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Comment by pedalpete | Hacker News Reader

The first things that come to mind are

1) why would Google steal this instead of bringing Oz onto the team, which assumes he wanted to work for Google)

2) what can we as a community do to support Oz .

Oz, if you're reading this, you're obviously a very capable person, how do you think we can support you. Not just in relation to MidiBlocks, but beyond. That is just one project, I'm sure you've got more in you, if you want to pursue other things.

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With a big company like Google you can't just randomly hire someone without putting them through the rigorous interview process that can be months long (been there, done that), accomplishments or not (see the Homebrew dude).

They have thousands of contractors and consultants that don't go through this process. That's not a valid reason.

of course not, you have to acquire their LLC to let them skip the interview process. so building stuff does count, but only if done commercially

FYI, it is incredibly common to subject acquihired employees to the same interviews, and extend offers only to those that pass. This is especially true at FAANG.

So if John Carmack, Guido, Rich Hickey, Donald Knuth wanted a job, they would first have to leet code like everyone else?

The reason the failure to invert a binary tree story was notable was because the dude invented Homebrew. He was supposed to enter though the back door, but someone screwed up and made him go through the regular mechanism.

At the extreme edges of course there are exceptions. I think we can agree that this is not the case here?

Sorry bud, I strongly disagree. This feels like an exception'd be warranted.

To be clear, I am not passing judgment on Oz - I think his accomplishments are impressive, all the more so given his day-to-day challenges. And I'm not at all a fan of the Leetcode interviewing culture either. My point was that Oz is not Carmack, Knuth, etc, so wouldn't fall into the exception bucket that Google cares about (unlike you or me). There are usually well-meaning reasons behind these processes, regardless how well they turn out.

For this piece of tech, he is Carmack. He is Knuth. He deserves respect for the work he’s done in this problem space, it actually is gaming changing the way it works.

Why disrespect what’s been achieved here?

>There are usually well-meaning reasons behind these processes, regardless how well they turn out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

are you saying google is not an expert in software development? sorry, this fallacy doesn't apply here

I think his point is that not everything is well thought out or planned. A lot of the time people are just winging it and hoping for the best. Just because some giant corporation does something doesn't mean they planned, thought about or even intended to do a thing and arguing that they must've had teams behind every decision is silly. Sometimes, shit happens.

>John Carmack, Guido, Rich Hickey, Donald Knuth wanted a job, they would first have to leet code like everyone else

I think it's funny that you listed people who develop game engines, programming languages, and write algorithm and data structures textbooks.

Literally the people who could do the LeetCode algorithms and data structures problems in their sleep because it's actually relevant for their job.

Gotta answer dem 1337 code questions.

In a previous life on a job site, the term was called measuring dicks but I digress.

It's not "Google", it's people on project teams looking to elevate their careers. There's greed, credit, ego, and notoriety at stake, and sharing it with others is not a priority for many.

"Google" is only going to care if it affects Legal or PR. If you want Google to care, this is going to need a lot more exposure. It will also be really bad for the people at Google responsible for this situation if this gets too much attention.

It is Google in that it enables, fosters, incentivizes, rewards culture exactly like that.

It wasn't stolen. See my above statement.

We supported Oz in the ways that we could.

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