Wholeheartedly agree. I really don't see any rational basis for this, and it feels like a huge waste of emotional energy.
I guess it would be good to know: What is the good faith argument for detractors in this case? (assuming that in the 50/50 split there is a tiebreaking vote like in our case)
We have the same model as you at the company I co-founded. The only valid worry that comes to my mind is a 50-50 split with no person designated as the boss. But you already have that part sorted.
Yeah and this is where I honestly don't understand (and am suspicious of) the VC firm's take on this.
My cofounder is happy with this, I'm happy with this. We have tiebreaking and vesting built into the equation so there's no gridlock and no one can leave the company high and dry. And neither one of has complaints about each others' commitment (nights weekends, etc you name it we are "all in" and that is our expectation).
Furthermore we worked nights and weekends on this as a "project" for months before even incorporating so did not go into the equity split just on a whim.
It seems like in the cited examples all of these things were missing on some level. TLDR if someone isn't performing and there is cause to fire them that already exists and shifts the power balance significantly towards the CEO.
I wasn't asked to meet repeatedly. The first time this was brought up it was squashed by my CEO without me being present.
This time (during our seed round) it was brought up and my cofounder thought it might make sense for me to get facetime with them about it to at least hear any of their rationale (for the record he's in agreement it just seems like something "they believe" without any actual reason.)
To be honest it feels like there are a lot of these VC cargo culty beliefs like "having a clean cap table" which upon examination don't seem to have any basis besides it being "what VCs (or a particular group of them) like"
What don't you think looks good in terms of me meeting individually in this instance?
Just out of curiosity, what keeps you from speaking out (besides a strong feeling of group think).
Have you actually experienced firings / ostracism from people at the company? While I do feel like your points would be contrarian (and may get shouted at), I'm wondering what the actual repercussions would be.
Most of what I've seen (in regards to dissenters) have been relatively spirited debates and strong digital dissension but no strong tangible effects.
I'm asking this in good faith as someone who sits on the other side of the fence on this issue (though like with most things am not 100% assured of my decision).
So at worst we have someone who is intentionally inciting violence.
At best we have a leader of our country too irresponsible to do due diligence on his own posts to the entire free world. He has literally infinite resources at his disposal to communicate effectively about this.
Being a hateful bigot and or an ignoramus should both be unacceptable positions for the leader of the US. Furthermore this isn't the first time he's said or done hateful / bigoted / ignorant things / lied so you'll excuse people if they don't give him the 'benefit of the doubt'.
When you have a 'bully pulpit' as powerful and far reaching as Facebook now provides to the president then it is totally reasonable to want to hold them accountable (given you disagree with their stance).
I don't exactly understand what is objectionable about protesting the decision making of corporate entities given the immense power they hold?
This is like saying you shouldn't boycott BP for their oil spill, you should just complain to your congressperson. I don't understand why you can't complain on both fronts?
I want to clarify that this is in NO way verifiable.
There were 0 company polls taken about this on a grand scale.
Most vocal position so far has been large scale dissatisfaction with this decision. But no way to actually know if that is just a ‘vocal’ minority.
So unless this person they ‘surveyed’ did some sort of independent analysis where they sampled a significant portion of the company independently, they are full of shit.
To be clear I am not advocating for either position in this post (though I do have an opinion), but this is just a bold faced lie.
The software industry's greatest blog post sin: "Hiring in tech is broken"
This topic is trite. Furthermore no one seems to be able to offer up actual tangible suggestions as to how to fix this, or some objective 'better way'.
Disclaimer I work at a FAANG etc company:
Also this has been distinctly "not" my experience at many FAANG type companies. Usually these interviews, even the one's I haven't done well in, have been highly conversational, and all contain a fairly in depth 'soft skills' interview as well.
Yes, your technical knowledge has to be good, but a good interview will keep pressing at the edge of your knowledge (not to make you 'fail'), but to see how you handle the unknown.
In fact for one of the companies I ended up working at I was called in for a second soft skills interview just to dig even deeper on the dimension the author claims is 'never tested for'.
Much like these authors I don't have a perfect solution to this, however I will say one of the most rewarding interviews I've ever done (at a well funded startup where I did NOT get the offer was comprised of):
- 1 Algo question (standard fare)
- 1 Architecture question (standard fare)
- 1 'find a bug in this mock part of the codebase / pair program with me' question. Implementation didn't necessarily have to be perfect, mostly was interested in diagnosing the actual problem and talking about 'how' we might solve it (very fun)
- 1 Product Sense (!) question with actual PMs (very fun)
>Furthermore no one seems to be able to offer up actual tangible suggestions as to how to fix this, or some objective 'better way'.
There are other professions with models of credentials that could be adopted to software given some time and adjustment and faith. Then we could shed our current technical interviews in favor of shorter interviews overall. You naturally need more people to handle interview bandwidth as your company grows.
People want to show some credential and not have to deal with technical interviews at every potential opportunity. We've learned enough about technical interviews that we should be able to make this kind of widely-recognized credential. We just don't want to do it. We'd rather keep recruiters employed and force developers to budget large blocks of interviewing time.
Will be interesting to hear her perspective, but like an above poster mentioned it doesn't amount to much.
Couple that with the fact that athletes notoriously buy into 'woo' treatments (not to mention Joe Rogan himself is notoriously into 'woo') and it's unsurprising that she may rave about it.
Just to give a few things I've heard fighters 'rave' about in the past that have little to no substantive effect on performance:
- Crossfit and 'functional' fitness at large
- Cryo dunking themselves after a workout
- Elevation masks
- Bulletproof coffee
- CBD (not saying there aren't effects but the range of health claims made border on the absurd)
- Eating a Vegan diet vs a Paleo diet vs a Keto diet...
- Movement(?) training
- Acupuncture
- Cupping
The list is almost endless. Athletes are always looking for an edge, and many of them (much like the general populace) are not well equipped to separate the woo from the goo.
One thing that struck me was that her rTMS I think was for concussive syndrome/symptoms. Whereas I thought rTMS was primarily marketed for depression and anxiety (seems some of the other posters here have personally tried rTMS for depression). Her personal story includes the tragedy of her husband committing suicide leaving her behind with their young daughter, so maybe she also has/had some depression issues and was seeing benefits with respect to that...anyway give the podcast a listen, she is an interesting person anyway.
While the terms are interchangeable I would focus your efforts on becoming a Software Engineer (with a specialization in Front End).
I say this in an era of bootcamp grads, online micro degrees Udemy courses etc. where you can now study and 'become a web developer in 3 months etc.'.
It's true, you likely can learn enough about Javascript / frameworks / etc to build web applications in that period of time, but your overall knowledge and ability to draw inferences between web dev and other areas of CS will be severely lacking.
This isn't to poo-poo your path (I myself am a bootcamp grad), more hindsight as part of my journey.
What you are doing now is what most would likely call a 'top-down' path. Build some applications, work on some projects, learn one language all for the sake of building a portfolio. This is great! But it is only a piece of the puzzle. I would highly suggest you sprinkle in some 'bottom-up' learning as well (taking an algorithms class, or something fundamental to CS) and trying to draw the connections between what you are learning in the two domains.
I know that was a bit of rambling so to more directly answer your questions and concerns:
Q: "I have been self-learning for around six months and still have not found a solid path to follow."
A: It is likely that self-learning is not cutting it for you. It sounds to me like you need structure. This could take the form of a bootcamp or micro degree or something more involved (slower) and academic... like a bachelors degree with projects mixed in. All have their advantages and disadvantages. At a high level:
- A good bootcamp will require you to be there in person, with fellow students who are on the same path. You will have structured learning and so will meander less. You will leave a good bootcamp having gotten out what you put in (ie if you slacked off they will not hold your hand) but may land a job. You will have spent a good chunk of money and even if you land a job you will have to fill in a lot of gaps.
- Micro degrees (like from Udemy) same caveats as the bootcamp apply but with swings. Will likely be far cheaper, but with less support, and likely less guaranteed outcomes. I haven't looked in a while but it's rare that I find people who have landed jobs doing these programs, while I can find multiple 'good' bootcamp grads who end up at many 'top' tech companies.
- If you go the University route you will have to amp everything up to the nth degree. You will spend more time + money. The effort that you put in will also matter A LOT (ie from what I've heard some people do the bare minimum CS work to pass classes, but never do interesting projects, push for good internships etc so they graduate and can't land jobs). It, however, my belief that if done right this can be the best possible option. A lot of bootcampers severely underestimate the importance of foundational CS concepts, these will be the first people in trouble during a recession or if there is a major technology shift.
Q: "Six months sounds like a lot but realistically it has been a few solid weeks of learning..."
A: Six months is not a lot of time to learn almost anything. Let alone a year, or two etc. Especially if that learning has been very undirected (it sounds like you are meandering a lot). I know you are in a rush to be gainfully employed in a new career, but you shouldn't emphasize the time you've spent so much. The best engineers I've worked with are 15+ years into their careers and still think they are idiots.
Find a more structure path for learning, and don't beat yourself up over the time you're taking to learn anything. Good learning and understanding takes time.
Q: "Is the Web Dev job market in a good enough state that I should risk more time and money?"
A: Yes, the market is still quite good for anything engineering related. Frontend, Fullstack, Backend you name it. Companies need smart people who can code and understand the systems they are working on. However like I said you should develop your skills so that if the current definition of a "Web Dev" changes in the next few years you can easily move onto the next thing. That means developing a love of learning and really understanding the core concepts that tie all of these seemingly disparate engineering fields together.
But you've sort of hit the nail on the head right there. Apple Store employees are likely employees because Apple Stores are a major part of Apple's business.
Apple hires hoards of contractors for all sorts of roles internally (experimental projects, kitchen staff blah blah).
Google popup locations are not comparable to Apple Stores.
I guess it would be good to know: What is the good faith argument for detractors in this case? (assuming that in the 50/50 split there is a tiebreaking vote like in our case)