Blind: an anonymous, corporate social network

Blind is actually a cool, if at times strange, place. I've posted legitimate requests for advice on here, Reddit, and Blind, and the quality of responses were overwhelmingly in Blind's favor. Blind actually gave me real, if not blunt/brief, feedback about what I could/should do for various situations I've been in. Here and Reddit? The same tired old platitudes from well-meaning people that make them feel like they're helping and making a difference, but are in reality providing highly generic advice that could apply to just about anyone at most skill levels and just showed that those who did respond skimmed the title and nothing else.

Of course, there are in-jokes, people who take those in-jokes deathly serious, people with mental instability (though that poster is actually taking a break after receiving feedback, fortunately for them), people who lean waaay too hard in one political direction or another, and other unsavory people and topics. However, this atmosphere allows for some brutally honest questions that would normally get shadowbanned/shoved somewhere else/otherwise manipulated by others or people in discussion board positions of power. There have been a few interesting relationship threads, a really good AMA about someone who works in Japan (I wonder if it's Patrick McKenzie, the posts in the thread were REALLY informative to the detail he's gone into before. I've forwarded stuff he's written before to people I know who want to dream about working over there), salary numbers, advice for H1Bs, people going through rough times at work without having to reveal who they are without jackassing around with a throwaway yet still having an identifiable company attached to their username, and so on.

Dunno how long Blind will last for, but if you download the app and find you really don't like the cons, just don't use it every waking moment.

I’ve seen several anonymous corporate networks before (three other full implementation actually, all reach exploding point). The same four things always pop-up, unless you ban one explicitly:

- mental health; single-handedly justifying the existence of every instance. The posts are boring overall: introversion, depression, burn-out, what to do (and the well-meaning responses to go see a doctor and hopefully links to internal references claiming the company will support you); it’s as exciting as a waiting room, but it’s helpful. On that note, if you feel like something is wrong and you are not sure: GO TALK TO A DOCTOR.

- salary; kind of hard not to have it here, but anonymity takes off the ability to tell people “Nah, you are incompetent, that’s what you deserve” so it’s a little locked; I really like the idea that Blind turns it to a conversation recommending LeetCode & co. because that’s an interesting, objective exit from that conversation.

- bitching about bad manager: I think that’s the best aspect of those, but the tone can be very nasty and trollish. Unless you have great leadership who can take it, own it and improve, not the best idea. With good leadership, it can be staggering what feedback can accomplish.

- internal in-fighting, notably around incompetence and team rivalry, Social Justice, etc. Same as previous: good to take the temperature overall, but the tone is structurally problematic, unless you have really good content moderators. I'd recommend to limit some of that explicitly.

Blind is the quintessential “I feel worse after opening it” app for me. The self and company loathing is pretty incredible and I would hope many of the extremely negative posters find greener grass elsewhere.

I like Blind, but I also hate Blind. It's full of excessively cynical replies and people who like to troll each other. I have found lots of great advice, yet still come away feeling really annoyed or frustrated.

To contrast the character, Reddit comments are usually full of jokesters who make me laugh, and Blind takes itself way too seriously. Sometimes humor and lightheartedness go a long way to building a powerful social network platform.

>> "With Blind, users are completely anonymous, but are required to submit a verified work email to join a company channel."

That sentence doesn't make sense. How can it be "completely anonymous" but you have to submit an e-mail address?

>It has over 2 million users, including 43K at Microsoft, 28K at Amazon, and 10K at Google. In

It's remarkable how unhappy the people at Amazon on Blind are.

Literally everyone is just leetcoding to get out or bragging about getting in early enough to make a killing on the stock surge.

I signed up for this a few years ago when I was working for a larger company. It was full of people using the anonymity to be very petty. I deleted my account without posting anything.

It's the yik-yak for the corporate world; an absolute cesspool. Whatever valuable information exists on that platform isn't worth sifting through all the toxicity, as some others here have alluded to. I installed it and deleted it forever within 45 mins. Don't do it to yourself, folks.

I found Blind a pretty good social network for the niche. I got a useful info on industry salaries and interview prep from the general section. The company I work for had a section that was pretty negative and I think doesn't reflect the overall thought of employees but still had great info regarding salary data and promotions. Along w/ entertaining (albeit hard to verify) rumors.

I checked Blind and total compensation info is pretty much in the right ballpark (for my company and my partner's company). This must be a nightmare for HR, who wants to hide that data as much as possible.