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> 1. Dodged a bullet (booo on any company that would reject someone with this level of passion). Passion is a double-edged sword: When a person's passions alig

> 1. Dodged a bullet (booo on any company that would reject someone with this level of passion). Passion is a double-edged sword: When a person's passions align closely with the company's needs, it's wonderful. But if a person's passions conflict with what the founders want, the passion can amplify the conflict. That's why it's important to understand exactly what the candidate is passionate about. If they're passionate about helping the company wherever necessary, that's one thing. If they're passionate about something tangential and they expect the shift the company in that direction by joining, that's something else. Codeamigo appears distinctly different than Codeacademy in some key areas, as the author explains, so I wouldn't assume that his passions aligned exactly with what Codeacademy was hiring fire. I think it's best to give the benefit of the doubt to Codeacademy in this case. Remember: Being rejected from a job doesn't mean someone is unqualified or a bad developer. There's more to matching candidates to a team and not every candidate is a good match for every team.

beepbooptheory 5y ago
Is there any room left for someone to just be good at something and a company pays them to do that thing.
mylons 5y ago
Why is it best to give Codeacademy the benefit of the doubt? They likely hire by committee, like any tech company. In that scenario it's entirely dependent on who the committee is. It's not like Codeacademy, or any company for that matter, has some idempotent interviewing process. If you changed the interview panels, or some of the questions, the candidate may likely have received an offer.
- pkrotich 5y ago
  Have you hired anyone? Asking because your comment make it sounds like there's science to it. I don't like the committee hiring as well but team or manager level hiring can segment the company culture. Also individuals can be biased and hire based on vibes or who is like them etc. - committee brings a check to that, that's why it's common. The truth is - you'll miss some great candidates because they simply interview poorly and of the flip side sometimes get a professional interviewee that cannot deliver once hired. You can also get a brilliant 10x candidate but a complete asshole (e.g CEO wanna be) that will destroy your team once hired.
  - dimitrios1 5y ago
    Hiring is hard. We, as an industry, simply cannot interview. We don't know how to accurately gauge a candidates experience, personality or knowledge. We can only make them perform monkey-see-monkey-do on a whiteboard or through stupid, asinine puzzles and leetcode style exercises. To make matters worse, we often place our most senior software developers on interview circuits. For better or for worse, engineers trend towards more anti-social traits. It makes the whole process of understanding one's personality, how they think, and whether or not they'll be a fit for the company a complete crap-chute. This is literally the only industry I have been apart of that sucks this bad at a process that is so fundamental to professional life. I would rather interview at McDonalds or for a call center (having had both of those jobs).
    - boneskull 5y ago
      it’s “crapshoot” as in the game of craps, meaning “it’s a gamble” but crap-chute is pretty good too. just not for this sentence
      - a1369209993 5y ago
        > > the whole process of understanding one's personality, how they think, and whether or not they'll be a fit for the company It's a chute you shovel crap into (or out of), with no justifiable expectation of useful results. The interview process as a whole is a crapshoot, but the process of understanding the candidate is a crap chute.
      - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
        It's a crapshoot whether or not you end up in a crap chute of a company.
  - KerryJones 5y ago
    I have -- quite a few times in quite a few different jobs. There actually is a lot more science to it than we usually take credit for. There have been studies that our typical interview process gives us 17% predictability of how they will perform, but if we do a contract-to-hire (of just one week) that improves to 80%. We have proven time and time again that certain times of interview questions are not helpful. If you look at the best investors, their job is similar, I would say that most notably as YC being crazy successful and found similarly in my own hiring is that passion for a given space is one of the best predictors of success.
csee 5y ago
This is where you take a gamble and hire them, then ask them to leave if it really doesn't work. The chance you're giving up on a 10-100x leverage hire is just too high in such a case.
opan 5y ago
Small note: It's "Codecademy", not "Codeacademy". Like a mash-up of words rather than just two whole ones squished together.
bitwize 5y ago
This is why it's important, in the corporate world, to cultivate a VB programmer's or PHP programmer's mindset, no matter what language you're working in: your passion should be with the business and solving exactly the business problem at hand, and treating your programming tools strictly as tools in service of the business.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> If they're passionate about helping the company wherever necessary, that's one thing. Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? Sounds like a great way to be exploited. People are passionate about enjoyable activities such as programming, not companies. They help companies with their problems because they get paid for it.
- javajosh 5y ago
  Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? Speculating that it's perceived risk mitigation. If you're perceived as loyal, helpful, and even somewhat capable, they'll keep you around! This is in fact the perfect role for that person who gets a lot of juice out of supporting someone else achieve their goals. It is also probably a personality thing. Of course, you have to answer a generalization of your own question: why be passionate about anything? It doesn't seem to be a necessary, or indeed very useful, to improve darwinian fitness.
- boplicity 5y ago
  > Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? Corporations are made of people, many of whom have a moral compass, and operate by that moral compass. If you believe in the mission of a company, the company is filled with people who also believe in that mission, and you're making real progress on that mission...then why wouldn't you be passionate? Sure, you could be "exploited", but many people don't really care whether or not they're being exploited, if they're being treated well and doing meaningful work with people they like -- even more so if they're working towards a goal that can only be accomplished by a larger organization.
- PradeetPatel 5y ago
  > Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? This is quite evident in the entertainment (video games, film, music, etc.) industry. It has been established that many creative resources go to companies that produce most of their favorite work. Sadly, it is quite common for those companies to have rather diverse and relaxed ethical guidelines around crunch and overtime.
maximp 5y ago
> Codeamigo appears distinctly different than Codeacademy in some key areas I imagine that building and releasing _the exact clone_ of the product from a company that rejected you would be petty and legally dubious.
derangedHorse 5y ago
I think one should be passionate about the mission. If someone is just passionate about the company and is willing to follow any orders from management, then the original vision can easily be corrupted in a way no one notices. Having universally agreeable employees also puts the target demographic at risk of being undermined by the employee based who never cared about the mission

beepbooptheory 5y ago

Is there any room left for someone to just be good at something and a company pays them to do that thing.

mylons 5y ago

Why is it best to give Codeacademy the benefit of the doubt? They likely hire by committee, like any tech company. In that scenario it's entirely dependent on who the committee is. It's not like Codeacademy, or any company for that matter, has some idempotent interviewing process. If you changed the interview panels, or some of the questions, the candidate may likely have received an offer.

pkrotich 5y ago
Have you hired anyone? Asking because your comment make it sounds like there's science to it. I don't like the committee hiring as well but team or manager level hiring can segment the company culture. Also individuals can be biased and hire based on vibes or who is like them etc. - committee brings a check to that, that's why it's common. The truth is - you'll miss some great candidates because they simply interview poorly and of the flip side sometimes get a professional interviewee that cannot deliver once hired. You can also get a brilliant 10x candidate but a complete asshole (e.g CEO wanna be) that will destroy your team once hired.
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  Hiring is hard. We, as an industry, simply cannot interview. We don't know how to accurately gauge a candidates experience, personality or knowledge. We can only make them perform monkey-see-monkey-do on a whiteboard or through stupid, asinine puzzles and leetcode style exercises. To make matters worse, we often place our most senior software developers on interview circuits. For better or for worse, engineers trend towards more anti-social traits. It makes the whole process of understanding one's personality, how they think, and whether or not they'll be a fit for the company a complete crap-chute. This is literally the only industry I have been apart of that sucks this bad at a process that is so fundamental to professional life. I would rather interview at McDonalds or for a call center (having had both of those jobs).
  - boneskull 5y ago
    it’s “crapshoot” as in the game of craps, meaning “it’s a gamble” but crap-chute is pretty good too. just not for this sentence
    - a1369209993 5y ago
      > > the whole process of understanding one's personality, how they think, and whether or not they'll be a fit for the company It's a chute you shovel crap into (or out of), with no justifiable expectation of useful results. The interview process as a whole is a crapshoot, but the process of understanding the candidate is a crap chute.
    - HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
      It's a crapshoot whether or not you end up in a crap chute of a company.
- KerryJones 5y ago
  I have -- quite a few times in quite a few different jobs. There actually is a lot more science to it than we usually take credit for. There have been studies that our typical interview process gives us 17% predictability of how they will perform, but if we do a contract-to-hire (of just one week) that improves to 80%. We have proven time and time again that certain times of interview questions are not helpful. If you look at the best investors, their job is similar, I would say that most notably as YC being crazy successful and found similarly in my own hiring is that passion for a given space is one of the best predictors of success.

csee 5y ago

This is where you take a gamble and hire them, then ask them to leave if it really doesn't work. The chance you're giving up on a 10-100x leverage hire is just too high in such a case.

opan 5y ago

Small note: It's "Codecademy", not "Codeacademy". Like a mash-up of words rather than just two whole ones squished together.

bitwize 5y ago

This is why it's important, in the corporate world, to cultivate a VB programmer's or PHP programmer's mindset, no matter what language you're working in: your passion should be with the business and solving exactly the business problem at hand, and treating your programming tools strictly as tools in service of the business.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> If they're passionate about helping the company wherever necessary, that's one thing. Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? Sounds like a great way to be exploited. People are passionate about enjoyable activities such as programming, not companies. They help companies with their problems because they get paid for it.

javajosh 5y ago
Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? Speculating that it's perceived risk mitigation. If you're perceived as loyal, helpful, and even somewhat capable, they'll keep you around! This is in fact the perfect role for that person who gets a lot of juice out of supporting someone else achieve their goals. It is also probably a personality thing. Of course, you have to answer a generalization of your own question: why be passionate about anything? It doesn't seem to be a necessary, or indeed very useful, to improve darwinian fitness.
boplicity 5y ago
> Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? Corporations are made of people, many of whom have a moral compass, and operate by that moral compass. If you believe in the mission of a company, the company is filled with people who also believe in that mission, and you're making real progress on that mission...then why wouldn't you be passionate? Sure, you could be "exploited", but many people don't really care whether or not they're being exploited, if they're being treated well and doing meaningful work with people they like -- even more so if they're working towards a goal that can only be accomplished by a larger organization.
PradeetPatel 5y ago
> Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? This is quite evident in the entertainment (video games, film, music, etc.) industry. It has been established that many creative resources go to companies that produce most of their favorite work. Sadly, it is quite common for those companies to have rather diverse and relaxed ethical guidelines around crunch and overtime.

maximp 5y ago

> Codeamigo appears distinctly different than Codeacademy in some key areas I imagine that building and releasing _the exact clone_ of the product from a company that rejected you would be petty and legally dubious.

derangedHorse 5y ago

I think one should be passionate about the mission. If someone is just passionate about the company and is willing to follow any orders from management, then the original vision can easily be corrupted in a way no one notices. Having universally agreeable employees also puts the target demographic at risk of being undermined by the employee based who never cared about the mission