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J ack Dorsey speaks with the kind of calmness you'd
expect from the creator of two of the most innovative
companies in the country. As an originator of Twit-
ter and the CEO and founder of Square, the mobile pay-
ments juggernaut that's turning established players like
MasterCard and Visa into dinosaurs, one has to remain
exceedingly levelheaded when pulled between the count-
less tasks that come with being a high-tech icon and bil-
lionaire.
"If you have an idea, get it out of your head," Dorsey says.
"Get it into code, get it into conversation, draw it out. That's
the best way to actually do something, (because) if you
don't get it out of your head, you're going to make excuses
for why it can't be done."
It isn't the ease with which Dorsey speaks that's surpris-
ing. It isn't the "Game of Thrones" theme song that plays
before his remarks - a perfect fit for the North Campus
computer science crowd. It's the forwardness and respect
he affords to students at least a decade younger and innu-
merably less successful than himself.
The biggest shock is that Dorsev is here at all on this
brisk September afternoon.
The 35-year-old fields questions about his disinterest in
in touch-to-share capability - dismissing it an intermediary
technology - and makes jokes about eBay's mismanagement
of Paypal.
Douglass Elmendorf, the director of the Congressional
Budget Office, the nonpartisan agency that provides eco-
nomic information to congress, spoke on campus around
the same time as Dorsey. Both men are at the very top of
their respective spheres of influence. Dorsey is in the exclu-
sive club of modern technology giants, alongside the likes
of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Elmendorf is one of the country's most important policy-
shapers
But their visits to the University had one particular dif-
ference. Elmendorf was here to lecture on options for reduc-
ing the federal deficit. Dorsey was here asking 19-year-old
engineers to please, please come work for his company.
The pretty girls
"Should we put out all the swag?"
The question seemed more appropriate for a bat mitzvah
than a technical talk called "How To Build a Website." Yelp,
the user-generated review website that's become the de
facto answer to "Is this restaurant any good?" had a room
reserved in the Dow Building after running a booth at the.
Engineering Fall Career Fair on North Campus earlier that
afternoon.
"We're here to talk about some of Yelp's infrastructure
and how we scaled from a mom-and-pop website in 2004
to over 78-million monthly (unique users) today," explains
Ben Chess, an engineering manager at Yelp and a 2004 Uni-
versity alum.
Yelp chapstick, Yelp playing cards, Yelp bouncy balls are
spread out on a table - yep, put out all the swag (Or maybe
it's "schwag?"). A Facebook event for the tech talk promised
an iPad raffle, free food from Shalimar ("**Four Stars** on
yelp.com") and "sweet schwag."
Yelp is an aggressive player in the increasingly expensive
recruiting wars to find the next tech superstar.
"Having a second event today is a great way to have peo-
line of people, you only get a minute or so to talk to each
individual person. You can only communicate so much
information in that time."
The solution: Lure students back with a tech talk from
experts, four-star Indian food and fairly good odds at leav-
ing with an iPad. The scene almost makes one forget the
realreason-they're here.
"We do most of our hiring directly out of college," Chess
says. "That's always been our drive."
The job market for most college graduates is grim as 81
percent of recent graduates spent over six months looking
for work, and many of the jobs they eventually found didn't
require a degree, according to a 2011 study conducted by
Rutgers University's Bloustein School of Planning and Pub-
lic Policy.
But for those with computer science skills, the job mar-
ket is strong, flushed with cash and only getting better.
"The need for software is essentially infinite," said
Computer Science Prof. Elliot Solloway. "Software is the
gasoline, it's what makes the engine run and companies
know that there's simply not enough good software devel-
opers. No outsourcing to India or China is gonna solve the
software problem and everybody wants good software
people."
Software engineering, computer science skills, web and
mobile application production - a skill set referred to as
"hacking" - is increasingly a necessity for jobs in a wide
array of industries.
As a result, companies have to do more and more to
attract the best talent. And that means getting 19-year-old
students to come to your tech talk instead of Google's down
the hall.
One student put it well: "People are giving out crazy shit
to come interview."
"Engineers are the pretty girls in the room, and we want
all of them to come to our party," says Danielle van Asch
Prevot, a senior technical recruiter at Yelp.
Give the pretty girls an iPad, and hope they come work
for your company to build the next billion-dollar innova-
tion.
The astonishing part
The 48-Hour Mobile Apps Hackathon is taking place
later in the week, and Prof. Solloway - who specializes in
mobile technologies and their application in education - is
already excited about the weekend of programming he's
organized.
With the advent of the Apple, Android and Blackberry
app marketplaces, it's now become possible to write a com-
mercially viable piece of software - whether it's one that
helps you find a parking spot or check into all your social
media accounts - in 48 hours. Solloway offers a course
where students build an app over 10 weeks. At the Hack-
athon, teams compete in rapid app development - a 48-hour
pizza-and-caffeine-fueled marathon.
"People always say it's tough to get experience," says
Engineering senior Prashanth Sadajivan, who participated
be on-the-job experience, but it's building experience."
Sadajivan's hacking teammate Torehan Sharman, also an
Engineering senior, says the time constraint "forces" teams
to focus on simplicity and speed.
"The businesses and the people that are hiring are all real-
ly looking for this, like, (ability) to go from idea to a product,"
Sharman, a former Daily photographer, says.
The lights at the computer lab are dim as approximately
60 hackers - a handful of them women - drift in before the
6 p.m. kick off. "Here's plates; who needs plates?" Towers
of pizza boxes are quickly demolished as students settle in.
When enough people gather, Holloway asks students to
introduce themselves. He speaks with his hands when sit-
ting - in online videos, he often has a smartphone in one
to point at with the other - and enthusiastically gestures
with full arms while standing to address the room. Hackers
should first "slow-ly" say their names and address not what
business they're building, but "what problem are you going
to solve?"
This year, the-48-Hour Mobile Apps Hackathon is spon-
sored by Walmart, who has sent several representatives
for the weekend. Solloway explains the significance of the
recruiters making the trek to the University: "Walmart is
coming from Bettonville, Arkansas to Ann Arbor, Michigan
to sponsor a hackathon because they're hoping to be able to
hire some good software people." He almost sings the last
three words, the excitement for his students palpable.
"We want to make sure that we're getting the top talent
to build our business up to compete" with companies like
Google, says Ellen Sloneker, a senior recruiter for the super-
store.
Walmart wasn't always sponsoring sleepovers.
"In the past, Walmart did not go out recruiting. We actu-
ally had a few sets of schools we went to," said Paul Antony, a
vice president heading the company's store systems.
But Walmart is evolving with the times. Large companies
such as Walmart are in the process of playing with their mas-
sive amounts of data to better gauge customer shopping hab-
its.
"For someone who's really interested in statistics or big
data - a big buzzword - it's pretty appealing and it's pretty
cool," said Max Seiden, an Engineering senior.
This semester, Walmart is looking to fill S0 internship and
50 full-time onsitions from the University and other schools.
The recruiters will check in several times over the week-
end. The hackers are here to impress.
Back at the Hackathon, students split into project teams.
Freshmen nervously standing on the outer edges of the
computer lab are chided by Solloway to reach out and meet
new people. Mountain Dew and Domino's pizza are guzzled
down. A bag of baby carrots sits untouched.
The degree
"You can't really be a hacker without collaborating,"
Seiden says. "With the exception of, like, savants, who are
just insane - just like pillars of programming - for the most
part you really have to work with other people, bounce ideas
around."
He's sitting next to Engineering senior Guarav Kulkarni,
with whom he founded Michigan Hackers, a community of
software savvy students whose goal is to "solve problems
through the innovative use of technology," according to its
Facebook page. Seiden's page lists "Broke the Internet" on
his timeline of major 2012 events. Presumably, the Hackers