I'm surprised when people are surprised that Google's interview process is obnoxious. That's pretty well established by this point, both by Google employees and others.
There's literally quite a few people in here, including Googlers, that can't believe Google asks these questions.
(I don't necessarily believe the interview went down as reported, but the questions and the interviewer using a sheet with approved answers definitely are genuine)
"It is intuitively obvious that an open access hedge fund will generate more intelligence than a closed system built on a pre-internet, pre-cryptocurrency, pre-AI organizational design."
Really? Because the folks with the magic black box aren't capable of funding an Interactive Brokers account to keep 100% of their upside and 100% of their IP?
(Also: risk management and order handling are harder problems than signal generation.)
Isn't that the magic of OSS? Linux::Windows, matplotlib::mathematica, android::iPhone, etc. In each case, the free variety quickly catches up to the proprietary version, and in doing so, cuts into the profitability of the parent. Furthermore, this often breaks down monopolies, as they must innovate or die.
Matplotlib covers a tiny spec of a footnote of Mathematica's functionality. SageMath (a composition of Numpy, Scipy, Sympy, matplotlib, R, etc.) is a more appropriate analogy.
While some of the examples are more apt, iPhone/iOS actually integrates a good deal of open source software itself i.e. Darwin, WebKit, LibDispatch, Core Foundation, Swift, etc. Further the openness of Android has been called into question by many over the years. Android isn't just AOSP anymore than iOS is just Darwin. I imagine a degree of the innovation provided by OSS has helped Apple keep profit margins as high as they have.
Among other factors, salespeople have a large variable component to their compensation. They tend to be highly economic animals in a way that most engineers are not. Hence a former boss can easily convince them to join up by making a compelling argument about their prospective earnings.
I'd imagine any smart working team would negotiate this heavily. This setup appeals heavily to someone like me (with 2 other people specifically), but I would also be personally be asking for $300k+ salaries for each person + signing bonus + RSUs. It would be a happy medium between a lengthy and pricey acquihire and getting 3 developers/PM people who you know already will work well together.
I'd recommend that anyone doing this that they negotiate their salaries very heavily.
What experience are you drawing on for that recommendation? Big companies don't typically negotiate wildly on salary, as it's tied to a leveling system that breaks too many things if your numbers don't fit. They would have to negotiate on levels and make everyone VPs to meet your salary demands, which would cause other problems. So, this might not be the best advice. Acquihirees get a few knobs to turn, but salary is the least turnable.
Sure, but an (acqui)hiring bonus is balanced by the time spent creating the acquired company. I'd think of it as being part signing bonus and part back pay.
Agreed. I kind of don't get Trello. Always thought of it as kind of a lightweight "stack of cards" analogue best used for simple high-level planning along the lines of a Kanban board. Is that how people use it?
We used it recently as a kanbanish/scrumish board for a recent development cycle and it worked out pretty well. We had separate boards for each sprint, and a backlog board that contained some broad-swipe categories. It would definitely be nice if it had better integrations with fogbugz (which our team also uses) or other bug tracking platforms, but I imagine it would be challenging to do that and maintain its extreme ease of use/simplicity.
No, but the prevailing myth is part of what a previous commenter referred to as the area becoming the new Wall Street. All the carpetbagging MBA types I'm acquainted with who would've gone to NYC/London in the go-go mortgage bubble days are here now. It's the logical place for a talented young person with hustle to go and try to get some.
