I just came home from a vow of silence at a meditation center in northern California. It’s a strange feeling coming back to city life after five days of silent meditation. Looking around at puffing joggers, Christmas wreaths, eager couples waiting outside restaurants, the stop and start of traffic—it’s almost too much for my senses. The last time I took a vow of silence was 5 years ago. It lasted...
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So you know the first 6 rules. You’ve maneuvered through the initial offer conversation, you’ve lined up counteroffers from other companies, and now it’s time to move into the actual negotiating. Naturally, this is the part where everything goes horribly wrong. But worry not. Stick with me, and I’m going to make you into a superhuman negotiator. (Or at least an eccentric billionaire negotiator, which is sometimes better?) Seriously though....
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When the story of how I landed a job at Airbnb went viral, I was surprised at how infatuated people were with my negotiations. Media stories portrayed me as some kind of master negotiator—a wily ex-poker-player who was able to con the tech giants into a lucrative job offer. This is silly. It’s silly for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is that in reality, my...
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I recently completed a job search for my first role as a software engineer. Despite having first learned how to code almost a year before, having a background as an English major and former professional poker player, I was able to land a total of 8 offers including Google, Uber, Yelp, and Airbnb (where I ultimately joined). In this three-part blog post I’m going to describe my advice to a...
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(Note: this is the second part of this story. You can read the first part here.) Despite the rejection from 23AndMe, I kept pushing. I applied to all the big hiring websites. Hired rejected me from their platform. I got no bites anywhere on AngelList or LinkedIn—not even cold e-mails from recruiters. Nothing from WhiteTruffle or SmartHires. Not a breath of interest anywhere. [video] I kept on. I asked friends,...
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A couple weeks ago I had my last day as Director of Product at App Academy. This coming Monday, I will be starting work as a software engineer at Airbnb. Here’s the story of why I left App Academy, the tribulations of my ensuing job search, and why I decided to join Airbnb. [video] Disclaimer: in this blog post and the next, I'll be speaking frankly about compensation packages I...
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