Is it possible that the picture the author had in his head of "Being acquired" was skewing things here? I don't see any clear indications that an "Acquisition" was ever in the offing here. He emailed Steve, Steve forwarded it to an engineer who the author was lucky enough to hear back from at all.
Most likely they looked at what he was outputting and weren't impressed, or had another solution in mind. I'm assuming (and hoping for his sake) from my interpretation that he never submitted actual code to them - just output.
If you believe the OP the potential for acquisition was noted here: "Next he says that if I have incorporated the startup, Apple could acquire it or he could hire me to work with him."
Who knows.
I will say that it was handled very poorly. At the point they weren't interested they should have said it rather than just not responding to email.
In reading the email communication and also paying attention to the timeline, I did not get the impression that the OP was "pestering" the Apple Manager. He was cordial and gently reminding that he was promised a response and had not received one.
If anything, I got the impression that the Apple Manager was stalling (or maybe he really was ill and it really took him 10 days - from May 4 to May 14 - to "get back on his feet")
If anything, I got the impression that the Apple Manager was stalling (or maybe he really was ill and it really took him 10 days - from May 4 to May 14 - to "get back on his feet")
Or else he's just a busy guy with a lot on his plate apart from this one project which he's not that interested in with some guy who keeps pestering him.
Especially considering the timeframe - right around WWDC. This eng manager was likely scrambling like crazy to get ready for that.
Also, if the manager was considering hiring this guy, he was probably looking not just at his code, but evaluating what kind of a person he is and culture fit. If they're hustling to get ready for WWDC while this guy keeps emailing and pointing out what competitors like Google are doing (as if they don't know this), he may have concluded that this is someone he just doesn't want to work with, regardless of the guy's algorithm.
So they are evaluating how well the guy responds to missed deadlines? It seems he was promised responses on specific timelines that kept falling through with no response and with the weakest of lip-service paid when he prodded them enough to get an answer.
If this was just trying to harden him up for what it's really like to work inside of Apple, it's a wonder they get anything done at all.
It's fair for him to e-mail but looking over the discussion it was stupid for him to e-mail so much (and cross the line into pestering). On May 4th the Apple guy said he'd need a few days to catch up because he'd been sick. The author then e-mailed him exactly 3 days later. That pattern continues with him e-mailing every few days or so.
I personally use the two week rule. If someone says they'll get back to me in a few days I give them a couple weeks before I e-mail a reminder. If they don't respond I wait another week and if I still get nothing I give up.
This guy comes across as self important and nothing turns other people off more than that.
I personally use the two week rule. If someone says they'll get back to me in a few days I give them a couple weeks before I e-mail a reminder.
Oh, right. I forgot that in the business world, words suddenly don't have any fucking meaning whatsoever. You can bet your ass that if a corporation wanted something from you (i.e., payment) in a few days, they wouldn't leisurely wait a few weeks before e-mailing you.
There seems to be this unspoken rule in the Apple world that if you happen to get an e-mail from Steve Jobs, even if he threatens to dig up your dead mother and defile her corpse, you'd better drop down on your knees and thank him for even speaking to you.
You seem to be getting confused about the relationship here.
No, I'm not.
Getting a payment from someone is very different to trying to get something for free from a company, or trying to get acquired.
You promise the company payment. The guy in the e-mail was promised continued discussion at a specific point in time. The point I'm making is that if you shortchange a company, they have more power to punish you than if they shortchange you. Thus, I don't understand this casual attitude with companies, where if you don't get a response you just "give up".
I don't understand why everybody is emailing Steve Jobs all of a sudden, and I certainly wouldn't just start sending email to CEOs of companies.
What's wrong with sending an e-mail to a CEO? I genuinely don't understand this. We saw the same thing with that prick from AT&T. Why is it so taboo to jerk the chain of the person in charge? Is their time just so valuable that they shouldn't even have to bother with the lowly proles?
Emailing the CEO because some engineer isn't responding promptly enough to your emails isn't a good way to get him on your side. From your perspective, he promised you something and you are trying to get him to deliver. From his perspective, you've just alerted the CEO of the company (multiple times) that maybe he's not being productive enough.
In general, it's not a good way to get this guy to give you a green light on getting hired/acquired.
That's so true! In fact I can sort of see the corporate pattern:
1. Steve -> Engineer: Whats with the delay?
At this point, almost nothing the engineer could say shows him in a good light - "sick" doesn't cut it at the power difference here. You only talk to the CEO once in a decade, and his experience of you is "doesn't deliver"?
2. Engineer -> Steve: I evaluated it. It sucks. I haven't written back yet as it's not a high priority.
3. Email from Steve -> Unfortunate dude: No interest.
1. Steve -> Manager: This guy e-mailed me again, does this need to be dealt with?
2. Manager -> Steve: It's a good algorithm, but the guy's been demanding and impatient, and with everyone prepping iOS/iPhone 4 for WWDC, Engineer just hasn't had time to look into it.
3. Steve -> Dude: No interest.
Specifically, I highly doubt that Steve Jobs would speak directly with an engineer about a potential acquisition of a potentially useful algorithm. I doubt it was ever really on his radar at all after the first 30 seconds where he read it and forwarded it off. That's the entire reason managers exist.
Apple could also build a rocketship and send him to the moon...
The talk of acquisition happened really early in the conversation - it was all theoretical at that point. They dug a little deeper, and for whatever reason they decided that while they could acquire his working demo, they chose not to on this occasion.
It would have been better if they'd let him know when they'd decided not to, though. It seems like they kept him hanging for a couple of weeks after saying "Sure, we'll send you a login so you can access our full database".
I've been in that situation before though, with some outside vendor/supplier a manager has hooked me up with. discussions go back and forth, I have an idea, and "Hey, let me see If I can get a login for that for you".
And then you actually try to get it done and you get stalled. But you may not have a "No" yet from above so you stall. It's a reasonable thing, but it seems like this guy was pegging all his hopes and dreams on this, and got over-excited.
Well I think the blog title is meant to illustrate the full range of emotion felt by him. I think he knows that any real talk of acquisition would have been a fair ways out, even if everything went as planned. But it's a very reasonable blog title. One that got me to read, and I didn't feel baited.
Going back to the "if" here - the output he did send them may also have been his sample code of sorts.
When I interview people we bandy about a lot of "ifs". But if the interviews don't go well, or if they submit crappy sample code, things tend to peter out from there.
The "if" in this question which is clearly missing but implied (at least in dealing with American companies) is "If there's something of value here, and the two parties are a good fit, and we think we can make this work...". There was no verbal contract here, or even an offer to acquire. It was a job interview, and he didn't get the job.
> It was a job interview, and he didn't get the job.
I would think it awfully poor form if the hiring manager spend the entire time looking out the window, doodling in a notebook, or taking 5 minutes to respond after the interviewee answered his/her question during the interview. (Or just spending the entire glued to his/her BlackBerry, and when the interviewee asks if he/she should just leave, the response is "I'm busy right now, things are hectic around here.")
But that isn't what happened here. They didn't fly him to Apple and have him sit there for weeks. He solicited them with something he purported to have built, then essentially said "Oh, I need access to your private data to really make it work". They obviously saw some first run data and decided not to continue.
They then did the equivalent of:
Thanks for your time, we'll get back to you
It just took them awhile to make a decision.
Also - I don't think anyone had necessarily decided "No" until he gave Steve an ultimatum. Steve seems to be a pretty stochastic guy - in this case he took it as "Fine, then fuck off".
If you've managed to get hiring decisions right there in the interview good for you - usually you have to wait a bit for them to decide ;)
> If you've managed to get hiring decisions right there in
> the interview good for you - usually you have to wait a
> bit for them to decide ;)
But that's the thing. The interview was still not over. They were still in the phase that is akin to asking him questions. They wanted to see how well his algorithm would work on live data. I guess a better analogy would be if the interviewer asked the interviewee a question and then started talking on the phone rather than pay attention for the interviewee's answer.
Or if you want to take the analogy to "waiting for a reply after the interview," then this is more like Apple stalling on making a decision on hiring him. They've interviewed him, and he pings them every week, but a couple of months later they still claim to have made no decision while continuously claiming that a decision is right around the corner and/or just needs one more person's approval/review.
Most likely they looked at what he was outputting and weren't impressed, or had another solution in mind. I'm assuming (and hoping for his sake) from my interpretation that he never submitted actual code to them - just output.