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Comment by treyfitty | Hacker News Reader

Squarespace was my first experience with a hellish technical interview process back in 2014. I went through like 4 initial screens/take-home assignments for a {something} Analyst role that was considered entry level. I eventually gave up, and from that moment on, I hated Squarespace as a company. These take home assignments weren't even relevant for the role, yet they thought it made sense to inject it into the process. I'm glad they're 1 step closer to their demise.

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Some companies use interviews processes not to test your knowledge but to check the level of inhumanity you’re willing to accept while working there

I always understood it as an artificial way to reduce the applicant pool. Too many people apply, you just want to make it annoying to keep a number of people you have capacity to review in depth.

It’s really shitty, of course.

Oh it's still allowing for self-selection of people who like abuse.

Stock price up ~88% over the last two years and just valued in an all-cash deal at $6.9B.

Yup, they’re right on the verge of that demise.

This is some serious cherry-picking. It's going private at a price below the initial IPO price of $48 from 3 years ago, and has generally significantly underperformed other tech stocks.

They might not be about to die, but they're not exactly healthy either.

Me, demonstrating sustained performance over last 2yrs: cherry-picking.

You, choosing IPO price from the frothiest IPO environment of the last decade: elevated, rigorous, robust to outliers.

Okay, well, we can settle an accusation of cherry-picking pretty easily. Why did you pick two years?

Because it's an extended period, with a simple round time window that doesn't include the IPO pop from the frothiest IPO environment of the last decade. Happy to have gone with any time window outside of 2021. That should be clear from my comment.

"But, Creddit", the ignorant accuser of cherry-picking whine, "why after 2021?"

Because as anyone in tech knows, that was the frothiest IPO environment of the last decade. Source for those who aren't aware: https://site.warrington.ufl.edu/ritter/files/IPOs-Tech.pdf

Square space IPOd in a borderline delusional environment of retail investing, stimulus money, and massive free cash flow. Pretty much every IPO from that era looks awful on paper, but the companies are fine balance sheet wise.

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