Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer

Re:Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer by justizin on Friday December 26, 2014 @06:18PM (#8800901)

I interviewed with one of them, and they picked a fight with me about advertising because I felt my previous employer had taken the absolute lowest possible road. I continually tried to acquiesce, even noting that they had a paid option, and they basically said that they hate their paid customers, who they lose money on (why not charge us more?!?), and that they only ever did a paid option because they were forced to.

Pretty sure I had been using their fucking service longer than anyone I interviewed with there, but whatever. ;)

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Re:Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer by bartonfink on Friday December 26, 2014 @10:54PM (#8801627)

That's interesting. Their Boulder office contacted me earlier this year about an interview, and I felt it would have been a pointless exercise since they'd fallen so far behind their competition (iTunes/Apple, Spotify, Grooveshark) that innovation and quality would take a back seat to revenue. Having just left a job at MapQuest (which is well on a similar advertising-driven downward spiral), I just declined and haven't heard anything further.

Glad to hear an anecdote that confirms I made the right read on that.

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Re:Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer by guelo on Friday December 26, 2014 @08:41PM (#8801304)

Fuck Pandora. They use to have a mission. Nowadays they've even given up on the vaunted Music Genome project in order to play more "hits" and shove in more advertising.

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Re:Why Oakland's a Tech Start-up Game Changer by aorloff on Friday December 26, 2014 @09:30PM (#8801423)

If the startup is venture backed, the mission is creating shareholder value. The rest is just lip service. You should know as much too.

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