Story of The Post

Recently, an HN post about someone quitting their job showed up. They didn’t just quit their job, but they quit their boring job without having another job lined up. Normally, an unknown person quitting an unknown job isn’t newsworthy. For a confluence of reasons, this story shot to the top of The Most Important Things In The World.

This post isn’t a critique of the post or the person. Let’s talk about the environment leading to why people care at all.

Why is an unknown person (no offense) quitting an unknown job (offense) news?

Let’s break down the timeline of events:

• They once made an “airbnb hire meeeeeeeee” page
• The airbnb thing fell through, but they went to work at a different “YC startup”
• They didn’t find paradise. They quit
• They wrote about their dissatisfaction and about why they quit

Let’s break down what each event actually means and why individual events conspired to turn the post into Super Cereal News:

• A fetishization of Corporation into Meaning
• A publishing of Corporate Worship to get Corporate attention
• A presumption of “YC startup” meaning some sort of innate quality or know-how
• A publishing of personal dirty laundry

Let’s break down the break down of the break down:

• We’ve come to treat corporations as combination parents and gods.
  • When missionaries visit untouched tribes, the tribes get talked into believing they should fear and revere an invisible sky daddy who will love, protect, reward, and punish them as necessary.
  • To keep invisible sky daddy happy, we worship invisible sky daddy. Otherwise, he condemns us. Forever.
  • We must always be subservient to invisible sky daddy.
• The “airbnb hire meeeeee” page is a great example of Corporate Worship. The applicant (read: supplicant) is praying for benevolence and intervention from an invisible god corporation. The applicant hopes the god corporation will reach into the fabric of reality and elevate the supplicant to a better position in life.
• YC branding is infectious in tiny minds (no offense). “YC startup” is entirely meaningless (offense). It encompasses everything from geniuses to shysters. Appointees to higher ranks in the friend-of-pg priesthood are questionable at best and opaque at worst.
• Everybody loves a bit of personal gossip. Everybody loves injecting their opinions into the lives of others. HN has turned into a non-gawker-run techwag (did you hear Elon reinvented meatballs this week?), except with even poorer editorial controls and looser ethics than steal-me-an-iphone gawker.

Okay, that’s the backstory. Now let’s get into the live story.

Story of Replies

Let’s talk about expressing your opinion about the lives of others.

In this I-quit-my-job post, some AIA chimes in with:

As an employee, an employer, and an investor, I see your action as a giant red flag.

Perfect. We have someone defending the concept of Corporation as Unforgiving Godhead.

Deconstructing their comment until it hurts, we have:

• As an employee
  • Okay, we’re with you here, but your use of “As an…” sounds like you’re about to use that as an excuse to do something bad.
• an employer
  • Uh okay, you’re an employer. Good for you. You’re not my employer, so you don’t matter very much.
• an investor
  • Oh, look at that. You’re trying to elevate yourself above us rubes by saying “Look, I’m An Important Investor Man. I Matter.” Do you also teach college?
    • In an HN context, I’m assuming Investor is “invests in startups” and not a coke’d-out wall street type.
• I see your action
  • A lot of “me me me” language here. It’s great you have an opinion on Jobless Joe’s actions, but you’re not in any position of authority here. Be gone before someone drops a house on you.
• as a giant red flag
  • Now it sounds like you’re threatening the future of Jobless Joe here. Speculating on the current actions of a fully autonomous human being and extrapolating the repercussions of their current actions into future negative states is controlling and dickish. Don’t be a dick.

AIA gets immediately shot down by another commenter spraying a firehose of common takedown HNified wisdom:

One of the great things about leaving a job you dislike to bootstrap a company making something you do like is not having too care too much about what other people think of your employment history.

Essentially, We Do Startups, Motherfucker. We don’t answer to asshole “investors” who think they deserve to control the lives of others.

But, Mr. AIA speaks up again:

I guess I’m kind of surprised that you chose to jump into nothing rather than parlay your way to something else. Seems a little impulsive. Impulsive is a red flag, despite what many on HN think (you can be impulsive, but you better be brilliant too).

Now you’ve got to explain a gap in your res to a potential employer (should you choose to go that route). The employer is going to hear “I got bored” and think “maybe he’ll get bored here, too.”

As for my sabbatical, it is true. I’m on one after spending my 20s earning enough to justify it. I’m not saying it was time well spent, but I got a lot out of it (dealing with corporate BS and powering through boredom to produce value teaches you a lot). It is also an easy narrative to tell.

We can start to deconstruct Mr. AIA more rapidly now:

• Seems a little impulsive. Impulsive is a red flag, despite what many on HN think (you can be impulsive, but you better be brilliant too).
  • Mr. AIA defines what is socially, professionally, and economically acceptable in the world. Please concede this fact and consult Mr. AIA with all future life decisions.
• explain a gap in your res to a potential employer
  • Explain a gap on a res! Not the precious res. Are we going to bro down and eval some rezzies to get some totes dope employz now? yolo.
• The employer is going to hear “I got bored” and think “maybe he’ll get bored here, too.”
  • Once again, Mr. AIA declares his absolute powers of prescience to help Jobless Joe confront his future problems. This AIA is quite considerate.
• after spending my 20s earning enough to justify it.
  • Mr. AIA earned the right to take time off by being bored in his life while working aimlessly. How dare you, Jobless Joe, try to find meaning without taking the same path.
• It is also an easy narrative to tell.
  • Now we get to the crux of the matter. Mr. AIA is afraid of having an illegible life. He demands a linked list of jobs or else the entire model of his own life breaks down.
  • Alternatively, focus on the “easy” part of “easy narrative to tell.” Maybe Mr. AIA is focused on manipulating other people. Having a droningly simple job->job->job path is the easiest way to convince others you’re “professional.”
    • He probably speaks his job history in one long incredibly unbroken sentence.

At this point, someone else chimes in with ‘dude, tech jobs. It’s the 010s. We’re awesome.’

Mr. AIA is having none of your childlike optimism. He’s out of his 20s, dammit. Listen to Investor Mr. AIA:

(How many years does he have in a production setting? Would it be worth getting those critical 5 years of experience, despite bouts of boredom?)

This further speaks to the mindset of Mr. AIA:

• How many years does he have in a production setting?
  • Mr. AIA thinks only valid experience can come from the presence of a sacred Production Setting.
    • Production Setting is predicated on having the weight of legitimacy only impartable by Godfather Corporation.
      • Forward implication: W-2s impart more wisdom than focused practice.
• worth getting those critical 5 years of experience
  • 5 years. That’s all it takes. 5 years of doing lip service, face service, show up, grunt, deal with everything thrown at you, then… what? Become an “investor?” Mr. AIA seems to have a magic 5 year cliff where everything changes at five years. Does this exist? Objection—Assuming facts not in evidence.
• despite bouts of boredom
  • Pain. You must suffer to succeed. You are not allowed success without pain—the same pain Mr. AIA experienced wasting time doing self-professed mind-numbing nothing-work.

Where does this leave us?

It doesn’t really leave us anywhere. We’ve discovered a few things:

• Some (most?) people truly believe in the Father Godhead figure of corporations.
  • From a supplicant point of view, you serve at the pleasure of The Whims of The Corporation.
    • If you want a job, you beg.
    • If you have bad work, you put up with it.
    • If you’re bored, you struggle through.
      • There will be a reward.
        • In five years.
• Some (few?) people snap out of Corporate Worship after waking up to the innate inequality and abusive situation of startup employment. (Remember, you can be making $250k/year at google or $65k/year at Joe’s Fad-Driven Employees-Pulling-80-Hour-Weeks-Have-0.02%-Of-The-Company Startup)
  • Once released from the bounds of Supplicant to the Corporation, you spawn a new The Corporation
    • The only way forward is to become a better version of what you escaped. You end up creating your own Corporate God to enlist the service of supplicants who want you to give them a better life.
      • You’ve come full circle.
        • If someone asks you if you are a god, you say, “YES!”

Be a god. Be a non-asshole self-aware mindful emotionful god, not a detached “money has turned me republican!” god of fiduciary duty and delusional distance from reality.

Afterbirth

Was any of this fair? No. It’s a one-sided teardown of what I’ve hallucinated are one AIAs motives. Welcome to The Internet.

Farther Reading

• Company Hierarchy
• The Gervais Principle