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Comment by __mharrison__ | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand how a failing stamp for a campfire is good for the interviewee. It signals that they weren't good enough to get hired. Why would they want to parade that around?

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I had the same thought. "I didn't get hired at X! I didn't get hired at Y!" It's like how people write ex-Google, ex-Amazon in their headlines but worse: failed-OpenAI, couldn't-get-in-to-Anthropic. Let's all get around the campfire and sing kumbaya

It used to be a thing in India, I have read, that people would want to associate themselves with a prestigious university, even if they dropped out. It would be written like this (made-up example):

B.A. Political Science, Bangalore University (failed)

You dont need the failing stamps to hang around. All you need are the successful stamps. It's actually better from a human psychology perspective anyway. Less shame.

Everyone will have some successful stamps, and they accrue over time giving better signal. Hiring managers can make a rational decision about what number of stamps over what period of time is sufficient to evaluate a person, trading against the risk of misreading a profile by accepting someone with fewer stamps.

Reading that part of the post leads me to conclude that Yegge is founding a startup called 'StampTown' or something similar as a talent incubator. Each candidate would have a digital avatar with suspenders that would display their accumulated stamps.

I mean, if you are really into this stamp thing, then it is actually a good use of crypto/blockchain.

Isn't your resume/LI your successful stamps?

You can't undertand because the argument is nonsensical.

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