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Comment by selmnoo | Hacker News Reader

    > [ http://www.lorenburton.com/ ]
    > [...] I posted the site to HN and dropped a "share on twitter" button on 
    > the bottom of the page, racking up tens of thousands of hits and hundreds 
    > of tweets. I was in touch with Joe Gebbia (thanks pg!!) within hours, who 
    > expedited the interview process, and I flew to SF the next morning. Though 
    > I didn't get the job [...]

Wait, what?! You made http://www.lorenburton.com ... and then didn't get a job at AirBNB? Goodness gracious. The job was for some frontend stuff, right? You seem pretty good at making frontend stuff, I can't imagine why you didn't get it.

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I have a solid history of failing remarkably. Good lessons learned, though.

To be honest I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was completely unprepared and under qualified, and it was my first job interview ever. I bombed it.

That's crazy that you didn't get the job. Considering AirBNB's growth rate, it seems they could have taken a risk that someone like yourself would grow into the position.

This isn't the 1970s where you could get hired as a novice and trained on the job. In today's world you need to be a rockstar programmer right out of college. Training? No start up wants to gamble resources on that.

A person's capacity for learning complex concepts quickly matters more than their current body of knowledge. Startups are marathons, not sprints.

If Feynman were still alive and wanted to work as a programmer at your startup, it'd be foolish to turn him away. This was a guy who went from "zero knowledge of how a space shuttle works" to "knows the design of the Challenger shuttle in detail, and is able to spot overlooked problems" within a couple weeks. So he'd certainly have no trouble reaching rockstar programmer status at your startup within a couple months.

But I'm getting the feeling most startups would turn him down if he wasn't already a rockstar programmer the day his interview rolls around. That seems a little nutty.

I find the remarkable part more important than the failure. Best of luck for the future.

I would be fascinated to read more about that experience.

I've been meaning to write about it for 2.5 years now... I might get around to it eventually.

You may be selling yourself short, you might feel under qualified but with technology you're always in the fire meaning that things change at such a rapid pace the real qualification is that your competent to keep up with it.

Job interviewing is definitely a skill that improves with practice. Next time you'll do better :)

How did Loren make/get the graphics for this site? I'm assuming self created in his graphics software of choice?

It's probably the most artsy personal page I've seen.

I drew them in Illustrator.

Thanks for the kind words! Edit: at least I think those were kind words :)

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