The Type of Blog Post I Really Want: One With Some Substance

I guess the bit of substance this article does have is that these names we like to give elite hackers that work at startups are silly. Maybe it doesn't take a short article to make that point, but that is basically what I got out of it.

Have an upvote sir. I really don't understand, what an article like this is doing on the front page of hacker news.

Perhaps 160+ people don't agree with what the rest of us believe is quality reading material. That's a hell of a force to fight. That, or the "blind-vote" bait of the title was too much to resist.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Even HN isn't immune to linkbait.

It's relevant and IMO funny satire. Everything can't be an in-depth Erlang tutorial.

the article is short and to the point, taking a smart humorous stance upon what is a non-issue for the most (read young) HN-ers.

At my age, 39, i just can't respond to a job posting calling for a ninja or a rock star. ~20 years ago, i drunk my share with national level rock-stars, and won some street fights (incl. one me against 3 them) and some lost (incl. one me against them 7) - so i know what is the canyon between me and a ninja or a rock-star.

The author had lots of stanima though.

The Type of HN Poster I Really Want: One With a Sense of Humor.

Excellent satire. I think most startups would be better off managing a small team of specialists rather than trying to get the rockstar. There are exceeding few people that truely have end-to-end knowledge, and as systems become more abstract that number will only shrink.

So don't look for a guy that "makes the computer do X" where X = infinity. Just map out what the different major areas are and how they interact.

Well, this really depends on the startup and what stage they're at. At the early stages, where it's just the founders, it's probably for the best if the founders are generalists and can handle almost anything. Once someone lands the funding/revenues to actually hire, then of course it makes more sense to get specialists at some point.

But even then, making your first couple employees generalists doesn't sound like a bad idea to me at all. Of course, this is all speculation: I've never hired anyone, hence everyone should ignore whatever I say here. But it's definitely easier to work with people who can pick up new stuff quickly, and a generalist is usually that type of person in my experience.

I don't think a rockstar is someone who already knows everything so much as someone who can learn to do whatever is needed at any given moment. And honestly, that is the kind of person you need at a startup.

The funny thing is porn stars DO get paid very well ($2000-3000 for an hour or so of work). Well, the female ones anyway. The male porn stars get something like $600.

Not true.

Generally, a female porn actress will make less than $1,000 for a standard scene and a few $100 more if it includes anal. Male porn actors make around $200-300 for a scene.

Also, it's not "an hour or so of work". A scene can take up to 6 hours to shoot, and a full day never includes more than two or three scenes. There's also time spent pre- and post-shoot.

Of course, the famous actor will make more, but just as in every other industry, there are very few of them compared to the total.

As someone who has actually done porn, I can confirm this. It optimistically works out to more like 200 an hour (for women), or at least that's how it was about 5 years ago. Obviously rates varied based on how rich the company was, but you couldn't be picky because work was spotty. I once only got paid $200 for an hour of caning which left my butt bruised for two weeks.

The worst part is that it's a lot of work to find constant work unless you have a really good manager or you're famous. Sure, the hours are short, but I found that having stable hours and not having to live shoot pay check to shoot pay check is preferable, even if it's a considerably lower hourly wage.

(Much like contract programming work!)

Please dont take this the wrong way, I'm curious to know, what motivates someone to do porn? was it money or fantasy?

A little bit of both.

While Jarin's estimate was a bit high, that's still a fantastically good hourly wage. The average Goldman Sach's employee makes $520k/year. Guesstimating that they have a 60 hour work week and 4 weeks vacation (fairly typical for the big banks), that's about $180/hour.

Like contracting, there is a lot of non-paid work: finding the next job, doing back-office stuff, paying a manager, etc.

This is why individual contractors charging $100-200 an hour are not actually making $250-500k a year.

Right, but they get paid continuously, porn stars only get paid when they have a gig- there is no way they're making as much once you consider the hours spent trying to get work.

If you have enough stamina to have sex 60 hours a week, chances are you already have a midget riding you and caning your butt while you run around in circles chasing a mechanical rabbit.

Hacker News: Correcting assertions about anal compensation rates since 2011.

Sure, it can take 6 hours if you're doing more of a scripted type scene, but every shoot I've been to has been ~45 minutes of filming cut down to a 30 minute scene in post (it was all reality porn). There was definitely some waiting involved though.

I'm not saying you're wrong about the rates (and it does seem like they've dropped a lot lately after looking into it), but I'm either grossly misremembering or we paid a premium for our talent. I believe it was the latter, because the company definitely liked to spend money.

I'm not sure how representative they are, but kink.com, a bdsm themed porn network, pays significantly less than that. Closer to ~$100-$300 per hour according to their site NSFW http://www.kink.com/k/model_call.jsp?c=1 NSFW

I am 80% sure that data is false, from my memory of porn industry Ask Tells on something awful and AMAs on Reddit. Males get paid very little.

My data is based on my memory of working at a porn company. Maybe we overpaid.

Apparently those rates have plummeted due to the wide availability of free amateur porn online.

Edit: Interestingly, whereas open-source code expands the market (and rates) for programmers, open porn destroys the market for porn stars...

>Interestingly, whereas open-source code expands the market (and rates) for programmers

Has this been proven?

The the role of open porn on the decline of the industry is highly overvalued. the huge availability of free commercial porn in many forms is probably a more important factor. even without open porn , i bet the situation would have been pretty similar.

Ah, then you know more than me, ignore my interruption.

I'm sure it varies very widely depending on whether the male is a name star, an experienced professional, or just some guy who is psyched about the opportunity.

I'm not sure how current the quoted figures on Wikipedia are, but if they're accurate it looks like the agencies we used add a little bit of a premium to the rates (most of our guys and girls came from adult talent agencies). I can definitely see how non-agency guys wouldn't be able to command as much though. I guess a lot of them have to start off "gay for pay" just to break into the industry.

"pizza guy", "all girls catholic school", "server repair man"... sounds pretty male-centric... you sure a woman couldn't do the job?

I would definitely not apply for a programming job that included "porn star," anywhere in the description. I could do the job, but I'm sure as hell not going to.

On the plus side, HR departments will never, ever jump on this bandwagon.

I like humour and satire; but somehow, this one just didn't do it for me. In the back of my mind, it feels a bit sexist and degrading. Perhaps it's the stigma the porn industry had created. As a developer, I feel conflicted :/

Almost as funny as "if airlines were operating systems".

Clearly, folks who complain about the locker-room mentality of the tech industry don't have a leg to stand on. >_<

What next, a blog post about fart jokes?

You know, I hope they end up with some starry-eyed dumbass who doesn't know his own hole. Maybe someone who just watched the social network and picked up a book on facebook markup language?

What about the product? I'm a pretty talented guy and can get jobs easily. What is going to make me quit my well paying job at a _successful_ startup and jump on your bandwagon? The romantic notion of risking everything and working at a coffee shop?

I'm sorry, but whoever else said the "ninja" and "rock star" metaphor needs to die said it best. Please, please get rid of these things and replace them with some substance!

I can't put my finger on what exactly turned me on about such a job listing, but it did (no pun intended). Any places for amateur fetishist porn stars (Perl)?

After 30 years, no wonder I feel dirty.

This metaphor needs to die, stat (and hopefully take the ninja and rock star metaphors with it into the dustbin of history). It adds nothing useful to the discourse about programming and, worse, is demeaning to the profession.

Which profession?

The one that requires high-level cognitive functions. Any idiot with a prescription for Viagra or Cialis can do the other one.

Everything about this thread is awful. Please flag.

"will be compensated with tons of really enjoyable work"

From all I've heard, porn-sex is not terribly enjoyable.

All he did was describe a rock star ninja, and call it a porn star.

Or did I just hear a "whoosh" go by my head?

Obviously not for me. I finish all my programs in under 5 minutes. :-(

Startups are always looking for coding rock stars and ninjas. Where are coding pirates and zombies supposed to work? :)

The Bay

This describes an excellent employee (for some, anyway). But it doesn't describe a porn star.

I guess it really IS "Put Out or Get Out".