6 ms·

Not quite. Facebook is the pinnacle of memorization. Google is similar and is absolutely not innovating, they just have a monopoly on search, and a bunch of sid

Not quite. Facebook is the pinnacle of memorization. Google is similar and is absolutely not innovating, they just have a monopoly on search, and a bunch of side projects copying other companies (AWS, Microsoft Word) etc. Microsoft does not interview like that, and TikTok is a copy of FB funded by the CCP. Tesla does not ask leetcode hard interview questions. Neither does Amazon. I am intimately familiar with the interview process.

flyinglizard 4y ago
FB did technical innovation just fine. The problem is with the product, and this is not something that engineers solve.
- bsaul 4y ago
  And yet i still think the facebook page sucks tremendously from an engineering pov. It hasn't evolved in years feature wise and yet it still slows to a crawl whenever i launch it. Totally unimpressed.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    I use (try to sometimes) the Facebook lite app on Android. It rarely opens. Just sits there spinning on the logo screen. It has been consistently acting like this for years through several updates of both Android and the app...on various phones. Shrug.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
  The problem is that it should be something that engineers solve. Non technical product managers from top schools are not equipped to drive innovation if they are not on the technical ground level.
jarsin 4y ago
Did amazon change recently? I got leetcoded there. I even applied to a web dev role using ruby on rails and was blindsided by the hard trick questions.
- dirac44 4y ago
  No, the person saying they don't do LC hard questions is not correct. Most are going to be LC medium but they do ask LC hard in some interviews. I can in fact point to two questions I was asked by Amazon in the last few months and I worked there for several years. In any event they are mostly LC medium, possibly LC hard--exactly what you should expect from a FB interview in the past couple of years.
pcbro141 4y ago
TikTok is not a copy of Facebook. The fact Facebook/Meta/Instagram is trying desperately to copy them is proof of that.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
  The algorithm is drastically better, but is also better because TikTok doesnt have as strong as a need for profit. Its a long story, and yes its a good product. But its an incremental algorithmic change, not a new product category
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    TBH I have no idea what you are talking about. There have even been a bunch of articles along the lines of "the social network is dead". That is, Facebook is all about who your friends are and your overall social network. TikTok has none of that - it's about following and finding content that is entertaining, not that an old friend just had a baby. Heck, a big part of TikTok was Musical.ly, an app for lip syncing videos. That was a huge stroke of luck/foresight because it gave TikTok a lot of the music rights deals they would need to allow people to put videos to music. Are you really arguing an app around individual videos set to music (which, in my experience, is still the vast majority of TikTok videos) is somehow an "incremental product change" to a friends-based social network?
    - ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
      I'm too busy to explain it. But in short, the facebook/instagram (and youtube) algorithms are built to optimize: 1. Content that is profitable from an advertising perspective 2. Censoring certain content/only showing major/authoritative sources. TikTok changed that by allowing grass roots content to go viral, which from an algorithmic perspective is less profitable. But that doesnt matter, its backed by the CCP. Theres alot that goes into why tiktok is better, and alot of it is monetary/business related, not computer science. But beyond that, FB/Google just got lazy and stopped pushing for new things. Wildly successful and presumed monopolies, they left a massive product gap (allowing grass roots content to go viral), which TikTok filled.
kjeetgill 4y ago
> TikTok is a copy of FB funded by the CCP. With all due respect — Facebook (the product) is one of the social platforms furthest from TikTok. Even roughly equating them sounds like you might not use, know, or understand any of them. Vine, YouTube, or Snapchat maybe — they all differ in different ways — or even Insta I get ... But Facebook?
- partiallypro 4y ago
  I think he's specifically taking about the algorithm. Tiktok can be friendless, but so can Reels and Youtube. In the end Tiktok is a similar concept to Facebook when you consider that it's catered content.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
vmladenov 4y ago
> Microsoft does not interview like that [...] Neither does Amazon This is straight up wrong. Both companies ask difficult algorithms questions in their interviews.
- ren_engineer 4y ago
  "difficult" is relative, MS and Amazon interviews are considered jokes/warmups compared to some of the other places that are basically asking competitive programming questions

flyinglizard 4y ago

FB did technical innovation just fine. The problem is with the product, and this is not something that engineers solve.

bsaul 4y ago
And yet i still think the facebook page sucks tremendously from an engineering pov. It hasn't evolved in years feature wise and yet it still slows to a crawl whenever i launch it. Totally unimpressed.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  I use (try to sometimes) the Facebook lite app on Android. It rarely opens. Just sits there spinning on the logo screen. It has been consistently acting like this for years through several updates of both Android and the app...on various phones. Shrug.
ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
The problem is that it should be something that engineers solve. Non technical product managers from top schools are not equipped to drive innovation if they are not on the technical ground level.

jarsin 4y ago

Did amazon change recently? I got leetcoded there. I even applied to a web dev role using ruby on rails and was blindsided by the hard trick questions.

dirac44 4y ago
No, the person saying they don't do LC hard questions is not correct. Most are going to be LC medium but they do ask LC hard in some interviews. I can in fact point to two questions I was asked by Amazon in the last few months and I worked there for several years. In any event they are mostly LC medium, possibly LC hard--exactly what you should expect from a FB interview in the past couple of years.

pcbro141 4y ago

TikTok is not a copy of Facebook. The fact Facebook/Meta/Instagram is trying desperately to copy them is proof of that.

ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
The algorithm is drastically better, but is also better because TikTok doesnt have as strong as a need for profit. Its a long story, and yes its a good product. But its an incremental algorithmic change, not a new product category
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
  TBH I have no idea what you are talking about. There have even been a bunch of articles along the lines of "the social network is dead". That is, Facebook is all about who your friends are and your overall social network. TikTok has none of that - it's about following and finding content that is entertaining, not that an old friend just had a baby. Heck, a big part of TikTok was Musical.ly, an app for lip syncing videos. That was a huge stroke of luck/foresight because it gave TikTok a lot of the music rights deals they would need to allow people to put videos to music. Are you really arguing an app around individual videos set to music (which, in my experience, is still the vast majority of TikTok videos) is somehow an "incremental product change" to a friends-based social network?
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 4y ago
    I'm too busy to explain it. But in short, the facebook/instagram (and youtube) algorithms are built to optimize: 1. Content that is profitable from an advertising perspective 2. Censoring certain content/only showing major/authoritative sources. TikTok changed that by allowing grass roots content to go viral, which from an algorithmic perspective is less profitable. But that doesnt matter, its backed by the CCP. Theres alot that goes into why tiktok is better, and alot of it is monetary/business related, not computer science. But beyond that, FB/Google just got lazy and stopped pushing for new things. Wildly successful and presumed monopolies, they left a massive product gap (allowing grass roots content to go viral), which TikTok filled.

kjeetgill 4y ago

> TikTok is a copy of FB funded by the CCP. With all due respect — Facebook (the product) is one of the social platforms furthest from TikTok. Even roughly equating them sounds like you might not use, know, or understand any of them. Vine, YouTube, or Snapchat maybe — they all differ in different ways — or even Insta I get ... But Facebook?

partiallypro 4y ago
I think he's specifically taking about the algorithm. Tiktok can be friendless, but so can Reels and Youtube. In the end Tiktok is a similar concept to Facebook when you consider that it's catered content.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

vmladenov 4y ago

> Microsoft does not interview like that [...] Neither does Amazon This is straight up wrong. Both companies ask difficult algorithms questions in their interviews.

ren_engineer 4y ago
"difficult" is relative, MS and Amazon interviews are considered jokes/warmups compared to some of the other places that are basically asking competitive programming questions