Tomorrow is the 15th anniversary of the first day of the Recurse Center (https://www.recurse.com/)

My cofounders and I did YC all the way back in the Summer of 2010, with the initial idea of building "OkCupid for jobs." That idea quickly fizzled, and we spent the better part of a year pivoting between other ideas that also failed.

Finally, we made something that we wanted ourselves: a self-directed programming retreat, where people built fun projects, contributed to open source, and helped each other become better programmers.

After running two small batches, we launched on HN[1] and got an incredible reception.

That post on HN helped us reach beyond our personal networks and meet programmers from around the world, many of whom have since become friends. HN brought us the majority of people who came to our next few batches, and in the years since, HN has remained our #2 source of applicants (after word of mouth).

Alas, pg's comment[2] on HN when we launched turned out to be prescient: Running free programming retreats isn't a billion-dollar business, but it's still a worthwhile thing to do, and has positively impacted over 3,000 people so far. And 15 years on I still wake up every day excited to keep working on it.

So, thanks HN, for helping make the Recurse Center possible, and for helping me find my life's work.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3435183

[2] "This sounds like a crazy plan for a startup, I realize, but this is the right sort of crazy. In fact, the way the Hackruiters think about Hacker School is a lot like the way we initially thought about YC: if it doesn't make money, it will at least have been a benevolent thing to do."

I like the definition of social rules [0]. I also wonder whether the roof rule was written preemptively or retrospectively -- I hope the former.

I have my own thanks to give to HN. It's connected me to interesting people, online and IRL. It's led to some very strong friendships. It's led me to multiple job opportunities, and usually the better ones. It's changing of course, but I've had a great time in this community so far, and that deserves thanks.

0: https://www.recurse.com/social-rules

Thanks RC! I went back when it was Hacker School! Grateful that period of my life - grew so much!

I had the chance to work with a bunch of Recurse alumni over the past 4 years, they have all been amazing, brilliant engineers and overall great people :)

Awesome story, thanks for sharing!