Now being a founder is such a valuable status that it's attracting people who thinking that ghoulish worshipful body art (on the bodies of people afflicted with the same status envy, it needs to be pointed out) is a great idea.
Do the nerds even have a home anymore?
2 freaks, at the very very very least.
This article provides more examples. They wanted to stand out in a community that has become known for its excesses.
I can think of several purposes someone might claim that this has. All of them seem pretty dubious to me though, so if you think it's obvious, I would be interested in hearing what you think it is.
What I can’t understand is how in a whole executive team, no one thought bringing a tattoo artist to tattoo potential interviewees with was a stupid idea. This wasn’t an accident, or surprise, like a tattoo artist just happened to be there and things got wild. They specifically brought a tattoo artist to do this. What the fuck.
I so yearn for "the good ol' days" when "tinfoil hatters" were ridiculed and statements like yours were still proper humor and not almost logical and halfway believable reality. I mean, lizards are cold-blooded and might benefit from a hotter Earth like we're currently "terraforming" towards after all...
Ummm... Excuse me while I run out and buy another roll or two of tinfoil...
> About the role
> "Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success"
> You gotta be in founder mode.
> Next.js web / React Native app. / Supabase, firebase, and Prisma. / Nest.js for WhatsApp / Open AI and Anthropic APIs for agents / Solidity and web3.js for Smart contracts. / A lot of Typescript.
It is a reference, but seemingly also sincere, at least to a non-trivial extent.
how about build for the customer / end user?
it’s not that big of a deal.
Rollerball.
Tattoo yourself if you want to be interviewed.
"We need to find smart people who will work 100 hours a week like Musk"
"How do we do that?"
"Let's ask them to tattoo our logo before we'll consider interviewing them"
"brilliant. That shows the kind of commitment we need"
"The press will be fantastic as well"
"lets do it"This is a very annoying line. Risk for the sake of risk is self-destructive. The risk-reward profile is what matters, and people respect risk taking with large upside.
Having your company’s logo tattooed on a bunch of random people is zero or negative upside.
But they know they don't have what it takes for that.
So, demonstrating there's no risk too outlandish for you becomes a form of social signaling to investors.
So really, they are just boring and derivative. Probably an analog to be drawn here for modern SV.
Ouch
If I were that CEO I'd avoid that person because of their very poor judgement, lack of boundaries, and questionable self respect.
That you think it's even on the edge of normal describes the current balance of power in the tech job market in a nutshell, though.
The people who work at a company all were filtered from the hiring process of the founder. If his filter included sycophants and suck-ups, he filtered out any dissent or critical thinking that could challenge his decisions. It's easy to get an exec team who doesn't diverge from decisions of the guy at the top, but obviously that much homogeneity / thought alignment comes with a cost.
Anyway, I'm glad this was publicized. Some rumored or one bad GlassDoor review can be easily overlooked; this will be a stain on the CEO's reputation for a while.
jeffrallen•1h ago