42Floors? PDA: The War For Talent Among Startups Needs A New Approach. Here?s Why

Startups do the darndest things. As you may or may not have seen, Y Combinator startup 42Floors made a bold and fairly unprecedented move today -- as hiring goes, in any case. 42Floors Co-founder Jason Freedman had been following the work of UPenn sophomore Dan Shipper on Hacker News. The two had chatted a few times by phone and on Twitter, and Freedman was so impressed by the quality of Shipper's programming, design skills, and smarts, that he decided to publicly offer the sophomore a job -- via the company blog. Why? Well, first off, it was likely to turn into publicity both for Shipper and for 42Floors. So there's that. It was also done somewhat with an ulterior motive. As Freedman says in his post, the team believes that "hiring is dead." And he has a point: If you're looking to hire the kind of talent that is out there actually building products, companies, etc. (and who isn't?), those men and women likely aren't filling out job applications. So if you want them, you have to court them.

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