Friday, September 6, 2019

Best interview question ever

Best interview question ever
"So, tell me why nobody likes you."

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Predictions of now year old job

A year and a few months ago I posted some predictions of the new company I joined. Some things have changed since then.

CEO and COO have been removed. New CFO and President pulled in from the board. All very sudden like. Guestimates at before change runway were ~6 months, President claims that they're bringing in 6 million. We have a ~5M annual burn rate so from this point we have another year from May (so ~20 months from now). They have already started to implement 'cost-saving' measures in that they're 'bringing the whole team under one roof', in that they are closing the second office and moving everyone into the much smaller 'fraternatory'. Could start downsizing in order to cut more costs.

President is socially ungraceful. They're going to be quickly disliked by the majority of the team, partially just due to change, partially just due to demeanor.
President doesn't seem like they know how to run a business, clearly stating that they were happy with the company because they 'walked past the office while out getting drinks with a friend and saw that there were people here working', indicating a typical backward expectation that 'more is more' in terms of hours to productivity. This could lead to a push for more work-theatrics such as being at a desk at certain hours or being seen at the office doing 'stuff'. Could implement more pedantic policies around agile/scrum and jira boards. Vacation time could be more closely scrutinized. Definitely will be more 'calibration' of current team members, with members ranked and judged, which could lead to layoffs. Software calibration:
w/n
l/r
z/f/g/fr
lp/p
a/j/e/jd
If layoffs are implemented, they will probably exploit the fact that most of the eng-team here are grossly underpaid and offer them seemingly huge bonuses contingent on them staying on for another year. The bonuses will only come up to the equivalent that they would make if they were making roughly market value for their skills.
President has stated that they have investments in ~300 companies, which at least looking at crunchbase, is a lot. Most firms only have investments of 10-30 companies. 300 could indicate a spammer approach to investment, which would indicate a desire for quick returns and a short-term 'day trader' approach to investments.
President states that they are impressed by the quality of the team (which is very good), but still could 'install' people into the team that they feels can 'fill gaps' that they believe exist within the team. Could 'install' people into spots vacated by downsized members.