If you are going to create a headline that ends with ", period." the content of the article had better contain a cohesive and very strong argument that supports the emphasized statement. You could have easily posted - "Go is amazing." That is a statement of opinion -- which pretty well describes the article and the author's place as an expert. "Go is amazing, period." claims something much deeper, which the article completely fails to deliver.
"....this process, starting from ~50+ raw leads whittled down into ~40 initial phone interviews/coding challenges, which went to ~25 next stage interviews, eventually down to ~6 really good offers, all in about ~1.5 weeks."
Does this timeframe seem a little dubious to anyone else? I count 65 technical interviews plus interviews with hiring managers, etc., followed by receiving offers. And all of this happening in about 8 days. This story would be a lot more believable if it had a realistic timeframe.
Nope, it's true. I woke up early in the morning (easy to do sleeping on the kitchen floor in mountain view without a heater), went through craigslist every morning, had an email template I'd individualize for each posting, and send it out. I'd work through the code challenges as they came in, set phone interviews into the late night, in-person interviews in the city during lunch, etc.
It happened, I took it pretty seriously because of the impending cliff of being homeless.
The 25 next-stage interviews are the only part that sounds even slightly unrealistic to me. The phone interviews are 30-60 minutes each, so 40 of them is no problem (20-40 hours of work).
The next-stage interviews are going to vary from 1-2 hours to a full day, so I assume he didn't do many full-day interviews in that 10-11 days, or probably 7-8 workdays.
But startups are often far more willing to do remote interviews, interviews at weird times, interviews on weekends... It would be a packed 1.5 weeks, though.
Besides the apparent mismatch between hours in a day and hours necessary for all that to happen in 1.5 weeks (well, it's technically possible), what surprised me was just even that 40 companies out of 50 were responsive enough to schedule phone interviews in that time. And next stage interviews after that. And make a decision to hire him. Especially for a self-proclaimed bad coder.
So, I agree with you, but this is not really the point of the post. The point is that interviewing is a game that you can master with practice.
Is it possible we could stick to relatively new content here? I read through all of the Netscape-related JWZ stuff more than 10 years ago. I suspect that anyone who has an interest in the rise and fall of Netscape has done the same.
When I'm writing this, most of the articles on the top HN page are from today or yesterday. The rest are a few days old, a month tops.
And then there is this one and some other that's from 2007.
I think that's pretty much a good ratio. I'm sorry that you've read this particular article already but sticking just to a new content wouldn't completely solve that anyway (unless Hacker News is your only source).
Personally, I've found the log both fascinating and illuminating. And for the record, I honestly didn't even know I should "have an interest in the rise and fall of Netscape". Maybe a critical flaw on my part, but there you go.
I haven't found this article 5 years ago because I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for it.
You can never fill Hacker News in a way that would please everyone and where all the articles would be fresh and worth reading. As long as there's a decent quality threshold and a sensible new/old ratio, it's all right.
History is a good thing to study. As I mentioned in a previous post, JWZ was one of the few at the time that were prolific in writing about their experiences.
I haven't seen anywhere near the same set of stories in "modern" companies like Facebook, Google, or Twitter. We do get the occasional nugget like how Instagram started or how Flickr came about as not being the original idea.
John Ramey w/ iSocket is one that has been good about talking about his current process. But a lot of times, stories of "start up experiences" aren't much more than "lolz, i was up all week hackin' on some ruby, can you rate my site?".
Fact is, writings like JWZs should be brought up now and then. I wonder who the equivalents from the last couple of years would be.
So only a "longbeard" would have read something on the internet 10 years ago? I have news for you. Someday you will have a little bit of experience. At that point you will look back at your attitude and see how wrong it was. Karma.
Sorry, you misunderstood what I was saying. If I were you, I'd avoid lecturing anyone on HN about karma until your reading comprehension improves, particularly someone who's been around here as long as I have (your current karma is -12). You're not even in the black! Thanks for playing, grasshopper.
The amount of time you have been 'registered' with a website has nothing to do with whether or not what you wrote was appropriate. Moreover, if you want people to understand what you are saying, I recommend that you learn to communicate coherent ideas, rather than posting snarky comments. This has nothing to do with 'reading comprehension' and everything to do with the fact that I called you out for making a disrespectful and short-sighted comment. As far as karma goes, I was talking about the karma of life. In that regard you are a loser - "grasshopper".
Why do you apply the word 'unethical' when you read 'greedy'? Perhaps it is their job to be greedy. Do you seriously believe that greed is not at the very heart of this?
I think you mean "accurate". I'm sitting here with a Starbucks coffee cup right now. I can tell you that I have a strong positive brand image associated with their current logo. As a customer I immediately associate the new logo with a company moving away from what they do well. I didn't even need to read the press release to see the motivation. This is bad for Starbucks, and will result in a lot of negative press. Wait and see.
