Thanks so much Jessica- we're so glad we did. YC was an unbelievably valuable experience. To the commenter below who asked how YC changed us & our company, there's not much that's more useful to an early, growing company than getting to spend time with people like Jessica & PG, and having their regular/honest feedback on what's working (and what's not). I'll try to write more about that here later.
Ms. Minshew, would you mind answering the question that how specifically targeting women for jobs is not sexist in itself? What if you could find perfect male candidate for a particular position than women applicants ? Do you think its fair to pass on such opportunity for male candidate because he is male ?
Hi Asparagirl, there are 4-5x the number of people who ask to write for us compared to the number who ultimately get to, so clearly there's some value there :)
The reality is that most of our writers are also mentors to other people, and they really enjoy it. Writing for The Muse is their way of scaling that mentorship to a broader audience.
I share the sentiment of the parent in that the illusion of value could be much larger than the actual value.
Ultimately the work these people do is more valuable for themuse than for themselves, and even if there are a lot of people willing to do it, it does not mean it is ethical to let them do it for free.
I think the argument against unpaid internships is not so much that they don't provide value, but that they're only open to people who can afford to do an unpaid internship.
I'm in agreement with you on that - we pay all of our interns at The Muse. The posting referred to above is a way of recruiting people who are interested in contributing 1-4 mentoring posts per month, so very low commitment nights-and-weekends type thing.
Thanks - I actually, embarrassingly, have not read the book (I should not admit this in public) but it sounds very much up our alley. That said, you can do so much more digitally than you can in print, especially for people who might be exploring careers in so many different ways and from so many different starting points. Shoot me over ideas any time :)
Fair - It's helpful to ask around, if you can, re: what to expect ahead of time. I've seen Techcrunch posts cause a bigger spike than a Fox national TV appearance (3000-4000 visits, 1-2000 simultaneous) depending on the time of day, and how much the segment is about your company vs about a trend or a topic that your company is commenting on
It was a great perk. Essentially nobody really made full use of it (the full $500/mo per employee), but it was always great to have the ability to do so... Sometimes you'd just be out with friends for a big brunch and realize, "oh, hey, it's sunday" and pick up the tab for everyone or list all your meals on a Sunday while out hiking the Bay Area with friends.
My personal fave is where thedailymuse has a edit quartet, not trio, of HN accounts, only one of whom discloses his role, dumping links and shill commenting in each other's submissions including yourself, acav, nlow, and elliotbell.
Plus 7 or 8 accounts created just to dump a few of your links.
I'm always surprised by how many people I speak to at other companies who value their equity at 0 when negotiating a startup offer. Whether or not those shares have value to you, they have a huge amount of value to the company/founders/existing employees, and they're a bargaining chip like everything else.
Then don't take any equity and ask for a higher salary instead (or, accept that it's not a time you want to be taking a risk on a startup, and look at a bigger company role). The founders should believe that equity has a lot of value, which means it's an important negotiating chip either way. If they don't, you might have a bigger problem
I find it hard to understand when people join startups where they don't have the conviction that the equity will be worth anything. Although there is always a high chance of failure, you should at least be playing with odds you believe in
Well I am selling pick axes as my time and skills. If you believe there is gold in the river upstream why do I have to bet on it ? If you really want employees to believe in your mission , you are looking for founders not employees.
