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Blame your leadership for creating such a bloated company that the only thing to satiate investors was to sell out completely to auto companies. I interviewed a

Blame your leadership for creating such a bloated company that the only thing to satiate investors was to sell out completely to auto companies. I interviewed at Mapbox at one time, a ridiculous 3-day interview at their SF office where lots of PM's and managers were buzzing around hosting meetings, giving the perception of getting stuff done when in fact it was even clear to me, an outsider, that nothing was being accomplished. I found the product to be lacking and the team to be outsized for the quality and depth of the product. The core business appeared very weak and on VC life-support.

mourner 4y ago
With this much saltiness, it's not hard to guess the result of that interview :)
- chipotle_coyote 4y ago
  It’s possible to interview at a company and decide that it’s not for you, and frankly I wish I’d done that more often over the years. I used to be more inclined to ignore the little voice saying “aren’t these warning signs?”, accepted the offer anyway, and quickly realized the little voice had absolutely been right.
  - mourner 4y ago
    Oh, nothing wrong with going with your gut and paying attention to the warning signs. But, "I briefly looked at these people from afar and immediately concluded they all only pretend to work and never accomplish anything" is just ridiculously arrogant.
urschrei 4y ago
I can’t speak to the organizational problems you saw, but when you consider the quality of software that Mapbox was producing before the failed union drive – Mapbox GL JS, Rasterio, Shapely – what you’re saying is nonsensical. The latter two libraries have of course left Mapbox, along with their creator, and continue to see high-quality new features, but Mapbox GL JS is still so much better than anything else that I continue to use and pay for it, even though my friends and acquaintances were the people who quit after Mapbox management torpedoed the union drive (note: I’m relying on the current NLRB complaint against Mapbox here: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-283393 https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-283393) and I hope that one day I’ll have an alternative.
- urschrei 4y ago
  Oh and I forgot to add that Vladimir Agafonkin and Morgan Herlocker’s JS libraries (earcut, rbush, delaunator, turf, polylabel) have dragged state of the art spatial analysis into the browser to an extent that won’t be equalled again in the foreseeable future. Just a ridiculously deep bench.
- deadmansshoes 4y ago
  Shapely was around long before Mapbox, and Rasterio too. Both are based on stalwarts of the open source geospatial world - GEOS and GDAL. Vector tiles, Mapbox GL, and Mapbox styling, and numerous other libraries however did grow out of Mapbox - the amount of geospatial developer talent they hoovered up must have made it pretty amazing to work at for a time.
  - trgn 4y ago
    Mapbox has had an incredible influence on geo software development for the web. Hats off to everybody who made it happen.
  - urschrei 4y ago
    I am not claiming otherwise, having been a Shapely user since…2012? I’m talking about the work done by Sean et al while they were at Mapbox.
- rhodysurf 4y ago
  Yeah mapbox gl js is sooooo incredibly good I will continue to pay for it as long as I can at this point, technically it’s so far ahead of competitors for building customized spatial viz
ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 4y ago
> where lots of PM's and managers were buzzing around hosting meetings, giving the perception of getting stuff done when in fact it was even clear to me, an outsider, that nothing was being accomplished How could you possibly come to this conclusion while on an interview loop? Did you sit in on all these meetings?

mourner 4y ago

With this much saltiness, it's not hard to guess the result of that interview :)

chipotle_coyote 4y ago
It’s possible to interview at a company and decide that it’s not for you, and frankly I wish I’d done that more often over the years. I used to be more inclined to ignore the little voice saying “aren’t these warning signs?”, accepted the offer anyway, and quickly realized the little voice had absolutely been right.
- mourner 4y ago
  Oh, nothing wrong with going with your gut and paying attention to the warning signs. But, "I briefly looked at these people from afar and immediately concluded they all only pretend to work and never accomplish anything" is just ridiculously arrogant.

urschrei 4y ago

I can’t speak to the organizational problems you saw, but when you consider the quality of software that Mapbox was producing before the failed union drive – Mapbox GL JS, Rasterio, Shapely – what you’re saying is nonsensical. The latter two libraries have of course left Mapbox, along with their creator, and continue to see high-quality new features, but Mapbox GL JS is still so much better than anything else that I continue to use and pay for it, even though my friends and acquaintances were the people who quit after Mapbox management torpedoed the union drive (note: I’m relying on the current NLRB complaint against Mapbox here: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-283393 https://www.nlrb.gov/case/20-CA-283393) and I hope that one day I’ll have an alternative.

urschrei 4y ago
Oh and I forgot to add that Vladimir Agafonkin and Morgan Herlocker’s JS libraries (earcut, rbush, delaunator, turf, polylabel) have dragged state of the art spatial analysis into the browser to an extent that won’t be equalled again in the foreseeable future. Just a ridiculously deep bench.
deadmansshoes 4y ago
Shapely was around long before Mapbox, and Rasterio too. Both are based on stalwarts of the open source geospatial world - GEOS and GDAL. Vector tiles, Mapbox GL, and Mapbox styling, and numerous other libraries however did grow out of Mapbox - the amount of geospatial developer talent they hoovered up must have made it pretty amazing to work at for a time.
- trgn 4y ago
  Mapbox has had an incredible influence on geo software development for the web. Hats off to everybody who made it happen.
- urschrei 4y ago
  I am not claiming otherwise, having been a Shapely user since…2012? I’m talking about the work done by Sean et al while they were at Mapbox.
rhodysurf 4y ago
Yeah mapbox gl js is sooooo incredibly good I will continue to pay for it as long as I can at this point, technically it’s so far ahead of competitors for building customized spatial viz

ukFxqnLa2sBSBf6 4y ago

> where lots of PM's and managers were buzzing around hosting meetings, giving the perception of getting stuff done when in fact it was even clear to me, an outsider, that nothing was being accomplished How could you possibly come to this conclusion while on an interview loop? Did you sit in on all these meetings?