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The One-Name Email, a Silicon Valley Status Symbol, Is Wreaking Havoc (wsj.com)
In Silicon Valley, first-name-only email addresses have long been the ultimate status symbol, indicating a techie was an early hire at a new company. Now that startups are growing, the one-namers are wreaking havoc -- and the competition to snag them is fierce. From a report on WSJ: When Peter Szabo heard he and his co-workers would receive new email addresses after his tech company was launched from an incubator, he ran to his boss and confirmed he would get the "Peter" first-name email address. After years of failing to arrive at companies early enough to bag the prized address, Mr. Szabo negotiated getting the single-name email at the earliest opportunity. "As companies get bigger, if you can be the original Peter, absolutely that's bragging rights," said Mr. Szabo, who is chief revenue officer of mobile-entertainment network startup Mammoth Media. "It's huge."
[...] Startups are growing faster than at any time since the dot-com boom thanks to a flood of venture capital. The system of using first names is leading to more email misfires at tech companies the more successful, and larger, they get. {...] Even techies are having a hard time figuring out how to disrupt the naming convention of corporate email. The growing pains usually set in when startups reach 25 to 50 employees, as names begin to overlap, according to Josh Walter, who has designed email services for companies for the past eight years. "That's when companies say, 'Oh no, what do we do now?'" Mr. Walter says. He is currently IT engineer at Second Measure, a Silicon Valley startup that analyzes consumer spending.
[...] Startups are growing faster than at any time since the dot-com boom thanks to a flood of venture capital. The system of using first names is leading to more email misfires at tech companies the more successful, and larger, they get. {...] Even techies are having a hard time figuring out how to disrupt the naming convention of corporate email. The growing pains usually set in when startups reach 25 to 50 employees, as names begin to overlap, according to Josh Walter, who has designed email services for companies for the past eight years. "That's when companies say, 'Oh no, what do we do now?'" Mr. Walter says. He is currently IT engineer at Second Measure, a Silicon Valley startup that analyzes consumer spending.
i just can't even.....
Single-handedly, and single-namedly, the dumbest ever post I have encountered on /.
Probably better to sell shovels in a gold rush. Unless you're using the axes to murder miners and take their gold. But then you'll also need a shovel anyway...
My question is, why is /. reporting on this irrelevant idiocy?
This is msmash's MO, post about first world millennial issues, SJWism, UBB, feminism, etc., things that have no or minimal relation to tech with little to no quality assurance. Typically when you see a vacuous Slashdot post, msmash is responsible.
Having been in a position of having a common first-name email at a company, I will never accept that in the future, even if offered. It results in getting all the emails for all the people with the same first name, plus a bunch of emails from external people who can't get ahold of anyone so they just start randomly spamming likely addresses. In any case, autocomplete supersedes any time-saving advantage it would offer.
As far as being a "status symbol", that's even worse. If your company is successful, you'll end up spending all of your time trying to avoid projecting status, trying to fade into the background and just be a regular employee to the extent possible. Unless, of course, you're an asshat, in which case you'll glory in your status projection (and hopefully, for the sake of your co-workers, be let go).
Look, not every article's going to be a winner, especially on a slow Sunday in June. But this is just nuts. What value is there in this article? Worse yet, the source article is behind a WSJ paywall.
It's not news. It helps nobody. C'mon Slashdot, do better, and pick editors who know the difference between news and not news.
Software Shouldn't Suck
E-mail: frank at jacquette dot spamless com (remove the spamless!)
You can always request "dumbass" @yourstartup.com. While many may qualify, few will have the honesty to request it.
Reminds me of my Boss, a nice Chinese guy named Cho Sun. His email was Chosun@hissite.com
When we asked him why he chose that address, he replied "Many are called, but few are Cho Sun."
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.