Wow. I used to know Haseeb during his poker days 8-10 years ago, when he was still playing for dimes/quarters and we were all still using MSN. Can't believe I'm hearing his name again in this context, I had no idea he got into software.

He's probably a bad example to make your point with. Haseeb had some moral failings, but he is truly on another level in terms of intellect/drive/vision, and the interviewers at Airbnb probably didn't have a hard time recognizing that.

I can't stress enough how smart that guy is. He leaves an impression.

Small world indeed. :) If it came across otherwise, I have nothing but positive things to say about Haseeb. Still, as with any coder I might praise, any human has gaps in their skillset - and I imagine Haseeb has a few; there is only so much you can learn in 2 years.

I say this based on my personal reflection, so I could be wrong. The coder I was 10 years ago was laughably bad compared to the coder I am now, and I spent pretty much every one of those years doing 80+ hours of programming per week.

That said, if I had to hire someone fresh out of college, or someone like Haseeb, the choice would easily be Haseeb. :)

That was a very fascinating read, and completely illusion-shattering regarding the skill tech companies have in giving offers to good candidates. Social proof provided 90% of his increase in market value. I am not doubting that he is a very skilled developer, but this was certainly not the key reason why he got such a good offer :)

It's ALWAYS about who you know. Always.

That's not what I got from the story -- he mentions how he got warm referrals (the "who you know") to employers that went tepid quickly after the interview ... but then the same ones suddenly wanted him once he claimed (truthfully, though without proof) that he had standing, big offers from other employers.

"In the end, I didn’t get a single offer through a raw application. Every single offer came through a referral of some kind. (This I did not expect, and strongly influences the advice I’d give to a job-seeker.)"

" Haseeb Qureshi says: 04/23/2016 at 9:53 am

I’ll be writing more about this in my subsequent blog post. But if you have no connections at all in SV, then I might say that if you’re set on SV as a place to work (sounds like you’re on the fence?) I’d recommend mass applying, and also moving here to start interacting with folks and getting to know people. Building a network is so, so valuable for getting a foot in the door."

Unless this guy is some type of programming prodigy, who in only two years of self learning, somehow blew away all top companies, only to be turned down, then what happened was that he has friends in high places that helped sway their decision.

To be completely honest, the entire article smells like a marketing campaign for TripleByte and AppAcademy. Google wanting to put him on the C++ team, after two years coding in Rails? Get the hell out of here.

Ah, right, I forgot about that part. Even so, the point remains that it isn't only about who you know, because he had those connections and leads still went stale, until he gamed the system.

But I would agree that it reveals how confused and manipulation-prone the hiring process is; if they're hiring someone for critical, technical C++ work after only two years experience on mostly-Rails, they really don't know what they want. Ditto for upping their offers so significantly based on things that shouldn't matter that much.

I'm likewise skeptical about how Airbnb would tolerate him revealing sensitive details of a negotiation like that in ways that reflect very badly on them and weakens their bargaining position on future hires. Sure, you don't want to fire an employee just for disclosing his compensation (major legal issues there), but his post went way beyond that.

Seriously, something is suspicious here. These companies aren't stupid.