YouTube Instant Creator Accepts Job At YouTube

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/24/youtube-instant-instant/

by vijaydev • 16 years ago

73 59 16 years ago

lukeqsee7• 16 years ago

Poor guy. And I mean it.

Google is a big mess of hierarchy, (yes, they're much better than the average -- that's not saying much). Their "eternal" startup mantra is just that. Looks like the world has lost yet another good hacker to the halls of the Googleplex.

I hope he loves it. Unfortunately, I don't think he will.

Kudos to all the work put in for YouTube Instant. Good luck to your future at YouTube!

BonoboBoner• 16 years ago

woah... and I always thought Google was THE place to be.

hvs• 16 years ago

It was... 10 years ago.

lukeqsee7• 16 years ago

It's the place to be, if you want an 8-5 job (it ends up being much more than 8-5).

I don't blame him for taking the job. I just hope he keeps up his entrepreneur's spirit. He's already shown an entrepreneurial bent, just imagine what he might have done on his own. (Based on what he did, it could have been wonderful.)

bwaldorf• 16 years ago

I am amazed he left Facebook.

brown9-2• 16 years ago

"lost"? This seems a little over the top. He can always leave if he is unhappy. He obviously has a bright future ahead of him, whether it's at Google or not.

jacquesm8• 16 years ago

Poor guy? I don't notice the man with a gun standing behind him that forces him in to servitude here.

He's a free agent, he made this little project, got offered a job at a very prestigious company, has his name on the map for the future and a reference that will open doors for a long long time to come (being offered a job directly by the head of the video division of Google, formerly an entrepreneur himself is likely not a daily occurrence).

Poor guy indeed.

Somehow I feel this isn't the last we've heard of him, and I wish him the best of luck with what he'll do there, and I don't doubt that if he ever decides to go solo that he'll find a lot of people willing to back his (ad)ventures.

There are much worse things to happen to you than this.

lukeqsee7• 16 years ago

Like I said, I wish him the best. I hope he does exactly that: use Google as a wonderful opportunity (like it is).

Money could make him comfortable where otherwise he would be hacking. I was hoping that didn't happen, and he uses it as another opportunity.

"Poor guy"? Maybe that was over the top. Maybe it wasn't. We will see.

feross2• 16 years ago

Hey, author of YouTube Instant here. I just want to say one thing: I'll never stop hacking. Expect to see lots more from me in the future!

lukeqsee7• 16 years ago

Awesome. I can't wait. Best of luck to you!

jacquesm8• 16 years ago

I never doubted that :)

Good for you man, make a go of it there.

Was HN your 'launch spot' ?

dabent• 16 years ago

I want to publicly thank you for being cool and answering a question I had about ytinstant by email. Your instinct for hacking is an inspiration.

Psyonic4• 16 years ago

Awesome work! Welcome to Google.

jacquesm8• 16 years ago

Super of the Youtube guys to follow through on this and great for him to see he actually got the job.

I'm pretty curious if we'll be able to spot his 'fingerprint' in the features that youtube will roll out over the next period.

astrofinch• 16 years ago

"Interestingly enough, the ambitious Aboukhadijeh was a software engineer intern at Facebook when he created Youtube Instant."

Hm, I was under the impression Facebook didn't allow side projects. I suppose this doesn't apply to interns?

jacquesm8• 16 years ago

Programmers will do 'side projects' in their heads when you tie their hands, it's like painters having to paint and writers having to write.

Not allowing side projects is opposing a force of nature.

Silly move by facebook.

feross2• 16 years ago

I've worked at Facebook all summer as an intern. Never have I been aware of any company policy that forbids side projects.

ashbrahma• 16 years ago

What are the IP implications?? Can FB claim the IP since he worked on it while working at FB?

btilly2• 16 years ago

Facebook cannot because it happened in California, and California has strong protections. See http://law.justia.com/california/codes/2009/lab/2870-2872.ht... for details.

I'm firmly of the belief that this is very good for Silicon Valley. How many people do you know who work at a job and a startup on the side? In California that generally won't get you in trouble. Elsewhere?

indigoviolet• 16 years ago

Facebook doesn't have a 20%-time /program/. That doesn't mean people don't have side-projects on their own time, or even multiple things they're doing at work. Plus they have regular hackathons which sometimes develop into full projects.

xentronium• 16 years ago

I am sorta envious of the guy.

tibbon• 16 years ago

Normally, does getting a job at YouTube require the same hoops to jump through as getting a job at Google, or are their HR departments and processes separate still?

chime• 16 years ago

Though it's been a while now, back in 2007 I was offered a job at YouTube without going through the interview process because I co-developed the now-defunct Chime.TV ( http://techcrunch.com/2007/06/12/chimetv-a-prettier-way-to-w... ) and won the Mashup Competition that year. I even confirmed to make sure I wouldn't have to go through the crazy Google hiring practices and was assured that "If you say yes, you don't have to interview - you have a job starting tomorrow on my team at YouTube." It seemed like a very cool proposition too - my code would be visible to hundreds of millions of people immediately. I would've accepted it had my life circumstances been different.

chopsueyar3• 16 years ago

What is YouTube Instant?

noodle3• 16 years ago

http://ytinstant.com/

chopsueyar3• 16 years ago

Yeah, couldn't find the about page.

Is it just an AJAX-based Youtube search autocomplete that pulls up the results and then makes am autoplaying playlist?

brosephius• 16 years ago

just playing devil's advocate here, but why is slapping together an API with some javascript worthy of a job offer? what's so exciting about YT instant? from hurley's twitter message, it sounds like he asked this kid to drop out of stanford to join youtube, which sounds a little crazy. maybe I just have no imagination.

(congrats to the kid in any case)

Mystalic• 16 years ago

The kid's innovative and imaginative, can clearly build and design product quickly, and has a Facebook and Stanford pedigree. That sounds like a winner to me.

hugh3• 16 years ago

Also, by encouraging him to drop out of Stanford, they obtain an employee with a somewhat lower market value if he ever feels like leaving youtube.

gbrez1• 16 years ago

I agree and thank you for speaking what was on my mind as well. Anyone with moderate javascript skills could have a site like this up and running within 2 hours. I'm not even a fan of google instant though, oh well, to each his own.

js2• 16 years ago

Maybe anyone could, but it was Feross who did so. As well, I'm sure he still went through the YouTube interview process. YouTube Instant was just his foot in the door.

What's with the sour grapes?

city41• 16 years ago

People often say "I could do that" when seeing a Jackson Pollock painting. The key is they didn't, Pollock did. Hindsight is 20/20 and skills in executing are a dime a dozen. I'd be willing to be the vast majority of HN users could have coded up Youtube Instant. The differentiator is Feross actually did it.

moondistance• 16 years ago

Feross also already had a great reputation (and resume). He is well known at Stanford, organizing ACM events, among other things.

spoiledtechie• 16 years ago

Why would anyone who has some coding skills and Rail skills build something like Twitter?

Because of his imagination. Stupid idea, but worth millions. Innovative people are hard to find.

wave• 16 years ago

Things are not measured by how difficult or simple it was to create. It is measured by the result it produces.

He also validated for them that users want YouTube Instance without the company doing any work or taking any risks. For this reason alone, he deserves more than a job offer.

sangaya• 16 years ago

2nd Sentence from the Article: "Aboukhadijeh will continue to attend Stanford while he works at the company."

He get's a job YouTube while finishing his education at Stanford. Sounds like a good deal. I don't see the downside.

alnayyir2• 16 years ago

>but why is slapping together an API with some javascript worthy of a job offer?

I was equally leery for the same reason. I've made tons of apps that bound events and pulled/updated data from cache layers I had setup.

Apparently I didn't have the good sense to be a shameless self-promoter.

This is frankly exemplary of the one thing I don't like about HN, even though I dearly love the community here.

The emphasis on typical business values, rather than on true productivity and hard work agonizes my conscience on a regular basis.

It makes me nauseous to think he got such publicity and a job offer for that.

I hate to be sour about it, but damn.

S'like hiring a B-school kid because he completed a rudimentary business plan, rendered it into PDF, and put it online and it happened to go viral for some absurd reason.

justin• 16 years ago

People who are on the sidelines are always claiming they could do it better, or otherwise downplaying other's attempts to make something cool. Apparently you haven't been able to make any apps that caught anyone's attention, and it sounds like you're jealous that something you perceive as equal to your efforts did.

Honestly, I'd never intentionally hire anyone with your attitude.

bretthellman• 16 years ago

Ah jezzz, next is a movie deal!

bartl2• 16 years ago

>Interestingly enough, the ambitious Aboukhadijeh was a software engineer intern at Facebook when he created Youtube Instant.

Ouch. Does that mean Facebook own the rights?

Because IT staff are not much more than slaves in our world: anything you create while employed is property of the employer, even if the work is done in your own time.

YouTube Instant Creator Accepts Job At YouTube

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