Yeah, they were more full blown startups in mind. If full blown projects doesn't help, side project of lesser quality (cuz less effort for the same person), prob won't help either?

And I am following my advice now totally. Just doing CTCI and Leetcode... Not gonna count on any other projects as an employment crutch. They either work as a business or doesn't. Employment is a completely independent thing... This is just in counter to a lot of others that claims they can always build a startup and if fails, go back to employment. At least with current employment practices, it just doesn't work like that. No matter how much applicable skills one got, it seems it boils down to 90% algorithm puzzles and that's it...