by supahfly_remix on 8/5/24, 4:55 PM
by uptime on 8/6/24, 12:41 AM
I met Heifermann once during a project and I thought he was a grounded person. I remember one thing he did was paying not for ad slots, but to change your background to a dalmation spotted print for a promotion, with a link. This was long before CSS, etc.
He made his money just when the idea of value being divorced from real product to virtual metrics, “chasing eyeballs,” etc. was getting hot. The days when you sold a huge contract by showing a CD ROM of the website you were never going to achieve, to a client who had no idea what they were buying.
This guy was much more honest than the norm. The McD and meetup stuff reflects the fact that he kept people in the equation.
by mtmail on 8/5/24, 3:08 PM
"10/[20]00-10/[20]00: counterperson, mcdonald's" Does that mean he worked there for one month or less?
I checked his Linkedin, the job isn't listed. Jan 2002 he started a new photo startup ("50M+ members posted a billion photos"), then co-founder&CEO of meetup.
It's a good time capsule of what his thinking was in 2000 but I wonder if it was more than a break. At my office job I, too, often think I should drive an Uber or deliver food for a month as a break.
by karaterobot on 8/5/24, 4:08 PM
If his timeline and application are true, he was technically still the chairman of his company while working at McDonald's, if in name only.
> 10/99-10/01: chairman, i-traffic (an agency.com company)
> 10/00-10/00: counterperson, mcdonald's (4th & broadway, nyc)
I sometimes think about going back to work at food service jobs after I retire, just to keep busy. I enjoyed those jobs as a high school and college student, and I wonder if I still would, or if I might be too spoiled now. And if my back was tired at the end of a shift when I was 21, I guess now I might just die.
by huac on 8/5/24, 4:07 PM
His most recent LinkedIn role: Fulfillment Center Associate I, Part Time, Amazon.
by your_challenger on 8/5/24, 4:31 PM
> Nobody thanked me.
Do you think this is still true?
This resonates with me. I used to work in tech, but I recently joined my family's brick-and-mortar business. No one says thank you, no one appreciates you. I find it amazing that this culture of thanklessness exists even in the US (I'm in India) in non-tech jobs.
P.S. I worked at all fronts of the business before joining the management. Worked at the counter, as a delivery personal, as a sales executive, etc. And when I say "Nobody thanked me" I mean no one at the company appreciated my efforts.
by sandspar on 8/6/24, 3:17 AM
Slumming it, basically. You can leave whenever you want, the people around you are stuck there.
by vaxman on 8/7/24, 4:18 PM
Just threw up in my mouth. Yes, our capital markets developed FOMO on the next Apple or Microsoft and so they devolved into throwing caution to the wind and funding people like This. There were trillions lost, millions of workers permanently removed from industry (I think IBM laid off almost a quarter of them alone), plus the damage to the private equity companies that were robbed of investment (by ALL available capital going into "companies" like PETS.COM during the dot-com bubble) and then the catastrophic losses we all sustained as the public equity markets popped followed by the tech nuclear winter that lasted SIX YEARS (when few university students graduated with CS degrees) causing untold additional losses for decades thereafter. I'm glad there are companies like YCombinator to experiment in a controlled way with exploiting high-level technologies (like Web 2.0...) to make our economy run more efficiently, but execs back then were not experienced enough to put people like this guy under a proper manager or simply cut him a check to buy a Corvette or something and send him on his way. Some of those execs did have big wins that have allowed them to move on from their "stabilizing role" in the economy to a now very "destabilizing role" (by inflating another stock market bubble and "artificial" energy crisis). Let's hope the capital markets shut them down before it repeats --because next time, China and Russia won't be on their knees as we screw around with investments in those finding their way at McDonalds.
by pharos92 on 8/7/24, 3:46 AM
I miss the carefree days of working in fast food in my late teens and early 20s. Getting stoned with friends, eating crappy food, staying up all night living care free. Glad I'm not doing it now, but there was a sense of wonder and joy in the simplicity of it all.
by hackeraccount on 8/5/24, 4:06 PM
They should add a date to the title - I saw the $5 and hour and was confused. I swear I remember McDonald's starting people at $10 an hour even around that time.
by nunez on 8/5/24, 6:12 PM
Honestly this is something I would like to do once I feel "financially ready." I want to be a barista, at least for a little while. Like this CEO outlined, it's really easy to be detached from the real world when you're working super high paying jobs.
by thatgerhard on 8/7/24, 9:39 AM
In my 20s I also lost a job and had to go work at a Mcdonalds. Regardless of all the other things.. most fun job ever!
I'm in my 40s now and run a small dev agency. (if that matters)
by hollywood_court on 8/5/24, 4:08 PM
Reminds me of Armie Hammer selling timeshares in the Caribbean.
by swader999 on 8/7/24, 1:50 AM
I went back treeplanting in between jobs at 46. It was glorious but I really missed my family.
by dominicrose on 8/7/24, 8:12 AM
I got a -1 point at an English test when I was a kid because of writing "i"...
by sobelius on 8/5/24, 4:34 PM
Honestly, I think he’s living the dream — no tech headaches, just flipping burgers and taking it easy. Really makes me think...