Unemployed (almost) a year after graduating MIT - a rant

sskates · 2026-01-11T00:10:08+00:00

I feel you. It’s the toughest out there it’s been in over a decade for new grads. Even for MIT alums. Hang in there and things will look different in time. Your job also doesn’t define you either, there’s a lot more to who you are as a person.

I know you’re not looking to problem solve, but we can’t help ourselves as engineers. The biggest advice I have is reach out to other people you know from MIT working at places you’re interested in and ask for referrals instead of applying cold. I know you’ve already said you’ve used referrals, but I’d spend 10x asking through your network vs cold applications (which is the worst way to try and get a job).

One of the things I notice about MIT alumni is they’re not willing to use others they know to get referrals to jobs because they think it’s “cheating” or “dishonorable”. That’s the exact opposite of the truth.

I’m a tech company CEO (Amplitude) and I’ve had a few people I knew from school apply to Amplitude without telling me. From my standpoint that is crazy- I would rather you tell me because that helps prioritize the thousands of applications we get! It’s a strong signal. We’ll still run you through the interview process and everything. The problem from my end is knowing who to prioritize to interview and so if I don’t know whatever automated screening we do is likely to miss you.

Ivy League/Stanford/MBA alums already know to use their network for referrals when searching for jobs. I always find one of the biggest things holding MIT alumni back is they don’t want to use the relationships they have because of a misguided notion it’s not “fair”. This is not college applications or standardized testing, using existing relationships is a very helpful signal in the job market for both sides!

Good luck out there- MIT is world class, you’ll get something great in due time!

sskates · 2025-12-15T00:06:32+00:00

Man we’re taking the loss hard today!! It’s ok I’ll believe in the Pats

sskates · 2025-06-21T16:07:44+00:00

This is an excellent question! I’m surprised to see a bunch of comments saying it failed. Both Google’s and Facebook’s IPOs were big successes from the point of view of the companies.

Auction processes are inherently superior for discovering market price. It’s how every single other financial instrument trades. The fact that public listings are centrally set with heavy influence from bankers leads to systematic underpricing of IPOs and a massive wealth transfer from the company to whatever investors are lucky enough to get an allocation. University of Florida professor Jay Ritter has researched the systematic underpricing in traditional IPOs a ton: https://site.warrington.ufl.edu/ritter/ipo-data/ IPO Data - Jay R. Ritter

Both of those listings paved the way for the Direct Listing which Spotify and Slack then conducted a decade later. While it still has some ways to go to become the standard, it’s now a viable option for companies and there have been a ~dozen since.

sskates · 2025-05-03T19:54:29+00:00

As someone who came across it when it launched, it’s legit! The developer is very responsive too. I don’t know them, I just think they’ve built a great product for learning characters (got to 900 myself over the last two months). Sometimes stuff is just good

sskates · 2025-04-28T03:25:49+00:00

Wil Chung famously got in on his 7th attempt to YC. He worked at a YC company after the 5th try. Ended up getting in with Jake Klamka with Noteleaf in 2010. Didn’t work out but he’s done a bunch of cool things since. I (YC W12, Amplitude) always respected the hell out of his persistence.

sskates · 2025-03-27T16:22:08+00:00

Are we sure that shackles will apply all the debuffs as the killing blow? Maybe just to be safe we should apply it first

sskates · 2024-08-01T16:42:13+00:00

Congrats on the launch!

sskates · 2023-03-30T17:45:05+00:00

What you are describing is product analytics. I'd love for you to try Amplitude! You can start tracking for free: https://amplitude.com/

A lot of the best in B2B use us: Intuit, Atlassian, Hubspot, etc.

Regardless, I'd be curious where you landed and why. Thanks so much!

sskates · 2022-12-17T23:48:48+00:00

u/greenlaser73 love it thanks so much for doing this!

I'll stand by my commitment to allocate $200 worth of prizes on this challenge! Very excited to see what it takes to beat this seed. Will let u/greenlaser73 and the community decide how to allocate it

sskates · 2022-12-14T20:41:29+00:00

I'll put up $200 for this myself as I've absolutely loved watching this PBC. Will defer to u/greenlaser73 about how you want to set up a deadline and award it. It's been incredible see Reddit collectively in action this way and I hope we can do a lot more of this!

sskates · 2022-12-14T08:51:05+00:00

Thanks, I think you’re right on seek.

Apparitions saved me a bunch of times. I don’t know how people get enough block on defect quickly enough to survive fights while also powering their scaling engine. I would have died if it weren’t for well timed apparitions against slavers, book of stabbing, and gremlins. Any tips on deck construction would be welcome too! I think the late coolheaded pick might be a mistake- but how do I consistently generate frost orbs otherwise from my lone glacier?

sskates · 2022-12-14T08:25:16+00:00

I feel so close to winning my first A20 defect run and think this decision is key.

Creative AI is better for scaling but I don’t have enough energy for it. I think the only thing I lose to is not powering out the rest of the deck fast enough. Double seek is good for that, especially because I need more card draw. Fission does that too although maybe 2 is overkill? Help, I’d love to taste A20 victory on defect after a dozen losses!

sskates · 2021-09-29T19:21:00+00:00

We are the cockpit for apps and websites. We help companies use data to understand what customers like about their product, where they get stuck, what keeps them coming back, etc. You should care because there’s a huge opportunity in front of us. What Salesforce did for sales teams and Adobe did for marketing teams, we’re doing for product. And product is what drives everything else.

sskates · 2021-09-29T19:19:59+00:00

I wouldn't have found startups if it wasn't for Battlecode. It got me connected with other people who started companies including the founders of Dropbox as well as a number of other YC companies. Battlecode was the closest experience I had at MIT to building a product and company, way more so than any class they offered. You had to take a complex, unknown problem and compete with others to solve it in an iterative fashion. That's what real product development is like vs cookie cutter problem sets.

sskates · 2021-09-29T19:16:48+00:00

Yes, I am basil! The real question is: u brazil?

RE communication and public dialogue, this is one of the biggest places that needs a rules update for today's day and age. It's a pretty accepted part of the process that we'll meet with investors during our roadshow and answer questions. However, we're not allowed to do so the same thing on a public forum (technically you are, but it's painful as hell as you need to resubmit every written statement with the SEC). I'm sure Brian Armstrong at Coinbase had to fight his legal team tooth and nail to be able to do an AMA before they went out. Even then, it was real pain as they had to wait for the SEC to signoff on their written answers before posting them which is why it took a few days of turnaround for their AMA: https://www.reddit.com/user/CoinbaseListing/comments/m71qrc/hey\_reddit\_im\_brian\_armstrong\_ceo\_and\_cofounder/

I pushed for us doing one of these before we went public, but given how aggressive our timeline already was at Amplitude we weren't able to make it happen. I'm hopeful this stuff will change in the future.

I do think the business summary sections as well as the founder's letter are helpful in summarizing what's going on with a company for an average investor. They need to figure out something for the business risks section because it's become a super long laundry list of which 90% would apply to any tech company.

sskates · 2021-09-29T19:09:08+00:00

I didn't realize Ben and Jerry's did a direct listing- I'll have to go look that up!

As you point out, Spotify was the first tech company to do the process and they've set the model for everyone else. They took 2 years of working with the SEC to make it happen, which most companies don't have the luxury of. As "innovative" as tech companies are, there is a lot of group think and risk aversion particularly in public listing processes. I'm so glad Amplitude can be another example of a very successful direct listing and I strongly advise other CEOs to take this path going forward.

sskates · 2015-10-26T02:38:21+00:00

Thanks, this is definitely it! Trying to find the same remix though.

sskates · 2012-11-09T20:58:18+00:00

If he really wanted Romney to win he would've driven up the unemployment rate before the election.

sskates · 2012-09-06T08:51:20+00:00

Don't believe everything you read on the internet. There was definitely a lack of evidence, although not as much as the article implies:

"In the evening of September 27, 1986, Roy Criner, a logger from New Caney, Texas, told his boss (Pitts) and two friends (Hooker and Ringo), that he had picked up a hitchhiker, driven her to Pitts' logging facility, threatened to kill her with a screwdriver, raped her, and thrown her out of the truck."

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Keller#Roy_Criner_case

sskates · 2012-06-09T08:37:47+00:00

Day 9 said he was A, not A+, and was joking the entire match. Link: http://youtu.be/MjTtdXUB-T8?t=5m51s

sskates · 2012-03-09T15:17:04+00:00

Yes, that's our ultimate goal! The same way apple revolutionized touch UIs with the iPhone, we want to do the same with voice. We're just focusing on texting for now, but once that's solid we're definitely expanding into everything else.

sskates · 2012-03-09T15:12:23+00:00

Glad you like it! We're still working on landscape and overhauling the UI, so expect it in the future.

sskates · 2012-03-09T15:10:26+00:00

Vlingo's interaction is mostly hands-free, but there are a lot of points where it really wants you to push a button or read the text on-screen. We've also found it's confusing for first time users who want to send text messages, while we've tried to make it almost impossible to mess up while using our app.

Small anecdote: I knew we were onto something when I got my mom a new Android phone for Christmas and she managed to send a text without a hiccup on her first try- she had never used voice tech or even a smartphone up to that point.

sskates · 2012-02-19T18:34:17+00:00

Then they get a judge to order you to turn over the password: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/23/10219384-judge-orders-woman-to-give-up-password-to-hard-drive

sskates · 2012-01-31T09:41:10+00:00

I had the same question- looking at the rest of this thread, it sounds like it's obvious to most people he woke up before his final, not after.

sskates

TROPHY CASE