> I'm really not an equal opportunity employer.
I'm always surprised when people open themselves up for legal liability like this.
IANAL, but if a US company has fewer than 15 employees, they are exempt from many of the equal employment laws.
Re:Bullshit Startup Experiences
by paulddraper on Sunday December 13, 2015 @03:42PM
(#10727842)
You forgot gender from your list, as per your story.
You don't sound "pained", you sound complicit.
Feel free to start your own startup and outcompete me with the people that I choose not to hire.
Otherwise, you basically prove me correct.
You're the one in a position of power with the ability to change things, you coward.
> you coward
Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News, even if you find a comment reprehensible.
Or acknowledging the biases in my industry.
Try sending a woman to close a deal with a Japanese company. You're gonna get a veiled request to send the actual man in charge, if they don't consider themselves insulted and simply torch the deal. (In this instance, it was the woman herself who warned us not to do this. It was very funny, because we always brought her along as a "secretary", "assistant", etc. She was actually CTO and extremely fluent in Japanese. We got quite a bit of information because somebody said something stupid in Japanese right in front of her "secretary" act. Only one company recognized her and called us on it--we all had a good laugh making fun of the stupid old guard and wound up with the contract, but I digress ...)
Try closing a deal for defense contracting. I can't tell you the number of contracts where the signature occurred in or near a strip club. This has gotten better--it was WAY worse even 10 years ago--20 years ago it was ridiculous.
As much as it pains me, as a startup founder, I'm really not an equal opportunity employer. I'm looking for people who can fill roles that I know I need filled. If someone can't fill some important role because of religious belief, moral stance, health status, need to telecommute, inability to fly regularly, etc. I'm simply not going to hire them until I get bigger.