rubayeet

Neither good or bad to me. Mission is important some people, I have been in the industry long enough to realize companies will change their mission if the business is no longer viable / profitable, so I have taught myself to be indifferent to it. As long as I am working with smart and easy to work with people, on a business that is legal / ethical, I’m good.

Yes, except Shopify is very intentional about us vs them narratives like this. The CEO is an avid consumer of Video games / SciFi / Nerd culture, and the leadership finds ways to inject these themes into the mission statements.

Former Shopify employee here. The company loves narratives like this where there is an enemy and there is a cause to unite the team behind it to battle with the said enemy. In my time there, the enemy was Amazon, and the cause was “we are arming the rebels against the Empire”. The had ambitions plans to fight Amazon at their terrain (shipping and logistics), made significant acquisitions (Deliverr, 6 River Systems). But at the end they had to shut down those divisions. In my last year at that company, I noticed the mission moving away from “mom and pop businesses” and towards enterprise. To me this fills like yet another narrative engineering by the execs to sustain the significant growth they have seen in the stock valuation.

The author of the article assumes too much on the interviewers’ ability to deeply reflect on open ended questions, and clearly articulate the response (in a short period of time, because tables are turned when there is only few minutes left on the clock).

As a tangent, when I am interviewing someone, I try to find additional signals about the candidates communication skills / behavioural traits as well as their motivation in seeking the role.

Candidate: “how is this role going to change in X years?” Me (internally): This person is likely growth oriented, and their growth may have stalled at their current role.

Candidate: “How is the on-call load?” Me: This person may be burning out and looking for a place with some stability.

Of course, these are only assumptions and I try to be self-aware not to be biased in my decision by them.

You are missing the point. It may look like protests are about having a fair shot at getting government jobs on the surface but it is more than that:

1. Corruption / Nepotism - Quotas in gov jobs are exploited by the powerful to hire people in important positions who will keep them in power.

2. Violence against Peaceful Protests - The protests started peacefully until the police + the govt backed student org (who work as hired goons for the ruling party and do the dirty job cops are unable to do) started violently suppressing them.

3. A Head of State who appears to be inconsiderate - The PM referred to the protesters with a term that is _extremely_ offensive. There is a track record of this Head of State using language that is unbecoming of their station, or simply unacceptable (think MAGA but 100x worse). Power keg exploded.

No matter how much talent or coding chops you have, you can't thrive in a society where the powerful are unchecked, unaccountable, and your right to protest peacefully are met with extreme violence. Try to see the world without the lense of SV.

You beat me to this comment!

Skepticism aside, I would like to see other cities and provinces playing larger roles in Canada’s economic future. I myself immigrated to Atlantic Canada, but it was frustrating finding a fulfilling opportunity in the local tech scene (this was before remote work was seen as mainstream), and eventually moved to a bigger province / city.

This was my thought exactly. Author talks about Goodheart’s law and how it is bad for the team, but then somehow their concept of “velocity” is not an example of the said flawed logic?

Quantum By Manjit Kumar: Traces the scientific discoveries leading to quantum theory, relationships among renowned scientists of 20th century, with a focus on Bohr-Einstein debate.

Incredible History of India’s Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal: Abbreviated history of the Indian subcontinent, starting with the Indus Valley civilization, ending with the conflicts between India - Pakistan.

Sea Stories by William McRaven - An autobiography of a decorated Navy SEAL officer, who was involved in planning and execution of historically significant special operations (rescuing Captain Philip, and killing Bin Laden).

Masters of Doom. It’s the story of two renowned game developers, John Karmack and John Romero, and how they built id Software, the video game company that profoundly changed PC gaming and graphics. I was writing software for enterprise / consulting companies at the time (early phase of my career). This book opened my eyes to the crazy/wonderful/scary world of ‘startups’, the idea that people can bring their passion into writing software and start a business or movement. I joined a startup (nothing to do gaming) and never looked back.