I had an unusual, negative interview experience with Ooyala several years ago. I rather suspect it is the company and not you. This happens. As you get more

I had an unusual, negative interview experience with Ooyala several years ago. I rather suspect it is the company and not you. This happens. As you get more experience in software or engineering, you will find yourself acing hard technical questions on interviews and knowing you have done well, yet, for some reason, the company won't hire you. In some cases, it will be because they, in fact, feel threatened, that you are better than they are. You can be a direct threat if the hiring manager is running a project that is in trouble and higher ups or investors are unhappy about his/her progress. From what I understand, Ooyala was founded by a couple of very young Google alumni; Google was their first job after Stanford. The heavy technical interviewing is a typical Google practice, and Googler startups frequently copy Google practices. Googler startups, especially those founded by ex-Googlers who have never worked anywhere other than Google, tend to be odd. There can be a teenage rock star whose success and adoring groupies have gone to his head problem. Some aspects of video technologies, such as developing and implementing video codecs, are extremely difficult. It is fairly common for people to grossly underestimate the difficulties if they are unfamiliar with the field and then become frustrated and emotional in dealing with the problems. This might also have contributed to your negative experience.