Jon loves summertime!

Vice-president of Tesla Owners Club of Pennsylvania. Owner Education classes. @tocpenn

[John Loeber 🎢 @johnloeber]

Notes on 100+ Recent Technical Interviews

I interview a ton of engineers. Recruiting is the single most important technical CEO activity. Here are a bunch of impressions

1. There is a severe ZIRP engineering overhang that is currently washing out. They're getting laid off, managed out, etc. after having been massively overhired around 2020-2022. This is worst for Tier-2 big tech (think PayPal, Bill, etc.) but also FAANGs. These are overwhelmingly bad engineers.

2. This flood of unqualified but good-on-paper candidates makes this the hardest SF hiring market I have ever seen, due to the amount of nominally strong-looking candidates that you need to grind through.

3. I am highly skeptical of "AI as a cause for engineering layoffs". I think this is a large-scale polite fiction -- the companies don't want to admit they overhired, the engineers don't want to admit they are bad at their jobs. Everyone's blaming AI when it's really just the market rectifying itself.

4. Many of these engineers appear never to have had a real engineering function at their corporations. They're sitting in meetings, "making decisions about technology" but are unable to write software. I leave many interviews baffled by what exactly they were doing for so many years, let alone what their manager was doing.

5. I have interviewed some engineers from FAANG companies so shockingly nontechnical that I am forced to conclude that there is either (1) a lot of resume fraud going on or (2) that there are kickback grifts within those organizations -- people hiring their cousins and splitting the pay, that kind of thing. I have no other explanation.

6. There's a fun side-effect where after interviewing 20+ people from certain small but public companies, I actually feel like I am gaining a short sellers' advantage: there are financial technology companies out there that, knowing what I now know, I would never deposit a single dollar into.

8. Based on this "exhaust" data, and extrapolating a little bit, maybe aggressively so: I think folks like @pmarca are basically right when they say that ~every tech company is overstaffed by a factor of 2-4x. Whatever the reason -- staffing ahead of need, monopolizing certain engineer types (Google-style), headcount-driven promotion incentives, the reality is that a lot of these companies are not being run for the shareholders. The aggregate SBC expense is insane, and I expect this is going to get rectified eventually.

I'm sure that AI will play a role in rectifying this -- but I fear that people are going to blame AI for taking people's jobs when the reality is that the jobs were already long-gone, possibly always useless, but the highly-paid butts-in-seats remained. People will be mad at AI for taking away their lucrative sinecures. Maybe that's the same effect from a public policy perspective, but it feels different morally.

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@contractorsPOV Cybertruck to Alaska!

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@SolarEnergyBTC @DoctorJack16 Also followed!

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@congressdj @theXtakeover I'll be there!

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@TeslaPatriot @KentWeyrauch And quicker escape, if needed

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@contractorsPOV Heading there in late August

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@Xenius 4.5 bad hours of sleep for me. Always happens when I have to get up early. Leftover from my work days. I really despise this. Now my car will hopefully drive my wife and I, along with our friends, to Hershey for an overnight trip.

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

I hear this more than I thought possible. If only there were some way of letting the masses know what FSD actually is. Like, perhaps during a major sporting event? @Tesla

[Tesla @Tesla]

"My car also has FSD"

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@kneubuehl Mine are in a box as well. Dug them out 20+ years ago when I got my daughter an n-gauge train. They remain in my basement

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@kneubuehl I just remembered I also have the caboose! Saved my lawn mowing money for those!

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@ThrillaRilla369 Nuclear

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@Xenius @jd_average @chadly_c21 @trouttownBNG @thedooberhead Yeah, I was thinking the same, especially after my running experience yesterday

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

Gym update. I bailed today. Drove to the gym but paving on the alley and roads to the parking lot. ZERO parking. I drove up and down the street in front 3x. Almost backed into someone. Almost took out a street sign with my Tesla trying to parallel park in a spot that I didn't fit in. At that point I said "Screw it". I'll return FRI.

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@Xenius @jd_average @chadly_c21 @trouttownBNG @thedooberhead First outdoor run yesterday. Vo2 max was 31. Not good. At all. I have work to do in this area. Still, it was good to get outside. Lighter weights today, then Hershey Tuesday and Wednesday.

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@awraynor What is a stalk?

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@awraynor Did you tell her "She could..."?

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@Gtwy Grok is helping me diagnose my heat pump water heater. Should be an easy fix. He also told me how to get the parts for free. And how to troubleshoot the correct part with my multimeter.

[Jon loves summertime! @JonB65]

@99_Colorado This was great!!! I was laughing. The music, the emotion, all just perfect!!

[Michael Warburton @For_Film_Fans]

STEVE MARTIN totally flummoxes JOHNNY CARSON by turning ‘The Tonight Show’ into a restaurant in 1980.