OpenAI & Meta Distinguished Engineer (IC9) On Working With Zuck, Carmack & Career Growth | Philip Su

One thing that impressed me most about Zuck, and this is true of Bos as well, is this is Philip Sue. He's one of the few who have been promoted to

distinguished engineer or IC9 at Meta, which is three levels higher than staff.

And I asked him about everything he learned along the way. Someone that

stands out to you that consistently impressed you. John Carmarmac obviously

impressed you. John Carmarmac obviously legendary, right? Not only is he super

legendary, right? Not only is he super prolific in coding, he had an ability to Oh wow. He also shared about his unique

Oh wow. He also shared about his unique demotion. I was eventually releveled

demotion. I was eventually releveled down from an E9 to an E7. Later he left Meta to join OpenAI before it got big and shared an interesting perspective on

why. The reason I joined OpenAI was what

why. The reason I joined OpenAI was what I'd learned from working at Facebook is I would much rather join the market leader or nobody at all. And here's why.

He's one of the guests I was most excited to have on. And hopefully you see why after listening to the conversation. Here is the full

conversation. Here is the full episode. Thank you, Philip, for for

episode. Thank you, Philip, for for joining today. I'm so excited to ask you

joining today. I'm so excited to ask you all the questions I have here. I think a lot of people are going to get value out of it. So, yeah, let's start digging

of it. So, yeah, let's start digging into your career. Starting with

Microsoft. My understanding of your career is that you sprinted through Microsoft ladder. What do you credit

Microsoft ladder. What do you credit your your fast promotions to the equivalent of Microsoft's E7 to? I think

the growth comes from a few things. One

is just I had several very good managers and teammates who I grew a lot from. So

for instance, when I joined the tablet PC team, the team was about 20 people, but there were three distinguished engineers on that team, which for Microsoft terms is like very rare to

find a team like that stacked with talent. So I learned a ton of stuff very

talent. So I learned a ton of stuff very quickly from people on that team for instance. I think another thing is that

instance. I think another thing is that I just worked very long hours is the truth of it. Like in my first year at Microsoft, I had a sleeping bag in my office. I regularly slept at the office.

office. I regularly slept at the office.

I would have an alarm that would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. because I was pursuing Da Vinci's theory that you can sleep four hours, wake up, and then like sleep another four hours and wake up. So, I

would wake up at 3:00 a.m., code a bit, and then go back to sleep at 6:00 a.m.

and then wake up at 10:00 a.m. and and

keep coding, right? So, I do think a thing that I tell people a lot is I think there are only three main things that contribute to fast career growth.

One is of course luck. You know, being at the right place at the right time.

you happened to be at uh Stamford when Sergey and Larry were working there.

They happened to pick you to join the company, right? So, some of it is luck,

company, right? So, some of it is luck, some of it is talent, you know, like people like to say things like, "Oh, everyone can be an astronaut." And I don't think that that's true. Like the

harsh truth is, you know, I am never going to be a great basketball player, right? Like they're just things that I

right? Like they're just things that I cannot do. Um, similarly, someone who is

cannot do. Um, similarly, someone who is not naturally good at public speaking, they can always improve to where they're passable at public speaking, but they're not going to become a Cicero through

like a lot of practice, right? So, I

think luck, talent, and the last thing I do think is hard work. You know, if you are willing to outwork everybody, I think who is equally talented and equally lucky, you're just going to get

further. Um, I am not saying that I

further. Um, I am not saying that I would recommend that to everyone. And in

fact, I do think that my work life was way out of whack for many years there.

So, I'm not at all saying that this is what I recommend people do, but I do think that outworking a lot of people goes a long way. When you first got into the

way. When you first got into the industry, it sounds like you were really hungry and I I was also, you know, super motivated, too. And one thing that I

motivated, too. And one thing that I wondered though is you know when you work so hard it trades off with your health and then can eat into your I

guess productivity throughput um after you lived that experience. Do you think if your goal was growth at all costs that that was actually optimal? Yeah,

this is a great question. And I think there are a lot of people that will defend the 40-hour work week with things like, you know, when Henry Ford studied his people, every additional hour was

like uh lower in productivity. I think

one thing people don't like to discuss often is that I do believe your productivity does go down on a per hour basis as you stay up for way too long.

But I think for many people that curve keeps going a long time before it gets negative productivity. meaning like an

negative productivity. meaning like an additional hour worked is actually subtracting from your productivity. So I

feel like the truth is working 50 60 hours you will probably get a sum total of more done but each incremental hour is probably less effective right but I

think there's one other thing that people don't take into account which is you know you could say like for instance why do surgeons still have residencies that have 36 hour shifts right part of it is hazing I think part of it is just

because they did it when they were young so they're going to make you do it when you're young right but I think another part of it that I heard from a surgeon is that the biggest quickest way to gain experience in surgery is to have a lot

of surgery hours. So the more you're there, the more you experience and if you can pack in six years worth of experience into four years, then you're just going to be a better surgeon coming

out, right? And so I think although

out, right? And so I think although nobody wants to be operated on by a surgeon who's in his 34th hour, let's say, right? Um, at the same time, you

say, right? Um, at the same time, you would like a surgeon who has experienced a very wide variety of things. So, I

think although I wouldn't recommend my crazy work hours from when I started work, I would say it exposed me to a lot more experience than the average junior person starting at Microsoft. So, there

is diminishing returns, but there are still returns. And so, if you're a

still returns. And so, if you're a growth at all costs career person, you should I mean, by that logic, you should work more. Of course, there's other

work more. Of course, there's other parts of life. Totally. Like if if you were diehard convinced that career was the most important thing for you and in

fact that you were willing to sacrifice things like relationships and other things like that. I do think the truth is working longer hours is going to get you there faster. So you grew to the

equivalent of um you know E7, my understanding that's senior staff and you said there were three distinguished engineer. Is that the equivalent of E9

engineer. Is that the equivalent of E9 or would have been at at Microsoft or Yeah, probably something like that. E9,

it's the equivalent of a vice president level and compensation within the company. E6 to E7, I I'm familiar with

company. E6 to E7, I I'm familiar with that at Meta. Um, when you got that promo at Microsoft, was that as a manager or as an IC? And what's the story behind that promo? Great question.

That was as a manager. Um, but I think I also then became an individual contributor at the new level as well. I

see. What made you decide to switch into management uh, in the first place?

I think when I was younger, I was very ambitious for myself and I came from a culture, you know, I'm ethnically Chinese. I came from a culture where

Chinese. I came from a culture where people really felt like managers were more respected and would get further in career. And so I think I had the

career. And so I think I had the somewhat misguided notion that in software engineering becoming a manager was the next growth step for me. So

that's largely why I became a manager.

But in my career I fluctuated between managing people and being an individual contributor at least six times. And I

think the main reason for that is I really love being an individual contributor, but I'm often asked to manage if the team needs a temporary manager for a while, for instance, or I

would much rather be the manager of a team if it's poorly managed. You know

what I mean? Uh so my order of preference would be be an individual contributor, uh be a manager on a team because the team doesn't have a better manager, right? Like that's my order of

manager, right? Like that's my order of preference. But in general, I think left

preference. But in general, I think left to my own devices, I'd rather not manage people. I see. And in that case where

people. I see. And in that case where you said if it's poorly managed, are you saying that there's cases in your career where the existing management was

lacking and you volunteered yourself or you're saying someone in your management chain said, "Philip, can you please help us?" Yeah, both of those things have

us?" Yeah, both of those things have happened before. So for instance in my

happened before. So for instance in my career I've had four separate times when a previous manager of mine asked to report to me so I became their manager

basically really and I think that yeah uh and so that has happened four times and I think part of that is because I've learned from great managers you know although I don't prefer to be a manager

I do think there are parts of what I've learned that have been useful right and so um I have been asked to be a manager before um After pursuing trying to

become a manager early in my career, I sort of stopped looking out for those opportunities as actively as I did an individual contributor opportunity. That

I've never heard of that before where your manager asks to report to you. How

does that happen? Um well, I think each situation is a little different. So on

some of the situations, they reported to me on the same team, right? um on some situations uh several years later they asked to join my team you know and when

we had both moved on. So I think that in the cases where it happened on the same team um one time it was because the manager wanted to be an individual contributor on the team you know and I

was a strong individual contributor that wanted to be a manager and so it was almost like a swap in place right um I've had other times several times where I joined a different team somewhere else

and then my manager who liked working with me was very happy to work for me as well on the new team and so that's been the majority of cases at some point you get in your career, there's that

decision point of do you want to continue down the icy track or do you want to become a manager. What would be your your framework of thinking through

that for for someone who's considering that for themselves? Yeah, great

question. I personalitywise I'm very open to new experience. So in general I'm going to advocate for trying new things, you know. So, I feel like in

general it can't hurt to try it if you think that you might like it or you think you might be good at it, but I would put a few asterisks on. One is

like be very sensitive to whether or not it locks you into a career you don't want. So, for instance, I've told you

want. So, for instance, I've told you that I've switched back to an IC probably six times in my career, right?

Um, many people cannot make that transition, meaning they have become a manager. Now, they're a manager of

manager. Now, they're a manager of managers. they're far away from the

managers. they're far away from the code. They either are unwilling to take

code. They either are unwilling to take a lower level job in order to be an IC, which I'm very willing to do, right? Or

they are unable to meet the expectations of their level as a manager as an IC.

And so I think people have to be very careful not to accidentally walk through a one-way door on that. For me, I've kept that door open two ways because I do the switch often. And when I'm managing teams, I also love the actual

coding. So I still try to dive into the

coding. So I still try to dive into the code whenever I can. And so I've kept both sides sort of evergreen. But I

don't think that's true of many people.

So like one is be careful that you don't walk through a one-way door that you're not positive that you want to walk through, right? I think another thing

through, right? I think another thing about that is people often mostly think about themselves when they think about wanting to be a manager. But what I classically tell people is you are ready

to lead a team when your team would have elected you to lead them. Right? Like

think of it this way. Would you want to work for you? That's the key question.

Would you want to work for you? If the

answer is not a solid yes, I would be thrilled to work for me, right? You

probably have a few things you can improve in yourself to get to that point. And people cannot make you the

point. And people cannot make you the lead of anything. Like they can nominally make you the lead, but as you know in software development, people can slow roll things. People can like uh can can sand sandbag things. Like there are

all sorts of ways your team can work against you actually. So you need people to want to work for you. So I think before becoming a manager one key thing

is take a critical look at like would I work for myself and like if not what can I improve in myself to make it so that people want to work for me. I think when you have those improvements it'll be

clear and then uh people will ask you to manage at that point. That was

interesting you talk about the two-way doors because when I think about I made a similar decision for myself of you know pursuing management versus IC. I

presumed past a certain point you've become more specialized like if I was a manager of managers and then I switched to my equivalent which would be principal

engineer. those jobs are so different

engineer. those jobs are so different that I would have thought almost no one would be able to keep the door open. Um,

and I was thinking if I did do switches too, I would be, I guess, resetting some progress potentially. So, yeah, I'm

progress potentially. So, yeah, I'm curious how you think about that. Like,

did did you ever feel like you lost progress by switching between the two tracks?

Yeah. Well, I definitely lost progress and intentionally and willingly so. So,

for instance, um when I switched from being the site director of Facebook London to being an individual contributor on Oculus, I was eventually

releveled down from an E9 to an E7. And

that was something that I very much sort of wanted and I fully acknowledged was necessary because the skills I could demonstrate as a as a site director were very different from the skills that were

required to be a good coder on uh on uh Oculus. And so that was a rele bought

Oculus. And so that was a rele bought into it. Now many people cannot handle

into it. Now many people cannot handle that like either for ego reasons like they feel like they can't handle it or for compensation reasons like there are some people whose lifestyles just grow

to fill whatever compensation they're making right and if they refuse to uh change their lifestyle you know they will paint themselves into a corner where there are increasingly less jobs

they can take because they are unwilling uh to move. So I do think sometimes that switch entails that movement and I also think there are certain times in career where that switch is easier and certain

times where that is harder. So like

here's an interesting dynamic. I think

early in career like one or two years in uh let's say you are a software developer you want to be a product manager. I feel like one or two years in

manager. I feel like one or two years in it's easy to make a lateral move. You

know you're like a a junior software developer you want to become a junior product manager. Many people are very

product manager. Many people are very willing to coach you on that. I think in the senior, you know, E sort of fiveish range, I feel like the transition is very difficult. If you want to go from

very difficult. If you want to go from an E5 software developer to an E5 product manager, just like that, I think it will be very difficult to be good

relative to your peers. Unless your

software development work involved a lot of product management sort of things, right? Um, but funny enough, these

right? Um, but funny enough, these things are a diamond shape. Once you're

senior enough, the skills once again converge. Like what is a really

converge. Like what is a really effective E8 doing? Right? There are

occasionally, of course, the prodigy coders who are just far more effective than the average person in producing a ton of hard code, right? But I think a lot of very senior individual

contributors, they are actually great at leading teams, you know, like they have a vision for technically where the product needs to go. They understand the infrastructure and the weak point. They

have a plan for staged migration to the next better design, right? And people

love working with them because they are good and compelling at coaching others and and whatnot. That's a lot of what makes a great typical sort of E8 um in in individual contributor in which case

like this diamond shape happens, right?

Which is once you're senior enough, a lot of the skills once again overlap.

Are you good at communicating with others? Do you have vision? Do you

others? Do you have vision? Do you

understand the business strategy and how it pertains to the technology you're building? those things once again become

building? those things once again become shared. So I think there's a part in the

shared. So I think there's a part in the middle where it's most difficult to make the change. Yeah, that is a that's a

the change. Yeah, that is a that's a really interesting idea and I I see that as well with the high level archetype I sees especially the you know tech lead

generalist um the skill set in leading an initiative that ad engineers are contributing to there's probably a lot of leadership skill overlaps with the

director so I see that um but I I wonder though for some of the other archetypes like let's say you went deep into the uh you're a specialist in AI or something.

I'm wondering maybe that diamond doesn't come back. Yeah, for some archetypes it

come back. Yeah, for some archetypes it definitely doesn't come back. You know,

there are some people that are super deep like let's say you're into like query optimization for SQL queries, right? You can go very very deep on

right? You can go very very deep on that. And I think in a way some

that. And I think in a way some archetypes going that deep on the technology might not need to have developed all the other skills that are related to leading teams and whatnot. it

and may not be a good uh transition into managing. You mentioned that you

managing. You mentioned that you navigated the conversation. You were an E9 um and you sought out a demotion to

E7 and for those who don't know E9 is a distinguished engineer and E7 would be a senior staff engineer which are both crazy high levels. How did you navigate

that conversation like requesting a demotion?

Yeah. Yeah. This is a great question. I

was even concerned about it when I was first promoted from an E8 to an E9 as the site director of London. What I told uh Facebook CTO back then, Shrep was,

you know, I'm very concerned that uh because I like being an individual contributor, I'm very concerned that I cannot maintain this level of performance when I want to move back.

And what he said to me during my promotion to E9 was, "Hey, let's worry about that problem when it happens. like

let's not not promote you because you think one day you're going to want to go back uh to coding. So when I went back to coding I very much understood that I

was at a level that I in no way could meet the expectations. And so I think under those conditions, it felt honestly great for me to ask to be uh moved back

to E7, which is the level I joined the company at like eight years before that, you know, um because I knew that I could perform at that level and I definitely did not want to be compensated more than

I deserved uh relative to my peers um on a team. It feels so much better to be

a team. It feels so much better to be performing well at a level than it feels to be like barely treading water at a level that you feel a lot of imposttor syndrome in and that you're not even

sure that you'll stay long-term qualified for. Right? So I actually very

qualified for. Right? So I actually very much welcomed the change. Um but I think also many people don't make a change that big first of all and second of all

many people don't want um don't want to take all that comes with that right like for instance I went from being the site director of a site that was probably you

know four or 500 people um down to reporting to a manager who reported to a manager who was then part of a management of the site right and so like you have to have an ego that is very

willing to say like hey I'm happy to be just a member of a team down here um doing my own work. And you also have to be sensitive to other funny things like you have to be careful not to speak up

about your opinions about all sorts of things that you used to have opinions about when it came to running the site because you need to support the new people running the site in being successful. Like you need to support the

successful. Like you need to support the new leaders, right? By playing your role on the team as opposed to using your outsiz influence from the path to get things done. And so I think both of

things done. And so I think both of those things were changes that I was uh you know willing to try to learn to navigate and I very much welcomed being leveled appropriately relative to my

contributions. Makes sense. And you

contributions. Makes sense. And you

talked about the uh expectations being too high for E9. Can you give a high level like what what does it generally mean for what is an E7 typically doing

or E8 typically doing or E9 typically doing?

Yeah, great question. And I have to caveat my opinion about this relative to, you know, I was working at Meta starting 15 years ago, right? Um, and so

my data about how those levels map is going to be very coarse grain, right?

But in general, I think here are a few important concepts just when it comes to all those levels, right? Is it is about

the scope of the person's influence. So

like how big or how long uh or how valuable of a project can you single-handedly guarantee the delivery of? Okay, so like an intern can not even

of? Okay, so like an intern can not even guarantee the delivery of a feature necessarily, right? Um or they might

necessarily, right? Um or they might guarantee the delivery of a small feature on time, right? A senior

developer like let's say an E5 E6 in a company should be able to deliver the work of about 10 people 10 to 15 people right if you're regularly influencing

the work of 10 to 15 people and you can reliably deliver things of that scope when you are the one in charge for that delivery whether it's technical delivery or a product feature area or whatever it

is usually at E7 once again my data is probably very stale I'd expect a person to regularly impact act the work of maybe 50 people, you know. So like um

you would be a person that is driving technical direction for maybe around a team of about 50 people. You are

regularly consulted on key changes on that team by the product managers by the engineering managers like you are viewed as that influential right typically you are able to personally deliver projects

on the scope of like six months. Meaning

like, hey, if I tell you this is your goal and I don't have time to speak to you for the next 6 months and I send you off into, you know, the wild of coding, you should be able to come back in 6 months with this thing done, right? Like

that is the scale and the scope of what I'd expect a person to personally be able to do, right? Um, as you get to eight and nine, those things just multiply out. And I think there's both a

multiply out. And I think there's both a quantitative change to it. So meaning

like I'd expect a director to regularly influence probably the work of a hundred people, you know, like that that's around the scale that I would say seems

deserving, right? Um on the IC side, as

deserving, right? Um on the IC side, as you know, people can be IC's that are large scope in many different ways. They

can be large because they're very deep, right? They're narrow, but they're very

right? They're narrow, but they're very deep, right? Uh they're deep in a way

deep, right? Uh they're deep in a way qualitatively that others they can do things others can't do. So like a great E8 that's deep qualitatively that is

deserving of it for instance you cannot simply replace him or her with like four E6s and expect the same work like there there's a level of work at which no

amount of adding people two levels below is going to get the quality of work that you need right so there are some jobs like that there are some people that are very broad so they are a jack of all

trades this type of person is especially useful for nent teams or startup startups, right, for small groups because generalists are super valuable there. And that's also because typically

there. And that's also because typically you cannot hire three E6s that basically can outperform one great generalist E8 that can like do a little bit of everything, right? So there's a

everything, right? So there's a quantization question there. Um, so

there's both a quantified difference, meaning sides of team influence, but I think the qualitative difference is very, very important because those qualitative differences often cannot be

articulated well in a bulletoint list that your HR team sends you. And in

fact, if you go and try to do that bulletoint list, you'll often be disappointed that you're still not at the level, and you'll be very confused why not. It's because people at those

why not. It's because people at those levels excel for very different reasons and it take the judgment of a person

above those levels and these are hard judgments, right? To decide whether or

judgments, right? To decide whether or not a person is deserving. So like let's say you get promoted from an E8 to an E9. When I worked back at the company,

E9. When I worked back at the company, right, E9 wasn't even a level when I was first promoted to E8. Like it didn't exist as a concept. Later the company like it got hugely important people in

the company like John Carmarmac as a good example as an individual contributor right like what would you level him at right so the company eventually had to invent these levels I think there was a period of time when it

was discussed when I was part of the conversation of the first promotions into E9 and my memory if my memory serves correctly the company was probably several thousand people at this

point and the company was considering promoting three engineers into E9, you know. Um, and so when you have that

know. Um, and so when you have that small of a sample set, it is very hard to create a bulleted to-do list of like, oh, if you're E8, do these four things and then we will like move you to E9.

Every one of those three people were very different in shape. They were

different archetypes, right? They were

successful for different reasons. And

so, I do think that as you get higher up in level, it's almost like how you become a professor somewhere, right?

Like it's not like they have a bullet list that says you published 10 papers over three years in journals of this quality and you're guaranteed tenure, right? At some level it's all the other

right? At some level it's all the other professors believe you're a professor then you're kind of a professor, right?

Same with these leadership level at like eight and above in my opinion a lot of it is would other E8 think you are an E8? you know, for whatever reasons they

E8? you know, for whatever reasons they think that uh and those reasons are different for people uh different archetypes and they are hard to articulate. And so for anybody who's

articulate. And so for anybody who's looking for a punch card to get there, that's why it's hard to describe how to do it with that dynamic then I kind of

wonder if there could be a chicken and egg problem. Um so imagine you are a

egg problem. Um so imagine you are a excellent E7, but there are no E8s or E9s in your vicinity.

Could you know could you even get that qualitative input that says hey you're solving problems that you know E7s can't because you're just at the top of where

you are. Yeah totally especially at

you are. Yeah totally especially at small companies. So that happens all the

small companies. So that happens all the time to people who join small companies or weak teams right both things can happen. So let's talk about the latter

happen. So let's talk about the latter first. Uh Microsoft's a huge company.

first. Uh Microsoft's a huge company.

You know when I worked there it was 140,000 people. Now before the layoffs

140,000 people. Now before the layoffs it was about 240,000. at 140,000 people.

This was like 15 years ago, 140,000 people is more than the populations of 40 countries in the world. So, you can imagine like what that feels like to work in a company that's the size of a

country. Um, in a company that size,

country. Um, in a company that size, there are always weak teams. And the problem with weak teams is on a weak team, you may think you are awesome, but that is because you work with very bad

peers. Okay? So like that will lead to

peers. Okay? So like that will lead to funny situations where people get overleveled for instance. Um or it'll lead to situations where people simply do not have someone they can observe that they can learn from because they're

on a weak team. They're like the best.

It's like how you buy real estate, right? You never want to be the most

right? You never want to be the most expensive house on the block because you have no no room to grow up, right? Like

you you're already at the top. You don't

want to be the worst house on the block.

Nobody likes you, right? So you kind of want to be the middle house, right? And

so you should find a block where you're the middle house. Um, when it comes to those higher levels, I do agree that it's very hard to find great examples of those people. And furthermore, each of

those people. And furthermore, each of those examples excel in different ways that might not be well matched to what you're good at. Right? So I feel the more important thing at those levels is

not necessarily another person to observe, but a great coach that can give you feedback. someone who is a decision

you feedback. someone who is a decision maker in the promotion of let's say an eight to a nine and they can tell you like hey qualitatively you're way off

from where we need you to be and then you can have a meaningful discussion about like oh what things can I do that would be more like that right um so I think it's much better to get that

qualitative opinion uh than to necessarily find the right people to model after so when you got promoted to E9 um what was the project or the scope

just to give people a sense of you know what does it look like if something gets you to that level.

Yeah. I had brought 12 people with me to start the engineering portion of the London office of Meta, right? And so we started off pretty small like that and

over a period of about uh four or five years we grew it to a site of probably four or 500 people, right? And so

through that growth, I managed several key transitions on the site. So when you start off with a site with 12 engineers, that's super easy. Like a great engineering manager at a level six could

do a solid job running that, right? But

as you grow with each order of magnitude difference in the size of the team, the complexity of the problems becomes much harder and the solutions become much

less black or white. They become always kind of gray in some direction. And so I think the promotion was primarily because I was handling a much wider

variety of things and much more key strategic decisions. Let me give you a

strategic decisions. Let me give you a concrete example. One of the last

concrete example. One of the last meetings I had as a site leave was I was trying to convince the people in Menllo Park the number of interns they should

hire and the headcount they should have in uh London this year for this summer because I had done the math on the H-1B anticipated volume for the following

year for full-time offers to metriculate into Menllo Park. That does that make sense? So I was having a conversation 18

sense? So I was having a conversation 18 months before the actual thing was going to happen and I had used data to derive what actions we should take today that

would only play out 18 months in. Right?

No one else was thinking about that.

Right? when I was more junior as an E8 in the site, I was the first one of all of Meta's sites to really look at not only ladder levels of all the engineers

but the pyramid of of of seniority and to really think about like hey um do we actually uh have the right seniority of people? Are we growing people at a

people? Are we growing people at a commensurate engineering like growth velocity, right? And so things like that

velocity, right? And so things like that which are also much more about strategic things than they are about um sort of tangible concrete things to deliver. So

I think there are a variety of those sorts of decisions that become larger and larger in scope either in the breadth of people they impact or in the timeline forward in which you're

expected to think. Is there something that you learned that uh really made a difference in upholding a strong engineering culture? Because you had a

engineering culture? Because you had a very unique opportunity to take uh it's almost like you started a company within a company. What is it that really made a

a company. What is it that really made a difference in making sure that site was very strong uh from an engineering perspective? Yeah, great question. I

perspective? Yeah, great question. I

think one huge help to me before starting the site was not only um did I observe other sites. So I was the second person hired in Meta Seattle and Meta Seattle was Meta's first office outside

of its headquarters back then in Palo Alto. So I had seen what it felt like to

Alto. So I had seen what it felt like to grow from four desks into 120 desks by the time I left. And I had learned from some of the things we learned from uh that were mistakes in how we grew that

site. Right. But more importantly,

site. Right. But more importantly, before I actually started the engineering office in London, I interviewed site directors from other companies at different sites. For

instance, one super helpful site director was the former site director of Google London, uh David Singleton, who became Stripe's CTO um sometime after

that. Um he gave me some great advice.

that. Um he gave me some great advice.

The best advice of which was that Google had experimented with what they call landing teams. how many people you bring to a site to bootstrap the culture and whatnot. Um, our decisions on landing

whatnot. Um, our decisions on landing teams were influenced by two things. One

thing was Shrep. Shrep said he wanted two full interview loops of people, meaning he wanted enough engineers for two full loops. Okay, so that estimates

about 10 to 12 people, right? The thing

I learned from David Singleton was that Google had experimented and Google's takeaway was make the landing team commit to two years minimum. Now, you'll

find many companies that approach this differently. They'll have a landing team

differently. They'll have a landing team show up for the first three months, the first six months, and then the site is on their own, right? I think that that's a mistake because it is very difficult to maintain culture in those early

growth periods where the percentage of new people is like commensurate with the percentage of old people that have been around for like more than 3 months, right? And so I brought 12 people with

right? And so I brought 12 people with me and I asked them to commit for two years and that made a humongous difference. The other big difference

difference. The other big difference culturally with the 12 people I brought is I interviewed probably nearly 50 people in the company that volunteered to go and I chose the 12, right? And one

of the ways I chose it is I interviewed not only the people but somewhat of their peers and definitely their manager when it came to how they were good culture carriers for the company. Like

would this be a good person to add to the culture of the site? And I honestly really locked out. The 12 people we brought with us were amazing were amazing people for building and

maintaining the culture of the company.

They had been at the company long enough to know what its culture was. Right? I

also asked that each one of them be able to bring over a project of some sort because you also need someone that's a able to lead work, right? And then you have the exceptional talents like people

like Ben Matthews who were um individual contributors that were very happy to work on whatever the site needed but could code the crap out of things, you know, was just very very productive and

very astute when it came to how to hire.

So I really lucked out with the people that we ended up choosing um to build the site and so much of it was due to learning from others who've done it before. I see. And you said that you

before. I see. And you said that you wanted people to commit for two years.

Does that is that a verbal thing or is there a um you know you get some additional equity for staying or something like that? There's no

compensation to it. So people got paid whatever they got paid before, right?

And um we didn't make them sign anything that said it it was two years, but I basically had a serious conversation with them of like, hey, I'm only looking for people who are committed uh to at least being there two years, right? So

if that doesn't fit in with your life plan, this is probably not the job for you, right? and and so um those folks uh

you, right? and and so um those folks uh sort of elected self-elected off right we had one person who needed to go back sooner than their two-year one or two people needed to go back sooner than

their two-year uh time commitment and those were understandable reasons and we just talked about it when it happened and I was very supportive of them transitioning but the surprise even to me is far more people stayed much longer

than that in fact from the original landing team I want to say probably about four people are still in London right now 15 years later like they are basically British citizens, right? And

when they joined me in London, that was not the plan. They they were not joining me because they sneakily thought they would become British citizens. Like they

ended up loving London. They loved the office. They stayed committed. Right. So

office. They stayed committed. Right. So

I think in the end we also were very fortunate to have people that were committed like that without any sort of real enforcement of it. You mentioned

that Shrep was your manager at some point and I was when I was digging through things I saw you had worked with Bos as well and I imagine you had some proximity to Mark Zuckerberg. Do you

have any favorite stories working with any very curious because they're all so legendary? Yeah. Um, you know, I was

legendary? Yeah. Um, you know, I was very fortunate in working for a lot of great people at Facebook. So, my first manager was Bos, right? And Bos

eventually became uh the CTO. Um my

manager during the years of leading London was Shrep, the then CTO. Uh both

gave me sort of great advice and guidance.

Um I only talked one-on-one with Zach a few times, so I don't really have too much insight there other than um he felt

to me like he led the teams. He felt very genuine to me in how he led the teams. You know, one thing that impressed me most about Zuck is, and

this is true of Bos as well, is you got to remember when I joined the company, I was 33 years old, right? The median age of the company back then was 27. And so

I was the oldest guy in the Seattle office for the first seven months. Like

a 33y old was literally the oldest guy, right? And so most of the people I

right? And so most of the people I worked for were actually younger than me, right? Uh, but I was very impressed

me, right? Uh, but I was very impressed with both Bos and Zuck in their ability and willingness to personally grow. Like

in each of those cases, if you talk to people that have worked with Bos for more than eight or 10 years, right, or with Zach for a good number of years, they can tell you exactly how they grew

over time. It was very obvious that they

over time. It was very obvious that they were not only open to coaching and probably seeking it on their own, right, but making a deliberate effort to improve. Like small concrete example, if

improve. Like small concrete example, if you look at how Zuck ran AMAs um when I first joined versus even two years into my time at uh Facebook where I'd

randomly guess he was probably like 28 or or something. He had greatly improved how he communicated at AMAs. So like uh there were really neat thing. I'm pretty

sure for instance, small thing but I noticed right I'm pretty sure someone coached him on how to hold his head when he was speaking in public. So when I first joined Facebook, um, Zuck's

natural pose when talking was head slightly upward. So he would look

slightly upward. So he would look slightly like this at the crowd, right?

But through the years, you saw him deliberately correct that. It was very obvious. He like deliberately corrected

obvious. He like deliberately corrected it to where now he faces the crowd straight on, right? And so I was always very impressed by the things they were very willing to improve in themselves and put effort into.

You mentioned some of the highest level IC's. The qualitative feedback from

IC's. The qualitative feedback from people around them is a really important aspect. I'm curious from your

aspect. I'm curious from your perspective, having worked with a lot of Meta's, you know, highest profile IC's, is there someone that stands out

to you that consistently impressed you?

One person that I worked uh only ever so indirectly with so barely with uh John Carmarmac obviously legendary right but the thing when you work in Oculus that

you realize is not only is he super prolific in coding okay so he produced so much code but he had an ability to drop into your codebase and product

after not looking at it for like six months and give actual concrete advice about what to do like I was working on a very tiny product called Oculus 360

photos. Very simple product. Um, and uh,

photos. Very simple product. Um, and uh, just one random day like John dropped into the codebase and he tried it out and he like had had insights about like the distortion on the corners of the

photos like when when when you turned and he had some performance ideas for like, hey, I I think we can speed up performance like this. And this is all without anybody a asking, right? But b,

like he said some really smart things that um, just no one on the team had thought of. So that was impressive, but

thought of. So that was impressive, but I didn't work with him as directly. A

great example of an interesting shape person, um, Scott Renfro. So I worked with him a bit more because he came out for a rotation in London for 6 months.

One thing that you'll find consistently is peer feedback about Scott's work on a team is super glowing. Like when Scott

reviews your uh, PR, right? Even if you do something very dumb, he will put it in a very sensitive way, not to shame you or anything. So he'll say it in a way that you understand what he's saying

is like, hey, this thing could be done differently, right? But he'll never

differently, right? But he'll never publicly shame you or anything like that. If you look at peer feedback for

that. If you look at peer feedback for him, it is overwhelmingly like Scott takes time out of his day to make me great. So he was an example where um I

great. So he was an example where um I think his uh seniority was welld deserved in the company because it was very obvious that having him on the team

would make your entire team much better.

So he was a force multiplier for teams and later on he led these huge things for meta. I'm pretty sure he had

for meta. I'm pretty sure he had something to do with GDPR at some level and like a few other things like huge infrastructurewide like massive changes.

And so he was capable both personally of guaranteeing a huge scope of work, right? But he was also a force

right? But he was also a force multiplier for the teams he was on. So

kind of a slam dunk case of someone who deserved to be uh rewarded well for that work. Coming to the end of your your

work. Coming to the end of your your tenure at at Facebook or Yeah, it was Facebook at the time. I I remember I joined in uh 2018 and I had been there

for some amount of months and I heard in the echoes of workplace that someone had bought the entire company coffee for a

day and you know now I I've read a lot of your posts and I know that was you.

What what made you want to buy everyone at the company coffee for a day and spend over $23,000?

Yeah, great question. I'll I'll start with the original story which was several years into my time at Facebook.

Uh Facebook had moved into um its current location in Menllo Park. Uh

Hacker Square wasn't fully paved yet.

Eventually a field coffee opened there.

And one Christmas I just thought, well, let me buy everybody a coffee for Christmas, right? So for that Christmas,

Christmas, right? So for that Christmas, for one day, I had paid for coffee for everyone. And I just felt it was such a

everyone. And I just felt it was such a joyous thing to see how happy people were to get a free coffee from someone, right? And after that day, the CEO of

right? And after that day, the CEO of Phils had written me to say that his employees really enjoyed the the day a whole lot because it had never happened in their history, like something so

crazy, right? And so I felt like it was

crazy, right? And so I felt like it was a sort of a pay it forward sort of thing that made me feel great, that made others feel great. When I left the company, I really felt like, you know, I

loved the company so much and the company gave me so much over time. Like

gave me the opportunity to do really interesting things, gave me incredible coaching, right? Um when I joined the

coaching, right? Um when I joined the company, a brick of money fell on my head, right? Like I did not join

head, right? Like I did not join Facebook. People forget when I joined

Facebook. People forget when I joined Facebook, the big talk was still like Friendster was coming back, G+ was going to roll over Facebook. Like there was all sorts of talk. Uh and eventually like Facebook would never make money on mobile. like there was a lot of like

mobile. like there was a lot of like rock throwing, right? And so when I joined the company, I had uh no expectations for what would happen. I

had left Microsoft um after working at Microsoft 12 years. The stock had gone up 15 cent in those 12 years, you know.

So I had um sold my 78s of unvested like remaining shares for $1,600 and I went to the company store and bought like an Xbox 360, a driving wheel and fortza 3

and I was thrilled, right? So, the fact that a brick of money hit my head, not by my own design, but really just by being lucky, right? Um, made me so

grateful, you know, what I did when I first when Facebook IPOed, I gave 100% of what I made from the IPO to charity, you know, cuz I felt like it was not a

thing that I deserved, honestly. And I

don't mean to poo poo myself. Like all I mean is like I was lucky enough to be born in a time frame where my interest in computer science actually paid something versus if I worked for a

blacksmith 400 years ago, right? Um and

I happened to have migrated to America, land of opportunity, right? So I felt super lucky. And so what I wanted to do

super lucky. And so what I wanted to do was given the great experience at Phils that first time with Christmas when I left the company, I felt like I want to give something back, you know, for all

the things the company has done for me.

And so what I did was I coordinated with the major sites that had employees. So

back then it was probably five different sites I thought of coordinating with and I just called the individual owners of the coffee shops in those places uh and arranged a way to pay for coffee for a

day and it was super fun and really rewarding to do and I'm really glad that I did it. Yeah, it I mean it definitely left an impression. I think everyone me and all my friends were kind of new

grads at the time and you know it was kind of this uh fun little thing. I I

don't remember if it was attached to your name at the time. I think we just thought it was someone nice at Facebook was paying. So, you know, it was

was paying. So, you know, it was appreciated for sure. So, when you decided to leave Facebook, I'm curious because it sounds like everything was going quite well. What What was your

rationale for leaving? Yeah, great

question. The biggest thing on my mind back then was I was very concerned about the rising income gap in America. And so

I wanted to start a BC Corp to bridge the rising income gap. I had a few ideas for how to do that. Uh back then in 2018 I was also like this doesn't sound

revolutionary now but back then I was complaining to co-workers that I think we're going to experience technical unemployment you know and back then that term hadn't even really come around but I I was convinced that robots would

replace people and that our society needed to change quickly to adapt to that and so most of my co-workers disagreed but I felt very concerned about it so I thought I should actually

do something like start a BC Corp to try to do that. And so one of the main reasons that I stepped down was that I felt like Facebook had grown to a point

where um it would be fine honestly without me like plenty more than fine.

It was doing really well. Um and I was concerned about this thing happening to America. I think another thing if I were

America. I think another thing if I were to evaluate myself having left the company at the same level as when I joined, right, is I feel like I was much

more useful as an individual contributor when Facebook was small. When I joined as the second person hired in Seattle, Facebook had 500 engineers globally at that point, right? Um but that meant

that I along with two other engineers could ship the entire video calling feature you know from nothing to shipping um in a period of probably six months right um I'm a generalist not a

specialist so I was also able to like help with the negotiation of things like what does the Skype contract say I helped uh negotiate and hire and manage the contractors that were testing on it

so I was capable of doing a very wide variety of things eight years after that time the company had grown to I mean just thousands of engineers right um the

company had grown to a point where I think a generalist like me is much less useful you know than specialists and so I also felt that my unique value

contribution was no longer the same you know I I I was a very generic coder um and I wasn't contributing anything that was exceptional honestly uh and so I also felt like I was much less effective

for the company would you say that's generally True. So, you know, taking it

generally True. So, you know, taking it out of big tech, imagine someone wants to work at startups. Would you say the generalist skill set is the way to go?

And, you know, specialists can have an edge at the largest companies. Yeah,

that that's my intuition is that most small companies value generalists more than specialists. Like, every small

than specialists. Like, every small company can use definitely one specialist. Like, no matter what domain

specialist. Like, no matter what domain you're in, right, you probably want at least one person who really knows that that domain super well, right? But I

think most of the times what you deal with in small companies and is quantization effects. Like if your

quantization effects. Like if your company is large enough, you can hire a PR comms person who's full-time job 40 hours a week is to handle comms, right?

But before you're that large, it's very difficult to hire a part-time three hours a week comms person, right? And so

you kind of tap some product manager on your team that's pretty good with communication and you ask them to handle it for a while, right? So because of these quantization effects, I do think generalists are more purposeable in

those cases of fractionalization, right?

You can fractionalize a generalist um to a bunch of different roles, but eventually a company gets so large that each uh fraction of work that needs to be done is probably uh you know warranting one or more employees

full-time on it. In which case having the generalist is kind of like a lot of wasted energy, right? Because they are only you know only 15% of their skill set pertains to the actual work you're doing.

So at some point once you left uh Facebook and then you pursued um the BC Corp, I saw that you did you came back

to the industry for a little bit to join OpenAI. Um I'm curious what's the the

OpenAI. Um I'm curious what's the the story behind you coming back to industry. Sometime after quitting

industry. Sometime after quitting Facebook, I ended up starting a local nonprofit in Seattle called Outere that builds free software for global health, you know, and this was funded by the

Gates Foundation. Um, and the software

Gates Foundation. Um, and the software is deployed, I think, in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, and it helps with assisting um, uh, rapid testing for

malaria. Okay. Um, that work was simply

malaria. Okay. Um, that work was simply because I didn't expect to have a grant from the Gates Foundation. I felt very fortunate and lucky to have been chosen to get a grant for that and I felt like

building some free software for global health seemed like a great idea and so I really enjoyed that work. Um after that I took a break for a while where I was unemployed and I think part of that

during that time I had started using a lot more of GitHub copilot in VS Code back then trying to evangelize to friends that hey this AI thing like it's it's useful but I had a hard time

convincing people to join back then uh to pay for it. Um and so when AI began to really take off, you know, sometime in the time frame of maybe chat GPT3,

five or four, um I felt like, wow, this is this is a huge transition point in the industry. I feel like I missed two

the industry. I feel like I missed two major transition points because I was at Microsoft. First of all, I missed the

Microsoft. First of all, I missed the whole.com thing because Microsoft as a whole missed the internet revolution, right? And so that was a massive thing.

right? And so that was a massive thing.

The second thing was the mobile revolution. Microsoft largely missed

revolution. Microsoft largely missed that as well. And I was at Microsoft when that happened. And so I felt very fortunate to have caught the social network revolution, right, which was a

huge transition point in humanity. But I

increasingly felt like AI would potentially be as big or maybe bigger than the internet's impact on humanity.

Because from a universe perspective, we might be the first species to create something smarter than us. And from like an evolutionary perspective, that's just really weird. Like that goes second

really weird. Like that goes second order like once that happens, right? is

like what is actually happening in the universe right we might answer the firmy question right and so I felt like this transition was something I didn't want

to miss the reason I joined open AI was what I learned from working at Facebook is I would much rather join the market leader or nobody at all and here's why I

think the market leader has room to experiment because it can afford to fail at a few things this is what I discovered at Facebook with a big enough market lead you can take some brave big

shots because like if two things fail and Facebook had some big colossal failures too, right? But you have enough of a lead to do it. Usually the market follower like Google+ as a good example,

right? Usually the market follower their

right? Usually the market follower their formula has to be match all of the leaders checkboxes and have one unique thing you think is going to be differentiating. In the case of Google+,

differentiating. In the case of Google+, the thing was circles. This idea that you might want to manage circles of friends that are different. Okay? But to

have a social network, you had to do all the basics that every other social network did, right? So, I feel like especially number TWs, number threes might might be able to do crazy hail Marys, but number TW's, the problem with

number TWs is their whole schedule and timeline is dictated by the leader.

Like, they have to be fast follow, right? Um whereas number one gets to

right? Um whereas number one gets to blow a lot of time on crazy things and and I love the craziness. So that's why when I look to join AI, I only applied

to o to open AAI. My plan was I either joined that or I'm still going to write my own software. I see. And when you joined OpenAI, how did it compare to to

uh Facebook?

Great question. I had joined Facebook at a different stage in its growth. When I

joined Facebook, it was 500 engineers, right? when I joined Open AI, I want to

right? when I joined Open AI, I want to say it was about 120 engineers. So like

qualitatively that is very different. Um

so with that caveat in mind, um it is really the highest talent density of any group of engineers I've worked with. And

so it was really amazing and that after when I shifted from Microsoft to Facebook, I felt like Facebook was a huge jump in quality of engineer on average of the person that I worked with

and there are just amazing people.

especially in early Facebook, it was like full of amazing people. Um, I felt like OpenAI was even a notch above that.

And so, um, it was really amazing the people I got a chance to work with, uh, and to learn from. What are the things that made you see how amazing it was?

Was it the technical abilities or something else that really stood out to you? Yeah. Uh, people had exceptional

you? Yeah. Uh, people had exceptional technical capabilities. I I would say

technical capabilities. I I would say one thing that Facebook always had a lot of that I believe OpenAI is going to get increasingly better at is I think Facebook always focused a lot on

product. You know, like what is the

product. You know, like what is the product? Why do people use it? And I

product? Why do people use it? And I

think there's a way in which like because Facebook did not honestly have much magic sauce beyond a network effect and a great product people love using, right? Um it causes you to work on it.

right? Um it causes you to work on it.

Whereas I would say in the early chat GPT days when there were no viable competitors, right? You kind of could

competitors, right? You kind of could have a lousy product, people use it anyway, right? And because like you you

anyway, right? And because like you you might remember like a year or two ago, it's very common for like every fourth conversation thread to have an error like a server error and then you like reload the thread and you rerun it,

right? You can get away with that when

right? You can get away with that when nobody else is producing anything near as compelling. But I think as

as compelling. But I think as competition heats up, people will begin to see that ultimately products are what make things, not pure research, but

actual research shipping in compelling products is what makes for success.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I I agree. The

early days of Chat GPT, it was uh so special that you you put up with it and now people are catching up of it. Um,

one thing I wanted to ask you and I think this is because I, you know, am a fan of your writing and I've read so much of it. What I've seen is that your

your writing ability is a superpower of yours and I know writing is important for software engineers. It gets you a lot of leverage. I'm curious how how did

you develop that skill? Were you were you writing from a young age or is that something you developed at Microsoft?

Um, yeah. What tips do you have when it comes to writing? I was bad at writing at a young age. The main reason that I was bad at writing when I was uh even

through college is I very much did not respect the value of good communication.

Like I came from a culture that respected getting A's and everything and like I felt like there were hard sciences and then everything else was flop. So if you made me take history, if

flop. So if you made me take history, if you made me take English, I felt like this was a waste of time. These are

subjects with no right answer. it's all

like people's opinions, right? And so I had a very sort of um low attitude toward the soft skills and so I did not respect the soft skills and so I didn't

invest in them. So I was a bad writer, right? Over time I think I lucked out in

right? Over time I think I lucked out in that when I started work at Microsoft um in some of the spare time I had, I just started rereading some of the classics, you know, and these are things that in

high school when assigned I I really hated them, right? the these are all the classic like Hemingways and then Great Gatsby and like stuff like this. And I

started to see these books in a different light. Like I was a bit older

different light. Like I was a bit older so I could appreciate more of what was said in it. And I also started to really develop a love of the language, right? I

think it was Virginia Wolf that said um to write well you need to read well. And

so I think first of all is you got to read well, right? And so the types of sentences that someone like David Foster Wallace DFW can put out, the types of sentences um that he can put out are

amazing. If you read Alice Monroe short

amazing. If you read Alice Monroe short stories, right? The language is

stories, right? The language is beautiful. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, like

beautiful. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, like there all sorts of amazing books where when you read it, you feel like, wow, the language here is exceptional. So I

then started to really respect that that was a skill, you know, and that was a valuable skill, every bit as valuable as a hard skill, like a science skill. And

so then I started working at it. And a

lot of writing better, I think, is not only reading well, but really being willing to rewrite multiple times. So

many of the posts that you've seen me make, I have rewritten multiple times before posting them, right? And so being willing to have some things um on the,

you know, cutting room floor, right? Uh

is also um pretty important. Even now

when I read people's subf facts for instance, I once in a while do notice something and I try to remember it like oh this way of saying something rhetorically was very clever. So I'm

going to try to remember that this is one way you can communicate an idea. Um

and so I think that has also helped but most of all I think was my willingness to not disrespect the skill and to actually see it as an essential skill

for uh even for scientists for technical people I think is hugely important. Yeah

definitely and what what you said about growing up and not respecting the softer subjects definitely resonates. I have

very similar value system when I was growing up and now I see the value of writing and so that's why I'm kind of into it. Um some of the stuff that you

into it. Um some of the stuff that you wrote too um for instance your essay and I guess this is only only people at Meta could see it but the your essay as good

as it gets um your the creativity to kind of jump around and give a nonchronological narrative I thought was really cool. you're jumping around your

really cool. you're jumping around your life and just getting the feel of a bunch of things and some of the things that you communicate are not it's not even a full, you know, narrative bit,

but it somehow gets the idea across. I

really liked that. And um I'm curious, do you have an editor when you were writing or that's all from you continuously reading and rereading?

Yeah, that thing was a moment of inspiration where I thought how do I tell this story, you know, like what is a compelling way to tell this story? And

most often like the compelling way is chronologically actually because that's the way that makes sense, right? Okay.

But some stories I think work better out of chronological order because you see a different arc that's developing in a person's life, an arc that's actually like threaded, right? And so that's what

I felt for that uh particular story.

I've not had an editor for any of those, but one place where I did hire an editor. Um it it was great. I hired a

editor. Um it it was great. I hired a lady named Rebecca Ambrose to edit my podcast, Peak Salvation. And the big thing about that is I knew I wanted to do a miniseries and I wanted the words

to be well structured. I wanted the story to be told well and I knew that a professional would do a much better job at editing. And there I learned a ton

at editing. And there I learned a ton from Rebecca. Like if you listen to

from Rebecca. Like if you listen to those episodes, you can tell that oh, someone who works in the profession has has like given feedback on this, right?

And so I have gotten feedback in those cases, but nothing ever that I've posted professionally was edited by another person. I see. Yeah, your essays are

person. I see. Yeah, your essays are legendary. I think I sometimes I go back

legendary. I think I sometimes I go back to visit them and I'll see they're still alive. People are commenting saying,

alive. People are commenting saying, "Oh, I just found this. This is great."

Or, "Oh, you should reread this." Big

fan. So glad you put those out. Thank

you. And um the the great by the way the great post explorer I I it was alive as of maybe twoish years ago. I think

someone took it down at this point. I

tried to before we did this I was like looking for it. I'm curious how did that side project come along? Yeah. So I

wrote a thing inside the company Facebook called the great post explorer which was meant to like rank and expose people to some of the most commented on or the most reacted to posts of all time

within the internet of Facebook. Right?

The main reason I wrote that was I benefited from discovering serendipitously great things written by people who came before me in Facebook that I wish were somehow cataloged

somewhere and not only cataloged but like crowdsourced in how they were categorized because I wanted to be able to navigate it by categories, right? And

so I built that thing with that hope.

And so the whole purpose of it was the realization that um you know Slack has a worst case of this but but Facebook has this which is like posts fade temporally

but in my opinion posts values the value of a post is often temporal but in some the cases of some posts the value is not temporal like this is just like some podcasts you know are evergreen and some

podcasts talk about current news and so to me I wrote the great posts explorer as a as a chance for people to discover some amazingly timeless things that

people have posted in the past. Part of

writing well is reading quality stuff.

And that's also what made me want to go deep in there cuz you essentially created a curated set of quality posts where all of Meta was helping you

curate. And so yeah, I loved that when

curate. And so yeah, I loved that when it was up. Um I'm not sure what happened to it. Coming to the end, I just want to

to it. Coming to the end, I just want to ask you a few reflections on your career that might be helpful for some people.

So, the first thing I wanted to ask was when you were young, you prided yourself on fast execution speed. That was

something that set you apart, at least from I tell your your writing, and then later you were more of a leader. You

slowed down in the execution. I'm

curious. Do you do you find that software engineering is like being an athlete from the perspective of you have

some performance peak at I don't know exactly what for an athlete it's probably late 20s or early 30s and then there's a performance decay or or do you

think that you know you continue to develop experience in software engineering doesn't have that cap?

Yeah, I feel like you can get more and more valuable over time. Now everybody

has an asmtote and everybody's curve is probably asmmptoic meaning like you probably have a phase in your career where growth is easy and then everybody has a final level right um everybody's

final level is different by the way right and and so as you approach that you should feel like the growth is slowing however just as with work hours beyond 50 or 60 right I believe each

incremental growth can still be growth so like I don't think you have to stay fixed and you're a flatline forever Um, I think here's the thing. When I was young, I would outrun everybody, but I

was running serpentine basically, right?

Um, as I've gotten more experience, the idea is to jog in a straight line, right? And how does a senior experienced

right? And how does a senior experienced person jog in a straight line? Part of

it is an experienced person usually gets society sense for when things aren't headed the right direction and they either don't pursue that thing or they convince that team to stop that early.

like they basically save an entire team's worth of time because they're like, "Hey, I feel like we're heading this direction." I've seen this in the

this direction." I've seen this in the past. One of the things that can happen

past. One of the things that can happen is this concrete example. I had a friend who worked at Microsoft who was telling me that the product he was working on, the vice president of the organization

met with them every week to triage the bugs towards shipping. And I told him, look, if your VP is in triage meetings on a weekly basis so that you can ship on time, your project is nowhere near

shipping on time. like this thing is in a huge flame ball like this is a huge problem right I don't know how people that experience can live through that and not see you know how obvious it was

to me that that thing is like a bad sign right this is a tell that your project is not on track um but I think you develop that sense of like oh this is worth investing in this is not worth

investing in I think the other way you grow your scope over time is I think you begin to value everybody running in the same

direction even if the direction is 3° off ideal. You know, when I was young, I

off ideal. You know, when I was young, I had this idealism to me. So, I felt like there was a right direction to go and like two degrees off was like wrong, you know. But the problem is a whole team

know. But the problem is a whole team pulling 98 degrees correct versus like half the team pulling 100% correct and the other half debating them on like which is correct. I think the team pulling together is going to get

further, you know, and like that was wisdom over time of saying like even though I don't agree with a 100% of what this is what Amazon means by disagree and commit, right? Is like there are

times you need to disagree and commit and like that is valuable in itself. And

so I think some of that wisdom I I continue to develop. But when it comes to for instance a young person's ability to outwork me is definitely true now.

Like I do not have the physical stamina I had when I was 24. If you woke me up at 3:00 a.m. today to start coding, I would code very slowly at 3:00 a.m. Like

when I was 23, if you woke me up at 3, it was no problem. I I I would just get going, right? So I do think that some

going, right? So I do think that some things get weaker and hopefully if we're growing like other things get stronger.

At the beginning of your career, it sounds like you you were kind of leaprogging people to some extent. you

became a very young manager and management is often seen as a a profession where your reports need to respect you and there might be some unusual dynamic because of the age

difference. Let's say you have older

difference. Let's say you have older people reporting to you. I'm curious how did you win the respect of these people as such a young manager?

Yeah, this was difficult and I think that I both lacked humility when I was younger and I was overly ambitious for myself. And so as a concrete example, I

myself. And so as a concrete example, I would not have worked for my 24 year old self, you know, but I was so ambitious that I was one of the team's strongest engineers. So when I asked to manage

engineers. So when I asked to manage people, people were like, well, he was a good engineer. Like let's not, you know,

good engineer. Like let's not, you know, make him unhappy. Let's like have him manage people. Right? In that first

manage people. Right? In that first year, I had to as a 24 year old, I had to fire a 40-year-old and that was very difficult. Like firing people never gets

difficult. Like firing people never gets easier. Like hopefully like hopefully

easier. Like hopefully like hopefully you aren't like the eye of Sauron and you delight in firing people. But like

that was exceptionally difficult and it was in my opinion made more difficult by my self-awareness of just how junior I was relative to this person. You know

what I mean? And so um now he did deserve to be fired. He was not performing to the level of expectations that we had of him, right? But he was also a person that was two levels above

what my level was and I was managing him, right? And so like I was too

him, right? And so like I was too immature to know how to manage people more experienced than me. Like that's

its own sort of maturity is how do you manage someone who's a higher level than you are, you know, like how do you even do that successfully is a tricky thing, right? So I did a very poor job of

right? So I did a very poor job of managing and so I was a a pretty um bad manager but I was so obsessed with

growth that I was also a huge sponge for learning. So I was constantly getting

learning. So I was constantly getting mentors to grow in some area. I would

ask for feedback like how can I do this better? I would read a lot of

better? I would read a lot of non-fiction about things like managing teams about what conversations like all sorts of things right. So I was doing a lot of self-improvement over time. So I

do think that I grew over time but I was always like the start was pretty rough and and I've had a lot of things where I've managed poorly. Even in my last

year of managing uh people you know I made some huge mistakes. So for instance uh one of my biggest weaknesses when managing people is I am very bad at

giving feedback you know. So like I um pull punches when I give feedback. I

resist giving feedback because I hate the the the awkward feeling of confrontation, right? And so I resist

confrontation, right? And so I resist giving feedback. When I give the

giving feedback. When I give the feedback, I try to downplay how important it actually is and so people don't understand how serious it is. And

so I continue to be bad at doing that. I

think over the years I've gone from very bad to like pathable, you know, but that is not an area where I expect to become uh, you know, excellent. Whereas I do think I am much better at motivating

action. So I think when I lead a team,

action. So I think when I lead a team, whether I'm a manager on a team or an I'm an individual contributor, you know, I only join teams that I believe in and when I believe in something, I'm very passionate about it. And I think

communicating that passion and that vision excites people to do the work. So

I think I am good at that. Uh but there still are a lot of things to to improve.

We talked a little bit about generalist versus specialists and sounds like you you're you identify as a generalist. I'm

curious how did that play out over your career? And let's say there's some new

career? And let's say there's some new grad or someone earlier in their career, they're they're thinking, should I become a specialist or a generalist? How

would you make that decision? Yeah, that

I think is a tricky decision depending on how well the person knows themselves.

So there's the occasional exceptional person like these prodigies in chess for instance, right? They will have been a

instance, right? They will have been a prodigy by the time they're eight or nine years old and so they're obviously fit to play chess. that person should specialize because that's like

unnaturally unique talent, right? Most

people aren't like that. Most people do not like from age seven have a solid like thing of like I am very good at this. I should do this, right? And so

this. I should do this, right? And so

for most people, I would caution against early binding too much to a specialty.

You know, there there are two dangers to binding too early. One is how do you know you're a specialist and not a generalist without being a generalist?

Right? So that that's part one. Part two

is you have an idiot soant risk, right?

Is like you bound so early to a specialization like Erdish, a famous mathematician, um even as an adult did not know how to cut his own grapefruit with a knife. So his mom would cut his

grapefruit, okay? But this was an

grapefruit, okay? But this was an amazing mathematician that published tons of papers, right? But he

specialized so early he can't even cut fruit. Okay? So like that to me feels

fruit. Okay? So like that to me feels like over specialization. But he did some amazing work in mathematics, right?

So I feel like if you are a 22 23 starting your career, I would in general encourage at least dabble in a few things before you like die hard commit, one last risk to committing to a

specialty way early in your career is what if that specialty is going away, you know, especially in the age of AI, this is something to think about. It's

like if you join some company and you're diehard committed to like technology A, right? um what if in three years that

right? um what if in three years that thing becomes irrelevant and that's all you know you know you're like the cobalt person like hoping like Y2K happens again right is because cobalt's not used

anywhere but that's your specialty so I think specializations come with that danger that generalists don't suffer that danger I guess the last question

that I'm curious about is after this career that you've had if you were able to go back to the beginning when you just entered the industry and you give yourself some advice based

on everything that you know today, what would that advice be?

Yeah, great question. I have a few thoughts that I share. One, Roy Disney said, "Decisions are easy when your values are clear to you." Right?

Decisions for me a lot of times were hard because I didn't have clear values.

If you know exactly where you're going, decisions toward getting there become a lot easier. So, one advice I would give

lot easier. So, one advice I would give my younger self is spend a little more time thinking about what you actually want, right, before you commit to doing

these things. I think another thing is I

these things. I think another thing is I often feel like I was the dog that caught the car, you know, like I was convinced when I joined Microsoft that

what I wanted to be was a dev manager.

Okay? And so for my first eight years or so, I would take any job that would get me a step toward that. So, one,

decisions were easy then cuz it was like, well, does this job get me a step closer? Yes, it does. Then I'll take it,

closer? Yes, it does. Then I'll take it, right? But once I caught that car, you

right? But once I caught that car, you know, once I hit that level, once I recognize that, hey, E7 might be my terminal level. This might be the

terminal level. This might be the highest I ever get in my career. Um, the

problem with peaking early, you know, because I hit that level when I was probably, I don't know, 20, you know, 30 years old or or something like this, right?

Um, the problem is you're like a child actor. Like the question is what are you

actor. Like the question is what are you going to do with the rest of your life?

Like if your whole plan is acting and if nobody hires you for acting, you're going to be in a world of hurt. Like you

you are not going to enjoy the next 40 years of work. And so for me, I I was the dog that caught that car. And I had no mental model for like once I became the death manager, which I did become

right at a very young age. Once I became a level 67 and I became that at a relatively young age, it was sort of like well like what happens next? And I

really went through a period of pretty serious depression because I felt like I had lost a purpose to life. Like life

seemed to have so much meaning and direction when I had a clear goal. But I

caught the car, right? And then it was like what to do. So the other thing I would caution my young self about is to just be sure you actually want the thing you want. You know what I mean? Like one

you want. You know what I mean? Like one

thing I tell people now is, you know, would you want to be Warren Buffett? You

know, so many people love the billions of dollars, but he also in is in his late 90s. Like would you want a few

late 90s. Like would you want a few billion dollars and be in your late 90s?

Like is that worth it? Is that what you want? Like this is an interesting

want? Like this is an interesting question, right? So, I think for me now,

question, right? So, I think for me now, I think a lot more about um am I even going a direction I want to be at when I get there, right? One final thought that I'll leave with you with the sleeping

bag business is sometimes you bend the read, sometimes you break the read, right? Sometimes things break and they

right? Sometimes things break and they aren't fixable. So, when I had sleeping

aren't fixable. So, when I had sleeping bags in my office, uh my fiance came out to Seattle to visit me during that time.

When she visited me in Seattle from Maryland, during that time, I would see her every evening at 11 p.m. when work

ended. That was when I would go see her.

So, basically, I got to eat like a late Denny's dinner with her from 11:00 p.m.

to like midnight. And that was my plan for my visiting fiance, right? I am very fortunate and lucky that she is my wife

now. But anybody I tell that story to,

now. But anybody I tell that story to, you could bet nine out of 10 times that's the story that ends with that's how I got the engagement ring back, right? Is how that story ends, right? I

right? Is how that story ends, right? I

did not realize that some reads bend and some reads break and I was clearly bending something to an extreme that most things would have broken, right?

And so I do think that in one's life, back to your point of like what should a diehard person who only cares about career do? like what is the absolute

career do? like what is the absolute fastest way to like get there, right? I

would say a be sure that's what you want, right? Don't be the dog that

want, right? Don't be the dog that caught that thing and then you regret catching the thing, right? So, a be sure that's really what you want. And part B is like, you know, be sure you're com

comfortable with other things breaking, you know, because like that is what it will take to get there if that's truly what you want. So my advice to my younger self about that period of time

would have been, you know, in net getting to level 67, getting to an E7 when you're 30 versus 38 in the big arc doesn't make any difference. Like beyond

38, I still have 30 years of work to go, right? So it's like how fast do I want

right? So it's like how fast do I want to be at my terminal level? Like what's

the real plan there versus can I keep a healthy relationship with my spouse, with my kids, right? That's important.

And so that's what I would advise back then. Yeah. It's funny because I I think

then. Yeah. It's funny because I I think maybe this is the type of advice where looking back it's obvious, but I wonder if you right now could talk to that

Philip that was grinding, you know, at 26 or 27. Would you even accept the advice? It's hard to say. I feel like a

advice? It's hard to say. I feel like a lot of people who are fully focused may not. Well, I feel like it's easy to say.

not. Well, I feel like it's easy to say.

I feel like for me the answer would have been no, I would not have accepted the advice. Because here's the thing, like

advice. Because here's the thing, like everybody tells you money doesn't buy happiness, right? Like when when someone

happiness, right? Like when when someone with $3 million tells you, trust me, money will not buy buy you happiness. If

you're an unhappy person now, you're going to be an unhappy person that can spend a lot of money uh you know, 10 years hence, right? But nobody believes it, right? Like everybody thinks, "Oh

it, right? Like everybody thinks, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but when I'm wealthy, I'm going to be happy, right?" Everybody

thinks they're the exception to that rule. So I agree with you completely

rule. So I agree with you completely like advice feels good to give because I feel like maybe I'm saving someone from something but in reality 90% of the times you have to be ready to receive

the advice for the advice to have any impact and I was at a maturity level that was nowhere near ready nowhere near ready uh to receive that advice. So I

would not have benefited from my own advice for sure. Well yeah Philip thank you so much for this. I mean, I was really looking forward to this conversation and I learned so much. I

uh, you know, really appreciate your time. This is this is awesome. I'm going

time. This is this is awesome. I'm going

to polish this up, make it really good for others so they can enjoy it, too. Is

there anything that you wanted to shout out to the audience? Maybe we can redirect them to something that you're working on. One of the things I might

working on. One of the things I might recommend just because I'm still concerned about technical unemployment is people might give my podcast miniseries Peak Salvation a spin. It was

about my time working at Amazon's flagship warehouse over peak season from Black Friday to Christmas. Right? I feel

like in there I was able to explore a lot more of my concerns around automation, what it means to society as a whole, the income gap in America and its rise. Right? I do think that as

its rise. Right? I do think that as Americans, we need to get together and like figure out how we help the average person through this change. I think as you know in technology, the change is

going to be massive. it's going to come sooner than people expect and then very bad things can happen if we don't help the whole society adapt to it. So I

would encourage people to like think about that maybe give the podcast a listen which might give you different perspectives about it. Um and hopefully you know figure out a way to contribute to making that better. I will put that

in the show notes. So if you're interested in listening to that take a look at the show notes. I'll put it in there. Cool. Okay. Well thanks so much

there. Cool. Okay. Well thanks so much today Ryan. This was great. Oh yeah. I I

today Ryan. This was great. Oh yeah. I I

mean thank you. you're the one that I I want to thank. This is really great.

I've been wanting to have this conversation for a while. So, really

really appreciate your time. Yeah. And I

appreciate the effort that you put into making these valuable to other people.

So, thank you for putting that investment