The post was pretty vague on the criteria used for inclusion on this list. From how many possible startups was this list whittled down? What specifically about each company got them put on the list? Are there any conflicts of interest to disclose? Are any of these 15 companies founded by people who are friends of the author? etc.

All of the Mattermark rankings are done by Mattermark's "propitiatory algorithm."

Additionally, Mattermark is technically YC S12 and has received funding from VCs, so there are potential conflicts of interest for any of their rankings, especially taken together with the first point.

Congrats on Mattermark making it into the list!

The list is by mattermark...

I don't know what to say. Certainly I wouldn't have included my self in such a list if I'd have made it.

I have to agree. If I had been in their position, I would have listed myself at the top and bottom with "and we are hiring too". Even if they objectively figured out they are the fastest growing, it is still a bad signal.

More so if the list is not accurate "15 Fastest" yet I know of several that are growing faster and are not on the list.

We listed ourselves in the order we are by score. I thought putting together a list of several companies would be more valuable than just posting our position stand alone.

which then just shows how silly your system is so far. You included an ecommerce store - I just did a quick DB query and we have over 1k stores that are growing faster relatively and absolutely. Every company that grows this quickly is hiring.

Founding engineer from Upworthy here. My email is my username @upworthy.com -- Happy to talk.

This list doesn't give me much confidence in mattermark's "proprietary algorithm."