Developer Bidding Wars
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A story about a controversial hiring platform called Developer Auction that emerged about 6 years ago.
"There was a website called Developer Auction that was controversial. They were YC-adjacent - I don't remember if they were a YC company or what, but they piggybacked on YC somehow.
What they did was say 'We're only going to let YC companies hire from this place.' If you're a developer who wants to work for a YC company, you could come on Developer Auction and get the highest dollar bid because these companies had money and wanted great developers.
Developers were getting way more money on this platform, about a 20% premium. They didn't have to do multi-week job interviewing processes. They could just say 'I was at Reddit early, first 40 employees, worked on the fraud system, I'm interested in companies doing machine learning' - and boom, they'd get job offers.
Developer Auction just had to be selective, like Harvard. Not any company could apply, not any developer could apply. Ultimately though, I don't think the model worked because they ended up pivoting or softening it. Talent marketplaces are really hard businesses to scale."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.