interviewing at a startup be like... (ft. Steven He)

(clock ticking) - There is the light bulb in the closet. The closet door is closed. You cannot see if the light bulb is on or off. Outside of the closet, there are three switches. One of the switches control the light bulb. You can flip the switches however you'd like. What is the number of light bulbs sold in the US each week? (tense music) - Um... (camera lens whirs) Um, 50 million. (music booms) (pen clicks) (clock ticking) (pen scratching) (text booms) Oh yeah, um, ni hao? - So, uh, anyway, let's, uh, start with some, with, uh, some coding questions that we follow up with. Uh, some system design, okay? Great. Uh, so the first question, leh (interviewer speaks in foreign language) (interviewer laughs) (Da Wei chuckles awkwardly) - Yeah, um, sorry, um. I'm actually, I don't speak Mandarin. I'm Canto. (pen clicks) Yeah. (paper scraping) - (sighs) Okay. We, we start off with the first question then. Uh, okay, create a class to find the medium in a data stream. Go, we don't have much time. - Um, okay, I guess what we can do is we can create an array and- - Too slow. - Um, okay, um, maybe what we can do is, uh, instead of sorting, maybe we can do it with insertions. - My grandmother run faster than you code. - Okay, okay. What if we create a HashMap, right? And then- - Hash, hash. What, you eat too much hash brown? Your brain turned into potato. (pen thuds) - (sighs) Okay. Fuck, um. Oh, oh, wait. Okay, what if- - Oh, sorry. Would you look at the time? Good luck with your, your other interviews. It was okay meeting you. (sighs) Disappointment, just like my son. (clock ticking) So I'm sure you've heard about our five principles and our 53 core values to our company. (text booms) - Yeah. Su- sure. - Great, because you know culture is very important to our company. So I'm just gonna ask you one question. (ominous music) If your parents were in a car crash and you could only save one, who would you save and how does that reflect our company values? - Um. (clock ticking) (interviewer laughing) (text thuds) - No way, what for real? Like really? Oh my God. You did not. What? Emotional damage, what the fuck is that? No, okay. (laughs) Lis, all right. Listen, man, I gotta, I gotta interview this bozo right here, so. Yeah, I'll be done, I'll be done later. Oh, w, why are you here again? (clock ticking) (text booming) (tense music) (clock ticking) (dramatic orchestral music) Da Wei, come. Let me show you something. 130 desks, 130 employees by the end of the year. We've raised $100 million at a 1. 2 billion valuation. - Yeah, congrats. I mean, you guys have a great product, great product market fit- (CEO laughs) I mean... - Do you really believe my company's worth $1 billion? - Well, yeah, I mean, you have great user retention and- - It's all fairy dust.

See all of this? Smoke and mirrors, you know. It's slight of hand for the uninitiated. Well, sure, on paper it's worth $1 billion, but none of this is ever going to see the light of day and that's why we liquidate. - That's standard, right? You know, you either liquidate for an IPO or an acquisition. - Well, that's where you're wrong. See, you want to be on the secondary market. The equity, the paper money, the number on these screens, they're all for the investors. But we, we want hard cash, right? Say we lose this, where you wanna be? - Well, I mean, you know, you still have to please the investors. You can't just ignore them, right? (CEO scoffs) - Ah, it doesn't matter what your company does. Hell, make a window blinds company if you want. At the end of the day all the people see are these numbers and if enough people believe they are real they become real, 'cause they're addicted. So sell your house of cards while it still looks like a palace. Da Wei, right? - Yeah, that's my legal name, but you can call me Eric. Eric Wang. - Eric, welcome to the company. Enjoy the ride as much as you can. (dramatic orchestral music) - [Da Wei] Blinders upon trust. (dramatic orchestral music crescendos) (announcer speaking faintly) (boots thud) (wheels rattling) (suspenseful music) (bright orchestral music) (man shushes)