Tell HN: YC company Anima Health is spamming email addresses posted to HN

108 points by catharsisatlast 2 years ago | 24 comments

I just received a seemingly personalized message from Anima Health (YC21). The email is signed with the name of the CEO (Shun) with his name in the From field, too. This is not the first time I've seen it. I received an identical message in my inbox through another address previously posted in plaintext on HN months ago under a different username.

The reason I know it's spam: It's literally the same message. The only difference is the person (HN username) it's addressed to. It also starts out:

> Saw your profile on HN and we think your skills look like a good fit for our team - wondered if you'd be interested in our YC company, Anima.

This doesn't make sense, given what I've posted through this account. Motivated by the recent Ask HN thread "Who needs help this holidays", I posted a little about my situation.

It's bad enough to spam people here, let alone what is in reality just an invitation to spend your time applying to their company, masquerading as a personalized message like this. But to do so indiscriminately, such that it will necessarily also ensnare people who are literally struggling to pay for food and facing homelessness is cruel. It's a careless cruelty, but it's cruelty all the same.

Shun: You need to stop this immediately.

Kiro 2 years ago |

Everyone complaining about this here has posted their email in a thread that is literally called "Who wants to be hired?" and now they're upset that a company is reaching out? What am I missing?

flutas 2 years ago | |

IMO:

It's called "who wants to be hired" and typically has appropriate information about their profile so that someone can decide if they fit the role they need to fill.

It's not called "who want's to be spammed by an automated system that can't tell if you're a 16 year old JS only frontend dev or the engineer we actually need."

The difference is filtering. If they spam (and that's what it is when it's sent to everyone sight unseen) everyone then it makes the "who want's to be hired" threads worse for everyone.

EDIT:

To put it another way, if your company has a referral bonus you don't send them your entire rolodex of contacts for them to cold call. You would typically send them specific people you think match the role they need to fill (of course after verifying with people, etc).

catharsisatlast 2 years ago | |

Here's what you're missing:

You seem to be under the mistaken belief that "Who wants to be hired?" means "Who wants us to indiscriminately email you a link to our application?" It doesn't. It definitely doesn't mean, "Who wants us to email you a link and couch in a deceptive message that claims that we looked at your profile and 'we think your skills look like a good fit' and 'I think you'd find our job description interesting'?"

101008 2 years ago |

Why startups needs to spam for candidates? Is it too hard to find good engineers, especially now that your pool is almost worldwide (if you accept remote)? Consider the amount of layoffs lately, I'd say startups should have it easy.

The explanation is probably that I don't understand the market at all...

dirtybirdnj 2 years ago | |

> Why startups needs to spam for candidates?

Because if you could save money on hiring, you would. When you are in survival mode (not saying anything about the company referenced, just startups in general) you tend to get fast and loose with the truth. There's always a reason to justify what you did last week because "if we didn't do $AWFUL_THING everybody would have been fired."

I think if you live in this headspace long enough you begin to devalue / depersonalize the "cogs" in the machine you are constructing.

Being ramen profitable used to be a thing that was done because it was a necessity for survival and getting started. It became fashionable at some point as opposed to something done out of necessity. The idea of cost cutting everything "unnecessary" is so attractive to people who are not involved in actually DOING things. It's impossible for them to resist the urge given sufficient time and profit.

If they were involved with actual work, their minds would be occupied with something useful instead of inventing ways to justify their value.

The whole "spamming HN for hires" behavior to me is like orca whales swimming around with dead fish on their heads. Cheapness as a fad. Don't try to understand it.

mkl95 2 years ago | |

Most engineers seek a balance between risk and reward in their career. Most YC companies are a high risk for a relatively small reward.

whamlastxmas 2 years ago | | |

Equity in startups for employees should be valued near zero bc almost every time it’s diluted to nothing

dirtybirdnj 2 years ago |

They've been at this for a while, I got one in Sept 2022

"Saw your profile on HN and we think your skills look like a good fit for our team"

If it had been "we saw you are engaged on hacker news" instead of "we saw your profile" I might have actually responded. I don't have a profile on this site. I have a barely reputable profile, and I'm lucky when my engagement is received positively.

It's like when I get spam images from thirsty IG bots, NOBODY ever talks to me like that. Even if they did, the context / content of what they say immediately tells me whether this is a scripted interaction or genuine. When you are at the depths of despair it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to have a properly calibrated bullshit detector and you will fall for seemingly "easy to see" things like this.

I agree with the other posters, it's less than optimal. I'm lucky to be on the greener side of the grass today but I can see why others responded more hostile.

beepbooptheory 2 years ago |

They reached out to me pretty normally.. I did a "who want's to be hired" and got back a friendly message from the CEO. Then they had me do a test I thought I did pretty well on, but never heard back.

e2le 2 years ago |

"Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness later"

toomuchtodo 2 years ago | |

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26638703

I specifically cite this comment because of the "naughtiness" topic, but also feel dang's context is important. "naughtiness" and "pg" keywords in the search brings up lots on the topic for those who want to dive deep.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/05/24/y-combinators-paul-graham-... ("Y Combinator's Paul Graham: We're Looking For People Like Us")

> Another key factor: Naughtiness. “Startups often have to do slightly devious things,” Graham says. “You can tell if people have a gleam in their eye. You don’t want people who would be obedient employees… we’re not looking for people who did what they were told in life.”

(I have no strong opinion on the topic; YC's job is to obtain VC asset class returns telling founders they are special and to grind people and markets until liquidity or failure, but dang is nice and effective for keeping this third space decent and vibrant)

CoastalCoder 2 years ago | |

If taken literally, this saying really bothers me.

Why would I forgive someone of an act that stems from a policy that they repentantly continue to hold?

Start by telling me why what you did that was wrong, and that you're committed to not repeating that behavior. Then we'll talk about forgiveness.

Otherwise you're just adding to your list of wrongs by playing me for a chump.

barryrandall 2 years ago | |

"..., but if strangers are stopping to record what you're about to do, just pause for a moment and verify the reasoning you used to disregard the warnings you were given."

wantlotsofcurry 2 years ago |

I received the same email after the first time I posted to the monthly “Who wants to be hired?” thread. Gross, really.

radq 2 years ago | |

I'm confused - you posted in the "who wants to be hired" thread, and then got an email from this company asking if you'd be interested?

ryaneager 2 years ago | | |

Yeah, but who’s hiring threads the company is supposed to read your skills and respond if you are an actual fit, not just send it to every single person who posted. I’d bet dollars to donuts that half the candidates they sent it to don’t even qualify for the position.

CoastalCoder 2 years ago | | |

I think the assumption here is that the company claims they looked at your qualifications and decided it might be worth your effort to apply, when in fact they didn't.

If that's what's happening, it's a form of fraud (but legal, I imagine).

catharsisatlast 2 years ago | | |

You're right. You are confused. He or she didn't get an email like that. It was an email that said, "Saw your profile on HN and we think your skills look like a good fit for our team." No one saw the profile and thought that. Re "wondered if you'd be interested in our YC company," no one wondered that.

This was a deceptive email meant only to advertise the fact that Anima 1) exists, and 2) is accepting applications. It should have been posted in the "Who is hiring?" thread.

Kiro 2 years ago | | |

The same with OP. I don't understand this thread at all.

meiraleal 2 years ago |

That's really shameless and cruel. Not much can be done but I endorse the public shaming. The right thing would be for YC to call their attention but who knows what they think about it.