10 ms·
I'm always intrigued at people's carriers and where exactly the inflection point was. Looking at Surojit's career, it went something like this: BS in CS at Kha
by matthewaveryusa 4y ago
I'm always intrigued at people's carriers and where exactly the inflection point was. Looking at Surojit's career, it went something like this:
BS in CS at Kharagput, something like a US T2 university
MS in CS at Buffalo, something like a T2 univeristy,
Spend some years at IBM and Oracle as a developer/senior developer 200k/year ?
MIT Sloan MBA T1 world class
PM/Senior PM at Symantec for a year 200-300k/year?
Head of Payment products India at Google, 8 years rising though the ranks 300-500k/year?,
did an externship of 2 years at flipkart as SVP
Then back to google as a VP 500-1.5MM/year?
CPO at coinbase made 150 million.
It looks like he moved around, leveraging his title to get senior roles between start-up and well-established companies:
PM at small company to PM at big company,
Head of product at big company to SVP at startup
SVP at startup to VP at big company
VP of big company to C-suite at startup pre-IPO
Most of all, he got in on the crypto gravy train right in time for his options to balloon
- benjaminwootton 4y agoJumping between big companies and small companies isn't a bad career strategy. Small companies like the brand names, but you can take big steps up in title in the small companies and startups. I did it myself, though it was accident of history rather than being planned.
- theGnuMe 4y agoYour salary estimates are high in my opinion. He would have been H1B after his Masters. >Spend some years at IBM and Oracle as a developer/senior developer 200k/year 65-100k maybe less. >PM/Senior PM at Symantec for a year 200-300k/year? 150k max. Oracle, IBM and Symantec do not pay as well as FAANG and you need to adjust for the time. They also colluded to suppress wages. But he did navigate the valley. Seems like a cool guy to get to know and I'd read his autobiography.
- hnarayanan 4y agoThis is the right question to ask
- brentm 4y agoGood question. My gut says his all in comp for Google including stock would likely be a lot higher but who knows.
- FlyingSnake 4y agoSince when IIT Kharagpur is Tier 2?
- ipaddr 4y agoTier 3?
- newswasboring 4y agoI had the same reaction, but I think OP is talking in terms of world stage. That's closer to true than not.
- snapcaster 4y agoAs an american with a likely ignorant but common view, IIT bombay is the only Tier 1 IIT
- ryandrake 4y agoI'm pretty much convinced that the inflection point is "Director" at a FAANG or "VP" at a smaller company. Once you get to that point, it's pretty much impossible to fail downward. Worker bees rise up in level when they succeed (or the economy is good) and fall down in level when they fail (or the economy is bad). But, I've never heard of a Director or VP or anyone from the "executive class" getting a downgrade when moving jobs, regardless of performance and regardless of the economic environment. Once you pass that singularity, it's up, up, and away.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoPart of it is they just won’t take jobs that are a downgrade. As a result it can take a long time to find a new role in some cases.
- jorlow 4y agoI think this is mainly because such people are very career focused (and politically savvy to get to that point) and careful not to take a role that could even signal a step back. That and they typically will have enough financial security that they don't need to rush anything. "Lower level" folks are less likely to have both of these be true.
- anonymouskimmer 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fastow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fastow Andrew Fastow, former CFO of Enron, became a document review clerk after serving his jail sentence. But five years later he became something called a "Principal" for an analytics company called KeenCorp.
- za3faran 4y agoI think another part of it is that there are many "bootlickers" that will do whatever it takes to keep that director floating, because they think or feel that director will get them promoted, give them a bonus, etc. The moment that director walks in, they are prepared.
- matrix_overload 4y ago
- nsxwolf 4y agoIt encourages me to think that I may still yet have an inflection point.
- jpadkins 4y agoHe was sr director when he left google first time, so more like 800k+ He was probably making > 1.5M in his second stint at google. His big break was heading up mobile search ad revenue task force at the time mobile traffic was growing like crazy. Big oppty and he was up to the task. It's hard to say he really succeeded at flipkart, google shopping, and coinbase. Each of those were 2 year or less stints.
- haltingproblem 4y agoIn looking for a pattern in the data are we just being fooled by randomness?
- ninala 4y agoI've worked with Surojit; he was an absolute superstar. He rose through the ranks on the basis of mountains of backbreaking and incredibly impactful work.
- mindentropy 4y ago>basis of mountains of backbreaking and incredibly impactful work. This is the kind of BS MBAs say to each other.
- snapcaster 4y agoLike what?
- 1024core 4y agoHe also had a terrible reputation of being an arrogant prick. People hated working for him (or so I've been told). I've heard he made grown people cry.
- ninala 4y agoNone of that is true, so far as I know. I remember him as kind and considerate. That doesn't mean he wasn't demanding, but he was quite fair, and sensitive to the impact of his words and actions.
- throwawaybutwhy 4y ago> on the basis of mountains of backbreaking and incredibly impactful work I can spot (maybe unintentional) ambiguity from a mile away. Whose backs were broken, and who did the work.
- sanjayio 4y agoCan you spot a metaphor?
- berniedurfee 4y agoApparently he did the equivalent work of 500 engineers. Impressive!