LordJim

What's bad about Maguire?

This grant was given a year ago when I started but was communicated to me only recently.

This is very strange. Normally you'd have to sign to accept the options as soon as they are granted, even if they have a 1 year vesting cliff.

I don't think you're necessarily being lowballed. 0.1% is a reasonable number for a hands-on engineer in series A. Keep in mind that startups typically have maybe 20% of their equity allocated as the pool for stock option grants, and they guard that very closely. They need to reserve possibly multiple % for early executive hires such as VP of engineering or head of sales as they grow.

Also don't buy BS like "they say this grant could be worth $1m if startup is valued at $1b". Not only is there a small chance of them ever getting to a $1B valuation, you would mostly likely be diluted between now and then by additional funding rounds.

Well that's the point -- OP said they're having a hard time even getting an interview. In my experience, once you get to the interview stage, most big tech companies care more about your demonstrable skills than the intangibles of your previous experience. For better or worse, that means you can grind leetcode and system design interview prep and get through it.

Anecdotal evidence, but I got a referral from a friend in big tech and skipped past recruiter screen and technical phone screen and went straight to onsite interviews. This was several years ago though, maybe the process has changed.

Yeah, Thief is another great movie.

Totally agree, excellent film. Though I think the author exaggerates a bit how obscure Mishima is outside of Japan. In particular Mishima has seen a recent renaissance among the online right.

Other good Schrader films (though in very different veins than Mishima) include Light Sleeper and his more recent The Card Counter.

The best way to get into any company is to get a strong referral from someone who knows you and can speak meaningfully to your abilities. I think this is especially true for big tech due to the massive volume of applications they get.

However, realistically I think this is a difficult time to be trying to get into big tech. A lot of these companies have been doing layoffs, while ramping up their hiring of H1Bs and moving jobs out of the US. At the same time, it feels like there is kind of an informal hiring freeze while companies wait and see how AI develops before possibly deciding to jettison a large fraction of their workforce completely.

Sorry I don't have better advice, but this is my personal take from someone who has worked in big tech in SV.

Ah cool. I've read a bit of Epictetus (the Handbook) and some other Stoics, but can't recall having encountered that concept.

For context, I've suffered from depression my entire adult life -- possibly due to genetic factors and childhood emotional trauma, compounded by substance abuse (mostly alcohol, but also marijuana addiction for a few years) and difficulties getting along with my family.

A few years ago, during my marijuana-addicted period and also during a stressful time when I had recently changed jobs and residences, I had my closest approach to suicide. I never actually attempted it, but I went as far as scoping out a train crossing where I imagined/hoped it could be done easily. That day while I was walking over to the train crossing, I had a realization, almost a brief moment of enlightenment. I observed that if my life was really so bad that I would rather end it, then I actually had complete freedom to do anything that would make my life better, even temporarily. I could quit my job, leave my wife, move to another country -- even just take all of my money out of the bank, go to Vegas, and spend it all on hookers and coke before going ahead and killing myself if I still wanted to.

Although I'm in much better shape now, the funny thing is I haven't even had to make use of this freedom. My life is basically the same as it was then -- same job, same house, same wife. But having this realization as a sort of metaphysical get-out-of-jail-free card in my back pocket somehow makes it easier to deal with the day-to-day struggles and disappointments.

Art in various forms has also kept me going. I wouldn't call myself a religious person, but classical music is for me the closest thing to a spiritual experience. That tends to be helpful in the depths of despair. Also, Philip K. Dick's book "A Scanner Darkly" made me reflect on my drug use and helped me to confront who I was and how I was with other people when I was using, which helped kick it (though I'm still kind of an alcoholic).