Hiring Processes with Gergely Orosz
Brian.
Speaker 2:Adam. How are you?
Speaker 3:I'm doing very well. How are you?
Speaker 1:I I feel this is a this is a very exciting Oxide and Friends moment.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Because we got a guest in the litter box. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm here. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:Geirge is in the litter box.
Speaker 3:Holy smokes. Gehrge, welcome.
Speaker 1:So, Gehrge Oros, great to have you with us.
Speaker 2:It's great to be here. I I just had an office tour, and we we, you know, checked out the I checked out the state of the art Dell machines that exist today. Now that they're making, it's it's it's really strong. And I saw, of course, the device that that you guys are building and the the story. It's it's it's really fascinating.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm more a software guy, but it it really captured my imagination. I'm actually just really, like, I I I feel like really excited just being here. There's so much energy and yeah. I I I now get what the buzz is about. I I was excited before when I went over the blog post, but seeing it is is is just very different.
Speaker 1:It is fun to see it. And they they hear it. Right? You gotta have the the actually, can I hear the difference? And, no, it's it's a lot of fun, and it's been great great having you here.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, Adam, we've got, Arian and RFK and Allan have been in here. So we've been,
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:Walking him through the the the saga of of building this thing. So it's been it's been a lot of fun. So in terms I mean, obviously, Gurget, it's just great to have you here in general. I've been I think I I can speak on behalf of both Adam and me that we are, long time fans, especially during the layoffs. You seemed to be very dialed in.
Speaker 1:I mean, it seemed like you had announcements before a company. I mean, you clearly had people inside of these companies letting you know what was coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I was doing that and it was interesting because like I I started to cover layoffs because I like I don't think I don't think of myself as a journalist and and for a little bit maybe I I was more of a journalist, but people don't think of me as a journalist either. So software engineers would message me when something was happening and what started to happen was these layoffs. And I was like, oh, is there a trend happening here? And you know, I started to share this and I started getting more these news.
Speaker 2:And at some point, actually, the mainstream press noticed that they they were asking I I can imagine. Yeah. They were asking me to to go on interviews on how I've been doing it because they saw me as, like, a reporter out of nowhere. But but then what started to happen is I just kind of got uneasy about this. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Because it it felt, you know, I was at layoff at at Uber when layoffs happened like Yeah. I I was a manager actually and I kind of was told my position is safe.
Speaker 2:I got a wing but but it still took a really big toll on me like I the only time I cried in my professional career was when at my company, my team people were were laid off and I never thought I would ever do that. But Yeah. You know, there there's stuff where you read about it and and when you experience it. And and there was a moment when, I actually just, like, got this, like, scoop about Meta doing a a layoff confirmed, like, a few days before anyone, a director of engineering, told me that it's gonna happen. And I I tweeted that out.
Speaker 2:I'm like, you know, scoop. And and someone like a tiny, tiny Twitter account with like 20 followers said like, I'm so mad at you. Like, my wife works there. We cannot sleep because of this. Like Interesting.
Speaker 2:Looking at. And I just felt back to that moment when I was at Uber and how mad I was at the journalist that they were leaking it and I'm not getting it from leadership. And I kind of like asked myself, you know, what am I doing? Like I'm like this is not what I wanna do. And and I I I just stopped, like sharing the details because I figured I'm I'm not helping anyone really.
Speaker 2:The news will get out eventually. There's people who whose job is this and and they're actually very good at getting it. You know, like, if if I don't share it, they're gonna share it a few hours later. But, you know, that that's where a lot of it I realized, this is not what I I I wanted. It was initially it was interesting but but later on it was not and something similar happened with like outages where I was covering them and I still cover like large outages but like for small startups I'm not that interested in like the glaring attention of what's happening right now.
Speaker 1:So Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 2:I feel a little bit
Speaker 1:of what I'm doing is bit
Speaker 2:of evolution. It's not to dissimilar to what you guys are doing. You know, you're also evolving, but, I'm, you know, I'm I find myself in this interesting position of, like, going from engineer manager to a writer if you will or a little bit of journalist. And I'm figuring out, you know, like, one thing we talked about is like integrity and and what what what is it that what is my integrity and where do I wanna be. And that's actually something that we we kinda bonded over because it's, you know, I was we'll talk about it.
Speaker 2:It's a really important part in your hiring process.
Speaker 1:The hiring process. Yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. And it's because, you know, Adam and I went through a bunch of layoffs at Sun.
Speaker 1:I mean, I I tried to count them up at one point and a lot. And when you I mean, the humanity of it. Because it's like and and there yes. There are, you know, you know, new time that talked about it earlier. I know you're on your change log podcast that, like, there are, you know, something kinda early layoffs where everyone else gets work, swear, because the economy is still going well.
Speaker 1:But then like you start cutting into like muscle, and then bone, and then you've got people who are like, you know, who are whose lives are really uprooted, whose kids' lives are uprooted. And you're beginning to realize, like, wow, this is like really, there's a lot of humanity under here. And that's, well, and I and I mean, it's a good segue, actually, into what we're talking about today, because, hiring is all about the the humanity of it all. And the, you know, I think, Adam, I think I I can barely speak for both of us that, you know, the further we got into our own careers, the more important the humanity of it becomes. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And so we, you know, the hiring process that we outlined on Friday, so we, have had an RFP on this for it's RFP 3. It's it's one of our very first RFPs. And we can talk a little bit about the specifics of of Oxide's hiring process.
Speaker 3:Well, it's worth noting that so RFD request for discussion is the kind of mechanism we use internally for almost anything, like almost every durable decision that we want to talk about and discuss happens in that form. And so as Brian saying, RFD 1 was describing that process. I don't know what r f t 2 was. I'm sure it was very important too. But this is I I just heard
Speaker 1:a little so what do you think r f t 2 could possibly be actually without looking? Do you know what our f t 2 is?
Speaker 3:I'm gonna guess it has to do with the values.
Speaker 1:It is. Yeah. Mission based values. I am I'm I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go to r v 2. It's like, no.
Speaker 1:It's some, like, API that we were
Speaker 3:That's a API that we just threw out. Absolutely. No.
Speaker 1:Of course. Exactly. It's been abandoned.
Speaker 2:So which ROV are you at right now if you're numbering it?
Speaker 3:Oh, gosh.
Speaker 1:Oh, where are we at? We're at 4
Speaker 2:Well, that's
Speaker 3:a good quiz for you. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh okay. Yeah. Okay. So I think without looking, I'm gonna say we're at like 4, we're beyond 440, so I'm gonna say like 442. Where are we at?
Speaker 3:I got 442. Is that what you said? Oh my goodness. Right on the nose.
Speaker 1:I just said 442. Was that right?
Speaker 3:Right right on the nose.
Speaker 1:Oh, better lucky than good.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute. You filed the last 10 RFTs. No. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:Just now. Right. Better lucky than good. And it will okay. But now is oh, to to go for the the trifecta here.
Speaker 1:Okay. And then r v two is mission principles.
Speaker 2:I assume that we have, like I'm just doing it because I'm the guest. I I guess that's a question. Yeah. You bet. It's are these, like, Google Docs or or some sort of
Speaker 1:Great question. And this so these are these are engineering documents. And one of the things that we wanted, which doesn't sound that complicated, is, like, can can the world give us a Google docs front end with a git back end? Because we wanted it like, what we would love is something that render so these are in AsciiDoc. Well, they were in Markdown and ASCIDOC.
Speaker 1:And then and I thought, like, oh, like, some people do it in Markdown, and some people do it in ASCIDOC. And then, Adam, were you in the intervention when it was revealed to me that when
Speaker 3:It was like, well, that's true in the most technical sense.
Speaker 1:In the most
Speaker 2:technical sense.
Speaker 3:One of those sets includes exactly and only you, Brian.
Speaker 1:Right. It's I've been one of these moments where, like, oh, I'm the only one doing it in markdown. Everybody else is doing it in ASCII doc. You're, like, okay. I'll convert my RFTs now.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, everybody. So I converted all my so they're all in ASCII doc. But we, because what you need is that you you gotta have that the rigidity that you get with with true change control, and you wanna understand, so then we want I mean, I love the Google Docs front end. It's great. But, so we kinda end up with this hybrid system where, it's it's an RFP repo and and Ascii doc, and then we've done some unbelievable work.
Speaker 1:Ben Leonard and team have done unbelievable work on the rendering of that. So we've got a site that renders it, renders RFTs, and then renders the discussions.
Speaker 2:The the big question is, how do you do the discussions? Is is it in, like, comments?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So we do we have pull requests. Yeah. Adam Adam, do you wanna expand on that? It's
Speaker 3:I mean, I think I'd say it's sort of there's not one size fits all, but yet often in the comments. And then, you know, as we get to triple digit comments on the thing, often that descends, like, then we have some meeting that's recorded and summarized and so forth. So starts in the comments and then goes where it needs to go.
Speaker 1:And we we really want I mean, I think this kinda came out of our the RFP process came out of our own experience at Sun where there was Adam and I were together at Sun, and and there was this architectural review board that and the kind of the the big realization that we had is, like, all of the value of the architectural review board, and none of the pain would happen if the room were empty. If you did all the preparation to go in front of the architectural board, and then went in front of a bunch of empty chairs, like, you would have all all of the because the the the the value of that process was forcing us to write our ideas down. Yeah. And because when you when you're forced to write your ideas down, you realize that you find the holes in your own ideas. Right?
Speaker 1:And, we found a lot of holes in our own ideas that way. So we that that's what we tried to mimic with the RFP process. Like, how do I get how do we get the the the rigor that you get from forcing someone to write down their own ideas, the self review that you get, the ability, the transparency that you get without the, like, I do do not need the committees rubber stamping things or or worse, like, arguing over minutiae. I mean, god. There's so many horror stories, though.
Speaker 1:So that's what we,
Speaker 2:but it's
Speaker 3:a it's a great archive. You know, when when new folks join the team, it means they they get to at their own pace or not at all or, yeah, intermittently replay the history of the company and see why why were decisions made, at least contemporaneous. Like, what were we thinking at the moment when we made some calamitous decision and then maybe the next RFP that that apologizes for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I get this. And just the last question on on on this topic, because, you know, both of you have done software and hardware before, but, like, your your, like, oxide is really a bit of both. Do you think that RFPs are kind of more important because you are doing hardware? I mean, you know, this is, you know, pretty important.
Speaker 2:You're gonna be manufacturing stuff like it. It feels a bit more dribble, whereas with software, you could get away with, you know, it's it's easy. It's faster to iterate. You you can always change it. Like, if if this was a pure software company, you know, you found it.
Speaker 2:Do you think it would have still found it?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Because we actually the the r f d process actually, was something that we that that the folks at Giant came to. That's a process that we really polished a lot at Oxide and became very important to Oxide, but we actually initiated it at Joint.
Speaker 1:And it was the and and you did something similar, I think, at Delphix. Right? I don't mean I'm
Speaker 3:sorry. Yeah. At at Delphix, when I was CTO, we we had what called it a 1 pager process. And that was sort of a weird misnomer because even the template, required, like, 3 pages, I think.
Speaker 1:K.
Speaker 3:But it was, a a little more terse, but a little more focused just in terms of, Gerge, about kind of product requirements and letting everyone participate in that kind of process.
Speaker 2:Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think so I think that, you know, we we kind of I think, Adam, you and I kind of charted similar journeys and, like, oh, thank god. We're, like, free of these architectural review boards. It's like, alright. We get everyone just do whatever you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then you're, like, okay. Actually need a little bit more. It would be really helpful to get some people, like, why this again. And not having having folks write down the motivation for things, and the problem that's being solved.
Speaker 1:What what problem are we solving here? Very, very important. So we don't we try not to be overly rigid about it, and there's certainly things that we do that don't necessarily have RFPs. But, the, yeah. And as Sean Sean is pointing out in the in the chat, there's actually a, one of the things that we did to and, Sean, I don't know if you're deliberately trying to segue us back to the topic or not, but this is masterful of so.
Speaker 1:The, the RFPs actually themselves became a really important part of our hiring process. Because one of the things that we would do is when we would have a candidate that we're, like, okay, we're really interested in this person. We would get them into the RFPs, so they could see, like, now you get to see everything that we're doing. And we really want you to actually, understand everything we're doing because it it can be really exciting to be at a computer company, and it is exciting, but when you get into the details, it can also be like, oh my god. This is horrific.
Speaker 1:Well, yes. It's also horrific. It's there's a lot of detail.
Speaker 2:I kinda love it. If if a company, you know, back when I was working as a software engineer or even an engineer manager, the company said, like, hey, in the hiring process, if you, you know, get far along, you're gonna see the RFTs. I might have just interviewed for sake of seeing those RFTs.
Speaker 1:Totally. Right? And I think that it's so and I think that part of what we're trying to we're we're trying to do 2 things. 1, we're trying to avoid the situation where I think that has happened in many people happened to me in my career, probably happened to you, and certainly the people you know, where you, like, you think the company is one thing, and then you get in and you're like, oh
Speaker 2:my god. Like so this this this happened when I joined Uber in 2016. In the first three months, we had 2 hires. 1 of them quit after 2 days, and the other one quit at the end of the week. 1 of them came from Google, and the other one came somewhere else.
Speaker 2:And what turned out, we kind of had my manager at the time had a we had a quick retro on this. And what happened is we were kind of overselling stuff. We're saying, we're Google just like earlier. And the Google engineer is like, that's amazing. I I like red tape.
Speaker 2:And, you know, when they arrive, they realize, like, oh, okay. This is not Google like earlier. This is, like, duct tape held together and on call hell and all that. And then the second engineer quit after they they saw, like, what on call was like. And then, like, our takeaway was, like, alright, let's try to be a bit more real.
Speaker 2:But again, like, don't forget, the way we hired back then was the typical, I guess, Silicon Valley hiring, if you will. You know, like, a full day of, like, screening full day of on-site where you can ask some questions and we give you an offer and people join because it's it's it's Uber. Right. And so you didn't get any feel for the culture. And even even 2 years later, there weren't many people that love.
Speaker 2:But there was this engineer who was here for 2 months and then that person went back to booking.com. And I was like, why? Like, in terms of like, I thought our culture was pretty good. The compensation was certainly a little back then a little bit better. And this guy said like, look, like, the team is is just chaotic.
Speaker 2:Like, I had order there. And for some reason, during the like, it was it was a bit of a shame because that person should have never joined, but somehow Yeah. They just didn't see this and it would you know look no one made any mistake but we just didn't have that transparency and I think most companies don't have that so the fact that you're creating some of this is is amazing.
Speaker 1:It would for exactly that reason, because we wanna be very transparent about where we are and where we aren't. And I think and I know because the same thing happened to me, where I was kinda when certainly, when I was coming to join, I was asking questions, and it was like, wow. This sounds like amazing. And then you get it, you're like, this is a chicken coop. They're like, who they're like, no.
Speaker 1:No. You we got brought you in to fix the chicken coop. Like, oh, oh, okay. Alright. So I'm just to implement the things that you told me already existed.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well then. And I I think that it's, you know, when you're trying to get someone to join you, you kinda feel like, oh, no. No. We can't tell them the truth because they won't join us.
Speaker 1:Like they so like, what what spin this like little this little fiction. And I understand why people do it, but it's it's a shame because you end up attracting first of all, you end up attracting potentially the wrong person. If you could you could attract the right person for the wrong reasons. You also maybe miss an opportunity where you're like, no, no. Like, we don't do right now.
Speaker 1:Our on call situation is a mess. It's an absolute mess. Engineers like problems. Right? So it's like we're actually in, but but it's something that we wanna get better at.
Speaker 2:Hold on. Can I pause for a second? Yeah. You're a freaking hardware company. What is your on call?
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No. No. No.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:No. No. No. That's fine.
Speaker 1:I was kinda speaking as Uber. Our on call situation is fine, everybody. Okay. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:I I thought that was all set. I was, like, no. Oh, it's getting paid on a Wednesday.
Speaker 1:It's gonna be a joy. No. No. No. Our but but it's just, like, being being candid about, like, where are the problems, why, you know.
Speaker 1:And so we did it, and getting folks into the RVs was really, really helpful because one, they would just, like, hear the voice of oxide, see, you know, kind of what we're doing, and see what all the things that we haven't done yet or the things that are kinda contentious. And, Sean, who kinda mentioned this in the chat, I may remember vividly Sean, when you were, you were in the RFTs, and it was just like, I'm getting excited the more of these I I get more and more excited about the company, and that's great. So now, like, by the time you're kinda coming into conversations, you've got so much more context, that we so we found it to be really helpful to be I I think it is overwhelmingly in a company's interest to be transparent. I think because I do think that, like, one of the things the thing you're kinda trying to do here when you are adding to the team, I mean, it it really is team formation, and you are trying to find folks that are like, the the team is the right fit for you, and you're the right fit for the team.
Speaker 1:And if you're not the right fit, it doesn't mean, like, that's not necessarily a value judgment. That's like, that could be a reflection on us. It could be we've had plenty of folks where it's like, we're just not ready for you yet. Like, the the the the skill set, like, we can see that they for what you are, like, you need more order than we have right now for where we were or are. And so I think we mean it earnestly.
Speaker 1:I think people feel like they're being, you know it's like, oh, well, you know, you say that to everybody. It's like, well, okay. But it's like, you know, it is it can be true. It's often true that it's just not a fit.
Speaker 3:It was also the case that
Speaker 2:Sorry. Go for it.
Speaker 3:If you, show up and you've say 450 RFPs times a 1,000 words or whatever is not something I'm interested in ingesting a part of. Like, that's, you know, that's fine too. Right? That's that's like we work in a particular way and it's really not for everyone.
Speaker 2:No. It
Speaker 1:is not for everybody. Yeah. It is definitely not for everybody. I mean and I think which is, and I think that that's that's okay. I mean, I think that, you know, we've got certain idiosyncrasies.
Speaker 1:I mean, we do we like to write and reading is really important for us. And I I mean, I I to say that I'm very pro literacy, which makes it sound pejorative, but I don't mean it that way. I mean, I guess I don't well, maybe a little bit that way. But we I I I mean, it's not necessarily the fit for every engineering organization or every engineer. Right?
Speaker 1:But it's, it it has been, I I would so, Adam, you're asking about the over under on or the number of words that are in the RFTs.
Speaker 3:Oh, well, yeah. In chat, I was asking that. Well, I mean, the other thing that's true of RFTs is that I don't know if you feel this way, Brian, but I feel like, you know, and I've been at Oxide a little while, they've attained escape velocity. Like, there is more RFD words being written than I can read. So
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 1:for sure. Oh, my god. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, not even and well, it also the then you also find that there are will be, like, an RFD that I will re that I will read at the time and, like, not really understand and then come back, like, 2 years later when I'm really suffering through a problem. Like, oh, now I get it.
Speaker 2:So it's
Speaker 1:like, if we were to, like, they're the RFPs that I've read, a smaller number than the total of RFPs by a long shot. Then the RFPs that I, like, I feel like I've read and I understand.
Speaker 2:Day. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But so yeah we so our hiring process and so what we had kind of, publicized on, and I wanted the reason I wanted to make it public, I I felt like so we have got a couple of idiosyncrasies that are important. One is that we do have a very writing intensive process. And it is a very, it's a front loaded process, and I know people there's a criticism, which is like, you're asking people to do too much. And I get that. What we try to do is ask people to do the things that we think are important for anyone contemplating a next job.
Speaker 1:Like, we're not asking you to do coding assignments. We're not asking you to do things that are, like, go solve our technical problem. We're not asking you to do what we think is make work. We are asking you to pull together a portfolio that we think is valuable to you. It it's kind of the things that a, like, a really in-depth interview would ask you about, and you get to pull it together kinda once.
Speaker 1:So the, we want you to talk about the things that you're you're proud about. We want you to the the things that you built. And we know that, you know, not everyone, if you if you build things in the open, it's great. If you haven't, you know, that there's a challenge there. And I know people are like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Like, I've done only proprietary stuff. It's like, yeah, you're gonna need to describe it. Like, how how do you think you're gonna get your next job? I mean, at some point, like, you're gonna need to describe in some terms that you feel does not violate the the kind of confidence of your employer. You're gonna need to disclose what you built.
Speaker 1:Oh,
Speaker 2:it's it's it's kinda fair, I think. And it's interesting because I think you're one of the very few places that that do this in terms of especially thinking about engineering. This is more common for, like, let's say product. Yes. Or or certain roles where where, you know, you you're you're not as hands on because because with both, but software engineering, hardware engineering, the the job itself, you could contribute just for that, and you talked about that.
Speaker 2:So it's a bit more rare, but this is super useful. So a lot of interview coaching, and just software engineering is about, like, alright, you know, practice, like, the the big tech interviews when you're interviewing at Google, Facebook, whatever, it's, you know, it's 3 it's 3 pillars. 1, practice coding, which is on lead code. You just do this algorithm of interviews, which you do. 2nd, the system design, if you're a senior engineer, which is, again, you can practice.
Speaker 2:And third one is is they call the STAR method or whatnot. It's it's describe the stuff that you did. And now now you actually just you're asking people to to put that together, you know, your your portfolio, your background, but most people don't ever do that. So what I what what I like about your interview process is it it sounds like if someone goes through these first phases, they will and even if for whatever reason either they they decide it's not for them or or it just doesn't work out, they're gonna be better off for their next job interview because now they'll have a mental model. They'll have resources they can, look back onto, which is actually a lot more structured than, like, this, like, traditional, interview coaching would would go to go into.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's interesting. And and, yeah, it's I I we think so too. And, actually, it's it's amazing the number of people who, in their materials, have said, hey. This process is really valuable for me.
Speaker 1:And just like, I thank you know, thanks for reading this. And, because I one of the comments online was like, I don't think they read everyone's materials. One thing I would like to say is we we definitely read everyone's materials. It is really important to us. We know people put a lot of time and energy into it.
Speaker 1:And we wanna put a lot of time and energy into into to to, reviewing them thoroughly.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm gonna drop in a question here. Because the I'm just placing myself as a interviewee because a lot of listeners will will think about this. The most frustrating thing is when you're interviewing for a job as software or hardware engineer is you put a bunch of energy in, you do your best and then you just get
Speaker 1:a no. No. I know.
Speaker 2:Do you or do you
Speaker 1:give feedback or are you able to get feedback? We don't. And we don't I mean, the and we don't give feedback, and the the and I would say that, like, to anyone out there who really wants feedback, if you wanna DM me, I will, I I I will give you some measure of that feedback if I can. I think we can't always a a couple of things to know about that, and I I do think that there's the the y combinator actually has got a a an interesting piece. I'm always always troubled when I agree with Paul Graham on anything, so I always wanna do, like, this kinda, like, check, and add about it, maybe you can sort of check me on this.
Speaker 1:But have you seen their piece on why they don't give feedback? No. And it's interesting because they're like, look, part of the reason we don't give feedback is we are so oversubscribed, that our reason for rejecting you is probably bad. It it and I I think that there it's or or like or fickle or capricious. And I do think that, like, one of the major problems that we have is, like, we just have, I mean, it's it's a great problem to have, but it I I and I know it sounds, like, absurd when I say it's been one of the biggest challenges of oxide, has been turning away people who I think would probably succeed here.
Speaker 1:And just because we just we're not trying to hire 400 people, you know, and that that that and it's it's really, really tough. And, you know, we when we go through the evaluation of these materials, we have to really look we we have to be very selective. And I I mean, I hate that about it.
Speaker 2:Well, also, like, one thing I'm just gonna, like, maybe specify it. Like, I I think, you know, people would expect feedback for for like, you're doing something a little bit different. You're asking people to to build a portfolio, and I kind of understand that sometimes feedback would just be you're just not the right fit for us. Like, if if you if you could be honest and, you know, that's that doesn't that's actionable. The folks who are usually really upset about the lack of feedback is someone who has given an assignment to build, you know, like, a very typical thing in in software is, like, build this application.
Speaker 2:Every candidate gets the same thing, and then they're gonna it's a it's a take home exercise and we're gonna evaluate it based on, you know, code quality, how it works, etcetera. Now that is it's you don't do that in your interview, but when you do that kind of stuff and and you build it, you can give objective feedback which regardless of if you advance or not is valuable. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I I think it's a little bit different because what I understand that what you're doing differently is, you know, like, it's you're you're actually not doing this. You know, you can give that you can you can if you want to, you can give that feedback on coding or on architecture or some of these things, but you're actually, like, you kinda sized up this thing. So I kind of understand why you would not either want to or or be able to, and especially, I think as long as you're up and about, it's totally fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I I again, I would like to and I think that there are then there are cases, certainly, when, we, have, you know, taken people aside. It's like, hey. Look. You know, here's the piece that we're missing here.
Speaker 1:We really love your materials, and this is the missing piece. And often folks do do know what I mean, if you read the job description closely, like, you prob if I you probably know what the missing piece is. I would say that the people there have been some people online who get very upset that they're not getting feedback from oxide. And I again, I completely unsure where it's coming from. And then I'll go through, like, the evaluations of their materials.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, yeah. You're not, like, you weren't close. Like, people saw, like, real serious red flags in your materials. And, like, I I'm not gonna show that with you. I'm not gonna tell you that, like, you know, it's like I that's that that's tough.
Speaker 1:This is
Speaker 2:the same thing by the way. Like, even for companies that do get feedback, like, and I I know like a couple of founders, like, you will get feedback on the very straightforward stuff and that that is hard to argue, against. But when it comes to personal or or some very glaring things, you're gonna pass on it because it might not be your place. So so even even the places, like, the places that are very big of giving feedback, they will not give you that kind of honest feedback that that person might need. You know, you typically need someone closer to you or someone because again, like You want that feedback to be actionable.
Speaker 1:Right? You want someone to be able to be like, like, oh, okay. Like, and I guess that's, you know, when you're talking about, like, those coding exercises. It's like, oh, okay. It's like, this is what I needed to to go, you know, go do.
Speaker 1:And, I mean, I would say that part of the reason we wanted to make our process public is the one piece of feedback I I I would give people is we take the materials really, really, really seriously. And even if you you you know folks at Oxide or you're coming from a really prestigious background or there's something you're just like, oh, I get this is like, of course, they're gonna like, I'll, you know, I and, you know, you they'll get like, I can't wait, you know, look forward to you calling me, and I'll give you some more details on this question. It's like, there's not gonna be a phone call where we ask you for more details on this because we, like, your time to do it is right now. And, we want you to to put it all out there. And I I think that so, you know, that that's been been really important.
Speaker 1:One of the questions in the chat is like, how do you manage this as a company scales? Because this is like really, time intensive. And it is I mean, it really is time intensive. I mean, it's one of those things that is, it's been but it's really important to us. And, you know, we one of the things that's important to me personally is, like, we are gonna continue to do very thoughtful review for materials.
Speaker 1:However, it's in, you know, I I I think that no matter how big we get, that's gonna remain, important. One of the questions is, like, hey. Aren't you excluding all, all junior folks? And I know this is another challenge, is that, like and, Adam, I know you and I both feel this personally because, you know, we want to be the kind of company that would have hired us when we were coming straight out of school. And it's another challenge, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, we we hold every application to the same standards. We pay everyone the same wage. And I mean, it's tough. I was talking to a college student from my alma mater who had reached out last week.
Speaker 3:He was very interested in oxide. You know, oxide has been getting a lot of hype at, at the school, which is great. And I told him that he's very welcome to apply, Encourage him to apply and know that those are the standards we're gonna be using. The standards of folks who've been in the industry, you know, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15 years. You know, a member of the team is a member of the team, which is tough.
Speaker 3:But that's it's also where we've landed.
Speaker 1:It's where we've landed and, you know, I think that that's a that's a bit that we would wanna get, you know, we would in the abstract, in the limit, we do wanna be able to have, you know, be able to be a first stop for folks, but, we're not there now. We need to, if you know someone who can, you know, buy a bunch of racks, you know, that would be very helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But but I'm just again, this is, like, more of an outsider we will not hire juniors because we cannot afford. They were typically the platform teams. They were like very small teams who are, for example, there was a team that that was rebuilding Uber's payment system from 2 systems to 1. It was processing $60,000,000,000 a year, and there was a very core team that only consisted of experienced people.
Speaker 2:It was this very small team that did a lot of things because turns out that if you have experienced people, they can move faster at least initially. And once once you build it out, that's when you can onboard people. So there there's and the product teams who are building, like, like, throwaway products that might or might not work, they actually hired more of the less experienced people because it was just it didn't like, there was a lot more room for error, a lot more room for learning. So my my my observation is, I think, you know, it'll go go same with with with certain companies, even groups within the company. It'll probably change over time like, you know, like, oxide, you know, 5 years from now, like, I'm sure you're gonna have like like growingly groups where you can or will or you might even you might even just really want to onboard.
Speaker 2:But I mean, you guys have seen this at at your previous places as well. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And we've seen Also, how do
Speaker 2:you think about, like, how it might evolve even if it's not, like, today? Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know what? And I don't know the answer to that. I I would say that we are, because there there was a lot of there are a lot of things that we've done that I'm, like, this will never scale to 60 people. And we're kind of at 60 people and still doing a bunch of them. So it has caused me to, like, question my own beliefs about what does and doesn't scale.
Speaker 1:And I do think that, like, we do think we do things differently than a lot of other companies, and so people are like, that can't work. It's like, are you we're used to saying that because if it does work, it kind of upends a lot of what you're thinking about companies. So I don't know. I is is the the answer again, and we know it's not for everybody. I would say the one thing and because, one thing I I didn't talk about in the RFP, but folks should know is that part of the way we got to a written process is through some not at Oxide, but in previous lives, some, some, how to say this gently?
Speaker 1:Pre Prevaricators?
Speaker 3:What's that? Well Prevaricators? Fabulists?
Speaker 1:Fabulists. Yeah. I I had some hires that revealed that everything I was doing with hiring was wrong. And I Tell me more. Well, yeah, what what let's just say that, well, we made some changes.
Speaker 1:So I will say this, that you, if you've never worked with someone who doesn't have integrity, who's a good liar, you do not know the amount of damage a person who is a, a, a person who's got, who is political, and manipulative, and dishonest, and charismatic. If you have all those things in the same person, you that's deadly. And they are they can destroy your organizations. And you will, they're charismatic, so guess what? They interview pretty well.
Speaker 1:And they've got they've got tricks that they use, whether they have developed them deliberately or implicitly, where they are able to own a conversation, and they are able to keep a conversation on a home game. And so you come out of an interview being, like, wow, this person seems great. And so we I'll actually give you a very concrete example that I did not hire. But as I I when, so, Joyant, fired the founding CEO. It's good.
Speaker 1:Fired the day my daughter, now 11, was born. So a little over 11 years ago. I don't know if you if you have kids, but those of you do have kids, and Adam, I know you know this. It's like, you've got that moment when, like, baby's just been born, family doesn't know yet, and there's this kind of like beautiful calm because everyone knows that you've gone to the hospital, but no one but everyone knows kinda leave you alone. And you don't know but you know that, like, we have a baby, we just have a lot of people.
Speaker 1:So you know, it's it's great. It's like you and baby and everything. It's very nice. And into that calm comes my phone. I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 1:It's the it's the it's the CEO. It's I'm like, hello, Dave. Brian, it's Dave. Ford just fired me. And I'm like, okay, Dave.
Speaker 1:Well, I have a baby. That's my news. We'll we'll we'll we'll we'll exchange news. And I'm just thinking, like, goddamn it. Like, now these things are, like, absolutely locked in history.
Speaker 1:I mean, like, I know the time of day. You know, I know exactly the and my poor daughter, I knew this was gonna happen. And but it's like she is already I mean, she fortunately, she's got a terrific sense of humor. So she's like, hey. It's been 11 years ago since that dude was fired or whatever.
Speaker 3:Is that what she says every birthday?
Speaker 1:That means she does. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She just says, oh my god.
Speaker 1:It was half a century ago today that they've done this. And so with the after that we started the search for a CEO, and we've never participated a CEO search, it is a wild and I mean, it is especially if you are at a company that has just fired its CEO. Well, you were CTO back then? I I was actually, not yet. I was the VP of ensuring it's time.
Speaker 2:Got it.
Speaker 1:So there there was the the other founder was the CTO. He'd be he'd be fired sometime later. But the, I so we were interviewing CEO candidates. And if you are a company that does not have a CEO, you will not find this pretty surprising, but you are not wildly attractive to a list CEO candidates. So I got the I got this kind of tour of c list CEO candidates.
Speaker 1:And, Adam, this is where in HBO Silicon Valley, I know we know peers that have been able have been unable to watch, you know, when they're all reporting into the chair. That is the episode where there are plenty of folks in Silicon Valley that are just like, oh, turning it off. Not watching
Speaker 3:it. I have to work I have to the the chair gave me a tough status report just today.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And I because I know as I recall, like, that was part of the that was that might have been one of the precipitating. So you're like, nope. Not doing this anymore.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. We I reported to the chair. We fired our CEO. There was total confusion, and we also talked to some c listers.
Speaker 1:And so the c listers are amazing. So in a particular had a guy, and I saw much earlier in my career, I just didn't know hadn't dealt with many CEOs. So I just didn't know what to ask, and had this guy who seemed great, and just like very charismatic, and very the who's terrific, and, this is back in the day, was one of the calmest people I've ever met. I mean, he was he he he would engage
Speaker 3:That's what you need in support. Right? Like, the building is burning down. Building is burning down. Totally.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:The the and this guy knew how to pet the chicken. You know? He's like, it's they're there, chicken. And they're like, it's okay, chicken. Chicken, it's gonna be okay.
Speaker 1:And the chicken would like the chicken would kinda calm down. You know? He's he's so good, he's so measured, and, you know, didn't swear and was just very mild manner. And he came to me. He's like, Brian, I I understand that we're interviewing this person's name.
Speaker 1:Like, yeah. Yeah. We're interviewing. Brian, I worked with him at Oracle. My god.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that Michael. Okay. Yeah. Brian, he's a baby eater, Brian. He's a baby eater.
Speaker 3:And I'm like,
Speaker 1:he's a he's a baby. Baby. I'm like, literally the calmest person I like, he's a baby eater. He's like, he's a baby eater. And I I'm like, okay.
Speaker 1:You've just said baby eater 3 times. I'm like, oh, it's like, okay. So we need to actually, and we and I did, and then I'm like, okay. I need to dig, like, a lot more into this person. And, the and did actually and dug a lot more and discovered that, like, okay.
Speaker 1:This is a very charismatic person who is is a baby eater. I I think he eats babies, is is what is the the conclusion that I can do. But I think that he's a he is a a and I what I realized was like, man, I got played in that interview. I got played so because he was flattering and charismatic, and, you know, had all the right body language. And it's like, you get fooled by that stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, I would love to tell you that I wasn't, but I was. And, you know, it's really hard to to detect that stuff in someone who's got that kind of charisma, and those people ruined companies. And I we didn't hire that person, but I I made other hires later, years later, that that were like this and did an enormous amount of damage. And one of the things that we came to is, like, alright. How do we not hire someone like that?
Speaker 1:And one of the observations was, you know what I observed about these folks? They don't like to write things down. It it because the writing something down is to kinda leave behind the ground truth.
Speaker 2:You're, like, now giving me flashbacks. There was, sorry, there was like a product person I I worked with for a long time like like, you know, like I I was some engineering manager and this was personal, like multiple levels above. And what I start to notice is is this person would travel to a lot of the sites, would travel to our sites, travel to, you know, different sites, and and always sit down with people and, like, tell tell, you know, me stuff, tell someone else stuff. And what I started to notice is, like, first of all, just the things that, like and we agreed on stuff verbally. And I started to do with my team.
Speaker 2:And then, like, later, I I was, like, it's it's done. And there's, like, there was it felt a little bit of miscommunication. But when I talk with other people, turns out, like, this person started to hold everyone a little bit something different. Yeah. And then, I I started to just ask this person, like, hey, like, as a product strategy, could you just please write it down and send it out to everyone?
Speaker 2:And guess what happened? Didn't write it down. And I just had this nagging feeling, and I'm just going back to, you know, I'm I'm not like this person if I'm not gonna say it was necessary integrity but it was really confusing people, it it made things really, really political because the only way you could actually like, the people who were successful in that in that organization is where the people who spend the most time with this person. Right. And there was this lack of commitment because as you said, once you write it down, you are committed.
Speaker 2:It's it's it's a truth and and that you're you can go back and say, you know, what has changed because things kept changing and we never had a law, we never knew. So I'm just like, I'm I think you know, I'm I'm gonna take this away from here. I think anyone who's listening, I I would suggest the takeaway is, you know, if if you're first of all, if if you want to make sure that you're not perceived like this write things down because that person again this is not someone who had ill intentions but but it came across like this so I think as a leader if you're not writing things down, you might just become one of these people accidentally.
Speaker 1:Accidentally. Yeah. That's a good point. That it's not necessarily even deliberate. That that you and you don't realize that, like, oh, I am actually leaving a different impression with everybody.
Speaker 1:Like, maybe I think I'm saying the same thing, but like, no, you're not actually, you're saying slightly different things.
Speaker 2:But it that's even more interesting to me that you you've kind of found that this the the writing, works. That's fascinating. I I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah. So, I mean, what we found is is there was a a kind of a reticence to write things down. And so when we because after some of these bad hires, we're like, we need to strip hiring down to the studs. And, like, everything we're doing everything that that I felt everything I was doing was wrong, with respect to hiring, and we need to rebuild that from the ground up. And one of the the the the the kind of things that people like, you know
Speaker 2:Quick question. Yeah. Is this joint or was this oxide?
Speaker 1:This is a joint. Yeah. Yeah. Joint. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. This is where we got very lucky. You know, I got very lucky to have made these atrocious hires. You know?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Before you own the company. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. Totally. Because I, you know, literally have the that mean have some of these very bad experiences to thank for what we've done here. And, like, you don't wanna be a victim of your you don't wanna have to have these bad experiences.
Speaker 1:So I'm hoping we can save some other folks the trip because, you just the the scope of damage is so broad that can be done. A real deep organizational damage. So the but enforcing folks to write things down. And then the other kind of thing that that that was important to to us, certainly starting the company, it's something I I admired about Amazon is the kind of the codification of values. I I take issue with these specific values.
Speaker 1:Some of them were good, some of them were not so good, but really wanted to use our values as a lens for hiring very deliberately. So, and then I wanted to ask other folks the the question that, you know, when I that that knew we wanted to go do oxide, or actually, I shouldn't say that. All I knew was I wanted to go start a company, and I wanted to do it with Steve. This is both kind of way way way back in the day. And a, I was a friend of mine who's a CTO was, walking with me.
Speaker 1:And he's like, you know, when have you really been happiest in your career? And and why is that? And as I've been thinking about that and, Adam, I mean, I don't know about about what your answer to that question would be, but, man, it's like, we at Fishworks, there was so there was a moment that was really just great at FishWorks. And as I was thinking, like, man, there's a moment that was really great when we were doing d trays together. There's a moment that was really great at Joyant when I was working together on on Triton.
Speaker 1:And what I realized for me personally is, like, the great moments are all around a team. Like, that's what I loved. It it is, like, team coming together to solve a hard technical problem. And, you know, that's when I've been happiest. And when I when when have I been unhappiest?
Speaker 1:It's like, well, I've been unhappiest when in a in in a fear driven organization. Right? It's not it's not a hugely deep thought. And I just felt like it was really useful for me to kind of think about that, because I just hadn't really processed that. It's kind of a stupid thing to say, but I just hadn't.
Speaker 1:And, I think that getting people that answer that in writing was really important. And then we did something else and out of my Sorry.
Speaker 2:Getting people to answer what in writing.
Speaker 1:When have you been happiest and what? When have you been unhappiest in war?
Speaker 3:And I would say even stupider. I never asked myself those questions until I saw it in this form. And it's in it. When I was applying to oxide, these questions, you know, you say these questions are brutal. Okay.
Speaker 3:What are the questions? When have you been happiest and why? What's something you're proud of? Like, those are brutal questions. Really?
Speaker 3:It's like, yeah. They require a ton of introspection. Are you you come up with a pithy answer and you think, is that really it? That's really when I've been happiest? So it's it's remarkable how, you know, how challenging those simple questions are.
Speaker 2:Yeah. One thing I'm just reflecting on, as a hiring manager, you know, at at at Uber, I must have, like, had, had, like, 100 of interviews, like, hired, like, at least 20, 30 people. So, you know, like, there's, like, 10, 10 interviews will will get a person in the door. But I would ask these questions. I I would ask you, tell me something, like, I I had my question prepared.
Speaker 2:Right? And I I regularly ask, like, tell me a project that you're proud of or or something that you're recently proud of. But the the interesting thing is that because you're doing it in writing, you know, people just they need, like, the candidates there on the other side. So will they either they came prepared by by these coaches or or, you know, something online or they just like said something it didn't matter what because because it was expected that you just reply and a lot of times you know they they probably didn't say like there was no time to reflect. What I like about your approach is there is time to reflect that.
Speaker 2:For example, I needed to change my questions. I couldn't ask what you're the most proud of stuff because or the the thing that you're most proud of because, you know, I'm not pushing people. They won't be able to. So I just ask, like, tell me something recent that you're proud of. So I I also didn't get that signal, but also the the people and, you know, there's introverts as well who who just couldn't Yes.
Speaker 2:Know that stress because you're now sitting there, we have 45 minutes, you flew over, we flew you in, this was back before COVID. So I actually think that you're gonna get way better signal by doing this in writing. And I'm I'm now kind of just asking myself, like, why why why does no one else do this? Why does
Speaker 1:We don't know. I I so honestly, I don't know. And I think because I think I think that because other people was like, well, what about like the the, you know, folks that have English as a second language? Like, okay. What about those folks?
Speaker 1:Because folks that have English as a second language, like, I mean, obviously English is your second language, the ability to, like, have someone else proofread it. It's like, I don't have to, like, worry about getting flustered in an interview. I can, like, spell check it, grammar check it. I can, like, make sure I can work on this thing until it's tight. It's, like which is a much better artifact.
Speaker 1:It's, like, we're not in we're not doing oral exams as part of our engineering work.
Speaker 2:And I
Speaker 1:also well,
Speaker 3:in particular questions. No. I mean, our RFD process is very written, and we do have meetings, But, we do. I mean, it's a real, like the RFD. I mean, the the application process materials are testing a skill that we value.
Speaker 3:It's not just like an interview for one thing and do a different thing. More than any place I've ever worked, we value the clarity of the written word in in comments and proposals and so forth. And And so if that's not something you wanna do, that's also clarifying, like, in both directions. Fine. You don't wanna
Speaker 1:do it.
Speaker 3:It it is part of the job.
Speaker 1:And then so one bit that we do so in terms of, like, the the initial genesis of the materials, so we knew we wanted we this is the way we wanted to hire. But it's also true that for the the first tranche of folks, like, very, very first tranche, which, I don't I thought included you, but then you said you applied applied oxide. Certainly, like Josh and Robert, and we had these, like, these the the and I thought Adam, but maybe maybe not. Maybe Adam was, like like, 30 seconds later Yeah. Patrick, the, we knew that, like, this was gonna be the kind of the first hires we'd make as soon as we got funding.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to introduce everybody to everybody else. And so we had everybody, including the founders, all did the materials. So I've done the I've done materials too. And, Adam, and I thought that you would No.
Speaker 3:I was I was, like, I was right after that.
Speaker 2:So I was early
Speaker 3:in January 2020, which
Speaker 1:I just. Yeah. Right. Okay.
Speaker 3:And so in fact, there was, I think there was some sort of surprise, like, you know, oh, it turns out everyone reads the materials. Like, did we not tell you that? I was like, no, you didn't tell me that, but that's great. That's good. I'm glad.
Speaker 3:I'm glad I didn't write anything disparaging. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. I was I was sort of like a weird window, but yeah.
Speaker 1:It is a weird window. Yeah. And it's it's so funny because I kinda think you mentally as but yeah. You're right. Okay.
Speaker 1:Right. It was it was a show a couple of weeks later. So when we by the time sorry. So Adam's in January, and then by the time we're talking to Cliff, and so that's in, like Adam, you are at the company when we're talking to Cliff. Right?
Speaker 1:So that's a late
Speaker 3:Yes. But I think I think we're talking about, like, which week in January or maybe or February. Because because I also feel like I commuted to the office for months months months, but obviously, it could not have been more than a couple of months.
Speaker 1:No. A couple months. So we but so so Cliff, we're describing the materials, and describing that we that we had all done this. And, Cliff's like, wait a minute. You all have done this, including the founders.
Speaker 1:You've all done the materials. Like, yeah. We've all done this. And Cliff says, can I see yours? And I'm like, oh, goddamn.
Speaker 1:That's a great idea. That's a really, really, really good idea. So I'm like, at the time, Adam, we had whatever we had, like, 7 people at the company, whatever it was, a small number. So I'm like, alright. Well, all we need to do is kinda like clear it with these 7 people that, like, this is our process now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And but this is a bit that's in that RFP that like, as people were discussing this online, and I can understand it, like, they just didn't get like far enough into it to or they got they got exhausted based on the word count or whatever. But the, one of the things that we do when we bring people in for conversations, when you're gonna come in and have conversations with the team, because we would, you know, we we we look at the materials, that is basically the vast majority of our process, but we wanna obviously, we do want those conversations. We wanna have that check. When you come in for conversations, the before you speak with people, you get their materials in advance.
Speaker 1:And that's been a wild twist, I feel.
Speaker 3:Brian, do you remember your materials well? Because I confess every once in a while I interview someone and they're like, I read your materials and I really liked when you talked about x, y, or z. And I was like, x, y, or z. I think I remember writing about that, but I still get surprised from time to time, you know, discovering what I've written, 4 years ago now.
Speaker 1:So I do remember my materials because I send them out so frequently. Because the and and the thing is, of course, because I didn't I did not realize when I was doing my own materials, my thought was, this is gonna be for the folks that are immediately at the company. I wasn't thinking that these are gonna survive for the lifetime of the company. And then
Speaker 2:just yeah.
Speaker 1:To make it clear, when you say materials, so these are the answers to these questions. For example, like, happiest and why, unhappiest and why, portfolio of your work, analysis sample, presentation sample, the The ones that you listed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so so it's happiest and why, take an oxide value that's been reflected in your career. Speak to that and, and the and, Adam, you know what? I have all okay. As long as we're here.
Speaker 1:If so in my materials, the value that I that described as being obviously, all these values reflected in my career at some level. But, I actually do you know what value I picked?
Speaker 3:No. I I don't think I've ever read your materials even. I could've get on that.
Speaker 1:I picked Hubert, which I'm like, you know what? I'm kinda standing by. I mean, you know, I'm just I think
Speaker 3:it's a great one because it's like, other and I'm glad that we have that reflected in the values in the part because if you're not
Speaker 2:having values.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're not having fun, like, what's the point of this? Like, really?
Speaker 3:Like, we're we're not just relentless capitalists. If you're not enjoying yourself, like, go find somewhere where you are enjoying yourself. I'm I'm all
Speaker 1:for it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Humor is really important for us. The, and then we, ask you for a value that's been violated and how you dealt with that. And then we one that I kinda, like, just threw on there at the last second, but it's been kind of interesting to watch is take 2 values that have come in the tension for you, and how have you resolved the tension. And there there's a couple of reasons for that question. One is that, you know, we, differentiate principles from values.
Speaker 1:So principles are honesty, integrity, decency. Those are the things that are like constraints on the business. We expect everyone to operate that way at all times. Values aren't that way. And one of the things that I really wanted to prevent I think, Adam, so far, we've done a done a decent job with this, but it's definitely, like, it's it it requires constant vigilance.
Speaker 1:I don't want the values to be weaponized. And I don't want because I this does happen on Amazon. And anyone will tell you that the leadership principles at Amazon, like, your ability to climb is your ability to figure out which of the leadership principles advances what you wanna do anyway. Well, and
Speaker 2:the That's right. The values are are leadership principles are built in a way that they actually contradict each other. They contradict each other. So you need to choose. That's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You don't want people saying, I need to merge this PR despite your objections, because urgency is a value. You don't want them used as a weapon to to win arguments.
Speaker 1:That that that's exactly right. You do not want them as a weapon to win arguments or to, like, disparage folks. It's like, you know, the problem with Bob? Yeah. Like, I I give Bob 0 empathy stars.
Speaker 1:That's right. We do not But
Speaker 3:they are but they are a great tool for structuring discussions for our because it's like a common core. You know, it's a it's a collection of values that we all have decided to ascribe to to sign up for.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I it's I know it. I think it's been, you know, when we because you can check our wait a minute. We're at loggerheads right now on this issue because this is urgency versus rigor. And right now, which is, like, the the I would say Adam Wake, what probably half of the people that apply to oxide.
Speaker 1:Because urgencies, one of our values, rigor is one of our values. And, people talk about urgency and rigor being intention. And as I tell people, like, there are like, that is a classic engineering. No one should feel like they need to be creative, and occupy some I mean, yes. It's true.
Speaker 1:Adam occupies, I think the only one in your particular square. I don't think we're gonna divulge for that square is unless you wanna I I don't know if you wanna
Speaker 3:No. So so to be look. I was so early. I didn't know I didn't need to be creative. So so my my square was thriftiness encourage, and I encourage anyone to to apply to oxide to find out why.
Speaker 3:Get my materials.
Speaker 1:Right. And it's been really interesting to watch that. And you know, there's a lot of urgency versus rigor. I I will never get sick of people describing how urgency and rigor came in attention for them and how they resolved it because urgency and rigor comes in attention for us all the time, every day. So that's like, I'll never get sick of reading that.
Speaker 1:That's great. There are some ones that are just like I'm not saying it's always a red flag when these come into tension, but when candor and empathy come into tension, you're always like, tell me more. Because, and you'd be amazed how many folks tell on themselves. And there are people that really divulge that like, you know, I was working with a a team that was really substandard, and I, you know, was pointing out to upper level management that I was surrounded by idiots. And I got some sensitivity training, And Cameron then became a the detention was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:She's like, thank you for telling us who you are. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And then you and similarly and the other thing I would say is, like, hey. Look. I know that, like, a lot of what we do at Oxide is not necessarily replicable. And but I think there are some things that are replicable. I gotta tell you one thing that I would never not ask is in writing, Why do you wanna work for Oxide?
Speaker 1:That is incredibly revealing. About, like, Why do you wanna come here? And it's like, that's a really reasonable question to ask. Like, what is it? And and even if it's, like, hey, you know, because you, you know, you had in you were describing in your what you're ChangeLog podcast was to earlier about how, like, some of these job you're talking about, like, it was in Edinburgh.
Speaker 1:Right? Where they working for the municipality in in Edinburgh. Yeah. And it's like the appeal may be, like, I, you know, I wanna serve the public, but I'm also looking for stability in life. I'm looking for, you know, I I've just I I eat, like, looking there's nothing wrong with looking for stability.
Speaker 1:And that may be a great match for for so, you you know, you asking people, like, why they wanna work somewhere is and we you know, have had people that, like, really, it's really interesting to read that, you know. And, I would say that, like, none of these is, like, there's not necessarily a a a wrong answer, but there are there are answers that force us to
Speaker 2:ask other questions. What what I like about your process in writing that you you can expect and you also said this that you know you're not going to call people back and ask them second time around you're expecting them to actually think about it you can expect that it's well thought out. And so if you're getting shallow stuff or if you're getting things that are, you know, just not there. In a in a live interview, again, I I when I when I was hiring manager at Uber, I ask people all the time, why do you wanna work at Uber? And, you know, there's 2 types of people.
Speaker 2:1 of them came prepared for this question Yeah. And they said it, or they either said what I what they thought I wanted to hear, or for the most part, it's engineers, so they kind of said, why? But there are ones who are just taken aback, and they couldn't really answer. And so when I walked away from an interview, 50% of the time, I didn't really know why this person wants to come here, but it was and but I couldn't do much about it because it was and so what I what I would sometimes do is if I was uncertain and we're about to make an answer, I would call them
Speaker 1:up and, you know, like try to, you know, ease them into it and ask a question
Speaker 2:again but what I didn't have is is is the ability to have them properly think it through so I feel that your process actually has this advantage that you you you can now expect that this is this is the best that they can give you. And and if that's not there, then you can you can, you you won't have the problem that I that anyone who does this just verbally on the spot has you're never gonna know if that person were just nervous. Totally. They were tired. They just they they they they're they couldn't express themselves because maybe, again, English might might have been their second language.
Speaker 2:So there's Or they may
Speaker 1:be an introvert. But you should mention, like, an introvert. I also feel is like a there are a lot I mean, great engineers that are introverts. Right? I mean, a lot of them.
Speaker 1:And it's like that that's not necessarily and I, you know, this was a big eye opener for me way early in my career when we I wanted to hire someone I'd gone to school with. And turns out, he didn't interview well. And, I was talking to the engineer I'd gone to work with. I'm like, what'd you think of him? He's like, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Like, you said you like him? I'm like, dude, he's great. Like, what he's like, I don't know. He seemed and I realized later, like, he was extraordinarily nervous. And he wanted to work at 4 Sun so badly, and wanted so badly to say the right thing that he would lock up as he was giving answers and was really, like, rigid and just like, it was not he was not his natural self.
Speaker 1:And I I remember like the the senior engineer I got to decide to work with is, like, you know, my my kind of rubric for this was, like, do you feel strongly enough that, like, like, do you feel we should hire him? And like would you what would happen if we didn't hire him? Like that's a question I like to ask. I'm like, I if we didn't hire him, I'd quit, I'd go work with him. He's like, alright.
Speaker 1:Jesus. Like, we'll hire him. Like, I don't like, okay. Okay. Like like, settle down.
Speaker 1:Settle down. Like, okay. You feel very very strongly about it. But it's like that, and I I that kind of experience was, was eye opening for me, because it's like a terrific engineer who interviewed very very badly. And I think a lot of them do.
Speaker 1:A lot of them do not interview well. And Adam, I know you've had because, I mean, you and I I mean, we're together at Sun, then you're at Delphix, and I'm a joint. You kinda get the and and transposit, so on. You're kinda going through your your own journey, but kind of coming having some similar kinds of experiences. Yeah.
Speaker 1:What was some of the things that you how had your process kind of evolved?
Speaker 3:You mean in terms of, like, hiring process I ran at these other companies?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that I think that that our process encourages that I was sort of a thing I needed to solve at at another company was, everyone was only at a previous company was that everyone had their question they wanted to ask and really only wanted to evaluate the candidate narrowly on their personal experience.
Speaker 1:Right. Interesting.
Speaker 3:So you'd sit around these roundtables, and everyone would say sort of their guess, like, thumbs up or thumbs down without really listening to what anyone else had said. We also had a problem of, like, some people's questions they wanted to ask being absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. It's like the and the where's the bathroom in my apartment questions. Totally. All these.
Speaker 3:Yes. I mean, we had exactly that where this guy had read this coding puzzle about, you know, minimizing initialization or constant time initialization cost on an arbitrary length vector or something. And it was like a very clever solution that, you know, the the types of feedback we got were the candidate took hints well. It's like, well, let me tell you this. If you and I were in a whiteboard and you were giving me hints about the thing we were designing together, I would leave, like, both the interview and in the job process.
Speaker 3:So, so I think, you know, actually, what we ended up doing is something a little bit like the oxide value is not quite as explicit or not as as kind of fundamental, but talking about the characteristics that we're looking for to structure the conversation and it helped that person realize, hey, this question I'm asking doesn't really speak to these values. And I need to listen to other people as they articulate the strengths and weaknesses of candidates against the values we've articulated.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so we actually and I we do get into this RFP that we definitely use the materials then when it's when we wanna have conversations with the team, we use those materials really heavily to go through, like, what are the open questions that we have for this person? Like, where where are where do we wanna focus? What do we wanna really understand more? It really allows us to kind of be very deliberate about the way we have these conversations.
Speaker 2:Just just so I understand a little bit better, because, you know, I'm kind of used again, like, the big tech, the the way hiring typically works is, again, we all kind of talk with the candidates. We often have a scorecard. There might be some values or something. We kind of submit our scores, and we kind of then all get together in a room. You typically read some stuff in advance and then you do thumbs up, thumbs down and you have a discussion.
Speaker 2:Now in your case, you don't you don't have these kind of, you know, and and again, like, these are are, like, coding interviews and system design and hiring manager and all that. But you have a very different process. How does it work? So, like, kinda submits materials, maybe they talk with a with a person or 2. But but then then what happens?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the the materials are the materials evaluation is is most of our process. So we spend a lot of time evaluating the materials.
Speaker 2:How how does that actually happen?
Speaker 1:So, yeah. There so people do we, people do evaluate the materials, and there is a it's on a numerical score, but there is a no pass, yes, emphatic, yes. There's not an emphatic, no, but I'm thinking we I have had can I've there are having candidates. I'm like, we need to embed a no. Just get it.
Speaker 1:The, what's way more important to us than that score that score's important. That that kind of, like, you know, when we the the, like, emphatic yeses versus yeses, so on versus passes. There's a written evaluation in there that that people there's a, that so people will do their written evaluation. Okay. That is really, really important.
Speaker 1:So as we are kind of because we've got to you know, when especially when we have this, you know, we've got, like, we're gonna hire 1 person. And, you know, we've had, you know, a 130 people apply. And it's, like, we we really need to spend a lot of time kind of winnowing that down. And so we and then when we've got positivity, we really try to to get more and more people. So we've got a kind of a process for getting more and more eyes on materials.
Speaker 1:So if if we know someone's not a fit, we we guarantee a certain number of kind of eyeballs on all materials. And the because we it's very important that we not or we're not we don't just have, like, a single person looking at materials, obviously.
Speaker 2:So so what's interesting is in the traditional kinda I'm just gonna say traditional because that's what most companies use. What you're doing is is not or or the majority. You're you're you're the minority for what I'm seeing at least at least for software.
Speaker 3:We're comfortable with that both here and in other aspects. Please continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So like I I really like how everyone gets the whole package because the the reason Yes. Like, you know, like, let's say a company like Uber will run this hiring process the way it does is because I'm I'm a hiring manager, and I will literally only talk I have 45 minutes to talk with this person. I'm gonna evaluate their their motivation and their communication style. Or I'm the coding interviewer which, you know, like, I I will have to even as an injury manager, I would sometimes well, maybe not coding but before as a manager, only see the coding.
Speaker 2:And a lot of times the feedback is, you know, like people do write the short, they'll do thumbs up thumbs out on a short evaluation, but it'll be just like, well, the coding was a bit rusty. But assuming if if their system design is good and if, their actual motivation is good then I would be you just never
Speaker 1:see the full picture. Right. And and and and so
Speaker 2:this is why because I was thinking, like, I really like how people, again, on your end have to not just thumbs up, but actually, you know, describe this. But what I really like is everyone in the hiring process gets the same picture. They they all all can imagine how this person will fit, and they can they can raise the things that you have a a lot you have conversation that starts a lot further off. In in this process, like, I do, the the first time we see the full picture is when everyone comes together and what typically tends to happen and it's it's like 30 minutes and the first 15 minutes we're we're asking clarifying questions like what actually happened on systems design like you you were kind of like, one of you is thumbs down, the other one's double thumbs up, like, what and and Yeah. So you're just cashing with with with context.
Speaker 2:So I feel it's just very different and I feel you might have a you talked about team dynamics. I I wonder if this approach helps with team team Of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes. 100%. I mean, they're like, no question. And I think that we so we spend because it also allows you to get you know, if someone has gone deep in something that's not your domain of expertise, in an interview, you can be like, I don't know. Seems good.
Speaker 1:But at Oxide, you can be like, no. No. I'm gonna add I wanna add Nathaniel with these materials. I wanna add Ian's materials. I wanna add Laura's materials.
Speaker 1:I want like, I can add other folks to these materials. Because I wanna get their eyeballs on this. I want them to actually go deep on this. And the so it'll it allows us to because we'd think like in kind of in a mythical interview, you'd love to be, like, hold on. Wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Pause. If you're gonna talk about this if you're gonna talk about a security vulnerability you found, I haven't really done that before. So let me get I I wanna get Laura down the hall. I wanna get Laura here, and I wanna Laura to sit through this. Right?
Speaker 1:You can't do that in an interview. You cannot. But we these this materials process does allow you to do that, And that's been really, really valuable for us, because we we can get to depth on all this. So we I mean, again, when people are like, oh, they don't read the materials. I can hope you read the materials really, really carefully, and especially when you've got, you know, you've got, like, a conflicting take on the materials.
Speaker 1:You're like, hey, in this, it happens rarely, but does happen. Because you're talking about someone's a double thumbs up, it's something's a thumbs down. Like, okay, what's up there? Right? And so you whenever you have something like that, we always wanna understand, like, okay, we got really different impressions on these materials.
Speaker 1:And it's very helpful to be, like, okay, let's get the materials in front of us, and let's talk about, like, what what do you think is so positive, and here's what I'm seeing over here, and, like, maybe we find some third thing in the materials that supports a different position or what have you. So it gives you this kind of, like, ground truth that you can really go go deep on.
Speaker 2:And then
Speaker 3:Well and you're starting the conversation, you know, 20 paragraphs in. You don't say, well, what's something interesting you did? You say, in this interesting thing that you did that I spent half an hour reading about what happened next, you know, so it gets, it gets much more diversity in terms of the feedback and much more interesting conversations.
Speaker 2:And just imagine, so, like, people submit a bunch of stuff written. But you mentioned there's you do talk with people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's true. How how does that get incorporated into the materials that everyone sees?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the so when, well, so you've applied, we looked at materials, we think, like, yes. We wanna have you in for conversations. Okay. So now we're gonna come in for conversations.
Speaker 1:That first step is we're gonna get you into the RFTs. We want you to, actually, now what I I you know, we've we've gotta actually modify our process a little bit, Adam, because we can actually go have them provision on an actual rack. We've got a rack
Speaker 2:in polo.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you can, like, actually go use the product. It's actually real. Like, it's it's actually not just like dreams. We can actually go, which is great.
Speaker 1:It's not just fever dreams. So we actually built something real. So the the getting them to kinda provision on the rack and understand what we built. So that's like that is kind of a moment for a candidate to, like, self select a little bit. Be like, okay.
Speaker 1:I know I you're interested in me. Now I'm gonna learn more about you to figure out if I'm interested in you. And as I tell people, like, if you, when you get into the RFTs, you're gonna wanna work for oxide more or less, but not the same. And most cases, it's more. But we have had we've had folks, like, you know, I got into the RFTs and I realized that, like, I thought I was more into this than I am.
Speaker 1:Like, this is the like, I am actually I'm struggling to get through them. I'm like, I'm like, I'm just not liking this. I think it's not it's like, great. That's great. Like, either you know, people be like, are we apologetically?
Speaker 1:Don't be apologetic. That's great.
Speaker 2:Like, we've and and also, they they've seen something, you know, they they they know that and they'll know why it's for them. I mean, I think, you know, one of the biggest mistakes and I I see this. It happens with so many of my my friends, especially, like, after layoffs. You know, Uber's of layoffs early on, and so there's a lot of jobs. But but I had a friend, I had a saw someone who worked on on my team who joined this other company and then quit 2 weeks later.
Speaker 2:Just didn't like, it was clear after he joined the 1st week because I'm not sure but then he he just he just knew this is not for it and he just wasted 2 weeks well probably a month of of of all that which again could have avoided. So my point is, it's actually we should we should I I don't think we talk about this at all. I don't I don't think hiring managers, entry managers, anyone talks. One of the best things you can do is give transparency and have some people, like, say this is not for me.
Speaker 1:That's
Speaker 2:right. That is the like, that's we we talked we talked about, like, humanity when we started talk about Yeah. You know, layouts. But I think with hiring, this is the humanity part that I think everyone forgets about. Like, it's it's a big decision, you know, someone is gonna It's a big decision.
Speaker 2:They're they're gonna leave their existing team, their their their network and if you you kinda wanna go somewhere where you there's a very high chance, 90 something percent, that it's gonna work out, and you know it's gonna work out. And this is how you do it.
Speaker 1:Well, and I I I
Speaker 2:mean I mean, transparency is how we do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, I I also feel like, you know, I Adam and I have worked together for 20 years. Right?
Speaker 1:We've got like, there are lots of people at Oxide that I've worked with across multiple
Speaker 2:Hold on. Quick question. You've worked for 20 years. Why didn't you just hire Adam and just not mess with any of this, because he went to
Speaker 3:the site. Seriously, this is a great question. Finally, we got here.
Speaker 1:It did. Okay. So I don't know if Adam put you up this in any way. Is I'm threatening you in any way? Or is he that that that this is there.
Speaker 1:Like, look. I just you know, the guys always struck me as a little fishy. I don't know. I mean, it's just I know something just doesn't add up about him. I just can't I'm still getting a beat on him.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I don't know. No. And so actually, in all honesty, the reason for that is because the, like, I know Adam. I love Adam.
Speaker 1:I would I I sorry, Adam. Speak about you in the 3rd person here. But, like, for sure, like, no no one needs to interview Adam. We can just hire him. But, like, actually, I want everyone else to get to know Adam, and what will you may find, obviously not with Adam, but definitely has happened where people are very excite have worked with someone at oxide, and they apply and the materials are not very good.
Speaker 1:And, you know, you've had this happen a couple times and you get people like, I am a, oh, man. These materials are not good. Because it's important that, like, hey, we're not gonna hire your friend that you work closely with. And I need you to look, and in all of these cases, and it doesn't happen that frequently, but in all these cases, the friend who works at Oxide is like, they man, I told them so many times we take the materials really seriously.
Speaker 2:You know, the one thing I'm really liking about hearing this is you're the CTO or you're cofounder as well. Right?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like a lot of companies what they do is like, yes, they're not gonna have a friend of like the the, you know, the senior developer who's, you know, employee number, like, 55. Yeah. Of course, you're not gonna do that. But guess who gets hired at a lot companies. But I'm I'm so happy to hear the CTO's friend.
Speaker 2:Totally. The CEO's friend then what happens there is people down there will talk. They're gonna talk like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a bit of not not a bit of
Speaker 2:a try to say, neptism or
Speaker 1:It it totally did. It it it I mean And
Speaker 2:I just love how how you kind of, you know, like, you and I I'm assuming the rest of the founding team said, like, we're not gonna do an exception even though, like, you probably know what's best for, like, you will you will know what you think is best for the company, but yet you're you're going through the same process of everyone else. Well, see what I I think it's brilliant.
Speaker 1:So I and I gotta say this happened both ways. So it has happened. One of the ways it's happened is we'll have someone apply the oxide who I know and I think is kind of a turkey. And but, like, for a long time ago. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, alright. Well, it's be and then, like, everyone else's reviews are materials. Like, this person's kind of a turkey. I'm like, they are a turkey. I are a turkey, and the materials show they were a turkey.
Speaker 1:But it was like, hey. The materials were an opportunity to show you, like, hey. I've, like, I've changed in the last 20 years. I was a turkey 20 years ago. Now I'm not a turkey.
Speaker 1:Turns out, still a turkey. The the but then it's been also the other way where it's like, oh, I think this person, I think Adam's great. Okay, Adam Smith's materials, and this is, I mean, this is like hand on hard truth.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna go Adam real. Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no no, but this is not like metaphorical. Actually. What girl Adam? Is it like because I mean this this was actually this experience honestly because, like, yeah, I desperately wanna work with Adam again. And but you look at Adam's materials and you're I mean, there's a part of me Adam, obviously, I'm not surprised, but when you read them, she's like, oh, thank god.
Speaker 1:They're awesome. You know what I mean? It's
Speaker 3:a relief. It's such a relief when you have a friend who you've asked. I I had a a friend, apply or a first person I had worked with bunch of years, encouraged him to apply. And his materials were so fucking good. There's always Thank goodness.
Speaker 3:Thank goodness.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh my god. I know. And it's like, I knew they would be. It's like, I I you you always be like, I don't wanna even, like, sound or be surprised because I'm not surprised because they are good.
Speaker 1:That's
Speaker 2:why I interesting thing is that, like, you know, I'm I'm used to this. Like, I I when I was a a junior developer, a new grad developer, I I worked at a company and I I had my friends tell, come here. It's great. And I referred them and obviously I was just crossing my fingers, I oh, I hope they do well the interview because my my role did not and they had to prove themselves to everyone. But the interesting thing is like there are there are the types of companies which are a bit more hierarchical or or you know the higher you go the rules that down there everyone follows don't apply and or don't apply as much and it just always creates tension, it creates politics, it it creates you know double standards that and you're starting to not like it if you move up to management suddenly now you can bring in people and you have this power and I like what I do like about it and it goes back a little bit to, you know, integrity being in in your it's actually written down when you actually screen for this like like this approach does help with integrity because I've again, all the rules apply
Speaker 1:All the rules apply equally to everybody. Yes.
Speaker 2:I just like how it it is a bit refreshing and I I do wonder again, like, this I I think this is just outside of this podcast. People who are listening. This is a good opportunity to reflect at any company if are are are there exceptions the higher up you go? And if there are, higher are they? Or the higher is not the same everywhere else.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And it's in a way and as a candidate, it's really hard to evaluate that. Right? That's really important to like, if you're contemplating, like, I'm kind of, like, going to this company, how do I evaluate their integrity? Right?
Speaker 1:Very very very hard to do. So that's no. That's been very important. So and then the, and then just but in terms of of the the actual interviews, so then you we we allow people to kinda sign up for for interview slots, for conversations. That is left pretty open ended.
Speaker 1:So it is, generally, people will sign up for someone that, like, oh, I, you know, I really wanna talk to them. It's like, I'm really excited about this person. I'm really glad they applied. I wanna work closely with them. And then we they get their materials in advance.
Speaker 1:So you'd, and then we, if and kinda as needed, we will have a conversation about, like, alright. So who's gonna kinda ask what? Where are we gonna go? What what do we kinda wanna dig into? And then I think that's that's important is that we, when we kind of talk about someone afterwards, we wanna be sure that you know, Adam, you said this earlier about, like, really listening to what other people are saying.
Speaker 1:What we don't wanna do is become, kinda conscripted to our to a rigid process where it's like, we have to make a decision right now. Yes or no. Because, like, no, actually, we don't. And if we've got an open question, we should, like, have another conversation or go back to them and ask that question. I I I thought it was a Gurri, I thought it was really interesting you mentioned that, like, I had a candidate who I I wasn't sure why they wanted to work for Uber.
Speaker 1:So I wanna, like, follow-up with them later. I feel most folks don't do that when they've got a question. They're like, no. Nope. SRA, time's up.
Speaker 1:It's the end of the day. We have to make a decision. Yes or no. And it's like, that's not necessarily the best decision.
Speaker 2:And and I I I've seen so many bad hires because of this. Like, I I I always felt awkward doing this because it's more work. You go against the organization. Yeah. I'm talking about organization established, the the the usual process where, you know, as as a line manager, like, a lot of people think that managers have all this power, which they do have some, but you kind of follow it.
Speaker 2:And you'd be surprised. I mean, maybe you're not surprised these organizations, but a lot of managers, like, don't like, what I like about your process is, like, the reality is most managers or most people are hiring don't know how to hire. Guess what? I figured out how to hire. I hired a bunch and and I luckily I made some mistakes that I I realized and I got a bit better but I've in the end I was just an average hirer.
Speaker 2:So and and the best hires I I've made have always been where it's been a the group has seen more things and they brought up, you know, either issues or or or strengths or whatnot. And I really like how you're, you know, you mentioned team dynamics, but I I'm thinking to myself, is there a better way of building good team dynamics than having the whole team interview and and I I still remember one of the first startups I joined back in a long time ago, I just talked with everyone who would be on the team and then they got together, they all talked and they gave the thumbs up and I feel you're kind of still doing it. Yes. It still scales and I think at some point, a lot of companies lose this. You've not lost it yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think Or hopefully never.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We we hopefully never, and I think that it is really to get this because another thing that we kind of observed with these kind of very bad hires pre oxide is that I mean, this is gutting when you've had a a terrible hire and you finally, like, get them out. And then someone's like, you know, I actually want you know, when they first came in, I read some real questions. But I was I I, you know, I was afraid to bring it up or or, like, everyone in the room everyone in the room was so positive, like, I didn't wanna be, like, a downer or the or or or, like, I actually I really I known that person from a previous gig. I didn't think we should hire him, but I wasn't in the process at all.
Speaker 1:And you're just like, oh my god. Yeah. Oh, boy. Did we screw up? And so I think, like, getting the democratizing the process internally as much as possible, allowing any employee to look at any materials, allowing any employee to engage in the conversations has been really important.
Speaker 1:And then I think that's, like, you know, as you're digging in those conversations and I think Adam, I don't know what you think of this, but, like, I feel like it's to a certain degree, the conversations are even a highlight about how challenging it is to interview. So even with everything that we have done to prepare that interview, we still have a bit of the Roshamat effect. And right out of it Yeah. Totally. And, you know, the good news is, like, we were able to square it a lot more quickly because we do have materials to fall back on, and we can kind of, like, get things squared.
Speaker 1:But we still have this effect where it's like
Speaker 2:And so when you say get things squared, you mean, like, narrow down?
Speaker 1:Well, we're we're just like okay. So we've got, like, 2 people heard different things to what they think is the same question. Yep. And, you know, the good news is, like, again, we've got the materials, we got a lot of other conversations, and we can also just go back to the person, fortunately, when they're just deep in the process. You know, we we can be really candid about, like, hey, we're sorry.
Speaker 1:Like, this particular like, what happened here with this question? Or, like, what do you kinda think about this? And, like, just getting okay. Let's have some follow-up conversations, and let's get some and other other times, it's just like and this has happened too, where you get people in the conversations and it's like, hey, you know, there are, you know, a bunch of people didn't see any red flags, but then there are, like, 4 people that saw the same kind of red flag. And you're just like, okay.
Speaker 1:That's a that's okay. Did we just, you know, did we dodge a bullet? So I think it's it it is it is really important to get multiple folks. It's just you're saying earlier, but get getting multiple voices in there, multiple perspectives, multiple people reviewing the materials, but then also in the interview itself. And that that's where you you, hopefully get in front of, because you do not wanna make a mishire, and you also have to gamble a little bit.
Speaker 1:This is the other thing that the only actually, Greg, I'd be curious to to hear what you take on this. Or, Adam, did you I mean, one thing you will hear at startups is that, no, no, we're gonna hire fast and fire fast.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the I call bullshit on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I've never been at a company that was actually good at firing people who needed to be firing fired, like, on time. Like and I think and and and you started to learn that, and you just became more conservative in the hiring process.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, Adam, also, would you want to be at a company? It's like, you know what? This company is amazing at firing.
Speaker 3:Core competency.
Speaker 1:That's core competency. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But they're amazing.
Speaker 1:They're absolutely amazing. And, like, these people just spear off the face of the planet and never see them again. I don't even know how it happens.
Speaker 3:No. It's because each fire like that should be regarded as a mistake as a failure. Not just like, oh, we took a gamble, and we're a gambling company. And we're making you an offer, you know, you might or might not be here in 6 months. Like nobody wants to sign up for that.
Speaker 3:Everyone wants to hear that you have total conviction and that there's gonna be a reciprocal
Speaker 2:commitment. Any successful company say that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it it but this is something that you you especially those that, you you know, Greg, one of the things that, you know, I I so love the way you kinda democratize hire fast and fire fast and that feels wrong to you, you're right and they're wrong. So just what you know, give you the confidence that, like, hey. I is there something we can do to, like, to to to derisk this decision and not just, like, hire recklessly? The
Speaker 3:more the more insidious version of that is, you know, I think that people think if we haven't made some mistakes, if we're not making mistakes, then we're being too conservative. Right? So the way that this manifests is saying, hey, look, we haven't been firing anyone. That means we're being too restrictive. We're moving too slowly.
Speaker 3:We're interviewing too much, like, too too rigorously or something. So let's go go go. So that just, you know, that's come up from time to time.
Speaker 1:Like, can you imagine me like, you know what, Bob, you're right. We're not hiring fast enough. We're not firing fast enough. That's No. No.
Speaker 1:No. No. No.
Speaker 3:We're not we're not we're not hiring, like, we're not we haven't fired anyone. So we must be being too conservative. And I think
Speaker 2:conservative. Let let me ask you. You're now 62 people. How many people did you have to part ways with after, you know, like, they went through the process and, like, in the first couple. But, basically, a hire that didn't work out.
Speaker 2:There was a mishire.
Speaker 1:I mean, effectively 0. I mean, I I'm not I'm not gonna say, you know, we obviously don't wanna this is where, you know, we don't actually have any an HR department. I guess we're all kind of the HR departments. This Where the HR department grabbed the microwave me. The but we have not had a a we I mean, there have been people who've worked at oxide no longer work at oxide.
Speaker 1:But it's a
Speaker 2:Of course. It's a
Speaker 1:But it but but it is a very small number, and it's folks that have self selected them.
Speaker 2:So, and the follow-up question I have is, like, you are a startup. Right? You're you're you're you're not you don't have the brand necessarily, you know, right now, like, you're I I think, you know, suddenly now that you've built the the general availability, your your status will go up and more people will wanna come here. But when you're a startup, I think the conventional wisdom is, as a startup, you are forced to gamble on people every now and then, so you cannot be that certain. So I I would almost, like, call bullshit on, like, you make any hires.
Speaker 2:Obviously, now I understand your process of how you do it, but are are you are you not afraid that then you're not taking any risk or are we able to kind of mitigate the risk because you're kind of, you know, you you you you are doing what most service the way they take risk is like they talk to people as one way, they skip the single and then they drop them in and see how they might, you know, perform. But I feel you kind of Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we do not take yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think a lot of Starters want 1 I'm I'm trying to figure out, like, what is disconnect, but I think the big disconnect is there's not the other way around. Like, you're actually giving people an opportunity to see what it's like and you're trying to observe them in in a little bit of, like, what it would be. But I'm still surprised of how I'm just a little So Conflicted on the fact that, like, as a startup, it is very unusual to
Speaker 1:It is unusual. Well Well, okay. So so a couple of things. 1, it wasn't true for all. So we, we're I mean, in part because, you know, we've got some as my kids say, I'm nerd famous, not actual famous, but nerd famous.
Speaker 1:And, you know, you're also nerd famous, I think. I think we can also all I think I think I'm among my my nerd famous kindred spirits here, Adam. I think you've been, assuming that the American Hockey League does not enter Twitter login, which is, like, not real clear. Like that their response to you felt, like, a little bit, like, only serious. So that I little bit anyway, I wasn't sure if I Can I choose?
Speaker 1:Yeah. The the, but American Hockey League, you listen to this. Adam Levinthal is very famous. He's famous for the 11th Alconaj, but nothing else. The, as everyone Googles 11th all conundrum.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that we were able to use some of that to get for software folks in particular. We're able to attract software folks to the company. I do think as a start up, you need to figure out, like, how do how do I attract the right folks? One of the things that I actually figured out before we wanted to do a computer company, we knew we wanted to do something in Rust. And I remember being I remember being in Steve's office being like, I am falling in love with Rust.
Speaker 1:We will whatever we do, we will do it in Rust, and that will allow us to hire people because we will there'll be people who'll be attracted to the company because there are gonna be and I I mean, I I think actually this has not happened as much. Adam, correct me if if I'm wrong. There was a a an era of the company where people were like, I wanna work for Oxide because you're doing Rust, I wanna do Rust, and everyone else is doing the Rust is in crypto. I don't wanna work in crypto, and I wanna do Rust, and that's basically like it's like you and I guess like Discord, ironically enough. I mean, they're like a small handful of companies.
Speaker 1:And, the so I think that we, you know, we use that as a differentiator, but we struggled on on, double e's in particular. And, you know, we were because that's not where the the network is. And, you know, we, you know, I think what you've gotta go do is, like, kinda brainstorm as a team. And we were brainstorming as a team, like, how can we get? And I remember vividly, and those folks that were in this conversation will also remember this vividly.
Speaker 1:We're, like, how do we get more people? How do we get outside of our networks? How do we get more people kinda in? We're just not finding enough people for, you know, software folks, yes. But these other, like, roles, it's it's it's really hard.
Speaker 1:And, you know, I I and you know, Sean's in the chat and can disagree if if I'm wrong here, but it's my recollection that Sean was like, hey, you know what? When I talk to friends about oxide, I talk about how important values are. And people are like, yeah. It's bullshit. Whatever.
Speaker 1:It's like every concept of that is like yours. And I'm like, no. No. No. And I kind of explained it.
Speaker 1:And but I find that I'm not really able to explain the company until I talk about the compensation. Because up until that moment, we had not we had not talked publicly about the compensation. And it it was something that we kind of would reveal to people in the process. And I was like, okay. Well, should I write, like, a blog entry?
Speaker 1:But I could I could, like, we could publicize it. And I just remember this is one of these moments that that remote work has given us, where thanks to remote work, you can have, like, much more body language in the room. And when you've got an idea that's, like, a really, like, good idea or bad idea, you can see it much more quickly because, you know, everyone and everyone is, like, yes. Yes. You should we absolutely should write a blog entry.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking, like, god. Alright. I need to write this thing carefully because I'm gonna, you know, I I just know that the hacker news comments, and I like say, like, I'd be Oh. Don't read them. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And, you know, the and it's funny because this blog entry has been on Hacker News a bunch, and it's, like, some of the threads have been really good, and some of the threads have been absolutely terrible, but no. My my absolute worst fears. But I actually designed wrote that blog, and thanks to everyone at Oxnard, lot of review on it, lot of comments on it, and really tried to make that thing robust with respect to some of the the the arguments people would have against it. But the, this is one of these things that we kinda threw out there. I mean, and I didn't you know, I wanted to it was, you know, us being transparent.
Speaker 1:It was kind of, you know, in accordance to our values anyway. That was as it turns out, that was a really pivotal moment for the company, because it that was in March of 2021, and we were really, really struggling on the double e side. We had poor RFK. Thank you for we had a, you know, RFK, you know, RN's background is double e, but there were we were realizing that, like, we need to ramp a whole We don't have, we need to get way out of network for it. And it was that blog entry, all of a sudden, there's a huge amount of interest, top of Hacker News, a lot of interest.
Speaker 1:And out of that came some of our seminal double E hires, came out of that blog entry. And, and, you know, Nathaniel applied, and and, you know, materials were just extraordinary. And then when Nathaniel came here, that Eric came here also from General Electric. And the you know, I remember talking to Eric and, about oxide. And he was, like, frankly, I was gonna see what you guys did with Nathaniel, because if you didn't hire Nathaniel, I didn't wanna work there anyway.
Speaker 1:And if you didn't hire Nathaniel, like, I don't know. Maybe you had a story. So, you know, we were, by the way, I will only go with a Siemens CT scanner for the rest of my life because I'm worried that the the gods are gonna have me die in a GECT scanner for having taken, such terrific folks' errand as well coming from GE Medical. I've said this before, but I'll just say it again, like GE Medical, if you don't wanna lose your employees, like, manage them better. You know?
Speaker 1:I mean, come on. Just like super interesting technical problems, but super terrible management. I don't think that's a state secret. The I the GE folks did have me read and you have you read Lights Out, Adam? No.
Speaker 1:They're like, you need to read lights out. I did read lights out. You're just like, okay. Yeah. That's like basically stomach churning.
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah. I do not want to read that. That's that's very bad. But that was a really pivotal moment for us.
Speaker 2:So It's so interesting how constraints shape your company culture because it sounds like, you know, if you if you have, like, a, you know, a brand, if you will, within e double e's, which which you have with the software engineers, maybe you would have not needed. That's right. Who knows if you Who knows?
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. But I
Speaker 2:I And
Speaker 1:and who knows, honestly, if it had been to the pandemic, who knows? I mean, it's like all of these things, and that they all these things being a kind of positively reinforced. And but that was really really important to because I think you you're making a very important point and, you know, Francois made a very important point in kind of replying to the tweet about, like, this only works because you have a lot of people that are interested in working for the company. And, yep, that's true. And the, that that's true.
Speaker 1:And it it can be hard to to, that's hard. And you got a brainstorm how to do that. And it's, you know, Aaron Levy said this from Vox that, like, when you got fewer than 10 people, it feels like people are just, it just feels extremely risky. And then you get that kind of magic number of 10. It's like, oh, this is stable.
Speaker 1:It's like, no, no, actually it was like just as risky. In fact it's actually riskier than it was 2 hires ago because our burn rates got up. But Gurkate I know that, I know you've got a a stop coming up here, and I know, Adam has got a, I I feel like hiring is one of these things, Adam, that we could go on for probably several hours on. I mean, it's not unlike my topics around here.
Speaker 3:You know, the other thing that's demanding my attention tonight is college applications. And someone commented that the oxide process feels even more rigorous than the college application process. I will say fact checked, absolutely true.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 3:We should think about a common app, you know, using feel free to feel free to grab the oxide application process and use it wherever you want.
Speaker 1:That is a great idea, actually. No. Seriously. I think I
Speaker 2:love it.
Speaker 1:Because no. I mean, like, these portfolio questions, I feel could be a common app. I mean, like, I think, like, if if if other companies ask, like, work that you're proud of and an analysis sample and so on, it's like you, yeah, cut and paste it and put it somewhere else. It's like it's not you're not doing it for oxide. You're doing it for yourself.
Speaker 1:That's a great idea.
Speaker 3:There we go. Yeah. We actually have, some some friends who are using that at their company, which is great to see.
Speaker 1:That's great. And, you you know, I yeah. That's actually not that's a very important point is that if you're feeling like, oh, man, I really, like, wanna take that idea, but I don't wanna just take it. It's like, no. No.
Speaker 1:Please take it. Like, this is not or we everyone can have a great hiring process. We do not feel it.
Speaker 2:I I I really like how, like, your hiring process is creating value for the job app. Like, whoever applies and goes through the process, I think that that's a huge deposit. So like yeah if if more companies start to use that that will be great I I don't think you know it's it's hard to influence that and we know that some companies are not gonna change as easily but I think as a if startup founder are listening, it is just worth paying attention to. I mean I think you might take away is like yes, you have managed to, generate a lot of excitement, a lot of interest. And by the way, every startup should do that.
Speaker 2:Like, right? If if you cannot do that, you're gonna be left with with worse errors. So and and people should be excited to work at your company. If if if they're not either, you're not doing something exciting or you're not talking about it or you're missing something but you should figure it out but once once you have that like you then I I feel like to me this discussion kind of took away one of these like I guess like things that I thought was the truth which is as a startup you need to take risks on people and eventually you'll have to fire people. You kind of prove that you you managed to grow until now that like this has not been true on what you said like things that should not scale but they have it it feels like this is one of them.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yeah. Definitely.
Speaker 2:If you've been able to do it, other people should be able to do it, but you put in so much damn thought into this whole process, and and made it, you know, like, you you put some constraints with the writing, etcetera, which, you know, it's just honestly uncomfortable to do. And then it's easier to just, you know, like, have a conversation, easier to hire a friend
Speaker 1:Yes. Versus as a fresh
Speaker 2:person and skip the process and then you know, like hire number 10 comes in like that as well. It's just easier. So I feel like if you take the easy path, it it might come to bite you later.
Speaker 1:It absolutely is gonna come to bite. Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. And I think, you know, Laurie, the chat said, actually, I think startups should not be gambling on high. Startups should be gambling less on hires.
Speaker 1:And I think that that's right. I think in the challenges when you're especially when you're really small, how do we get these folks over the line when there's so much risk? And that's, you know, that's why we're super grateful to those early folks, to Adam and Aria and to Josh and Robert because they did and, you know, all Patrick, all those folks that came in when when it was so risky, and, I mean, it still is risky, but it but it it really, very, very grateful to those folks. And you need to it it is. It's it's a challenge to to not take a gamble and to find the right folks when you are feeling such urgency from your board and so on.
Speaker 1:And, you know, as a founder, that's a that's that's what you gotta manage. Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah. And Brian, as we wrap up, just one more thought I want to share, because I think there's a lot about the process that I really like. And my, my lingering fear is that there are a lot of folks who that it demands a bunch of vulnerability. You know, I felt a lot of vulnerability sending in that application. And I think for folks in the industry who have not necessarily been treated well, I think it might be hard to to feel exposed and to to have that kind of moment of vulnerability in writing.
Speaker 3:And I'm really glad we did this episode because I I hope it if people are considering applying and have heard this, they know that we regard these we take these applications extremely seriously. We read them seriously. We read them with empathy, And, we respect the people who are pouring out their their souls to us. So, you know, we need to earn everyone's trust. We need to show that we can be better maybe than the industry at large in terms of respecting folks.
Speaker 3:I think that we are better, but encourage you to apply, you know, if you're if you're thinking about it, but worried about who's reading it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I did. No. That's that's a great note, Adam. Very, very important.
Speaker 1:And, Greg, I do wanna just as we close here, I understand that your book is is your book coming out?
Speaker 2:Is it the So I I cannot say it's gonna got come come out tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow morning?
Speaker 2:But but if if you're searching on Amazon for the software insurance guide book, it's now appeared. But, so it it is available for purchase now. It actually Amazon has interesting where the certain markets get live like a few days in delay. In in the US, it's been on sale since actually Saturday.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's exciting.
Speaker 2:But there's 12 markets and the Netherlands has not been on there and I didn't wanna announce it so you can buy it on all markets and that would know and the pool and everything else out there. So it's actually it it just went live. And, it's it's it's it's an interesting book because I've been I've been writing this this is the book that I've been wanting to write while I was an injury manager at at Uber, and I ended up writing it for 4 years. So is it kind of like feels like what a baby times like. Well, I obviously like I'm I haven't had at a baby boat, but the the line has been long.
Speaker 2:So,
Speaker 1:the and this is the software engineer's guide book, navigating senior tech lead staff and share positions at tech companies and startups. Is that right?
Speaker 2:This is I started to write this book because I was an engineer manager at Uber, and, like, first, I had my skip my first, like, manager, and I had a skip level discussion. And I just felt like, oh, man. If only I had time to mentor this this guy, but it's now I have a manager between me. I'm like it would be so nice to just have a book that I could give this person and I knew where I had a really good run. I started with like 8 people on my team, all all they got promoted, I I I I learned a lot of things, as I grew and I I lacked a lot of guidance.
Speaker 2:So I just put this up that I thought will be good to know. Initially, I want to make it more of a career book, but, as as it grew it, I just wanted to capture like what does it mean to be a a great software engineer in the industry, think about startups or or larger tech companies, both the hard skills, coding, debugging, the tools that's that that you just need need to know about these days, like, yeah. And then some more advanced stuff like post code reviews. Like, yes, sometimes you should just do that. Don't just do code reviews, do
Speaker 1:it later. Oh, interesting. And
Speaker 2:and then all all the ways, like, some of the concepts that, like, you might not necessarily, like, know when you entered into a p 95, p50 50, or why those are Yeah. Liability and some of the practices that the larger teams do and then some of the soft skills which is, like, you know, like, you need to start to understand the business. So, it's it's kind of like a lot of it is like my ex a little bit towards the bigger companies.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to hand that wisdom down to the kind of the next generation.
Speaker 2:Pretty much. I I just felt there wasn't there, and it's just been so long to put up because I feel most books either focus on the soft skills or the hard skills.
Speaker 1:Totally. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I tried to combine the 2 of them.
Speaker 1:Well, I can see why, that would take a while
Speaker 3:to write. So that And
Speaker 2:it did take, but I'm just happy that it's out. I've been writing it so long that I kind of lost the you know when you do something so long you're not sure if it's gonna work out or not?
Speaker 1:I am familiar with things like this. Yes. It was ask me about machines that that that were, having a hard time coming out of reset.
Speaker 2:And it was a cartoonist, man, Manu Cornet who wrote the who drew me this really famous drawing about the organizational structure of Microsoft and guns. He told me that he writes comics for so long, he's not sure if it's gonna be funny. I wrote this book so long that I'm now not sure if it's gonna be any good. But but but the people who reviewed it, they they they said it's amazing. So, you know, we'll see.
Speaker 2:But but thanks for asking. So, like,
Speaker 1:that's great. Well, I know that for for listeners of this podcast, Amir, you you definitely, I think, like us, like, really trying to to lift people up and and pass on what you owe to to kind of the the the next generation. And I know people are gonna enjoy reading. I'm looking forward to get my own copy, certainly. And I will have to have you you have to do, an addendum on hiring, written materials and hiring in the second.
Speaker 1:I just That's fine.
Speaker 2:Exactly. But yeah. That's awesome. It was awesome to hear, and I'm just gonna let like, wrap up by just summarizing. It like you know I I came into the office like you know most listeners are not into the office but it was like I started with this but the energy is just something else and like it's it's it's really special to both see the the server rack that you have to hear it, the to feel the air flow, which is different, and to see the different form factors.
Speaker 2:I I've seen some some of the more traditional racks, of course, and and the cables and and the lack of it and and how you got around it. And, like, I I I talked with Ari, your your Ari. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Ari, your founding electrical engineer. Like, the the amount of challenges that you solved is just mind blowing. I'm I'm gonna, aim to, like, summarize some of that because it's just so darn fascinating. It's like I I I feel kind of like, you know, being taken back in time to like the when computing was just starting because I I feel you're doing something like this it is truly inspiring and I'm I'm like you know, having seen what you've built, especially under a pandemic and and being able to do it partially remotely as well is just outstanding. So, like, just hands down and keep up the great work.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you so much. Really appreciate that and really glad that you thanks for coming by and then glad you could, be an in studio guest here, Oxen, here in the, in what we call the litter box. So thank you very much, Sergei. Adam, thank you as always. This is a and thanks for everyone in the chat.
Speaker 1:This is a it's a lively one, and I I know we'll, I'm sure we'll we'll be doing a a sequel to this one, I think, at some point in the future for sure. Alright. Thanks, everyone. See you next time.
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