Today in novel sentences: A San Francisco AI startup CEO is apologizing for asking people to permanently tattoo themselves in exchange for a job interview.
One of San Francisco’s many difficult-to-explain AI startups, LemonLime, recently offered hopeful (desperate?) applicants an instant job interview, but only if they got its logo or a related design permanently tattooed on their bodies.
Seven people took the company up on the offer, according to CEO Jordan Zietz. The logo resembles a wedge of lemon, or perhaps Pac-Man mid-bite — a permanent reminder of a company that, according to its website, “learns your business and then automates your team’s busywork in a single click.”
“We hosted a YC Startup School afterparty at the LemonLime office to meet exceptional people, and find out which of them are just as crazy as we are,” Zietz wrote Tuesday in an upbeat LinkedIn post that for obvious reasons has been deleted. “That’s why we brought an actual tattoo artist to our party and offered an instant interview to anyone who got a LemonLime tattoo. We are bold, we take risks, and we do things that haven’t been done before.”
This new citrus flavor of corporate branding was immediately beset by detractors who are clearly not in founder mode.
“Since your advisers and investors seem to be asleep at the wheel, here is some Silicon Valley startup advice: Predicating job interviews on getting a tattoo is abhorrent and invites litigation,” one representative commented in response to the LinkedIn post.
Zietz agreed to a phone interview Wednesday morning to explain his thinking but backed out minutes before, texting, “slammed w things rn, sorry :(”
A few hours prior, he posted a public apology, saying he had “messed up” and that participants chose their own tattoos. He claimed he would pay for tattoo removal services.
“Regardless of said intent, turning a celebration of personalized art into a company stunt was poorly exercised judgement,” Zietz wrote on X (opens in new tab), claiming that everyone got an interview regardless of whether they were inked.
Over text, Zietz said none of the attendees received a logo as a tattoo, despite what he’d said in the LinkedIn post.
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One attendee contradicted his claim. “Yes, almost everyone else got a LemonLime logo tattoo,” Dimple Amitha Garuadapuri (opens in new tab)posted on X (opens in new tab). She said she got a tattoo at the event that was not the LemonLime logo but didn’t respond when asked what it depicted.
“100% incorrect,” Zietz told The Standard about Garuadapuri’s logo claim.
Another attendee said he saw at least one participant tattooed with a lemon.
LemonLime is a graduate of Y Combinator, an accelerator known for anointing dozens of small companies a year with $500,000 checks, networking opportunities, and Garry Tan’s personal phone number.
Some graduates have gone on to become blockbuster companies like Reddit and Airbnb, but the remaining chaff often resort to desperate marketing ploys to set themselves apart. Remember those “Stop hiring humans” billboards blanketing San Francisco? That was a YC company.
LemonLime bills itself as a no-code AI startup, not to be confused with the hundreds of startups building something similar. Aside from the $500,000 from Y Combinator, it doesn’t appear to have additional funding.
Still, maybe permanent branding is the ticket to the YC mafia. The founder of Corgi, a YC insurance tech company with a $4 billion reported valuation, known for running a Corgi cafe without any dogs, recently said (opens in new tab) that two-thirds of his early staff members have a company tattoo.