And so you understand that this is 100% legit... Here is their apology after they branded their potential slaves.

"Personalized art" dawg that's just your company logo

"For the facts: interviews were available to everyone regardless" I bet the people who have to go laser off a corporate tattoo are super thrilled to hear there wasn't even a point in getting one.

And the lucky (not smart) among them get wealth, real power, and nobody to point out the problems with their reckless ideas.

I'll wager the offer of removal comes with certain legal requirements that end all other responsibilities for them.

I guess the tattoo artist didn't give a shit even though they were the one doing the actual work

Wow. Didn't expect this to be real but it is

A "LemonLime afterparty" sounds like something very different..

I have to be fair, though: that apology was one of the most decent public apologies I've seen in the last while (OK, I get it, it's a low bar, but still). Full admission that it was wrong (no "sorry if you didn't like it" bullshit), no blaming it on someone else, no trying to say "it wasn't really that bad". The only thing I find questionable is that some facts don't add up.

Damn, so you make this irreversible sacrifice for them and they don't even give you the certainty of a job in return? Crazy

Nah, that's just a Lemon Party. The Lime is doing a lot of heavy lifting there

Well said

Smells like a promotional stunt to get into the headlines.

I mean, probably yeah? They are paying to have it undone

I wonder if it had to be a tattoo related to the company, or if the artist had a flash sheet with other designs, too.. If he was a decent artist and I had options, I'd totally walk away with a free tattoo and never interview for that company.

My point being that it's the cheap way out for the startup - much cheaper than dealing with lawsuits. If their victims were likely young & dumb enough to do it to begin with (not putting them down because we've all been there), then they're likely also dumb enough to let the startup off the hook just as easily - yet another way the startup is taking advantage of them.

Shame. We got to keep it alive cause it is the only way we get apologies like that cause you can feel that they felt ashamed.

Hope they get sued into oblivion

I'm sure the initial idea was, but they probably didn't want their first impression to the world at large to be a negative one like this. First impressions matter most, and they should always be positive. The later shit that just reminds people you exist can sometimes be negative without causing much problem.

AI is very good at apologizing for some reason.

I 100% know a few people that this is just "free tattoo if I do an interview" to them lol

They already have dozens of tattoos and this would just be another funny story to add to the list.

Also based on the followup post, sounds like ppl were allowed to get whatever tattoo they wanted, so it was basically just an offer for free tattoo service in practice.

This is what happens when a workplace is seen as the owner's exclusive social club of people that are identical to them in every way and not a collection of individuals with job skills.

Lots of start ups are like this. It's like 20% job interview, 80% dating.

What gives that away to you?

Fun fact: the other YC-grad execs are all pretty jealous of this. My boss wants us to come up with some similar-level stunt I think.

The whole industry's gone a bit loony over the last couple of years.

Cause it has to do it all the time because it's a fuck up.

Bet their pizza parties are amazing

No! I wanted orange!

For a moment I thought this was employees getting company tattoos which would be horrifying. But it was worse, pressuring young people into getting tattoos as a "power play". You could psychoanalyze that to death in valid ways but I don't personally need to because no matter how you slice it, it's legitimately terrifying that people took them up on this.

And then the apology seems written by ai. I'm doubting the right lesson was learned here. The lesson they probably learned was "don't create optics like this, moving forward".

This may be the most fitting post for this community that there ever will be.

Because people tend to not do it or be awful about it, so the best apologies are the ones found in writing. Mostly fiction. AI's read all of that, so it does better than most humans ever have.

I dont know. Maybe Im just so caught in seeing horrific shit every day that this doesn't even pop as that bad.

"read all these negative comments and then write an apology for me, chatbot"

The apology does not match the initial post.
And am I so out of the loop, what the heck is YC? Yellow Cosmonauts? Young Cannibals ( of the normal variety)?

Didn't have to be a company tattoo at least accordong to the apology. Still a kinda disturbing power play.

I promised my next post here would be a true lunatic and I am glad I have done my service

I assumed it was young candidate but, idk either

That makes more sense. Tech entrepreneurs looking for VC funding will do as much to degrade themselves as a young Midwest wannabe actress who just moved to Hollywood. Not an excuse by any means, just what people are willing to do for a promise of opportunity.

I've found there's at least one person in most comments that will claim anything is written by AI. Too well written? AI. Poorly written? Bad AI. More commas or dashes than they'd personally use? Definitely AI.

“We want desperate people who will work long hours for low wages. Prove how desperate you are by permanently modifying your body for a chance for an interview “

Well, the apology is more than I would've expected.

I was there neido3, 3000 years ago

It's amazing how many people have a free spinning moral compass

Yes, whatever PR person wrote that did a good job.

I was mostly joking that AI is constantly making mistakes.... but I think probably the bigger factor than training data is the training itself. AI is rated by humans and the results is AI is an obsequious piece of shit. No doubt it makes several mistakes during training and so ample opportunities to fine-tune itś ass-kissing.

Insanity aside, their company better be really fucking good for people to commit themselves that hard. I'm sure they are doing something absolutely revolutionary for the human race.

Check inside: AI Slop Company.

Nice.

I'm not sure that's true. I think there's some gas lighting going on. The LinkedIn post explicitly says interviews were for anyone who got a LemonLime tattoo. The apology then first says participants chose their own tattoo, and didn't have to get the company logo. Then in the "facts" section at the bottom, says interviews were available to everyone regardless of whether they got a tattoo.

Not having attended the event, it's impossible to know, but it seems like pressure was higher at the event, and the poster is sort of taking some of the responsibility, but trying really hard to say "we didn't make you do anything."

I wish we could see more of that "facts" section. I wouldn't be surprised if there's more there, they use to try to absolve themselves.

I very much doubt this was AI. Why? Because it actually figured out what was wrong about what the guy had done. AIs don't do that, and this guy clearly had no idea.

You can ask an AI to write an apology for you, but you have to tell it what you're apologizing for doing.

“Hey, if you get a tattoo of our company logo, you get an interview!”

“Hell yeah, sign me up! I could use the settlement money from the lawsuit to tide me over until I can land a job.”

It's an AI slop company so...

It's also pretty lunatic to think that random non-employees would be so excited by a company that they'd get its logo tattooed on themselves just because they're excited about the company.

I could maybe see that in some rare cases: a company set up to use a cutting edge tech to cure cancer, a company that makes art of some kind, like an indie game studio or something. But, this LemonLime thing, apparently their business is yet another company that wants to use AI chatbots to replace employees. Is anybody really going to be so passionate about that "mission" that they're going to want to get the company's logo as a tattoo, just because they're a fan?

Yeah, that's essentially what I was referring to with the bit about facts not adding up.