[throwaway_law]

Isn't this already done to a great extent through black balling?

SV recruiters blackball candidates/potential employees (often for no reason than petty vindictiveness);

SV incubators/VCs use blackball lists;

even insurance has internal lists in order to assess and deny claims based on nothing other than the "social credit" of the claimant rather than the merits of the claim itself. They even go a step further and insurance will rate/rank a claimant's attorney, so you may have a good claim that gets denied because you have a low ranking attorney, or you may have a weak claim they approve because your attorney is highly ranked (probably has a number of jury verdicts in similar cases).

[dominotw]

> SV recruiters blackball candidates/potential employees (often for no reason than petty vindictiveness);

How do you know about this blacklist? How is it shared and maintained.

[babesh]

It's not a written down list. The way it works is that when you are considered for a company, someone there might reach out to people they know at your former or current employer and get the inside info on you. Those people are usually higher up the hierarchy than you. So if they have some grudge they hold against you, then you won't get hired irrespective of how you did in the interview and you will never know the real reason.

This is the hidden power structure that crosses companies. And this power structure holds and maintains all sorts of biases: alumni, ethnicity, religion, gender, socioeconomic, etc... It works the other way too in terms of some people getting hired who otherwise wouldn't.

In fact, that person holds the relationship with the other person in higher regard than you and will in fact report to the other person that you have been interviewing at another company. Applies to recruiters, managers, HR, you name it.

[ryandrake]

I always thought blackballing was one of those “widely understood to be true but never proven” rumors. Like the Silicon Valley big company no-poach agreements, before they were actually shown to be true.

[goatinaboat]

Point 11. ‘You’re being blacklisted…at companies outside Google’

https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james...

[throwaway_law]

>How do you know about this blacklist?

Lawsuits, screenshots and public quotes.

[mountainofdeath]

I have never heard of a blackball list at large SV companies unless it was something egregious that person did. Things like starting a fight with security, coming to an interview drunk, etc. will get you on it.

[throwaway_law]

>I have never heard of a blackball list at large SV companies unless it was something egregious that person did

But what side of the story did you get? The side of the person doing the blackballing or the person being blackballed?

Just as a counter example (there is a link in this thread to exerts from a employment lawsuit against Google), one Google Manager is quoted outright...

"...I don’t care if you are perfect fit or technically excellent or whatever. I will actively not work with you, even to the point where your team or product is impacted by this decision. I’ll communicate why to your manager if it comes up. You’re being blacklisted by people at companies outside of Google,You might not have been aware of this, but people know, people talk. There are always social consequences.”

What is the offense? Apparently holding republican/conservative values.

[thecleaner]

>coming to an interview drunk, etc. will get you on it.

Really what about the SV party culture ? And if the companies are that professional and only care about your work why does the age bias exist ?

[TulliusCicero]

> Really what about the SV party culture ?

What party culture? I worked at Google in Mountain View and never saw any of this, nor "brogrammers", nor endless mandated/encouraged overtime, or most of the other stereotypes that seem to perpetuate themselves.

[thecleaner]

>I worked at Google in Mountain View and never saw any of this, nor "brogrammers"...

How long did you work there >5 or >10 years or sth like that or just a stint ?

[cat199]

even if this party culture was a thing, I'm pretty sure showing up to an interview drunk would still be outside of 'party culture' norms