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Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

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Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#341

Post by yongjik »

gamblor956 wrote: post #305
dmoy wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the rest of that, but > Homebrew, which was used by 90% of Google's engineers at the time of his interview This is definitely not true.

I don't know how true the % is, but that is what Howell claimed and several Google employees verified that his software was used by significant parts of Google's engineering staff. At any rate, the point is that a guy who used software used by a large portion of Google's engineering team because it was superior to the in-house solution could not get a job at Google because he failed to answer a programming question i…

I have no idea how great a developer Howell is, but it's simply not true that Homebrew was used by many Google employees. I was at Google at that time (2015), had a macbook for several years, and had never even heard of Homebrew.

Google is a linux shop, and you were generally not allowed to even keep the source code in your notebook.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#342

Post by anonytrary »

elwell wrote: post #239
astrange wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather think software engineering is bounded by battery life and disk space.

Not to mention, the programmer's imagination is bounded by caloric intake and grey matter.

I always find it a bit cute when people try to claim that something does not reduce to pure physics or somehow circumvents it.

TRY ME! I bet no one can think of a single thing that I can't say is just ultimately due to physics.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#343

Post by gamblor956 »

EvilEy3 wrote: post #324
gamblor956 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how true the % is, but that is what Howell claimed and several Google employees verified that his software was used by significant parts of Google's engineering staff. At any rate, the point is that a guy who used software used by a large portion of Google's engineering team because it was superior to the in-house solution could not get a job at Google because he failed to answer a programming question i…

> At any rate, the point is that a guy who used software used by a large portion of Google's engineering team because it was superior to the in-house solution Do you seriously believe that they couldn't come up with something better than mediocre package manager?

Based on Google's track record the past few years, Yes, I seriously believe that Google could not come up with a better package manager. They've taken 6 shots at a basic messaging application and they still haven't gotten that right. 4 attempts at a payment application. Stadia. Wear. Nest (post-acquistion). The had 1 shot with Stadia to do it right and they fucked it up so badly that it's impacting Google's ability to sell other services to prospective business partners because prospective clients rightly doubt Google's ability to launch and maintain a product.

The real question is: knowing Google's track record of almost complete failure for the past few years, why would you believe in Google?

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#344

Post by gamblor956 »

dontreact wrote: post #327
gamblor956 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how true the % is, but that is what Howell claimed and several Google employees verified that his software was used by significant parts of Google's engineering staff. At any rate, the point is that a guy who used software used by a large portion of Google's engineering team because it was superior to the in-house solution could not get a job at Google because he failed to answer a programming question i…

People at Google use blaze. I've never heard of anyone using homebrew. I think number is quite near 0%. It's hard to put everything in a build system like blaze but if you do, I think the outcome is superior to Homebrew.

I have never worked at Google, but around 2015 everyone I knew working there was using Homebrew if they used Mac for development. Moreover, there were quite a bit of HN and Reddit discussion about this incident at the time, and a number of Google engineers confirmed that Homebrew was in widespread use among the Mac-based developers.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#345

Post by blackrock »

anonytrary wrote: post #338
blackrock wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineering is bounded by the laws of physics. Software Engineering is bounded by the laws of magic. Engineering requires creativity to harness a material to perform useful work, within the material’s tolerances. Software Engineering requires creativity to create worlds that have no existence in reality, other than in the imagination of the software engineer himself. And in today’s world, software engineering is esse…

No, software engineering is also bound by the laws of physics. The worlds do have existence in reality, which you will find out as soon as anything you create starts hitting the physical limits of CPU, memory, latency, which are all pretty much governed by c, the cosmic speed limit. > And in today’s world, software engineering is essential to make physical engineering a reality. It is literally quite the exact opposi…

I believe the phrase: “No shit Sherlock!” aptly applies to you.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#346

Post by cutemonster »

dcolkitt wrote: post #175
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming a lot. Many stanford phd's fail the google interview. I'd guess larry, sergey and zuckerberg had a pretty good chance of failing their own swe interviews...

The dirty truth is that most whiteboard industries are heavily loaded on raw cognitive ability. Sure, it’s ostensibly about data structures, but what it’s really about is fluid intelligence. Gates, Zuckerberg, Larry, Sergey and Bezos all have extremely high intelligence, and would most likely pass with ease.

I agree with you, and I think that this "dirty turth" is unpopular, because lots of people want to feel bright and intelligent, but the algorithm interviews, when interpreted in this way, tells them they're not that super bright -- and they don't like that, so they want to interpret the interviews in other ways, eg it's just luck, or anyone can do it with enough practice or things like that.

At the same time, I think the coding interviews generally are harder than what's needed to do the job well, just because there're so many job applicants so the bar gets unnecessarily high? And people who fail the interviews can still be really bright. (Also, some people get nervous and fail mostly related to that. I wonder how to avoid that happening)

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#347

Post by imtringued »

EvilEy3 wrote: post #321
asdfman123 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an expert, but my feeling is you'd need just three things to get back into Big Tech: 1) At least a year or two of experience at another programming job, 2) MONTHS of time studying whiteboarding, and maybe 3) A few good referrals. I know, because I'm 34 and I have 9 years of enterprise experience. I'm trying to get into Big Tech right now (I've interviewed with Google and Amazon and I'm about to do Facebook).…

> rich people can afford to study for months for free. Poor people can't. Oh boy, here we go again. Smart people can afford not to study for months. 'Stupid' people can't. Shall I, as a 'stupid' person complain about that?

The problem with your definition of smart is that it is both trainable and you are at your "smartest" when you graduate.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#348

Post by astrange »

anonytrary wrote: post #342
elwell wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention, the programmer's imagination is bounded by caloric intake and grey matter.

I always find it a bit cute when people try to claim that something does not reduce to pure physics or somehow circumvents it. TRY ME! I bet no one can think of a single thing that I can't say is just ultimately due to physics.

I'm told that the world is the totality of facts, not of things.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#349

Post by EvilEy3 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #343
EvilEy3 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At any rate, the point is that a guy who used software used by a large portion of Google's engineering team because it was superior to the in-house solution Do you seriously believe that they couldn't come up with something better than mediocre package manager?

Based on Google's track record the past few years, Yes, I seriously believe that Google could not come up with a better package manager. They've taken 6 shots at a basic messaging application and they still haven't gotten that right. 4 attempts at a payment application. Stadia. Wear. Nest (post-acquistion). The had 1 shot with Stadia to do it right and they fucked it up so badly that it's impacting Google's ability t…

And again, do you seriously believe that any of this has to do with engineering and not lack of business vision?

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#350

Post by UncleMeat »

gamblor956 wrote: post #286
jbroson wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You honestly think the Stanford PhDs who created Google couldn't get hired as basic SWEs? Seriously? I mean if true that says a lot more about the SWE interviews than it does about Stanford PhDs. I mean there are Yale JDs that fail the bar exam but no one would claim that the average Yale JD couldn't get hired as a Big Law associate or judicial clerk.

Google famously refused to hire Max Howell, the programmer who wrote Homebrew, which (based on Google's own statements) was used by 90% of Google's engineers at the time of his interview, because he couldn't invert a binary tree in the specific (but unstated) manner that the interviewer wanted. So it's definitely possible, indeed likely, that Serge and Larry wouldn't get hired at the Google of today. The "average Yal…

He wasn’t asked to invert a binary tree. This was an exaggeration in his pissed off post.

His post also makes him sound like a dick (which he admits). Google has a “no jerks” policy that a lot of people take seriously.

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