Youtube Instant creator gets instant job offer

http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/10/youtube-instant-job/

by ajg1977 • 16 years ago

240 76 16 years ago

Good for him and all, even though the search results were:

1) Painfully slow compared to Instant's realtime. 2) Only one at at time. 3) Text. (People respond to visual cues, and for a vid site, better to have thumbnails display in the results with captions.)

InfinityX0• 16 years ago

Minimum viable product, heard of it?

zerosandones3• 16 years ago

Functionality, heard of it?

KeithMajhor3• 16 years ago

He made it in a day.

zerosandones3• 16 years ago

And I’m sure they'll give him time to work it out further, but is this the innovation YouTube is looking for? Hard to believe their UX people and dev teams haven’t already toyed with something like this.

studer2• 16 years ago

It's using existing mechanisms in YouTube's JSON API to find suggestions and play them. All the true "magic" is provided by YouTube's engineers. Not to take it away from someone who writes the right lines of JavaScript at the right time, but you don't have to place the guy on a pedestal.

The real lesson here is for yourself and others here who think like you -- if you tell yourself that things like this take superhuman efforts, how will you ever be able to produce something creative yourself?

cristinacordova• 16 years ago

it was clearly hacked to show proof of concept. site is getting lots of traffic which would explain the slow results.

metamemetics• 16 years ago

I actually think it's interface is vastly superior to Google, Facebook, and YouTube. Zero clutter. Entertaining (I lolled at much higher rate). No interface elements distracting from the content (video).

edit2: had mentioned an error the site was having, but it appears to be fixed now.

what• 16 years ago

It was slow because he was going through his server to get the query suggestions from Youtube and lots of people were on it. It's been updated to get the suggestions directly from the source and it's significantly faster. Google's servers can handle the load better :)

feross4• 16 years ago

You are correct!

I even ran into issues when Google automatically blocked my server for making too many repeated requests to the search suggestions endpoint.

However, I rewrote the site to query YouTube directly for search suggestions, eliminating the round-trip to my server. Now, all the magic happens in each visitor’s browser, so it’s faster and Google can’t block it.

SandB0x• 16 years ago

Yes, we know, we know - the existing discussion is at #5 on the front page.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1679845

palish• 16 years ago

Actually, I didn't know.

gojomo• 16 years ago

Is YouTube exempt from Google's lengthy indirect hiring processes?

jrockway3• 16 years ago

Probably not. But when the CEO knows someone who he wants to hire, the rules can be bent.

Remember, a lot of people working at Google got there via acquisitions. And they are afforded all the rights of "normal" employees that had 10 weeks of interviews (including moving to a "normal" team).

I assume Google's official hiring process is mostly for recent college grads, because they don't have any experience (or code) to prove that they know anything. Once you are established, via reputation or open source or otherwise, I'm sure the rules are more flexible.

(I bet Guido didn't have to explain linked lists on a whiteboard.)

nerfhammer3• 16 years ago

Acquisition employees still have to go through a round of intense interviews in order to continue through the acquisition

eru• 16 years ago

They should have made Guido explain tail call optimization.

simonk• 16 years ago

Don Dodge went from being fired at Microsoft to hired at Google in 11 days. So if the person is senior enough they can just hire you. Apparently Vic Gundotra hired Don (VP of Engineering).

zackattack2• 16 years ago

someone from youtube recently reached out to me about some stuff and as an aside commented that i'd also probably make a good google employee. but my college GPA (2.8 or so) pretty much rules out that possibility. too bad.

btilly3• 16 years ago

Who told you that your GPA rules you out?

If you have actual experience, nobody should care about your GPA. Or even whether you have a college degree. Lots of people at Google don't. If you're still in college it might be an issue, but if you have something to point to you still have a shot at getting into the interview process.

The interview process is hard. I won't lie to you about it. Even if you belong at Google, there is a good chance of not making it through on the first try. But your odds are infinitely worse if you don't even try.

Speaking personally, I didn't apply to Google for years because the core Google languages are Python, Java and C++, while my professional experience was all in Perl. Eventually I did apply, and discovered that it never would have been a problem. And in fact I'm doing most of my work in internal languages that nobody comes here knowing.

X-Istence• 16 years ago

I call bullshit. My college GPA was 2.90 and Google still went through the entire hiring process with me. No, I didn't get it after 6 different rounds of talking to people on the phone for phone interviews, but they certainly didn't look down upon my GPA.

briancurtin• 16 years ago

My GPA was worse and it never didn't prevent me from getting any of the phone interviews or the on-site. Don't count yourself out.

Mazy• 16 years ago

Regardless of whether or not YouTube could build this with the team they have, it makes perfect sense to me that they'd want to hire a smart, self-motivated person who's passionate about their product.

sliverstorm2• 16 years ago

Must have been one of the most exciting days of his life. Not just the job, but the recognition for something cool he made!

feross4• 16 years ago

I'm the author of YouTube Instant. You're right - the last two days have been the most exciting of my life! I'm still high on adrenaline from the whole ordeal. I never expected my little hack to make it this big, and for that I'm grateful.

I just finished recounting my last two days running YouTube Instant here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683100

djacobs• 16 years ago

Congrats!

Worst part of the article:

"Aboukhadijeh announced the launch of YouTube Instant on Y Combinator’s Hacker News feed, a news aggregation site similar to Digg and Reddit."

spoiledtechie• 16 years ago

Which means that the YouTube CEO is scouring Hacker News.

mey• 16 years ago

Which I hope wouldn't surprise anyone.

siculars• 16 years ago

Scouring? Doubtful. Maybe he's just clicking around like everyone else.

tensafefrogs• 16 years ago

Or, the link was shared within YouTube/Google quite a bit.

code_duck2• 16 years ago

Just like being a rock star, successful CEOs continue to be normal people, which is for some reason surprising to the public, and their former peers.

jrockway3• 16 years ago

Why? Do you really think we are much different than Digg or Reddit?

The main difference is that we value slightly longer comments. (But so does Slashdot, and they have a lot more users.)

code_duck2• 16 years ago

Longer comments, they are only LONGER? Slightly longer??

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

It's silly to think that technology makes the site. That's about as sensible as comparing books by their binding and type face.

wazoox• 16 years ago

I know how he feels... Reddit has begun to suffer from a massive AOL effect, and he's afraid that the publicity may attract an unwelcome crowd here :)

feross4• 16 years ago

Hi, I'm the author of YouTube Instant. Actually, I never "announced" this site anywhere. I posted a status update to some friends to get their feedback. They shared it and it spread from there. I woke up this morning to the sound of my phone ringing - a Washington Post blogger wanted to interview me. It's been a crazy day, to say the least.

jacquesm• 16 years ago

So, did he accept ?

tchae2• 16 years ago

I know Feross Aboukhadijeh personally. He graduated from my high school a year before me. For those who are talking about the "lengthy hiring processes", he just completed an internship at Google this summer. He also founded http://www.freetheflash.com/ and http://www.studynotes.com/.

Check out his impressive resume at http://www.feross.org/Resume_Feross_Aboukhadijeh.pdf

He's definitely more than capable of producing at his new YouTube gig (assuming he will take it).

swah• 16 years ago

All-rounder!

tchae2• 16 years ago

oops, I messed up. he worked at Facebook this summer as a software intern.

cosgroveb• 16 years ago

Just looking at his resume makes me feel... Well let me just say, he's very accomplished!

endtime• 16 years ago

He also, most importantly, runs the ACM LAN parties at Stanford. ;)

minalecs• 16 years ago

Congrats to the creator of Youtube Instant.

"Everytime Google or Facebook hires someone another startup dies" - may have not quoted right, but you get the idea.

PedroCandeias• 16 years ago

Not sure I agree with you there, mate. Plenty of startups have been founded by people who cut their teeth at these companies. I know 19yr-old founders are all the rage, but there's a lot to be said about getting some experience before doing the whole startup thing.

newobj• 16 years ago

"want a job?" means "want to interview for a job?"

scorpion032• 16 years ago

Yes, when a recruiter is saying that. It's different when it is the CEO saying it.

charlesju• 16 years ago

I'm sure this guy has no problem finding a job at any company he wants probably doing anything he wants. I don't understand why this is such a big deal.

sfard• 16 years ago

Most sensible comment here. Working at a big name as some low level software developer is not a big deal. By virtue of being at Stanford alone he had a good chance at the job.

ZeroMinx• 16 years ago

I completely agree, but this is still a nice little story.

spinchange• 16 years ago

Kudos to Feross! An inspiring story.

RomanAClef• 16 years ago

Very cool. Didn't think it be such as big deal, since others have already played around with the official Youtube player and API. For example: http://www.yvoschaap.com/youtube/, http://www.flatvid.com.

feross4• 16 years ago

Hi everyone, I'm the creator of YouTube Instant. Thanks for all the nice comments. This discussion has been quite interesting to read. Great feedback.

genystartup• 16 years ago

what's next? twitter instant?? suggests a tweet for you. I will actually like to see/indulge in a stab at that.

rakkhi• 16 years ago

Big congrats man

Youtube Instant creator gets instant job offer

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