I interviewed at a company known for consistently asking one of the same four questions in a specific interview round. These questions were widely shared on forums like Blind, Leetcode, and Glassdoor. The recruiters also provided strong guidance on the type of problems to expect.
I prepared thoroughly for all four main questions and any other plausible ones I could think of. I practiced writing solutions to ensure I was fast enough for the interview. Additionally, I pre-prepared ideal answers for each question in case I got stuck.
When the interview came, I got a total curveball: a question that was significantly harder than the usual ones. It didn't fit the round's theme (it was a DSA question, but I'd already aced the DSA round), was obscure enough not to be on LeetCode, and required writing a solver for a hard variant of a known algorithm. I panicked, copied the prompt into ChatGPT (despite being instructed not to use it), transcribed the result, and pretended I had recently studied the relevant algorithm.
I passed the round, nailed the other interviews, got the offer, and accepted. Later, I found out that interviewers are instructed to pick one of four specific questions for that round, and the one I got wasn't in the list.
I'm left wondering if the interviewer was trying to sink me or was just bored with the usual questions. The whole experience raised several questions for me:
Is it cheating if I already had pre-prepared answers for the questions they were supposed to ask? What's the difference between using pre-prepared answers and using Google or ChatGPT during the interview?
If the interview had gone according to plan, what was I actually demonstrating? My ability to use Google?
When the interviewer asked an impossibly difficult question, I would have failed if I answered it legit, even though I'm a good engineer. Failing such an unfair interview round doesn't serve the company's interests.
What is this interview process meant to demonstrate? My true value as an engineer lies in my ability to communicate clearly, think outside the box, identify and address technical tradeoffs, mentor juniors, and propose technical solutions that meet requirements while minimizing risks. Yet, I'm expected to solve a hard variant of the Traveling Salesman Problem in 45 minutes or I don't get the job? Why?
The whole process seems broken, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
I'm confused by the way you say something is "technically" true, then claim you believe it isn not true. Are you really saying that you believe things you know aren't true?
> How much is this currency supposed to be worth?
Whatever we agree it to be worth.
> According to this argument, any number is potentially valid!
Yep. And the value of US dollars, for example, has changed hugely.
> This means that there is absolutely nothing that should hold the value of the currency fixed
Accurate. Note the demise of fixed exchange rate regimes.
> Not true! If the exchange rate of the dollar decreases, you'll see the Federal Reserve will start trading some of its goodies from Fort Knox (gold, etc.) for US Dollars, in order to maintain the dollar's exchange rate/value.
That's not how the Federal Reserve works. Nor exchange rates. Nor US dollars. There's so many errors packed into that sentence, I'm not sure where to begin. There was a time when US dollars were backed by gold, including the gold in Fort Knox; this is no longer the case. And while the Fed does intervene in the markets from time to time, that's not how they do it. Further, the mere fact that interventions are necessary underscores just how arbitrary the valuation is. If, as you argue, USD were backed by gold, the aggregate value of all USD would be US gold reserves; no intervention would be possible, and selling gold reserves would actually lower the value of the dollar. Think about the implications of your argument.
Yes, what I described is not actually how the Federal Reserve works. I was trying to give the essence of what it does in a single sentence.
The USD is not literally backed by gold, but part of the Federal Reserve's mission is to moderate the rate of inflation; that means holding the value of the USD steady. And the way they do it is beyond the scope of this discussion, but it certainly depends on the Federal Reserve trading its holdings on the market (which, as you point out, is mainly debt (in terms of USD), not gold).
You write as if the Federal Reserve is like a benevolent uncle, just doing its best for us, all of us, so we may live long and prosper!
The Federal Reserve is a privately owned entity, it has its stash of gold in New York and the actual government has its smaller stash of gold in Fort Knox.
Let's say that Apple sees the price of its stock drop to something that it thinks is unreasonably low. They may choose to spend some of their cash on hand to buy back some of their stock. This is a wise investment that shareholders would applaud - Apple is getting a good deal.
Same deal with the Federal Reserve. Federal Reserve notes are nominally liabilities for the Fed, and are much like the concept of Apple stock. If the Fed notices the price of the dollar drops, it's in their best interest to trade some of their holdings to buy back some dollars.
It's easy to stand on the sidelines and hurl brickbats at a system (global capitalism) which has raised more people out of grinding poverty in a shorter time than everything else we've ever done in all of recorded history combined.
It's harder to offer real suggestions to actually improve the lives of the poor. And I see you don't.
Your outrage may make you feel good, but it helps no one but you. And that makes it selfish.
Your arguments are quite flawed as they could be applied in favour of feudalism or plain cattle slavery. Also, "Communist" China has raised quite a lot of people out of povert as well. Should we therefore attribute this to state-communism (or state-capitalism)? Of course not.
For me, this is fundamentally an ethical question. Is this wrong and should one work to change it? I think that when a wage labourer barely, if at all, earns enough for food and shelter it is not much different than slavery. As such, I think it's wrong and that it should be changed.
Furthermore, I can't accept the notion that one has to have a thoughout solution to a complex problem to be able to express ones views. A good start to achieving change is to express when one thinks something is wrong and to build from there. The process of achieving change is naturally much more complex than simply expressing ones view and as such it would be irrational to have that as a requirement to speak.
Fundamental change, which may or may not be needed in this case, is often deeply political and such solutions, even if detailed and serious - albeit subjective, is too often just discarded without any thought or arguments.
> Your arguments are quite flawed as they could be applied in favour of feudalism or plain cattle slavery.
Not at all. I could make some solid suggestions for proven ways of improving on feudalism or slavery. But I don't know of any likely ideas to help Bangladesh beyond what they're already doing. More to the point, RodericDay apparently didn't have any either.
If I say Apple knows a few things about global supply chain management, and thus it might be a good idea not to criticise them as clowns who couldn't run a lemonade stand, it does not follow that I disagree with all criticism of every business everywhere just because my arguments could, in theory, have been made about other companies. Because that particular argument would be wrong applied to almost any other company.
> Also, "Communist" China has raised quite a lot of people out of povert as well.
That was the precise process I was referring to, and as I"m sure you're aware (hence your scare quotes), it was via the operations of modern global capitalism, very similar to what is even now beginning to take place in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the Asian periphery.
> I can't accept the notion that one has to have a thoughout solution to a complex problem to be able to express ones views.
To be sure. But RodericDay went far further than that. First, he didn't have the faintest suggestion of a solution; he didn't even suggest an avenue to explore. And second, he wasn't just "expressing his views"; he was condemning the system and its supporters in the harshest possible language. There is a difference between suggesting that it would be nice if Bangladesh could improve even faster, and saying that people who are pleased with their progress are pro-slavery.
My point is that raising people out of poverty should not be used as a measurement of a systems viability and success. As such, the unfair state-capitalism of China should not be praised as a viable system of the future just because it succeeded to raise so many people out of poverty.
So let's summarize: The Indian government spends billions of dollars (which are desperately needed for other purposes in a poor country like India) propping up the price of wheat. This causes many farmers to switch from growing vegetables to wheat. The drives up the price of vegetables, and would drive down the price of wheat, except for political reasons the Indian government would rather let the wheat rot than give it away cheaply. As a result, many of the poor can't afford wheat, and the ones who can can't afford anything but wheat, leading to rampant malnutrition.
Or even shorter: India spends billions of dollars on a policy that does nothing except ensure they have a rate of child malnutrition almost twice that of sub-saharan Africa.
tl;dr: Socialism, lol.
(Oh, and as Spodek pointed out, famines are caused by a lack of money, not food. It's been known for DECADES that if you want to stop people starving, you need to give them cash, and cut barriers to trade.)
I don't think it's yet even at the level where you can start debating socialism vs. other systems. In India, there are endemic problems with enforcing the law, especially with respect to the wealthy/privileged. Just ensuring that no one can flout the law and get away unscathed would go a long way in alleviating these sorts of issues.
Rant : There is no implementation of any kind. No scalability of judicial,medical etc systems due to the population, largely self-centered mindset, lack of time to keep up with huge economic gaps, most importantly the country being ruled by goons (more than half of Indian leaders have criminal records). Getting into Indian political system is simply not possible for a person, necessary to initiate a change.
Researches study, but the figures they come up are far far away from reality. That is because everything exists on paper just not practically.
>Can you possibly imagine surviving in that kind of jungle without being self-centered?
i dont' think 'self-centered' is meant as a derogatery term for the indians. Its just an observation, and the cause is poverty. I don't see a solution to this problem, because any solution that is viable, and realistically implementable, will have to be inefficient (due to corruption, and people with power taking advantage of the situation to the dismay of the poorer/powerless ones).
I agree with the OP in the sense that the biggest problem in India is that if you are rich, you don't have to worry about the law. Let me give you couple of examples:
1. The murder of Jessica Lal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jessica_Lal Even though the accused is in jail right now, it was not because law enforcement worked. It was because of Indian Media. Read the Wikipedia page to get more details.
2. Almost all Indian politicians are corrupt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_politicians_in_India_ch... Now, it's one thing to get away with a crime but it's a whole another thing to still be active in politics after your crimes are exposed. E.g. Lalu Yadav was involved in a scam costing government ~190MM. He later became Railway Minister and he is still active. Compare this to US. Eliot Spitzer, a generally honest man, had to quit politics after his sex scandal came out.
I grew up in India and I have personally seen how the rich people have used money to circumvent the law.
This lack of enforcement against rich people leads to a situation where common people have no respect for the law. And that is why corruption is so rampant in India.
IMHO, A law enforcement similar to how it's in USA, will do wonders to India and it's economy. Though I should add that before we adapt strict law enforcement, we have to revamp our ridiculously outdated laws [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Penal_Code]. E.g. It was only in 2009 when the law banning gay people was scrapped down.
I'm well aware of corruption and the antics of Salman Khan. I absolutely don't dispute that India needs to fix this problem to make real progress.
However, this ignores the question: how would enforcing laws against the wealthy and privileged affect the particular problem we are discussing in this article (wheat rotting while children starve)?
My bad. I kind of overlooked your statement where you mentioned 'how it would affect this situation'. On that note, I agree with you, law enforcement won't really help this particular situation.
I'm obviously not privy to the inner workings of Indian politics, but I can give you a possible sequence of events. One of the reasons that the food is rotting is because of poor storage. The government has decided that jute, and only local jute, can be used to make bags to store the grain. Foreign jute or other materials, such as plastic, are not permitted[0].
It's very possible that the local jute industry was given protection by the government because they bribed the appropriate civil servants/elected officials. Neither the bribers or the bribees will ever face any sort of prosecution for their actions, despite the fact that giving or taking bribes is clearly illegal.
If what OP said is true, then it seems like the weakness of law enforcement in India is the only thing that prevents these bad policies from causing a full-on disaster.
Vigilant enforcement of bad laws is not a good thing.
Its when you have problems enforcing the law that you most need to start worrying about the size of the government. If you had a process of weird and unfair price supports but a government that functioned pretty well (like we do in the US) then that sort of sucks but its tolerable. When the government is going that but making a mess of it (like in India) then its not so tolerable.
BTW, India requires that only jute bags produced by a protected local industry be used for storage. No plastic or foreign jute. Not surprisingly there are not enough bags.
Not sure how that example is indicative of Socialism.
More generally I would say it was interventionist, but very poorly handled. The issue is because they don't know what they're doing, rather than that they are subscribed to a certain style of government.
I agree that corruption and incompetence can be found in all nominal styles of government. The labels (socialist, capitalist) are distractions from the unpleasant reality.
That said, I wonder: Are farm subsidies in India that much different than farm subsidies in the US?
US farm subsidies seem to be, pardon the expression, sacred cows, supported (or at least not challenged) by both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.
Even though they result in lakes of high-fructose corn syrup, youth obesity (especially among lower-income groups), and high health-related costs to society (especially the uninsured).
India is an actual democracy (edit: should have said semi-capitalist or mixed economy, sorry), not a socialist state, mind you. The trouble here is bureaucracy and mismanagement. The government is trying to prop up farmers, but this comes at the expense of millions of its citizens. (Note that most other governments aren't anywhere as dysfunctional, in case you were thinking of blaming 'big government'.)
The Indian government is known to have very serious problems with mismanagement and corruption (worse than many other Asian countries). Witness what was practically the giving away of the communications spectrum to private companies a few years ago, due to sheer ignorance on the part of the minister responsible. India's government needs to be reformed quite fundamentally.
Socialism is an economic system; democracy is a system of governance. India is a socialist democracy. It is not communist but it also not a liberal democracy à la Fukuyama et al.
Isn't it pretty much a capitalist economy? I was under the impression most of its wealth was in private hands. It was socialist over 2 decades ago, but the tide has mostly shifted towards capitalism, and growth has been fast.
Nonetheless, the enduring problems of corruption and mismanagement in its administration remain. Those can't be attributed to the old socialism or current capitalism alone, considering that India is going through a rapid economic rise out of relative poverty. Bad governance is bad governance, whatever the system, and it's aggravated when countries are poor, have a weak rule of law, and are just starting the climb up the ladder of development.
Sort of, there's a big sliding scale between free markets and socialism. Hong Kong is less socialist than Denmark, is less socialist than America, is less socialist than France, is less socialist China, is less socialist than India, is less socialist than Cuba, is less socialist than North Korea.
India has a few sectors, like IT, that are fairly unregulated and which are growing very quickly but the vast bulk of the economy isn't like that.
I certainly agree that good government is very important, though. The better the government the less government intervention in the economy hurts growth, and the more it tends to actually help disadvantaged people.
> Socialism is an economic system; democracy is a system of governance.
Except throughout the Cold War, the socialist states looked more like other socialist states (to wit: The USSR, the PRC, clients thereof, and non-aligned socialist states like Albania) than like non-socialist states around them. These states often called themselves "People's Republics".
Of course, if you take that definition of 'socialist', then India most certainly isn't socialist.
My point: Language isn't simple. Politics isn't simple. Mixing the two simplifies neither.
They looked very much alike because most of them were socialist dictatorships, or socialist oligarchies. Their economic system didn't decide the shape of government.
Summarising this article with "Socialism, lol" is about as valid as summarising an article about Somalia with "Libertarianism, lol". Your socialists are straw-men.
Those disagreeing that this is socialism aren't really attuned to the previous socialist attempts and engineering outcomes.
If you really wanted to split hairs, you could say this is an example for those people who think that a government can engineer a better outcome for people than the people just left to their own devices.
"this is an example for those people who think that a government can engineer a better outcome for people than the people just left to their own devices"
Oh, but we don't need an example of that -- we can just compare, say, European nationalised healthcare with the US approach, and see better outcomes for lower cost in the European model.
No-one's ever said government always engineers better outcomes. A few examples only serve to knock down a straw-man.
Making an ideological debate of it is a sure way into desaster.
"""has been known for decates"""
Thst is actually only partially true, as has been proven in a number of experiments and shown in the book "Poor Economy".
Poor people that reach a higher level of income will generally not buy /more/ food to satisfy their actual needs, but will switch to buy /more expensive/ food (aka "better tasting"), often even /reducing/ their number of calories consumed.
Part of the problem is lack of money, but the main problem is lack of knowledge/education.
I'm not sure what you said you be any less true. You seem to have no understanding of how a modern economy works, or how the banking system works, or what a salary represents, or what wealth is, or what the determinates of unemployment are, or what it means for a job to be "created", or, hell, even what a "job" is. There are so many flaws here, it's hard to even figure out where to start.
You will be unable to find a single economist, economics textbook, or economic model which agrees with your premise.
There's not much to elaborate on; the argument literally makes no sense as presented. You say "wealth is better thought-of as a measure of how many jobs the owner of a company could have created, but didn't." It isn't.
Apple has $100b in cash. Are you going to seriously tell me that if Apple gives $10b back to shareholders via a dividend that, regardless of what those shareholders do with the money, total employment for the economy as a whole will be lower? And that, further, if those shareholders had never invested in Apple at all total employment for the economy would be the same? In other words, that dividends from an alternate-world Apple would not both be a sign that the possessor had created jobs in the past, as well as a potent mechanism with which to create jobs in the future? Because, that's exactly what you're saying, and there isn't an iota of evidence in your favour.
Or to take another tack, the internet has been all atwitter about asteroid mining recently, funded by, among others, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. You're going to sit here and say that it's clearly the case that, if we care about unemployment, the money they're sinking into the venture should have stayed with Google. That, somehow, if Google had decided to go into asteroid mining, rather than the founders of Google, it will magically create more jobs? Because...what? Again, there is no theoretical basis or empirical evidence for this notion.
I could go on forever. Your argument is lunacy on its face, and when we unpack it, it is based on levels of misunderstanding and mistakes all the way down. I'm sorry, but if you want more than a contemptuous flame, you're going to need to do better.
Let me first just throw out that you seem to largely be reacting to extrapolations you've made upon what I wrote, rather than the statement itself. Perhaps you'd be able to read a little more clearly if you took a moment to wipe the spittle off the monitor. That said, let me attempt to rephrase:
If you look at it on more of a macro scale, then yes everything you're saying is trivially obvious. All that, and the money so-and-so accumulates gets saved in a way that makes it available for loans which in turn are spent on goods and services, which creates jobs, etc. etc.
However, the "job creators" rhetoric is carefully focused on a micro scale, very much in order to avoid the way such things tend to disappear once you allow all that interconnectedness to be considered. Cutting out as many complicating factors as possible also makes it more appropriate for the 'sound bites' rhetorical arena in which it operates. Such an argument can't be challenged by just wildly throwing a list of nuances at it. Nuance doesn't work there; it'd be like trying to use incendiary weapons in an underwater fight. Hence, my observation on it was meant to be similarly blinkered, in order to better tailor the response to the proposition.
You said that wealth should not be equated with job creation. I said that this was wrong, and it should be. You admit that this is true (and indeed, that it is "trivially obvious"). But your say that other people often simplify this true argument so that, while still correct, it lacks "nuance", and this means that you are justified in making untrue arguments against it.
That certainly clarifies things. I withdraw my criticism and apologize for my ill-considered tone.
I agree. Corporations are not people, and should have no rights; in particular they should have no rights to free speech or property. I look forward to a day when the government should be able to censor the speech, compel speech, and take the property of corporations whom it dislikes.
I am especially eager to see this rule applied to corporations such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, Greenpeace, the ACLU, and more. These nefarious corporations have damaged the careers of upstanding politicians, leaked vital national security documents, and undermined American prosperity with their treasonous demands for "rule of law" and "protecting the environment". Pah. No doubt President Romney will take the lead in muzzling the ACLU, Greenpeace, and every newspaper and television station in America the moment this amendment is passed.
And then there's Google. And Amazon. Or Apple! I mean, we all know that Apple has more cash on hand than the US government; once this amendment passes there will be no constitutional bar on the government just taking it. Won't that be nice?
(Back in the land of reality, it might be worth noting that according to the decision in Citizens United, corporations are not people. Yeah, I know, some talking head on MSNBC told you that it said they were. How does it feel to realize someone you trusted lied to you? At any rate, any amendment on this topic would either do absolutely nothing, since it would just restate current constitutional law, OR it would be a utter disaster beyond easy comprehension.[1][2])
Hm... Interesting point of view. Amazingly you missed Fox "News" and WallstreetJ in your rant, but never forget the ACLU. Please turn off your propaganda box.
I'm struggling to believe that you really didn't notice the sarcasm in my comment. :) Obviously you can swap all the names on the list for right wing equivalents; it would be just as horrible.
Also, I must reiterate: Companies are not people. No supreme court decision has so held. And Dartmouth College v Woodward does not so hold. (Dartmouth holds that companies have the same right to contract as people. It doesn't hold that they are people. The logic is that only people have rights, but they don't lose those rights just because they organize their affairs along a corporate form. And to protect the real rights which real people have, it is sometimes necessary to allow corporations to exercise those rights.[1])
Oh, and while we're at it, Citizens United doesn't hold that money is speech. (Citizens United holds that money facilitates speech, not that it is speech, and that any restriction on things which facilitate a protected action is a - potentially unconstitutional - burden on that activity.)
Your understanding of these cases seems...lacking.
[1]: If you want an example: I get a second mortgage and sink all my savings into a start-up. You can't now come and seize my company, nor my company's assets, without depriving a real person (me) of real property. But I have the right to due process, and by necessity that extends to my company's assets. On the other hand, you can restrict my company from voting (as is, in fact, done) without impairing the rights of any real person. I would lose everything if you take my company's assets; I lose nothing if you don't let my company vote. Every single right that the courts have extended to companies follows this logic: That companies need this right protected in order to protect the rights of real people. The New York Times has free speech not because the Times is a person, but because real people with free speech rights wish to exercise those rights via the Times, and restricting the free speech rights of the Times would be an unconstitutional burden on the rights of those people.
Um. I don't mean to be nit-picky, but that proposal isn't going to do anything. Let me explain.
The proposal is to prevent new power plants from producing more than 1,000 pounds of CO2e per MW of power produced. Coal is around 1,600 pounds/MW, natural gas is around 800 pounds/MW. So what happens?
1) We build new natural gas plants, and burn all available natural gas at ~800 pounds/MW. Given newly discovered shale gas reserves, this is going to be a fuckton of gas, and hence, CO2e. (Note: This would have happened without the new regulation.)
2) We keep all the old ones around, and burn all available coal at 1,600 pounds/MW. Given known US coal reserves, this is going to be a fuckton of coal, and hence, CO2e. (Note: This would have happened without the new regulation.)
All the new regulation does is ensure that all available coal is burned in old plants, instead of being burned in a mix of new and old plants. Since coal produces the same 1,600 pounds/MW either way, this is completely pointless. At best we're delaying the rate that we burn coal (with fewer coal plants, it'll take longer to chew through the coal), but the climate, sorry, couldn't care less about that. Either that carbon is in the ground or in the air, and if it's in the air, it's causing damage.
If you want to have some impact on the climate, you need to figure out a path that leaves fossil fuels in the ground unburned. Tinkering with the rules about new power plants doesn't even help.
grins I hope some of the more credulous commenters here on HN[1] like the taste of crow. Especially the ones that attacked other commenters as being closed-minded for pointing out obvious problems with the video.
The policy he advocated can be spun in a way that sounds socialist. Phrased the way he did it though? No, that's not going to get you labeled "socialist" anywhere.
I prepared thoroughly for all four main questions and any other plausible ones I could think of. I practiced writing solutions to ensure I was fast enough for the interview. Additionally, I pre-prepared ideal answers for each question in case I got stuck.
When the interview came, I got a total curveball: a question that was significantly harder than the usual ones. It didn't fit the round's theme (it was a DSA question, but I'd already aced the DSA round), was obscure enough not to be on LeetCode, and required writing a solver for a hard variant of a known algorithm. I panicked, copied the prompt into ChatGPT (despite being instructed not to use it), transcribed the result, and pretended I had recently studied the relevant algorithm.
I passed the round, nailed the other interviews, got the offer, and accepted. Later, I found out that interviewers are instructed to pick one of four specific questions for that round, and the one I got wasn't in the list.
I'm left wondering if the interviewer was trying to sink me or was just bored with the usual questions. The whole experience raised several questions for me:
Is it cheating if I already had pre-prepared answers for the questions they were supposed to ask? What's the difference between using pre-prepared answers and using Google or ChatGPT during the interview?
If the interview had gone according to plan, what was I actually demonstrating? My ability to use Google?
When the interviewer asked an impossibly difficult question, I would have failed if I answered it legit, even though I'm a good engineer. Failing such an unfair interview round doesn't serve the company's interests.
What is this interview process meant to demonstrate? My true value as an engineer lies in my ability to communicate clearly, think outside the box, identify and address technical tradeoffs, mentor juniors, and propose technical solutions that meet requirements while minimizing risks. Yet, I'm expected to solve a hard variant of the Traveling Salesman Problem in 45 minutes or I don't get the job? Why?
The whole process seems broken, but I'm not sure how to fix it.