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They Rejected Us

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Re: They Rejected Us

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please elaborate more on the Fire All Heroes philosophy? I looked into it and couldn't find anything describing it in depth

I’ve only met a couple people who say “fire”. That’s a little overwrought. The less dramatic version is “we are too big for heroes” which unpacks into something like this: You don’t want an organization that relies on one or two or three people to swoop in and save the company every time there’s an emergency. A production issue should look like disaster preparedness. Document, train, drill, prevent. More concretely,…

Thank you! That was a great explanation. I like it wrapped up in such a memorable phrase

Re: They Rejected Us

#382
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if Facebook had hired him, it's unlikely he would have had enough freedom to create Whatsapp or anything like it. Even if Facebook knew what was going to happen, Facebook still made the right choice when they rejected him and later bought his company. Rejection can be a good thing for everyone.

Maybe.. but maybe he would have been on the Messenger team and made that What's App.

FB would not have allowed him to make Whatsapp. It was built with a philosophy of correctness ("We can never drop a message") and privacy. Contrast that to FB's "move fast and break things" and disregard for privacy to the point that they stole users' call logs right off their phones.

So there's no way they would have listened to Acton and let him build Messenger the way he wanted.

Add to that the fact that Acton's ideas didn't yet have any market validation. Once WhatsApp was a proven success, FB was willing to pay for it, but even so they are now destroying what made it good - https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/30/17304792/whatsapp-jan-kou...

Re: They Rejected Us

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The abundance of Twitter picking people up after rejections is really odd to say the least.

It's not a random selection of stories, it's a list compiled by someone who used to work at Twitter, and presumably hit up friends and colleagues for stories. In general, best not to draw inferences from data that wasn't randomly selected.

Agreed ... I purposely called it "mental statistics" to indicate that there was no math involved, too small a sample size and no controls against bias.

Re: They Rejected Us

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your honest advice! It's great to learn about the thought processes going on at the "other side of the table." Some more context which clarifies my decision to "pave my own road": -Before Fullstack Academy, I founded/co-founded two startups (we succeeded in building the products, but failed at marketing). I've also taken some actual CS courses. Bootcamp filled gaps in my knowledge and taught me how to c…

If you're willing to put the time in, use your network to find someone that works at company X. LinkedIn is good for this. You can even send a link request to someone on LinkedIn that works there. But don't use the default, "I'd like to connect." Say, "Company X looks cool because ... - Do you have time to meet for coffee and tell me how you wound up there?"

I got a few warm introductions. In those cases I sometimes got further in the process, but never to an on-site.

Re: They Rejected Us

#385

Try getting rejected at the final executive approval (i.e., their magic eight-ball) after passing the in-person day and the hiring committee. Once you've seen the inside of the hiring process, you'll never take this stuff personally again. It's utter garbage. At best, the process manages to select for a few traits that are probably useful, while de-selecting for others they didn't realize were crucial for ultimate su…

There was one company I applied to, for which I passed the screening and the technical interview, that I got a "Welcome Aboard" email from which also included paperwork for getting started. I just needed to meet the CEO as a last step, but they told me it was basically a formality and that I was hired. I arrived on time and was told to wait outside the CEO's office. Through the wall, I could hear him talking to someo…

Could be just as you detected 'dudebro'... he didn't, and thus you didn't make the cut. Consider the bullet dodged.
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