written a lot of brilliant code that's running the guts of a couple businesses and maybe even an East Bay school district still.
Even without revealing your identity or violating your privacy, this is more substantive information about your career accomplishments than I can find about Sebastian. Maybe it's there and I'm just too stupid to figure it out. In which case there is a simple solution: You (or anyone else) can simply point out the obvious and make me look like a fool. I'm pretty comfortable playing the fool. He's your chance to get your licks in on me and fight the good fight and all that.
Er, I'm not looking to fight any kind of fight or make anyone look like a fool.
I just wanted to point out that dismissing someone because you don't know about their accomplishments (or lack of) is probably going to mean that you're going to miss out on some pretty great people.
(For clarity: generic "you" in this case, not specifically you; and I'm not lumping myself in with "great" people.)
I'm not dismissing him. I'm curious what his credentials are. It's not the same thing. I've politely asked the credentials of other members of HN when I was curious. In the case that comes immediately to mind, it was clearly beneficial to the person I asked, who was not full of bull and could back himself up. This is only an "ugly" thing to ask if Sebastian is a blow-hard. And if he is only a blow-hard, I would think members of HN would benefit from knowing that. Respect has to run both ways and his audience is not obligated to respect him or stick around to listen to him if he can't do them the honor of explaining what his "expertise" is based on.
"I just wanted to point out that dismissing someone because you don't know about their accomplishments (or lack of) is probably going to mean that you're going to miss out on some pretty great people."
The problem with keeping everything quiet about your accomplishments is that HR departments and company owners won't know anything about you and you may get passed up on jobs as a result.
As a result, the people that lie or don't actually have good accomplishments get better jobs because they have better self PR.
You can fight it all you want, but if someone doesn't know anything about you, they most likely won't want to hire you either. Being connected on linkedin and through old co-workers and people that know all about my accomplishments has helped me find many great jobs.
Even without revealing your identity or violating your privacy, this is more substantive information about your career accomplishments than I can find about Sebastian. Maybe it's there and I'm just too stupid to figure it out. In which case there is a simple solution: You (or anyone else) can simply point out the obvious and make me look like a fool. I'm pretty comfortable playing the fool. He's your chance to get your licks in on me and fight the good fight and all that.