[toxicflavor]

From where I'm standing NYC has no recognizable shortage of young technical talent. Hackers from Carnegie Mellon & MIT don't need to be "bussed in" because they're already drawn to NYC in droves, as are young people from all areas of the country. The talent pool and the startup scene are both thriving. The author believes he has the solution to a problem that I just don't recognize as a significant one in NYC.

[MediaSquirrel]

HAHAHA. Are you a startup founder? Have you ever tried to recruit a web hacker for an early stage startup in NYC? Early stage companies are desperate for talent.

[maxawaytoolong]

Your problem must have been that you had no money. It's no problem hiring hackers in NYC if you can pay what all the heavy hitters are paying. And by heavy hitters I mean the other funded startups, not wall street. Nobody in NYC is going to work here for 65K and options like they do in SF. You can make more money teaching public high school.

[krschultz]

Question: Are you a startup founder? Have you had trouble finding talent in NYC? Have you thought that maybe the problem was not NYC but you?

There are people looking for work specifically in the startup space in NYC, I was one of them about 3 years ago. When I found companies it was immediately clear which founders were good to work for and which were not. Just becuase you have a "startup" doesn't mean you are a going to attract talent. It has to be a good startup. The bar of what is an attractive startup for employees might be lower in Silicon Valley because so many people are there for "startup culture" above all else. In NYC there are other options that are good and a startup isn't better simply becuase it is a startup, it has to be better on its own merits.

[jorgeortiz85]

Recruiting is a hard problem for early stage startups everywhere, not just in NYC. By definition, you're competing for talent against much more well-known companies with much deeper pockets.

[cageface]

I'm on the West Coast looking for startup gigs in NYC and haven't seen that many listed. Who needs people?

[krschultz]

Check out startuply, union square venture's portfolio of companies, new york tech meetup, and nextNY.

I asked the question you are asking on HN about 3 years ago, someone gave me the answer above (thought startuply didn't exist at the time), and ended up at a startup I wound up loving to work for not 2 months later, so good luck and maybe the kharma will be passed on.

[cageface]

Thanks very much for the pointers. Looks like a good start.

[nicholasjbs]

In my experience, early (and later) stage startups in the valley are also desperate to find good hackers.

[BrandonM]

And good hackers are desperate to find good startups. Why does this have to be such a hard problem?

[anamax]

> And good hackers are desperate to find good startups. Why does this have to be such a hard problem?

Both have a recognition problem.

Also, there are multiple definitions of "good". Cool problems are great, but if you're offering below market rate compensation, you can't offer below market rate risk.

Many hackers can do arithmetic on equity. 1% after dilution is >$1M only on a >$100M exit, which is relatively rare.

We've no objection to you getting rich. However, it isn't worth much to us either.

[moron4hire]

I don't think this is like the 20th Century DotCom bubble, where you could get rich off of stock options as an employee. Working for a startup is ultimately no different for the employee than working for an established company. If anything, it's possibly worse, as the employee is expected to put in a lot more effort "for the good of the company" than for their own good.

[hga]

Well, in theory you don't have to deal with established company garbage ... but startup problems can be far worse (after all an established company has shown some level of competence to get there). And you can have a much greater effect, opportunities to do things right or at least OK instead of trying to fix up stuff that was done wrong long ago.

But the post-SarBox "more work for less compensation" trade off is anything but attractive, and to bring this back to NYC, it's clear it's one of the areas that don't particularly respect hackers (I suspect most are that way (the D.C. area is) and places like Boston and Silicon Valley are the exceptions).