The other day when IV came up, I decided to check out their Careers page. My mission was threefold:
1) See what kind of people they like to hire and what they claim those people will be doing.
2) See what their mission statement and recruiting copy looked like.
3) See if there was a job that I could apply to, not because I have any interest at all in working there, but because I thought detailed notes of the process might make a good blog post.
1 was pretty generic -- generally just lawyers to do lawyer things, and a few engineers and project managers for some nebulous "projects.
3 didn't really lead me anywhere -- I couldn't find a position that I could apply to to even get offered an interview.
2 was the most interesting. Reading their website, it sounds like what they are doing is trying to make the world better by helping inventors get their inventions out and defending poor inventors who have great ideas but are being crushed by big companies.
I really really hoped that they aren't so delusional that they actually believe their own hype, but I fear that they are and they do.
Oh they are. They really are. If you haven't already, you should listen to "When patents attack" from This American Life ( http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/w... ). The guys over at IV are really doing their best to sound like they are genuinely protecting their the poor inventors from the bad guys.
1) See what kind of people they like to hire and what they claim those people will be doing.
2) See what their mission statement and recruiting copy looked like.
3) See if there was a job that I could apply to, not because I have any interest at all in working there, but because I thought detailed notes of the process might make a good blog post.
1 was pretty generic -- generally just lawyers to do lawyer things, and a few engineers and project managers for some nebulous "projects.
3 didn't really lead me anywhere -- I couldn't find a position that I could apply to to even get offered an interview.
2 was the most interesting. Reading their website, it sounds like what they are doing is trying to make the world better by helping inventors get their inventions out and defending poor inventors who have great ideas but are being crushed by big companies.
I really really hoped that they aren't so delusional that they actually believe their own hype, but I fear that they are and they do.