7 ms·
“Why I Declined An Offer To Work At Instagram” Via Quora
- jonmrodriguez 14y agoDirect link to the Quora question: http://www.quora.com/Instagram/Did-anyone-decline-an-offer-to-work-at-Instagram http://www.quora.com/Instagram/Did-anyone-decline-an-offer-t...
- rhizome 14y agoActual link: http://www.quora.com/Instagram/Did-anyone-decline-an-offer-to-work-at-Instagram http://www.quora.com/Instagram/Did-anyone-decline-an-offer-t...
- abdurraheem 14y agoHis take could have been close to 5Mil+[1] had he joined the team. While i do believe there are people out there who are not motivated by money, to me claiming "..money doesn’t make much of a difference... most of it’s gone. I’m kind of glad it is." smells of cognitive dissonance. [1] http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/facebook-buys-instagram/ http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/facebook-buys-instagr...
- tgrass 14y agoYou write that as if cognitive dissonance were a bad thing...
- eli_awry 14y agoIt is when trying to explain one's motivations in a structured and informative way. Not so much when trying to emotionally deal with a missed opportunity. But this is presumably meant to be a reasoned response.
- tgrass 14y agoIt's too early for a reasoned response. He has to pass through anger and depression first. Cognitive dissonance might get him there.
- bentlegen 14y agoRe: "His take could have been close to 5Mil+[1] had he joined the team." So let's say he was hired. Maybe his engineering decisions send Instagram on another trajectory - one that doesn't involve a billion dollar exit. Maybe his impact on candidate interviews causes Instagram to end up with an entirely different-looking engineering team, one that isn't as successful. Maybe he develops considerable influence within the organization, and convinces the founders to take an earlier exit. This isn't a knock against Robert. This is just suggesting that things could have played out entirely differently were he onboard - even if he was by every measure a successful employee.
- pavel_lishin 14y agoMaybe an asteroid strikes their headquarters. Maybe this is a pretty good argument^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H justification for why every decision someone makes is the right^H^H^H^H^H wrong one.
- shalmanese 14y agoI know Robert and he genuinely does embody the "money doesn't matter" philosophy. Besides, he sold to Zynga and he's an early employee at Quora, I somehow doubt he's hurting right now.
- markthien 14y agobcoz u r an idiot !
- zbruhnke 14y agoPersonally I admire him for taking the opportunity he truly wanted and believed in. That's so much more important in the long run For those of you who think money is the only thing that matters, go make a good bit of it then see if it changes your life so dramatically like you think it will. The reality is unless you're an asshole money does not change you much at all. And if you're an entrepreneur it's not gonna make you stop from moving on to the next big idea either. It's easy to sit on one said and say "you know he's actually upset about this" but until you've sat on the other side of things and realized he has a job he loves at a company he truly believes in you're probably better off saying nothing at all. Just my $.02
- pavel_lishin 14y ago> For those of you who think money is the only thing that matters, go make a good bit of it then see if it changes your life so dramatically like you think it will. This is kind of predicated on you not hurting for money now. If you're fighting to pay off $100,000 worth of medical bills, or trying to figure out how to move to a different state for a job without getting totally hosed on a house you bought six months ago, money could make one hell of a difference.
- cgag 14y agoI also imagine gaining 40+ hours a week of free time would really improve my life even if I'm not struggling.
- zbruhnke 14y agoMy argument here is simply that the people who make it are the ones who go through those struggles and keep fighting. I promise you there were a few occasions in my life where I had to choose between toilet paper and toothpaste. My employees had no idea how bad I was struggling and had I ever let it on they probably would have jumped ship. I found a way to make it through those stuggles where most people would have quit. It's easy for people to say "Life's easier when you dont have to worry about paying off debt etc." what most of those people forget is that the ones of us who dont have those worries now probably had them just as bad or worse than you can imagine at some point. The media loves to talk about the rosy side of startups but they never print the article talking about the guys with stories like mine. At one point I literally took a job selling cars on the weekend just to be able to keep paying my employees and losing money on my business. Everyone I knew told me to quit, but I was just young enough and just dumb enough that I wouldn't. I believed in myself, my company and my employees too much to just give up. If I had listened to my friends and parents I would have quit, finished school and got a job in the rat race worrying about paying off those student loans. Instead I got it profitable and ended up selling the company. Unlike the poster below thinks though I don't have 40 free hours a week these days. I am working to build the next big thing because this is in my blood, its what I love to do and I'll be damned if money (in any direction) is going to be a factor in making my life turn out the way I want.
- tlrobinson 14y agoIs TechCrunch really allowed to post entire Quora answers as articles?
- rkudeshi 14y agoForbes has been doing it for a while and @Quora retweets them all the time, so they must be OK with it. (Haven't checked, but assuming they're licensed under Creative Commons?)
- Schwolop 14y agoForbes has an arrangement with Quora[1]. AFAIK TechCrunch does not. [1] http://www.quora.com/How-does-Forbes-decide-which-Quora-answers-to-post-on-their-website http://www.quora.com/How-does-Forbes-decide-which-Quora-answ...
- rkudeshi 14y agoOh wow, that is very interesting. I always thought it was Forbes cherry-picking content to repost, had no idea that it was Quora themselves selecting what to essentially "promote" on Forbes. Also, now I know why @Quora retweets the Forbes versions so often! (It always aggravates me, personally - I usually click through to the Quora version so I can see other replies, votes, comments, etc.)
- chris24 14y agoYes, Quora actually does allow that unless the user who posted the content marks it as not for reproduction. More info here: http://www.quora.com/Quora-Policies-and-Guidelines/How-can-material-on-Quora-be-reused-elsewhere-What-are-the-licensing-terms-What-about-in-the-case-where-a-user-has-selected-the-not-for-reproduction-option http://www.quora.com/Quora-Policies-and-Guidelines/How-can-m....
- lucian303 14y agoConsidering that one is more likely to win the lottery than strike it rich at any startup, I wouldn't have any regrets either.
- pavel_lishin 14y ago[ citation needed ]
- markthien 14y ago"I wouldn't have any regrets either" ...... c'mon ...... get real please .... talk is easy .... if you were him i m very sure that you regret very much by banging your head on the wall every morning.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- drhowarddrfine 14y agoI'm going to start writing "Why I quit/declined XYZ company". There must be a fortune in it considering all the equivalent articles floating around lately.
- pjmlp 14y agoMaybe it is just me, but I still don't get this craziness around Instagram.
- StavrosK 14y agoI don't even get the craziness around Quora...
- lucian1900 14y agoI know, me neither.