The single best interview question you can ask (2021)
fs.blog
fs.blog
"If every one of India’s hundreds of millions of households were to live the way Americans already do— using only today’s tools— the result would be environmentally catastrophic. Spreading old ways to create wealth around the world will result in devastation, not riches. In a world of scarce resources, globalization without new technology is unsustainable."
But this answer is completely in line with the conventional wisdom. It is not contrarian or something that "very few people agree with you on".
His reaction to it may be contrarian, but arguably not in a good way: ity is noteworthy that Mr Thiel's action plan, based on whatever beliefs that he holds, is to funnel money into the anti-democratic political right wing: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/technology/republican-tru...
The requirement was that "very few people agree with you on" it.
My local science center has a chart showing how many Earths are needed if everyone on the planet uses the same average resources as someone from country "X", so we're not talking some sort of small minority topic.
If you read my comment again, I was referring to why that needs to be followed with "anti-democratic political right wing" and his ties to Trump. What does that actually have to do with the topic of the best interview question and the poor example. The point doesn't change just because the one making the example is of any particular conviction and has no relevance to the topic.
notapenny questioned the relevance of SideburnsOfDoom's reference to the 'anti-democratic political right wing'. I mis-read it as notapenny not following the earlier part of SideburnsOfDoom's comment. notapenny corrected my mistake. I suggested SideburnsOfDoom's comment is still reasonable because we also have to ask why there's a link to a discussion of Thiel's views in the first place.
For examples: were he a Joe Blow, would we even be talking about it? How does his fame and wealth connect to his beliefs and action plans and to the type of people he wants to hire? Does future discussion of his views, w/o further context, unduly raise his fame or whitewash his views?
Would you say that actions and speak louder than words, large donations louder than blog posts?
Is some topic drift OK in internet discussions?
(IMHO, yes to all)
Why does bringing this fact up, specifically upset you?
You're inferring me being upset though and ignoring what I'm pointing out specifically; the language. It isn't the drift, it's how the drift.
I think that even when two people agree on the problem statement; political take might make them differ greatly on what they think the correct solution is. That doesn't "invalidate the words" even if you think that the proposed solution is e.g. unethical, impractical, not likely to actually fix the problem, captured by a big business, mere crowd-pleasing window-dressing, or otherwise inadvisable.
The actions indicate how a person responds to a belief. It's relevant.
For example, in the context of globalization, an answer is "just prevent the globalization of industrialization". An answer to immigration was "build a border wall". Supporting those answers might make you a bad person, will reveal a lot about your actual politics, but does not "invalidate the words".
I don't believe that Thiel wants harm to come to people as a primary goal. But I do believe that he and I have extremely different values. Thiel has said that the world would be a better place if women never got the right to vote because, on average, women vote for policies that he thinks are bad. This indicates that Thiel values particular policy action more than providing franchise to people. That's... pretty bad in my opinion.
I remember reading about someone wanting to hire a mechanical engineer. Candidate came in, was given a blank sheet of paper and a pen, and 60 seconds to draw a picture of a working bicycle. Candidate drew a good picture, was hired on the spot, has been with the company or project or whatever it was ever since, 20+ years now.
Maybe someone else here remembers who or where that was. I came across the story fairly recently and the interview question was the part that stayed with me.
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https://www.wired.com/2016/04/can-draw-bikes-memory-definite...
True or False, turning off the radio in the car gives you better gas mileage.
Obviously, the energy for the radio comes from somewhere so True. However, my daughter who didn't drive at the time thought that car batteries where like ordinary batteries around the house and where simply replaced when the big things ran down. When I grew up, cars were far from reliable and it was pretty common to carry jumper cables so even kids just kind of knew that auto batteries where rechargeable and that the car contained a generator (alternator).
Drawing a bike would be easy for me. I've owned numerous bikes and even taken them down to bare frames to maintain them, but I'm not educated to be a mechanical engineer at all.
“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell
That said I do realize his goal is to find people thinking outside the box and not afraid to speak their mind, it’s just that he could have phrased it better.
Progress and truth are much, much more important than fitting in and pleasing others’ sense of propriety.
Scientific theories are merely our best approximations of how the world works.
Usually it is the anti-scientific drivel that is full of assertions and absolute statements, which is also what makes it so popular, especially among the less educated crowd.
I agree that making progress is of utmost importance, but the concept of truth is much more nuanced and, imo, difficult to define in objective terms.
1 sounds less arrogant than 2 IMHO and is what I would expect a scientific minded person to say. That makes it way simpler to discuss the actual reasons to believe X, without necessarily going against the individual who believes X.
Most people think that a job interview is about a company evaluating a potential hire when it really goes both ways and the company is also being evaluated.
To the interviewer: Now, how would you answer that same question?
Maybe it's the best interview question for Thiel, since he was / is looking for contrarians? [0]
But is it the best interview question for other organizations?
Love or hate Elon - but I prefer what he said... basically:
"Describe a few of the hardest problems you solved & exactly how you solved them."
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[0] He seems to be a contrarian himself - I mean he was voting and supporting Trump... very 'courageous' indeed and such a smart move.
In this particular case what I find interesting is how this question can lead to a conversation to what people find truth and how they relate that with facts and questions.
A good follow up question to whatever answer is to why you think that way and lead the conversation from there.
As for Theil's answer I agree that is not the best answer since I find it hard to believe that few people will agree with him.