YC founder asks desperate job seekers to tattoo themselves for an interview
sfstandard.comEqually as trashy and sick as Bumfights, the sort of thing that might happen in the early scenes of a documentary exposing the rise and fall of another fraudulent startup. I'm sure he'll be in the 30 under 30 soon.
Isn't startup culture a bit like bumfights?
Rich people using their financial prowess to subjugate others who are in a much weaker position in order to let them engage in unhinged behavior for their amusement and benefit.
All in favor of skipping the "rise" for this one
> We are bold, we take risks, and we do things that haven’t been done before.
This is a very annoying line. Risk for the sake of risk is self-destructive. The risk-reward profile is what matters, and people respect risk taking with large upside.
Having your company’s logo tattooed on a bunch of random people is zero or negative upside.
Tattooing company logos has already been done https://www.huffpost.com/entry/billy-gibby-aka-hostgator_n_2...
So really, they are just boring and derivative. Probably an analog to be drawn here for modern SV.
I don't think anyone has previously been crass enough to require it for job interviews but, yeah, there've been a couple of previous waves of "skinvertising".
The first, in 1999-2001, was a bit more subtle. There was a general trend for small, colourful corporate logo tattoos, almost cyberpunk-inspired - think airlines, pizzas, soft drinks. Dot coms with VC-inflated marketing budgets jumped on the back of that, which inevitably ended with those companies being amongst the first to implode when the bubble burst. Discussed as a new form of the Bladerunner Curse on forums like Fucked Company.
The second, in 2006-2008, was the opposite - big, crude, prominently displayed blatant cash grabs. Porn, online casinos, domain squatting registrars, 2nd rate auction sites, e-gold style finance scams. Heavily publicised, but far fewer people actually did it. Died off in the Great Financial Crisis.
A small sample size, but it does seem to be a harbinger of an imminent economic crisis...
There seems to be a line of thinking that past unicorn startups had bad risk-reward profiles, and therefore a good founder should be taking lots of bad risks. If they take good risks, they will never succeed and become a unicorn. Very "tres commas".
So, demonstrating there's no risk too outlandish for you becomes a form of social signaling to investors.
This whole affair has the dirty shadow of a society like the one depicted in Jennifer Government.
It's the kind of action founders imagine who would be willing to give optional tattoos to any of their their proud employees after all their unusually generous equity packages have skyrocketed, matured, and been cashed in.
But they know they don't have what it takes for that.
"We need to find smart people who will work 100 hours a week like Musk"
"How do we do that?"
"Let's ask them to tattoo our logo before we'll consider interviewing them"
"brilliant. That shows the kind of commitment we need"
"The press will be fantastic as well"
"lets do it"Is it modern slavery already or more nuances required?
In Stargate SG-1, the Jaffa slaves had their forehead tattooed by pouring liquid metal. We're getting there.
Not quite weimar conditions yet
Maybe "indirect" modern slavery? First we teach a man how to cult, then we show him how to enslave himself?
As a person covered in tattoos, my greatest fear here would be if the company rebranded.
Even worse is when the branding (sic) remains, but the image changes.
I'm wonder if there are lefty geek Tesla lovers that branded themselves and then regretting the image shift.
Certainly I've seen plenty of tattoos that have become sadly dated (by me).
You are then dangerously obsolete. New branding means old flesh thrown to bio-degradable trash can and new flesh for the nexgen corpo needles.
The fantasy series, Farseer trilogy, and beyond (great read) has "Map-Faces". People subjugated to slavery, wearing their current owner's crest on their cheeks so everyone immediately knows who they belong to. Of course, when traded/sold to another, means yet another "map".
Seems like the valley is getting there and dropping all pretense pretty rapidly.
I've seen this all over the news. It served its purpose.
What purpose is that? Are you claiming they aren't looking to hire people, and just want their company name out there for other purposes? Or that having this story somehow helps their actual hiring goals (e.g. by dissuading people who think that this is awful from applying, or that it will actually make people want to apply)?
I can think of several purposes someone might claim that this has. All of them seem pretty dubious to me though, so if you think it's obvious, I would be interested in hearing what you think it is.
any publicity is more than a no name startup would usually get. stunts like these are often primarily for publicity.
Yeah, I was asking about what the actual goal of that publicity was, because I still don't think it's obvious. My point was that I don't understand what the parent commenter was assuming the actual thing they were trying to get out of it was; it seems just as plausible that bad publicity would hurt their ability to recruit/fundraise/make sales in the future as it would to help them. Even if you personally believe that "all publicity is good publicity", that doesn't explain why you'd think it's obvious that the motivation for the stunt was based on that line of thinking unless you were sufficiently confident that the executives also believed that, and I would expect even people who believe that to have a sense that it's not necessarily a universal view.
If the actual argument is "I'm fairly confident that the founders of this startup believe that the publicity from this will be more beneficial than harmful", that seems like a defensible but arguable view, and I would find it interesting to dig more into the assumptions around that. Is it based solely on expectations of how the founders would think, or on how the general perception of other people in the industry (job applicants, potential investors, etc.) tend to view things like this? Or even a more broad statement about human psychology (e.g. society as a whole ends up acting in ways that benefit actors who are well-known even if it's not for good reasons)?
Maybe I'm too naive or not smart enough to know what everyone else thinks about this, but none of this seems particularly obvious to me! I would expect a lot of people to have very different views on all of it, and those types of discussions are among the type that I come to HN for.
More appalling than the publicity stunt is the fact that several people were desperate enough for work to take them up on the offer.
I could imagine how a potential interviewee might say something like “I’d tattoo myself with your logo for a chance at a job” and a CEO might respond “Hell, yeah! That’s the kind of energy I’m looking for.”
What I can’t understand is how in a whole executive team, no one thought bringing a tattoo artist to tattoo potential interviewees with was a stupid idea. This wasn’t an accident, or surprise, like a tattoo artist just happened to be there and things got wild. They specifically brought a tattoo artist to do this. What the fuck.
> I could imagine how a potential interviewee might say something like “I’d tattoo myself with your logo for a chance at a job” and a CEO might respond “Hell, yeah! That’s the kind of energy I’m looking for.”
If I were that CEO I'd avoid that person because of their very poor judgement, lack of boundaries, and questionable self respect.
That you think it's even on the edge of normal describes the current balance of power in the tech job market in a nutshell, though.
There's hundreds of thousands of programmers out of work from recent layoffs. Getting a small tattoo to stand out in a crowd doesn't necessarily signal bad judgement. It's more likely to be a calculated sacrifice due to desperation. Other people might have a beer, talk with the artist while they are getting inked, then enjoy having a stupid story to tell others. I wouldn't do it in my current situation, but I don't know what I would do if I was homeless and hungry.
Also, you did the counterfactual wrong. You can't simply say "if I were that CEO" and then change the ethics of the situation and of the person and who has agency in the situation.
Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't want to work for this guy. But that doesn't mean I'm going to shit on people who would consider it, even if they have to do something I would consider degrading.
They didn't think it was a bad idea because they don't have a sense of right and wrong. If something is potentially profitable and technically legal they will do it. This is what YC screens for.
Group think. Monkey see, monkey do. It's actually remarkably difficult to be the only one to dissent unless you grew up in a culture where dissent is encouraged.
The people who work at a company all were filtered from the hiring process of the founder. If his filter included sycophants and suck-ups, he filtered out any dissent or critical thinking that could challenge his decisions. It's easy to get an exec team who doesn't diverge from decisions of the guy at the top, but obviously that much homogeneity / thought alignment comes with a cost.
Anyway, I'm glad this was publicized. Some rumored or one bad GlassDoor review can be easily overlooked; this will be a stain on the CEO's reputation for a while.
You seem to think people in tech/leadership are actually smart. Your mistake
Lizard people.
> "Lizard people."
I so yearn for "the good ol' days" when "tinfoil hatters" were ridiculed and statements like yours were still proper humor and not almost logical and halfway believable reality. I mean, lizards are cold-blooded and might benefit from a hotter Earth like we're currently "terraforming" towards after all...
Ummm... Excuse me while I run out and buy another roll or two of tinfoil...
His apology seemed AI generated as well
From a job listing I saw here on the front page today. Instantly repulsive:
> About the role
> "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success"
> You gotta be in founder mode.
> Next.js web / React Native app. / Supabase, firebase, and Prisma. / Nest.js for WhatsApp / Open AI and Anthropic APIs for agents / Solidity and web3.js for Smart contracts. / A lot of Typescript.
It is a reference, but seemingly also sincere, at least to a non-trivial extent.
Edit: I do not mean this to imply the same company as in the OP
They're trying to make software development sound like polar exploration or something?
What company?
Don't miss the part where starting pay rises from $40k for the right engineer.
cringed ngl.
how about build for the customer / end user?
it’s not that big of a deal.
Cringe? Yes, to you and I.
But it's kinda accurate. It is a pseudo-bank using crypto/ stablecoins to bring banking to Latin America. And it's 10 years late to the crypto game. It likely will be a cold dark road with a high chance of failure in an industry of gambling where mostly men are.
That said, the CEO is Venezuelan (who previously built a microlending platform for Venezuelans), so if I had to guess the job listing and the company party with tattoo is less cringe if you are trying to bring financial stability to people who live with hyperinflation.
Feels like SF Standard gonna get a copyright strike from The Onion for this headline.
That is a pack of cynicism
Ew. At what point do we just decide that this whole community has eaten itself? Remember when a "YC founder" was a diligent nerd just trying to make something people want and get to ramen-profitable before the runway from their tiny seed check ran out?
Now being a founder is such a valuable status that it's attracting people who thinking that ghoulish worshipful body art (on the bodies of people afflicted with the same status envy, it needs to be pointed out) is a great idea.
Do the nerds even have a home anymore?
Was that image of the plucky hacker shooting their shot actually something based in reality or something cooked up to get people interested in founding a company? Look at the inaugural YC class. Do those people today resemble what you're describing? It is important to have critical literacy about things like this. Describing a narrative that isn't consistent with reality in order to convince people to do something is not unique to Silicon Valley. I'm not encouraging wholesale cynicism but just a healthy level of skepticism.
Come and gone. Gatekeeping has some merits
Don’t judge a whole community by one freak.
https://sfstandard.com/2025/02/13/founders-dropouts-ycombina...
This article provides more examples. They wanted to stand out in a community that has become known for its excesses.
> The founder of Corgi, a YC insurance tech company with a $4 billion reported valuation, known for running a Corgi cafe without any dogs, recently said (opens in new tab) that two-thirds of his early staff members have a company tattoo.
2 freaks, at the very very very least.
Wait. Apples and oranges.
People who haven't even been interviewed let alone hired getting a company brand is one thing. But coworkers (and likely friends) getting a company tattoo after getting hired seems completely plausible, especially if it has grown successful into a unicorn.
> two thirds of early employees.
unless he had exactly 3 employees, I'd say it's freakish.
absolutely contrary. You are who you surround yourself with. These people have a private social network called bookface. Hidden from the rest of the world
It sounds sinister when you say it like that, but I've got private group chats with my friends that are "hidden from the rest of the world" and someone shares pictures of their dog or music they liked. I think tattooing people with a company logo for an interview is fucked up, but let's not pull out the guillotines just because certain people are having secret encrypted private conversations with each other.
If you're advertising that you're going to permanently mark your almost certainly transient brand on desperate people for the promise of just an interview, I think it's fair to wonder what you'd prefer to keep hidden. In your case it's all puppies and rainbows, but presumably your public face is also quite a bit milder than, "Sure get the tattoo and maybe I'll see if you can make it to the next round of interviews, hope you're ready to work 7-day weeks if you make it!"
Lets be real, they aren't. This is a community that was notorious for sycophancy, desperation, and cruelty for quite some time now if the success of the show 'Silicon Valley' indicates anything. This is the community that keeps justifying limitless greed with the belief that we're building the future, while increasingly the future being built is defined by terms like, "Enshittification."
> if the success of the show 'Silicon Valley' indicates anything
That show was created by the creator of Office Space. They were both fictional and satire. Just because it was popular and there were some nuggets of truth in the jokes doesn't mean that every startup in Silicon Valley is as extreme of a cult as WeWork was.
Noted sociopath Sam Altman is the most visible member of the commumity. it's the right judgement.
Not going to click on any of the articles to avoid driving traffic to this…conflagration of poor judgment colliding head on with amorality…but there’s a part of me that wonders if the tattoos were all done with the same needle. Bear with me here. This is not a case study in good judgment. Extending the logic is purely academic.
No, bad logic.
This was a local professional tattoo artist from San Francisco doing a pop up shop at their company party, not some prisoner with a sewing needle. Professional Tattoo artists know how to minimize risks. They aren't taking pointers about how to do their job from some stablecoin microfinance startup tween.
They shoot horses, don't they?
Rollerball.
Tattoo yourself if you want to be interviewed.
"LemonLime bills itself as a no-code AI startup, not to be confused with the hundreds of startups building something similar."
Ouch
Meanwhile, there will be a line of VCs out the door rushing to give this kid a few million dollars. Because of this.
I think YC has an image problem. With its companies, and here, too.
Another story I'd probably see on the Silicon Valley TV show, not real life.