joslin01

I'm actually not annoyed nor do I misunderstand why people are sighing. Your emotional appeal does not hold much weight when faced with real business practices of hiring "the best" that every organization is going to strive for.

I'm somehow a poor boss to work for because I told the OP his sighing is obnoxious? It is. It feigns authority and condescends the entire post for being so dumb he has to sigh at it. While you might have your feelings hurt, have you considered the feelings of the guy who took the time to write up an entire post explaining his position in a rather civil & straightforward manner? Have you considered the person at the other end of the interview table?

> No one here has claimed to have it all figured out

> whiteboard interviews are terrible, alienating, unrealistic, antiquated tools for hiring.

Hm...

And ya man, I'm not a programmer but I figured out his coding puzzle in a few seconds.

How is that a "trick" question? I never been asked that in an interview question and had the correct solution in my head in just a few seconds for the very reason he gives -- experienced programmers can map their intuition to code. This is certainly a skill that takes time to develop, and if you're concerned with hiring the best, don't you think this is a decent heuristic to throw in with a bunch of others?

Programmers are so sensitive, and honestly all your "sighing" is obnoxious. You don't have it all figured out.

I remember being surprised the first time I read it, but maybe some context will help.

> Amatuer hour

Many developers would love to build a shitty first app and throw it on the app store to proclaim to the world: look I made it on the app store. This runs directly contrary to what consumers' expectations are for apps. Apple knows their consumers and therefore erected this wall to help them.

> Think about the children

I really don't see how this is bad. Apple has always been anti-porn and they're going to continue trying to tread the moral high ground. That's fine if you think this affects your free will, but really it doesn't -- Apple is just one platform.

> Run to the press

They are looking to review an app and will make a judgment they deem appropriate. Since that is their right, they mean to nip the problem in the bud so you don't think you can get public opinion to sway their judgment.

> close to big brother speak as I have seen

I find big brother speak in my US govt that worries me a lot more than Apple protecting their app store. Oh and on that note, isn't it Apple that is standing up to the US govt?

> where I cannot install my own software without purchasing Apple laptops. Seriously? This is progress?

> ... not to get into walled gardens where someone else controls what my children can see and do

These are your beliefs, which I'm sorry to say does not reflect the general public. The general public finds it easy to use Apple for everything. So when you ask them "Is this progress?" The resounding answer is "yes"

I find your diatribe to be greatly exaggerated and do not believe this is the sign of something evil. I think it's just your personal opinion validating why you'll never own an Apple in your life. Good for you. Me and probably the rest of the average consumers do indeed like it that Apple looks out for children + does not permit shitty apps on the app store.

You're getting down-voted because your argument boils down to Sam is a smart guy, trust him. Engineers like to think for themselves and play detective.

For consolation, I had the same reaction especially when I first read the blog-post. Having read through this entire counter-complaint and the comments here, I'm not so sure anymore.

I appreciate your reply and especially in the new light of the counter-complaint. I'm not so sure anymore where I stand.

To you and everyone else attacking him, you're conflating his explanation with his personal character. That's not fair.

Right, but he also said:

> Given the time pressure because of the pending merger, we had to set a Friday at 5 pm deadline for Kyle’s offer, which Jeremy let expire.

That's crazy!

I like to think Sam is a relatively sane guy with good intentions. He seems to have wrote this to send a message, which means he believes in the principal of what he's doing, which is what makes it easy to trust.

It actually seems a lot more unfathomable to me that an expert & thought-leader in startups would (1) be wrong & (2) risk his personal reputation just to make a bit more money. Finally, given the timing, it's pretty obvious Jeremy is shaking down his (ex?) friend for some money.

If you believe equity should be granted out of thin air for working on something then well, you live in a different world than I do my friend. I trust the legal system (via contracts) to lock something like this down otherwise it's literally heresay.

Teenagers growing up don't only have a plethora more of opportunities & tools -- they also have a plethora of distracting activities that can take away from the careful attention needed to make great music.

Sometimes I believe the guys in the 60s & 70s ironically had it easier because they just sat around, maybe smoking some dope, and played music. There wasn't a smartphone at their hip vibrating every few minutes, so they could really just pour their heart into the music and hey, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Beatles, Dylan, etc... you name a great, probably came out of that time period. While I like a lot of stuff today, I do question if it'll hold up to the test of time and personally feel very little of it will when compared to how much did & will continue from the 60s/70s.

How does this apply to the music industry sucking? I didn't take this as Steve Miller being an unhappy person though you are right, many successful people do end up the road down to depression -- Elvis being another great example.

I should have said "you're acting like a clown." But I like the idea of having you realize that making a statement such as "enslaved" in regards to a secretary merely doing the job assigned to her (and is free to quit doing so at any time) is silly. To expound upon that Knuth is arrogant is even funnier. These two individuals are engaged in innocent, free-willed jobs and you come in like the moral chief of police saying the secretary is enslaved and that Knuth is arrogant. This is why I say "get over yourself" and do still mean it.

Regardless, I appreciate your response.

> In my point of view, the main problem is that there are very deep social problems within our setting and most people doesn't even want to see it

Sure, but a secretary doing her job is not one of them.

> They seem to prefer staying in their comfort zones, doing what they do so far as they have learned growing up while going along the flow.

> I think it's much better for people to express what they actually think than to censor them behind big man's words or else communication becomes impossible.

Both true statements. You might have good intentions, but I would think twice before calling something like Knuth arrogant and ask yourself, who's the arrogant one? Who's the one dictating how people should live? Is it Knuth, who is merely living in a way who thinks it'll best optimize his educational findings or is it you, who is judging the situation as if you know what they both want and what's good for them?

He has said himself that while working on Facebook in the early days, he thought the whole world needed something like it. I believe the college-first approach was more of a tactic, but also a somewhat obvious one after his earlier expeditions with "who's hotter?" or whatever. If he had launched "Facebook for the world" from the start, user reaction would see it just like MySpace and ask themselves why? Going with colleges first gave it a feel of exclusivity allowing it to grow the way it did.

You could argue programming really took off in the 80s, and look at the plethora of languages then that are obsolete. Medicine and physics are more than 100 years old; programming is very new in the grand scheme of things and rapidly changing as it "finds itself." It's not very convincing to assert it has "time-tested foundations."

The reason why therapy has little use to you is because right now you're very stubbornly defining your happiness. What good does anyone's words mean to you -- you who think you have sacrificed happiness.

I been there and said similar things to myself while holding the mask proud for others to marvel at. You need to learn that you don't need anything to make you happy. Happiness is found within. If you never accept this, you will spend a tragic life seeking outside for what is found within.

Be grateful for the times you had and forgive her for no longer being by your side. Is it not arrogance otherwise? Don't you love her? Do what's best for her then and right now, that means focusing on yourself. It is wasted time trying to run from your problems. Approach them honestly without defense. Do not dictate their solution, but try to listen instead and you might be surprised at how they dissipate.

Remember, thoughts and actions are but expressions of your beliefs. The belief that you can only be happy with girl {X} is an attack upon yourself you currently do not recognize. What you do recognize is your desire to attack yourself physically. The next step is understanding why you wish to attack yourself.

God does not will this kind of life for you, and also learn that you are already in hell. Enlightenment comes from within and the devil is the great deceiver. You are merely deceived by a voice that is defining what your happiness is. Let it go and you'll watch your suffering go and you'll laugh that you ever thought your happiness could be assailed.

Sorry, 100% agree with you but with your life going forward, it's "fell on deaf ears"

So that interviewers can gauge your ability on searching & referencing code examples from the web? Who's being realistic?

Wonderful writing.

> The inordinate love of money, no doubt, may be and is "the root of all evil," but money itself, when properly used, is not only a "handy thing to have in the house," but affords the gratification of blessing our race by enabling its possessor to enlarge the scope of human happiness and human influence. The desire for wealth is nearly universal, and none can say it is not laudable, provided the possessor of it accepts its responsibilities, and uses it as a friend to humanity.

> So in regard to wealth. Go on in confidence, study the rules, and above all things, study human nature; for "the proper study of mankind is man," and you will find that while expanding the intellect and the muscles, your enlarged experience will enable you every day to accumulate more and more principal, which will increase itself by interest and otherwise, until you arrive at a state of independence.

> When a man's undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will constantly be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain was occupied by a dozen different subjects at once. Many a fortune has slipped through a man's fingers because he was engaged in too many occupations at a time.

You make solid points, but just as people's attics become cluttered with crap that they never use but are reluctant to throw out, I think you could argue users innately feel the same with their personal photos / friends / posts on FB.

I was confused about downvotes because I was at -2 for awhile (maybe I offended snapchat employees ;), but I appreciate you rebutting me. I do believe if there was to be a huge contender to Facebook, it would need a messaging component to grow out of. However, I still do not believe FB made the purchase primarily out of fear of competitive threat. I think FB Integration in a tencent model can make them more money than FB ads (while driving more targeted FB ads).

Ebay is too big, yes. I live in NYC, so I prefer to just meet someone and exchange cash & product. Going through ebay would be so much more work.

Thanks, yes I did (edited)

You're not wrong, but I don't think organic shopping with other strangers is under any threat (currently). For example, I just sold my PS4 to some stranger for cash. I would be intrigued if a company could beat them there because that would likely be the final blow.

I would argue that was more of an expensive land-grab. Whatsapp was/is not an existential threat to Facebook.

If a messenger could overcome FB, snapchat might actually have a chance, but the key value proposition that FB offers is that it's your online persona. You have pictures up from all the years you been around, you have your friends' profiles to go check out at will, you can start a group, or make an event and know all your friends are already on Facebook to see it.

So why buy? Messengers have the highest retention rate. You can see them expanding upon it by integrating FB profile + allowing you to install "apps" or "plugins" that do X/Y/Z. There is a Chinese company, WeChat, that has made billions on this model. I'm sure FB would like to as well, but with it integrated with FB login etc..

Downvoters: Genuinely curious how I'm wrong if you feel like throwing in your 2 cents.

Probably. It was pavement after all back then, but it would hurt more the longer I kept standing there.

I did this for about ~6 months and developed knees that ached all the time. I was running at the same time, so maybe that had something to do with it, but really I never noticed some huge health or energy shift.

The thing I will say about it though is that if you're tired, standing keeps you paying attention whereas sitting can make you slouch and relax. This is useful right after lunch, but all day? Save your legs the trouble and join a gym if it's your physical health you're worried about.

I agree. My first startup I worked on while in college was "beating cragslist." We looked at it and laughed and said this is so old! As we went about our business, we realized there was no way we could reasonably change the world's habit of going to craigslist for {X}. That was ~8 years ago and it's still going strong.

Many a start-ups have come and gone trying to revolutionize house/apt hunting. If they try to incorporate craigslist, craigslist shuts 'em down; if they try to get organic listings, craigslist beats 'em.

Well, we don't have tons of money to play with, but in general lower price is better and telling them to work up toward the higher price.

Money can have an odd effect on people; give them too much, they might appreciate it and work hard or think they "made it" and work lazily. Give them too little, and they might work hard for more or feel used and work begrudgingly. The culture / economy they live in dictates the actual figure.

Well you should keep in mind I hire on Upwork, so not everything carries over to real-life. In real-life, these kinds of issues should be recognized during the hiring process. Since most Upwork devs are BS-artists, it's not worth my time to do some lame Skype interview. Instead I just throw them in the gauntlet and see what they can do.

Some further background: I don't talk to my devs with my vocal chords -- ever. It's a waste of my time and the communication is better documented in Slack (Zach actually has a good post on this). They join Slack, I assign them Pivotal stories, and they make pull requests that I review. Their onboarding is just me telling them a little about the project and their first task. I don't explain our grand purpose or any of that stuff because 4 times outta 5, they don't make the cut.

Warning signs:

* They struggle profusely with setting up the project or it takes a long time. If I have to hold your hand installing our necessary dependencies, chances are you're an inexperienced dev and/or have weak problem solving skills.

* They have very little to say besides "ok". The good ones always start asking a bunch of questions as they attempt to genuinely understand what's going on. The poor ones feign expertise.

* It takes them a long time to deliver their first unit of work and/or it's very low quality and barely meets minimum requirements.

* Their work diary shows few hours logged. I ask everyone you're willing to do 30-40 hours a week? They all say yes. About 10% actually take the hours I'm willing to give to them.

* They have a poor attitude

* They need to be constantly prodded for status updates and to work more

Good signs:

* They ask questions

* They have a positive attitude and seem appreciative of the opportunity

* They dive right into work

* They work a lot

* They hit me up randomly with status updates

People reading this are like "well ya," but what makes life interesting is the gray area. It's never this black & white and I have to just monitor them. In fact, I prefer to somewhat leave them alone to see how they really work. Anyone will log on and start coding under fear of being fired, but there's only few that take the reigns into their own hands.

Over the course of almost 2 years, I have 2 core guys who have done wonders for me each at $15/hr. They both are very happy with the opportunity and I've made them into very competent devs who I would put up against a college grad (or higher) any day of the week. I have a third who has all the right good signs, but is somewhat rough skill-wise. I don't mind because my core guy was rough in the beginning and he started reading a Scala book to get better. In general, my team is always about 4-5 since I code myself and can only do so much.

Honestly, it all comes down to attitude. I can train an earnest, hard-worker into an amazing dev but it's impossible for me to inspire someone who just doesn't care. I'm sure all this stuff carries over into the real world, but it's a lot more rapid fire in the Upwork game.

> I hadn’t been involved with the company at all for two months through my sabbatical, and I hadn’t even talked to my manager in four months, ever since she had decided that 1:1s weren’t really valuable between her and me.

> I’m still not fully certain why I got the axe ... My best guess is that it’s Tall Poppy Syndrome

Probably some signs here... I wouldn't say he was fired "fast" by any stretch of the imagination.

I will explain what firing fast means to me. I get a lot of work done through foreign devs I find on Upwork. I have to manage them closely, but overall, as they become acclimated and trained, they become pretty self-reliant in about 2-3 months.

However, I have also invested plenty of time into bad apples hoping to train their dev skills, teach them about our product, and all sorts of things only to get random "hey I'm going away for couple weeks tomorrow" kind of messages or a waning commitment to the project and quality of work.

Admittedly, I used to feel bad about firing people. I didn't care if they were "just" some Upwork guys, I try to get everyone involved in my team and feel like they're part of something. These days, I'm experienced enough to see the warning signs and rather than mull over "should I do it?" I just fire them and get onto hiring the next. I've never seen anyone turn around after warning signs, and I've gone through enough "oh come on they're human too, let me try to just understand their situation" moments to know it's a flawed manner of thinking. This is why you "fire fast" and "hire slowly".

Business is business. It sucks to get fired, but it's worse for your business to run on rusty cogs that can break at any moment.

> I've never experienced withdrawals

I don't believe you. How long have you gone without it? When did you start drinking caffeine? What's your definition of withdrawal?