YC Founder Apologizes After Asking Job Seekers to Tattoo Themselves
YC founder asks desperate job seekers to tattoo themselves for an interview
Jordan Zietz, CEO of the Y Combinator startup LemonLime, issued an apology after hosting an event where applicants were asked to get permanent tattoos for a job interview. While Zietz initially claimed the stunt was to find people as 'crazy' as his team, attendees reported receiving the company logo. Following backlash regarding the coercive nature of the offer, Zietz promised to cover removal costs and admitted his judgment was poor.
Predicating job interviews on getting a tattoo is abhorrent and invites litigation.
- Mizza
Equally as trashy and sick as Bumfights, the sort of thing that might happen in the early scenes of a documentary exposing the rise and fall of another fraudulent startup. I'm sure he'll be in the 30 under 30 soon.
- labrador
"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"
- janalsncm
> We are bold, we take risks, and we do things that haven’t been done before.
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.
- zx8080
Is it modern slavery already or more nuances required?
- enahs-sf
As a person covered in tattoos, my greatest fear here would be if the company rebranded.