FamilyLink.com is hiring
We have several open positions at FamilyLink.com, and I’ve decided to blog about them in hopes that it will increase our pool of potential candidates and educate potential candidates on our hiring process–particularly our use of trust networks to vet candidates. If you are interested, or know someone who is, please refer them to our job listings at our corporate web site, or email paul AT familylink.com.
As background, FamilyLink.com is the developer of We’re Related, a top 5 Facebook application, with 37 million users. We also run web sites including WorldVitalRecords.com, WorldHistory.com, and will be launching GenSeek.com and FamilyLink.com in the coming weeks. We also run AdMazing.com, a niche advertising network with a family history focus. And our first iPhone applications will soon be approved for the App Store. We rank in the top 150 of all web properties in overall traffic according to Quantcast, are venture and angel-backed and cash-flow positive. We have nearly 50 employees and full-time contractors, including many that work in our Provo, Utah headquarters, and many that work remotely (California, Colorado, Seattle, overseas.)
For all key positions we try to use our LinkedIn networks. We reach out to 50-200 colleagues we trust and ask, “who do you know that is the best [job title here] you have ever worked with?” Then we actively try to recruit the top candidates that are referred to by our trusted sources. Internally, we like to ask, “Would Google hire this person?” (I mean, if the economy was good) because we are really looking for world-class talent. Like Google, we want to find smart people who get things done.
If we don’t get the right referral for a position by pro-actively querying our trust network, then we do accept applications via our corporate site, or through email. But in this case, our policy is to take a “try before you buy” approach — meaning, we will hire the top candidate as a contractor for a short-term project, to see how well they perform and how well they work with our existing team. We think this helps both parties determine if the fit is a good one.
We have a number of key positions that we are trying to fill right now, including an HR manager / recruiter, that will increase our ability to hire the rest of the positions more quickly. We already have some good candidates for some of these positions, and are working through the interviewing process, but none of these spots have been filled yet (and some haven’t even been posted to our web site.)
- HR Manager / Recruiter
- Usability Manager
- QA Manager (listed as Software Test Manager on corporate web site)
- Front end / HTML developers
- Product Manager for genealogy properties
- Controller
- Chief Genealogy Officer
- Content Licensing Managers (4-5 open positions)
- Project Manager / assistant to Chief Social Officer
- Twitter Interns (4-5 full time or part time summer openings)
- Outbound sales consultants
- Business Development / Marketing manager
In the coming weeks, we may be adding these positions to our corporate site, but if the right candidate emerges sooner rather than later, we will definitely jump:
- VP of Online Advertising Sales (should probably be located in NYC or west coast)
- Product managers for social applications/features
- Localization manager (for apps and web sites)
- Online Advertising Sales Managers
- Mobile developers (iPhone, Google Android, other platforms)
- Mobile product manager
- Product manager, WorldHistory.com
- Lead developer for genealogy properties
- Market research / internal survey manager
- User Interface Designer (reporting to current lead designer)
- Affiliate marketing manager (for WorldVitalRecords)
- Content Digitization Manager
If you want to apply for any of these positions, please make sure you have enough endorsements in LinkedIn that we know you are qualified and experienced in the position you are applying for.
Treat applying to work at FamilyLink.com the way entrepreneurs are told to treat approaching a venture capitalist. Almost all VCs exclusively look at deals that are recommended to them by people they already trust, including existing portfolio companies. VCs don’t have time to look at thousands of business plans that might be submitted “over the transom.”
Likewise, it is so important for us to build a world class team, that we often don’t have time to look at the dozens or hundreds of applicants that we might be able to find from posting job advertisements everywhere or scouring resume databases. What we need is for our trust network to tell us that you are a top candidate for a particular position. If someone we trust vouches for you, then we will put you through a series of interviews, where usually 5 or more of our existing employees meet with you to determine the fit.
We have an energetic, fast-paced, innovative culture, and we are on the cutting edge of application development on social networks and mobile platforms. We believe in investing in our people, including providing them with great equipment and sending them to many conferences and industry events for ongoing training and networking.
We hope to build a company that becomes one of the great places to work in Utah, with offices and remote employees in other locations as needed. For example, I’m trying to convince one or more of our developers to move to Silicon Valley so we can be closer to our friends at Facebook. I’d like to hire a VP of Ad Sales in New York City or possible San Francisco. We would consider hiring some of our genealogy team members to work in Washington, DC, and possible in 1-2 international locations — yet to be determined.
If you are interested in joining our fast-growing company, please help us find you by tapping into our trust networks and giving us sufficient social proof that you are right for us, that it makes the hiring decision easy. Or if you are an independent contractor or work for a company that could provide some of the services we need through outsourcing rather than hiring, please give us similar social proof from people we trust that we ought to hire your firm rather than fill some of these employee spots. We look forward to hearing from you.
Report: $78 billion in TARP funds “given” to banks
The latest entry at Crashopedia is a partial transcript of a video interview from yesterday where Congressional TARP Oversight chairwoman Elizabeth Warren reveals the astonishing fact that Secretary Paulson misled her, the public and Congress about what equity and warrants the government got when it invested the first $350 billion in TARP funds into large US banks.
A few months ago Rep. Elijah Cummings asked Neil Kashkari (the former Goldman banker who now administers TARP funds for Treasury) if he thought Congress were “chumps” for letting the Treasury administer the first $350 billion in funds with little oversight and none of the intended effect of those funds, and then even thinking about coming back for more.
I wonder how Cummings and others who voted for the bailout feel now that Warren has disclosed this $78 billion giveaway and the attempts to conceal it.
Here is the Crashopedia entry:
Apr. 8, 2009 Bloomberg video interview with TARP Congressional Oversight Committee chair (and Harvard professor) Elizabeth Warren. She says that Secretary Paulson misled her, the public, and the Congress about the use of the first $350 billion in TARP funds. He told her the government was investing in equity in the banks, but her Oversight Commmittee research has shown that $78 billion was simply given to the banks as a subsidy. Here is a transcript of the video, which can be seen on YouTube, starting at 1:39.
“As Treasury is putting money into the banks, it describes it as “this is an investment” and Secretary Paulson said in a letter to me, in effect, for every $100 that the government is putting in to these financial institutions, they’re getting back $100 worth of stock and warrants. Now, we could have stopped there, because frankly that sounds like a pretty fair deal, but we decided to do an independent valuation of the transactions, crunched a bunch of numbers, did all the fancy equations, put it all together, and basically what it showed was for every $100 of taxpayer money that went into these financial institutions, we got back on that day about $66 worth of stock and warrants. Now do that enough times, and it adds up to about $78 billion dollars that were just subsidies, just given away. That’s not talking about how the market has fallen since then, it’s talking about on the day, the transaction was structured to give away about one in every three dollars that went into the banks.”
Q. Were you surprised by that figure?
“You bet. I have to say, when Secretary Paulson had sent me a letter assuring me that that was not happening, that these were par transactions, the way he described it, in other words 100 for 100, and it turns out that what the numbers showed was 100 for 66, yeah I was surprised.”
Q. What does that type of figure say to the taxpayer?
“It says that at least as Treasury started this program, they really had the notion that they would spend the money the way they wanted, and they not only weren’t going to tell the public, I don’t think they were really going to tell the Congressional Oversight people.
The Senator Who Saw This Coming
Newsweek has a great article in the April 13th edition called, “The Senator Who Saw This Coming.” It is a brief interview with North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, about his effort to regulate exotic derivatives back in 1994.
I met with one of Senator Dorgan’s key staffers on a trip to Washington, DC in February. I had found through my research in the Congressional Record that Dorgan had tried to pass legislation that in my view would have preventing the global financial meltdown by preventing the massive credit and derivatives bubble that caused it. So I asked his legislative specialist, “why isn’t Senator Dorgan calling attention to all his earlier efforts and saying, ‘see, I told you so?’”
I found the answer tonight in this Newsweek article, “There’s very little solace in being right, given the carnage,” said Dorgan. “This is one of the most expensive lessons in American history.”
Senator Dorgan is a great America, representing a great state whose old fashioned values and conservative banking practices we can learn something from.
Recent news stories indicate that North Dakota is largely escaping the recession, because of its conservative banking practices and “midwest… sensibilities.” Large banks there apparently avoided sub-prime lending. There are almost no foreclosures and there is full employment still.
I started a citizen journalism effort several months ago called Crashopedia–an effort to document the root causes of the global financial meltdown and the key players in that story. I found that Senator Dorgan was on the right side every step of the way. But it was like David fighting a hundred Wall Street Goliaths–the most effective financial lobby in the history of the world–and we know who prevailed.
I was so impressed with his 1994 article in Washington Monthly Magazine called “Very Risky Business – Derivatives” that we made it the first link on the entire Crashopedia web site.
Dorgan tried from 1994-1999 to restrict the financial industry from selling exotic instruments. But the financial lobby prevailed. Since then, derivative bets first generated hundreds of billions of dollars of profits (and billions of dollars in bonuses for those who waged them) and hundreds of billions in toxic liabilities when the bets turned sour.
As the derivative industry started churning out hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives contracts, our whole economic picture turned bizarre.
I read one study that said that in the early 80s the financial sector generated about 8% of the total profits from the S&P 500. That’s a pretty understandable level. By 2006 it had jumped to nearly 40%. That’s insane! 40% of our profits in the S&P 500 (which represents 75% of the market capitalization of US companies) coming from banks? Banks hardly create wealth–entrepreneurs and businesses do–unless you count balance sheet wealth or insurance premiums from derivatives contracts (with no risk, of course) as reported by the financial geniuses running these companies.
It’s no wonder that Warren Buffett called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” in his letter to shareholders in 2002. But amazingly Byron Dorgan saw this train-wreck coming 8 years before that letter, and more than 10 years before Buffett’s partner Charlie Munger said he’d be shocked if there wasn’t a massive derivatives blow-up in the next 5-10 years.
Perhaps if Newsweek and enough others tell the story of Dorgan’s attempts to restrict the financial industry from selling these very exotic instruments that generate huge reported profits in boom times but massive losses when they crash, maybe there will be a sequel–David and Goliath Round II.
And maybe this time, we’ll learn from our past mistakes, and back Dorgan in his efforts to make sure the 21st century banking industry returns to old fashioned values, where reserve assets are strong, leverage is small, and profits are lean.
Let’s put a rock in the head of the Wall Street casino that Dorgan warned us about where “quants” (Ph.D’s in mathematics) develop wild mathematical models that allow twenty-something traders to make millions in bonuses by selling seemingly low-risk derivatives instruments with higher than average yields to bankers all over the world. (See the March 2009 Wired Magazine article titled, “Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street.”)
I say lets rally behind Dorgan, and cheer him on in this second round of battles that still seem impossible to win, in part because the financial lobby seems to control so many seats in Congress and in part because the revolving door between Goldman Sachs and the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve itself has kept the bad guys in charge even now.
At this point, we are still in big trouble, because creating and selling toxic and exotic derivative instruments is still as legal (and as unregulated) as it was a year or two ago, and bankers will create them once again (with a whole slew of new clever names and models) as soon as there is a market for them again.
As if to facilitate more of the same, the President and the Treasury Secretary are proposing (as Bush and Paulson did before them) to buy up to $2 trillion of these bad derivatives and get these “toxic assets” off the balance sheets of the largest banks.
It may be too late to punish the perpetrators of the scheme that has allowed the derivatives industry to pillage our economy for all these years and now harm our prosperity and threaten our very way of life, but it may not be too late to stand with Dorgan and make sure that it never happens again.
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