John Collison explores this subject in an episode of Invest Like The Best [1]. He talks about conglomerates like LVMH and Danaher and how they often give managers of acquired companies latitude in how they operate. He also points out that no one in technology has done what is actually pretty common in the rest of the world, namely, one holding company for a whole bunch of independent businesses that are sharing expertise. A counterexample mentioned is Constellation Software [2] which owns about 500 businesses. I definitely think this style of business is underrated and will grow in popularity.
The whole episode is brilliant, full of great insights that I think about often. It's well worth a listen.
Congrats! I launched a job board recently too [1] specifically for Anon Friendly jobs (jobs where you can work pseudonymously). We have similar domain names :D
One thing you might want to look into is adding Structured Data [2] for job postings. Doing so "makes your job postings eligible to appear in a special user experience in Google Search results". It could help you reach more people.
I don't think I understand what it means to work pseudonymously and esp. to hire/get hired that way. How does a company check references, past work history, diplomas, anything really, if the candidate won't share their name?
The idea is super interesting, though, but a detailed explanation on the website would help.
Good question! So a candidate is sharing their name. It's just not necessarily their legal/government name. They're not anonymous. They're pseudonymous. Meaning they're just working under a different name. But there's still a name.
In many cases, the individual would operate online and work under that one pseudonym, as opposed to changing their pseudonym every day. That way, they can accrue reputation, and an employment history, and credentials, under that identity, just like they could with their legal/government identity. So if you wanted to evaluate a potential candidate, the process would look pretty similar to evaluating a candidate who has provided their legal name. With a few differences here and there.
I think it's interesting too! Thanks for saying that. You're absolutely right about including a detailed explanation on the site. Will add that for sure.
Of course, people could choose to have multiple pseudonyms too. Each would have its own reputation and history. There's a lot of interesting work going on to make it possible to port some reputation between identities without necessarily having to expose your different identities.
Good question. So many of these jobs all you to work pseudonymously but your legal identity is still shared with some members of the organization (like execs/HR/finance) for onboarding purposes. Some just pay out in cryptocurrency to a wallet address.
Many of the benefits of being paid in crypto are just benefits of crypto in general: decentralized, permissionless, censorship-free money.
Aside from that, there's an emerging trend that I think is both really cool and will end up being the default way most people are paid. That trend is "payment streaming". Products like Superfluid [1] let you stream cryptocurrency payments. Staff could be paid in realtime rather than waiting to receive a monthly paycheck. That will prove really compelling for prospective employees and I think that most organizations will eventually make the switch to streaming salaries. Some organizations even have public dashboards that show how much is being streamed in realtime and to whom. The transparency is super cool!
In the near future, we'll look back on the way we get paid today as unbelievably suboptimal and anachronistic.
Hey! A couple days ago I launched anonfriendly [1]. It's a site that shows jobs where you can work pseudonymously. You might find it useful.
I launched on HN yesterday and it went #1. You might find that discussion [2] interesting as people were discussing the feasibility of working pseudonymously.
Hey, thanks for commenting! Are the LooksRare job postings responding with a 404? Their application involves sending an email, when you click "apply" it launches your email client. It's working for me. Am I missing something? Thank you :)
Completely appreciate the points you laid out in both of your comments, thanks for sharing!
One counter-point, just from my own personal experience, but adopting a pseudonym online has actually allowed me to be more authentic and more sociable. I've made a lot of awesome friends that I don't think I'd have made had it not been for being pseudonymous. It can be quite liberating and reduces the fear/impact of trying new things, speaking to new people, and more.
That’s a fair point. I guess there are contexts where pseudonymity can be useful and enable types of interactions that otherwise might not be possible. Especially in online contexts where you’re interacting with people you don’t know anyway, so using your real name doesn’t add much value in terms of trust.
I’m still skeptical that work is a context where I’d want/need this. But it’s a thought-provoking idea!
I'd also add, that in many ways I feel sorry for the guys who grew up during the age of social media. I would never, in a million years, want what I said/felt/thought/etc when I was young being attached to my name now. And as the years pass I find I can often define "young" as Current_Age - 10.
Or even working in countries with generally higher crime or weaker rule of law. I spent years living in a country where even saying/posting something seemingly innocuous could put your life at risk.
