Jason Goldberg

Jason Goldberg was known for making some bold, brash and off-the-wall statements as the founder of Jobster, the online recruiting company that he started in Seattle in 2003.

The statements made him one of the more colorful characters that I covered during my stint at the Seattle P-I, driven by lines such as: “Why don’t i listen to my pr folks when then tell me to stop blogging? Answer:  ’cause i’m different and i hate being handled.”

Goldberg has since moved to New York to run Fab.com, and it’s good to know that he’s not lost his edge. In a blog post titled “Recruit Away our team. I dare you. Heck, I encourage You,” Goldberg writes that he’ll gladly pass the phone numbers of his staff on  to other startups and says he’ll even provide phone numbers to recruiters.

Say, what? Yep, in one of the more challenging environments for technical talent, Goldberg is rolling out the red carpet to other recruiters. Why?

“We believe that we are building the best company in the world to work for. But, in the end, everyone has a choice as to where they want to work. We want people who choose Fab.com.  Fab.com is a career lifestyle decision. We’re confident about our ability to attract and retain the best. May the best team win. (And ours is awesome!)”

In a story today, Goldberg tells BetaBeat that Fab.com is a “hot company” that’s growing fast with more than 90 employees and revenue that’s growing at 33 percent per month. He said those who get contacted by recruiters should feel flattered, and he’s not worried about losing them.

“Our employees have the right to work whever they want. They gotta want to be there,” he said. “It’s a nice way to send a message that people are free to come and go as they please, but the onus is on the employer to build an amazing work environment.”

Interestingly, Goldberg helped build a pretty impressive team of developers and engineers at Jobster, assisted by $48 million from Ignition Partners and others. Alumni of the company include Feedjit’s Mark Maunder, Urbanspoon’s Patrick O’Donnell, Ethan Lowry and Adam Doppelt; Bacon Salt’s Dave Lefkow and Justin Esch; Venuelabs Neil Crist; and RescueTime’s Tony Wright and Brian Fioca.

Previously on GeekWire: Jason Goldberg reflects on the ups and downs at Jobster and why it missed becoming LinkedIn

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