How To Find Awesome Startup Roommates | Hacker News Reader

How To Find Awesome Startup Roommates

jasonshen.com

36 pointsjasonshen17 comments

  Enjoys similar food and drink.  Good.
  Washes dishes when the sink is full.  Good.
  Uses headphones after 11:00.  Good.
  Cleans bathroom when it's his turn.  Good.
  Pays bills on time.  Very good.
  Doesn't use semicolons at the end of the line.  Reject.

It's an amazing experience to live with others that are passionate about similar interests, especially when you're early in your career and it's impossible to burn out. I've never had that with startups, I did live with other athletes in college though. A year with the crew guys (they got me into weights) and about two years with other soccer nuts like me. That was heaven, playing as many games a week as we could, whether pickup, organized or anything in between.

Thanks Al. I wouldn't say it's impossible to burn out - but youth and passion and lack of spouse/children help.

Funny, I feel like having a spouse actually helps me avoid burnout because I know there's a block of time every day that's devoted to someone other than myself and with different non-nerdy interests.

Ok so I'm being a negative ninny and pedant but California has numerous fair-housing laws that they are bumping up against here.

For example, it is illegal to discriminate a tenant based on "source of income" - so if one potential tenant works for a startup and the other works for an investment bank, you can't choose the tenant who works for a startup over the other simply because of where they work. Nor can you legally advertise as such.

(http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/code/getcode.html?file=./gov...)

I totally get the desire to have an all-startup household, but I'm also raising this because I think we would be outraged if other fair-housing laws were being flouted, like discrimination based on ethnicitity or sexual orientation, and so I'm minded that it is important to respect the CA fair housing laws in their totality.

My guess is that this applies to property owners/landlords looking for tenants. The article talks about finding roommates, which I'm pretty sure is ok to pick and choose...

My understanding is that in San Francisco, especially, the laws are very broad and occur at all levels - which from the perspective of 'fair housing' makes sense.

I will try to find the article I read on this recently.

UPDATE: roommates can choose based on gender only where there is a shared bathroom, kitchen or common area. That is all.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/FHA#roommates

Thanks seji. Looks like we're in the clear. We didn't say the person had to be anything, but we did pick based on certain qualities / characteristics.

"in a situation in which a landlord owns less than four rental units, and lives in one of the units, it is legal for the owner to discriminate in the selection process based on the aforementioned categories, but it is illegal for that owner to advertise or otherwise make a statement expressing that discriminatory preference."

No problem, jasohen.

Was that a dig on my spelling your name wrong? Sorry about that.

Wait, so, you can choose NOT to rent to me because I'm gay/male/Scottish/a Republican, but you're also disallowed from saying "Sorry, no gays/men/Scots/Republicans"?

What an excellent way the time of people looking for housing.

*seiji

roomate != tenant.

edit: looks like fido and I hit the 'submit' button at the same time, heh :D

Shared interest != living compatibility.

Good point dude. We didn't just pick the "most startupy" person as our roommate. We had a number of factors that we considered (and took notes on in a spreadsheet) that helped us figure out if we'd be compatible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com