In response to a story currently on the front page titled "FB is the Only Other Platform Used by 20% of College Students. Join Us!" [1]
Do you actually want to hire people who are going to fall for dishonest linkbait like that?
YC companies, I understand that you get to post job ads on HN and they automatically show up on the front page. Great. But please, show some respect to the people you are trying to recruit, and show some respect for this exclusive privilege PG gives you.
If you read the full post[1] you'll see that what they are referring to is the college students at a single university. At this university, apparently, 20% of students signed up at launch, and 30% of those use it daily. Making it more like 6% of students, at one university, who use their app. Probably a little more if you count weekly or monthly users. But still. That, in comparison to what the headline claims (20% of college students, everywhere) is ridiculously inaccurate.
And also, what about Google? Way, way more than 20% of college students use Gmail, Docs, etc. And what about things like Craigslist? It is even claimed that their app can tell you "exactly what you need to get done every day, with no input". No input is qualitatively different than "very little input, but it's really easy and quick."
You can, and should, do better. In addition to misleading people being a mean thing to do (even when effective), it doesn't do you any good to mislead your own future employees, anyway. Geez.
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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6269664
