“I messed up,” LemonLime co-founder Jordan Zietz wrote on X Thursday, addressing backlash after his AI startup offered job interviews to people who got tattooed at a company party. LemonLime is a San Francisco startup founded this year that says it builds AI agents to automate businesses’ busywork. It is part of the Summer 2026 cohort at Y Combinator, the influential startup accelerator. The drama began on LinkedIn, where Zietz bragged that seven people had left a party at the LemonLime office with permanent tattoos. “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,” wrote Zietz in a now-deleted LinkedIn post. “That’s why we brought an actual tattoo artist to our party and offered an instant interview to anyone who got a LemonLime tattoo.” The post included a photo of a woman getting one of these tattoos. The backlash was swift. “The job market cannot be this cooked that kids have to get permanent tattoos to get interviews,” wrote one X user.
Another wrote, “sf startups are now branding applicants like cattle.” The message included a screenshot from a separate LinkedIn post about the party, which featured a photo of a flyer that read, “Instant Interview for anyone who gets a tattoo.”
