[overgard]

I get why the developers of this might want to limit the initial pool for practicality's sake (I imagine it is helpful to have people who are at least somewhat pre-vetted), but I have to agree, when I saw that my initial reaction was "you think the only people worth their salt are part of a very small insular world of large companies that are able to overpay talent to keep them off the market?" I'm sure that wasn't the intention, but that's the impression it left me with.

In a sense though, this reminds me of professional sports free agency in a lot of ways. You have the teams/companies that are willing to overpay for names, and you have sort of the moneyball thing going on with groups that are looking for really good bang for their buck and trying to measure undervalued talent. One thing I wonder if this site could have the potential to do is help out the second group, although I don't think the current setup does that.

[Matt_Mickiewicz]

I'd love to hear your suggestions on how we could better vet that second group, and identify who they are, so that employers place a credible value on them.

[bjourne]

I don't care about the other requirements, but the part where you get in if you have a degree from Stanford or MIT is downright mean. Those schools costs tens of thousands of dollars to attend to per semester but does not make you a better developer than having gone to a cheaper college.

There is no correlation between the amount of dollars you spend on your education and how educated you are. There is a correlation between having rich parents that can pay for it and going to an expensive school. But I wish people would stop perpetuating this myth about how a great school automatically makes their alumni great. The schools themselves aren't going to do it because expensive fees is what they live on. People who spent that kind of money aren't either because they gain a lot of free and undeserved opportunities from the reputation the school has. But we, the smart techies should know better. George W Bush graduated from Yale for gods sake.

[hnwh]

As an MIT grad, and a PhD, I must say.. you've nailed it. Bravo

[wiredd]

I'm curious how you vet the first group, e.g. that someone works for Zynga. Verifying a corporate email address seems like the easy way, but I would imagine many current employees would be reluctant to use their work email to interact with a recruiting service.