(click "see more")
Link to my coaching post.
(apparently I'm doing some of this?)
Paul Graham agrees that building something you're excited about is a top way to get good at technology:
Paul Graham about getting good at technology (bold is mine):
How do you get good at technology? And how do you choose which technology to get good at? Both of those questions turn out to have the same answer: work on your own projects. Don't try to guess whether gene editing or LLMs or rockets will turn out to be the most valuable technology to know about. No one can predict that. Just work on whatever interests you the most. You'll work much harder on something you're interested in than something you're doing because you think you're supposed to.
If you're not sure what technology to get good at, get good at programming. That has been the source of the median startup for the last 30 years, and this is probably not going to change in the next 10.
From "HOW TO START GOOGLE", March 2024. It's a talk for ~15 year olds, and it has more about "how to get good at technology" in it.
Linking to Zvi's review of the podcast:
https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2024/04/15/monthly-roundup-17-april-2024/
Search for:
Will MaCaskill went on the Sam Harris podcast
It's a negative review, but opinions are Zvi's, I didn't hear the podcast myself.
do you have a rough guess at what % this is a deal breaker for?
It's less of "%" and more of "who will this intimidate".
Many of your top candidates will (1) currently be working somewhere, and (2) will look at many EA aligned jobs, and if many of them require a work trial then that could be a problem.
(I just hired someone who was working full time, and I assume if we required a work trial then he just wouldn't be able to do it without quitting)
Easy ways to make this better:
Also, some candidates will WANT a work trial to see how the job actually is. I asked for a work trial in my current job.
Also, CEA does work trials. You could ask them how it goes. (But they won't hear about people who didn't even apply, I guess)
I recommend adding "Sam Altman" to the title, it can act as a TLDR. The current phrasing has a bit of a "click here to know more" vibe for me (like an ad) (probably unintentionally)
1.a and b.
I usually ask for feedback, and often it's something like “Idk, the vibe seemed off somehow. I can't really explain it.” Do you know what that could be?
This sounds like someone who doesn't want to actually give you feedback, my guess is they're scared of insulting you, or being liable to something legal, or something like that.
My focus wouldn't be on trying to interpret the literal words (like "what vibe") but rather making them comfortable to give you actual real feedback. This is a skill in itself which you can practice. Here's a draft to maybe start from: "Hey, I think I have some kind of blind spot in interviews where I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what it is and a friend told me I probably won't notice it myself and I better get feedback from someone else. Any chance you'd tell me more about what didn't work for you? I promise not to be insulted or complain for not passing or anything like that"
2.
But in non-EA jobs I'm also afraid that I might not live up to some expectations in the first several weeks when I'm still new to everything.
This is super common. Like, I'm not making this up, I had dozens of conversations and this is a common thing to worry about, and it's probably true to many other people interviewing to the same position.
My own approach to this is to tell the interviewer what I'm worried about, and also the reasons that I might not be a good match for whatever this is. For example, "I never worked with some-tech-you-use". If after hearing my worries they still want to hire me, that's great, and I don't need to pretend to know anything. I also think this somewhat filters for hiring managers that appreciate transparency (and not pretending everything is perfect), which is pretty important to me personally.
(also, reasonable managers understand you will need onboarding time, and if they don't understand that - then I prefer they don't hire me)
This all totally might be a Yonatan-thing, idk.
4.
You mean as positive reinforcement?
Yeah
I could meet with a friend or go climbing. :-3
I think (?) I'd aim for something short that I could do right-after, so my brain will understand this is a positive reinforcement and not just an unrelated fun evening? This is just my own intuition. I guess it would work if I'd meet a friend and they'd keep saying "good job for interviewing! now let's get you chocolate!" or whatever :)
I don't really know, I recommend you trust your own introspection, I might be unusual here
5.
Maybe I should practice minimally next time to avoid that.
Eh, you might have (right now) downsides to applying and not having it work well. The downsides might be subjective or "technically wrong" but if you're averse to applying with minimal practice, I would acknowledge that feeling and try to address it (or if you can't - I'm not personally pushing you to apply to Google unprepared, if it seems scary or so).
Examples of things that might worry you:
a. "will google never invite you to interview again if you fail" --> You can check Google's policy. I think they have a 6-12 months cooldown for people who didn't pass, but you can apply again. Is this time too long? Maybe you don't care at all? I don't know, depends on your circumstances
b. maybe you're not interviewing to dozens of places and so it (maybe correctly) feels like Google is your only chance? ( --> I'd recommend interviewing to dozens of places, to be clear :P )
I think a useful answer here would mainly involve listening to you which I can't really do over text. If you want to brainstorm out loud here, I can try to contribute "textbook solutions" if I have them. Or you could do introspection with a friend, or we could talk, or none of the above! just trying to share how I'd approach this
:)
I have thoughts on how to deal with this. My priors are this won't work if I communicate it through text (but I have no idea why). Still, seems like the friendly thing would be to write it down
My recommendation on how to read this:
So,
TL;DR:
Seems to me from your questions that your bottle neck is specifically finding the interview process stressful.
I think there's stuff to do about that, and it would potentially help with lots of other tradeoffs (for example, you'd happily interview in more places, get more offers, know what your alternatives are, ..)
wdyt?
How could one measure consumption that includes things like this? And how would you pick a dollar value for how much the stick gathering was worth?