Tell HN: YC company Anima Health is spamming email addresses posted to HN

It's called "who wants to be hired" and typically has appropriate information about their profile so that someone can decide if they fit the role they need to fill.

It's not called "who want's to be spammed by an automated system that can't tell if you're a 16 year old JS only frontend dev or the engineer we actually need."

The difference is filtering. If they spam (and that's what it is when it's sent to everyone sight unseen) everyone then it makes the "who want's to be hired" threads worse for everyone.

EDIT:

To put it another way, if your company has a referral bonus you don't send them your entire rolodex of contacts for them to cold call. You would typically send them specific people you think match the role they need to fill (of course after verifying with people, etc).

You seem to be under the mistaken belief that "Who wants to be hired?" means "Who wants us to indiscriminately email you a link to our application?" It doesn't. It definitely doesn't mean, "Who wants us to email you a link and couch in a deceptive message that claims that we looked at your profile and 'we think your skills look like a good fit' and 'I think you'd find our job description interesting'?"

Because if you could save money on hiring, you would. When you are in survival mode (not saying anything about the company referenced, just startups in general) you tend to get fast and loose with the truth. There's always a reason to justify what you did last week because "if we didn't do $AWFUL_THING everybody would have been fired."

I think if you live in this headspace long enough you begin to devalue / depersonalize the "cogs" in the machine you are constructing.

Being ramen profitable used to be a thing that was done because it was a necessity for survival and getting started. It became fashionable at some point as opposed to something done out of necessity. The idea of cost cutting everything "unnecessary" is so attractive to people who are not involved in actually DOING things. It's impossible for them to resist the urge given sufficient time and profit.

If they were involved with actual work, their minds would be occupied with something useful instead of inventing ways to justify their value.

The whole "spamming HN for hires" behavior to me is like orca whales swimming around with dead fish on their heads. Cheapness as a fad. Don't try to understand it.

I have a theory:

Matching candidates to jobs requires time and effort on both sides: both need carefully consider if it's a relationship worth pursuing.

Messages like the one above are intended to trick people into thinking that the employer has already done some filtering, and by implication, the candidate is more likely to land a job if they too will consider the pairing.

So basically it's similar to shopping for a car, and trying to convince the salespeople from 10 different dealerships that you're ready to buy from them, if only they'll put in some extra effort and concessions.

If my theory is correct, than I see this as disingenuous and sleazy on the side of the employer / recruiter. IMHO it reflects badly on whoever uses the tactic [0].

[0] I realize that when someone has a family to feed, they may resort to behaviors they'd normally be above. So I don't mean this as an ultimate judgment on people who feel they have no other choice than to do this.

I specifically cite this comment because of the "naughtiness" topic, but also feel dang's context is important. "naughtiness" and "pg" keywords in the search brings up lots on the topic for those who want to dive deep.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/05/24/y-combinators-paul-graham-... ("Y Combinator's Paul Graham: We're Looking For People Like Us")

> Another key factor: Naughtiness. “Startups often have to do slightly devious things,” Graham says. “You can tell if people have a gleam in their eye. You don’t want people who would be obedient employees… we’re not looking for people who did what they were told in life.”

(I have no strong opinion on the topic; YC's job is to obtain VC asset class returns telling founders they are special and to grind people and markets until liquidity or failure, but dang is nice and effective for keeping this third space decent and vibrant)

Why would I forgive someone of an act that stems from a policy that they repentantly continue to hold?

Start by telling me why what you did that was wrong, and that you're committed to not repeating that behavior. Then we'll talk about forgiveness.

Otherwise you're just adding to your list of wrongs by playing me for a chump.