If you meet a number of founders of really big companies, in many cases they are sort of awkward, introverted people. The salesy, flashy people may be really good at convincing, but sometimes they can get away with less execution. This can be a good or bad thing depending on the type of startup and the market it is in.
There are also obvious examples of highly charismatic people who build big companies (e.g. Steve Jobs).
As an aside, I think Mike Moritz (investor in Google, Yahoo!, PayPal, etc.) also mentions something along the lines of "awkward/shy founders are often the ones who do big things" in a recent video interview (maybe the TechCrunch one?)
I am not sure what the cause is. Maybe inward focus helps build a great product and ignore feedback from people trying to influence your vision in the wrong direction? While charisma suggests being strongly attuned to others, whose feelings you may hurt by forging your own path? I dont know...
Agreed, charisma can be a huge asset. But it is not necessarily an indicator of a good entrepreneur, and it is not a pre-requisite. I think the other 2 traits are :)
What's interesting in India is that you'll often find a slum right next to a super luxurious hotel like the Oberoi or the Taj. I've never been able to understand why squatting "sticks" there but not here (I've seen police trying to "clean up" the slums -- you'd think the violence would scare people away).
In a country with rule of law and transferable property rights (most of the western world), one would expect market forces to prevent this. Underutilized land (such as a slum) would be purchased from it's owners by investors hoping to make more efficient use of it. Both parties would wind up richer because of the transaction.
The phenomena of nontransferable property rights exists only in a few parts of the US, so most Americans are unfamiliar with it. NY is one such place - claims on public housing or occupancy in a rent control apartment are a form of property rights (it's very difficult to deprive you of them) which is not transferable. NY is also one of the rare places where we have land used by very rich people directly adjacent to land hugely underused by it's occupants [1].
Most of the US is better run than NY, so phenomena like this are absent from most people's experience.
[1] Most of the value of the land is caused by it's proximity to institutions like GS or Bloomberg, but the lower middle class occupants of public housing and retirees living in rent controlled apartments do not make use of this proximity. Thus, the land is underused.
Yea, I noticed this as well. Probably because there is not much of a middle class. However, I have read cases and articles expecting their middle class to grow rapidly in the upcoming years.
is it silly of me to think that this doesn't seem hard enough to be an interview question? i'd be more interested in whether (and how quickly) someone could grasp a complex problem
When hiring front-end developers, there's a lot of people out there who fall into the "web designer guy who learned some coding along the way." They aren't engineers--and while they likely could study and learn, they really haven't. To me this is a really simple screening question; an engineer who understands closures, scope, and variable references will immediately say, "yeah, I see what's happening here..." and answer correctly.
Having conducted likely close to a hundred UI Engineer interviews, definitely over a hundred phone screens, and seen what feels like thousands of resumes (probably hyperbole on that last one), I can assure you that many candidates I've seen couldn't answer this question.
I don't meant to be critical in any way (I just want to offer a genuine perspective) -- I really didn't like it. Not sure if it was because of the bright yellow color or because I just took a long survey before checking out the site (which was another long form).
The culture slides on Netflix's job site do make it seem like a scary place to work but at least they are transparent about what it's like to be employed there..
Right, that was the point I was trying to make - how can anyone be surprised at what you find there when they advertise it so well?
Personally I wouldn't expect "a culture of fear" going in but I'd at least have a pretty good idea that I need to perform, and produce high quality stuff, to survive there.
Yeah, I don't really see the complaint here. Netflix is pretty transparent about how things work on some level, so if you're let go at some point you should be prepared for the possibility.
I mean, company culture is never really the problem for jobs I've signed up for as long as the company is honest about the situation. If I'm told it's a 9-5 and I find myself pulling 60-70 hour weeks (or the reverse scenario where I'm it's inferred that my Type A personality is going to fit in and I can make a big impact and it turns out to be a boring 9-5) that's when I get upset and start looking for new opportunities.
I think it has something to do with the fact that Microsoft had just invested close to $10M in Heroku in the weeks prior to the acquisition (making Microsoft the biggest investee in Heroku). Right now, Salesforce is positioning themselves against the Microsofts and the Oracles (versus the smaller CRMs like ZoHo, Sugar, etc.); the Heroku purchase was probably more strategic than anything else...
I think it has something to do with the fact that Microsoft had just invested close to $10M in Heroku in the weeks prior to the acquisition (making Microsoft the biggest investee in Heroku). Right now, Salesforce is positioning themselves against the Microsofts and the Oracles (versus the smaller CRMs like ZoHo, Sugar, etc.); the Heroku purchase was probably more strategic than anything else.
I think this is one of the reasons why Salesforce has agreed to let Heroku "run themselves" instead of taking over and ruining the party. It's also a good sign for Heroku customers since it's unlikely that Salesforce will make a ton of changes to Heroku's service until they can figure out how best to integrate the two services.
