineer who also thinks it's still 1995.... (I mean, can they be serious?)
posted by mattpfeff (22 comments total)

No salary, but you get to work on a "killer app" for "significant stock options". The person who takes this job deserves what he/she gets.
posted by laz-e-boy at 2:13 PM on November 5, 2001

have these people not been watching cnn for the last 5 years, or do they just hope that their potential web designer hasn't?
posted by phalkin at 2:17 PM on November 5, 2001

wow. so 1997 lives on minus the venture cap.
or maybe we would like to pretend.
posted by moz at 2:22 PM on November 5, 2001

As if it wasn't ridiculous enough, two friends of mine work for a funded startup doing this, and it doesn't look so hot for their outfit either, even with a year or two head start and significant funding.

Maybe they'll get somebody if they let them sleep in the office...
posted by NortonDC at 2:33 PM on November 5, 2001

You enjoy producing Web sites that are both visually striking and functional...like ours.
posted by judomadonna at 2:36 PM on November 5, 2001

What's wrong with this -- they're making a straightforward pitch of being involved with something fun with time you'd otherwise spend cruising the web or programming your season passes on TiVo.

As for the value / lack of value of stock options, I don't think anyone could be misled on that point. A lottery ticket with lottery-type odds.

Anyway, I actually think that 2002 on the Web will resemble 1995 in some important respects: lots of labors of love, with only those who are committed or impassioned doing stuff, and the MBAs a million miles away.

(I myself am involved in a couple of efforts -- spurred by laid-off Internet workers, mainly -- to resurrect high quality upper-middle-brow content in the void created by the death of most of the big professional and semi-professional content sites in the past 18 months, or their shift to fees-paid-user only basis.)

Just remember, when akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo went up, nobody, least of all the founders, expected that they'd be creating a multi-billion-dollar company, and the same is true of eBay, Hotmail, and dozens of other websites which were labors of love before the bubble started to inflate.
posted by MattD at 2:39 PM on November 5, 2001

Sounds good to me...where do I sign...oh wait...they want me to know how to write web pages and stuff? Oh well then no...
posted by feelinglistless at 2:48 PM on November 5, 2001

What's wrong with this

I should say, I don't think there's all that much wrong with it (my title comes across a a little harsher than I'd intended). It's mainly the tone of the ad -- very demanding and a little full of itself, and seemingly clueless about reality....

Advertising for help like that is OK, they just should have said, hey, we know the odds are stacked against us, but we're going for our dream, we need your help, and we can't promise you much but here's what we can promise you.

As it is, I couldn't read that ad without bursting out laughing....
posted by mattpfeff at 2:55 PM on November 5, 2001

Ha! I almost posted this when I read it off craigslist earlier today in my inbox.
posted by mathowie at 3:23 PM on November 5, 2001

Hey, they're up front about what they offer so it's not like it's a scam or anything. I doubt anyone in the company is working for a salary at this point. Besides, there are a lot of us web types in San Francisco that don't have anything better to do at this point. Hmmmmmm, maybe I should apply.
posted by BenNewman at 3:27 PM on November 5, 2001

hmm. this sounds mostly a fair deal to me. lots of people out there who weren't able to jump on the bandwagon circa ... well, 95 ... who might like to be able to get real work experience. Mockups can only posit so much, right?

it's not like they're being dishonest -- 'DUDE; YOU'LL BE EFFING-LY RICH IN TWO WEEKS!'

it might be fun! you could make the 'YOU-I' full of tumbling kitties or buttery pancakes or something! stop being jaded and try emeralds or rubies or maybe even ringpops or whatever.
posted by fishfucker at 4:11 PM on November 5, 2001

Before anyone asks, no, I will never admit that I'm actually a PR flak for their company. Not in a million years!

(Maybe they'll hire me, though....)
posted by mattpfeff at 4:17 PM on November 5, 2001

Couldn't help laughing out loud when I read the ad... "we can't offer you a salary" -- that's too rich, it really is. What kind of person would accept this offer in 2001?

As for the experience factor -- if the only job you can slap on the ol' resume is an unpaid web dev position at an unfunded startup, lie and pretend you were prostituting yourself, in prison, or planning to overthrow the government. Any of these options would look at least marginally better...
posted by clevershark at 5:26 PM on November 5, 2001

I'm sorry but I think there are enough unemployed web dev people in SF right now to fill this position quite quickly.
Fuck it, what else have we got to do with our time?
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 5:35 PM on November 5, 2001

Ha! I almost posted this when I read it off craigslist earlier today in my inbox.

Not only is Matt, as ever, way ahead of the rest of us here, he gets this crap sent in directly. Somebody's important – and he needs us to know he could have scooped us rather than the other way around.
posted by joeclark at 6:27 PM on November 5, 2001

"Reposting this message elsewhere is NOT OK."

hehe....
posted by grabbingsand at 6:43 PM on November 5, 2001

joeclark, just 'cause some of the members might think more of mathowie because of his efforts at metafilter, doesn't mean there's a green light on dissecting his posts so we can say, "see! he really thinks he's superior to us!" i make comments like that all the time and it's not to talk about how ahead of the game i am. over half of the interesting stuff i come across on the web are through metafilter. it just seems that you're going out of your way to show he's "just like anyone else" through insults. there are other ways.
posted by lotsofno at 7:19 PM on November 5, 2001

lotsofno - it's Joe Clark. He's just a guy with a large chip on his shoulder, who likes to insult people. In short - he's an asshole.
posted by tomcosgrave at 1:17 AM on November 6, 2001

I like the part about how you'll be working under the guidence of the Creative Director...

If they're a startup with something on the ball, why wouldn't they be able to find a Creative Director who could build a webpage?

Geez...
posted by jpburns at 5:19 AM on November 6, 2001

Not only is Matt, as ever, way ahead of the rest of us here, he gets this crap sent in directly. Somebody's important – and he needs us to know he could have scooped us rather than the other way around.

Joe, you are being an ass with this running gripe against Matt. How many people get craigslist? Thousands? There's no special distinction in it, and I can't think Matt would assume there is.

I just fell for a troll, didn't I. Hm.
posted by rodii at 8:05 PM on November 6, 2001

I just fell for a troll, didn't I.

rodii, do you want that on a t-shirt?
posted by mattpfeff at 8:24 PM on November 6, 2001

I'm still waiting for my "I AGREE WITH STUPID" shirt.
posted by rodii at 8:53 PM on November 6, 2001