company culture fit as a job decision factor

I've noticed that when I decide whether to join a company, culture fit has usually been pretty far down the list of priorities. Many of my friends are this way too. Usually we think about:

- the company's vision
- the type of work we'd be doing day-to-day
- whether we respect / like the coworkers
- compensation

Company culture fit does play a subconscious role, but I didn't explicitly count it as a decision-making factor. I rarely talked about it when going over my decision with others. But it is actually so important!

When you fit well with the company culture, you can just be yourself and success will come naturally. If you don't fit well, people will keep suggesting that you mold yourself, but it'll always be slightly off.

Luckily it is easy to tell whether you fit well or not. I use the litmus test of, "Let's say I were to start working here tomorrow at 9am. How do I feel about this?" Usually I have either a feeling of elated excitement, or a sense of dread.

Recently one of my graphic design colleagues at Minted told me a story of how he started working at Minted. He applied during the height of the holiday season, when traffic was at a peak. Halfway through the interview, as he was showing his portfolio, his interviewer said, "Ok, that's good." and asked him to immediately go into the next room, sit down at a computer, and start working. He has been with the company ever since, and is really happy with it. But he said that he had arranged his portfolio so that the best piece was last, and was disappointed that the interview was cut short and he never got to show the best piece.

That is an even stronger emotional test than my test of "working here tomorrow at 9am".

canvas

Which of these two photos would be better as a 16x20 canvas hanging on my wall?

A.


B.

This is someone's actual home!



It has inspired me to decorate my SF apartment.

hats!

Omst is visiting from Canada. We're going to our friend PZ's Kentucky Derby brunch today. This morning, in my San Francisco apartment:

Omst: "Oh, do you have any hats for this brunch?"

Me: [excitedly running into the closet] "Yes! Hats! [examining my collection] I only have two hats here! The rest are in Mountain View."

Omst: "But is one of them appropriate for a derby?"

Me: [walking out holding two fancy hats] "Oh, I mean I only have two appropriate hats. The rest are costumed hats."

Omar: O_o

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Update: Later, at the Kentucky Derby brunch:

lg goofiness

My former intern LG is so funny.

LG: "I have a great startup idea. I can explain it in 10 seconds."

Me: "Okay, what is it?"

LG: "Bet on weather."

Me: "Isn't that WeatherBill?"

LG: "It already exists?"

Me: "Yes, it's an ex-Googler startup. Some say it's one of the best ones."

LG: [navigating to it] "Aw, this isn't betting on weather! Protect your profits from bad weather. That's not what I meant! I want to literally bet on the weather."

Yishan: "You're doing futures investing based on the weather. You're betting - on the weather."

LG: "Damn it! I really wanted to build this. This one's not called BetOnWeather.com."

conclusion of the brother gift survey

Thanks to all the suggestions about a gift to give my brother for his birthday. I ended up getting him...

A kindle 3!

And a gift card for kindle books!



Tom called me on the phone, and we were talking as he opened the Amazon box. When he saw the big envelope (containing the gift card), he asked, "Oooh, is this a Minted birthday card? Did you send me a personalized card?"

I said, "The box shipped directly from Amazon! How would I have gotten the card into the Amazon box?"

Though, at Minted we just hired the Amazon engineer who coded their packing slips and shipping box sizing algorithms, so maybe I could've somehow gotten her to do it before leaving!

Another gift that Tom got was a trip to San Francisco, from his buddy in LA. So he is going to come visit next weekend. I wonder if I can convince him to go to a drag brunch show with me. A friend gave me his groupon for it, and it's expiring.

updated bucket list

I've now done one of the items on my bucket list. This is the updated list:

1. Take my dad to Russia on a trip.
2. Have a family.
3. Eat at Gary Danko.
4. Have a small, live Christmas tree in my home. Decorate the tree. Here is an example of what the tree could look like:

breeze

This photo reminds me of Burning Man, even though it's 1). clean, and 2). next to a beautiful river, as opposed to miles away from any water. It's making me want to go for a weekend to Burning Man!

The best moment from Burning Man 2009 was sitting on top of a precarious four-story metallic structure, with Misha and Omst.

Elizabeth said, "At Burning Man, you see these couches that hundreds of people have sweated on. If you saw that in the Mission, you wouldn't want to go near it. But here you just sit right down on it, wearing very little clothing."

birthday gift for my brother

I need to buy a gift for my brother's 24th birthday in 10 days. What to get him?

He likes indoor rock climbing, video games, and Japanese films.

source code

Darn it!

I just saw that there is an upcoming movie called "Source Code".



I got all excited because I thought it's a movie about coding. A real coding movie, not one where two teenagers type for 15 seconds and hack into the Pentagon. Or where the protagonist lands on a borg-looking alien mothership from light-years away and finds a convenient USB port.

I thought that maybe in the movie "Source Code", the characters would be solving some challenging problem. Maybe first they are stuck, then they come up with a solution. They start to celebrate, but it turns out be O(N^3)! They get discouraged, and shout at each other. One of them leaves in anger to take a walk by the river, where he sees a leaf fall onto the ground. The leaf inspires him to come up with a O(log N) solution! Then he races back just in the nick of time and presses "i" in his vim editor in order to start typing the code. I want a big close-up of his fingers as he types that initial "i".

Anyway, this is the description of the movie "Source Code":

When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train. In an assignment unlike any he's ever known, he learns he's part of a government experiment called the "Source Code," a program that enables him to cross over into another man's identity in the last 8 minutes of his life. With a second, much larger target threatening to kill millions in downtown Chicago, Colter re-lives the incident over and over again, gathering clues each time, until he can solve the mystery of who is behind the bombs and prevent the next attack. Filled with mind-boggling twists and heart-pounding suspense, Source Code is a smart action-thriller directed by Duncan Jones

WTF! What a huge letdown! This has nothing to do with source code!!!

but those koreans are even closer to japan

Talking to my brother about reports of radiation reaching Southern California due to the Japan nuclear reactor meltdown.

niniane: are you scared about the radioactive plume?
Tom: not much i can do about the radioactive plume
Tom: i can do with a few extra appendages
niniane: what will you do with them?
Tom: play starcraft 50% better

chinese currency rap battle!

an entertaining video

My college friend Victor: "haha my whole life's effort learning cantonese is now worthwhile thanks to this video"

poem

I like this poem.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE CHAPTERS
Portia Nelson


1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost...
I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it's a habit
My eyes are open; I know where I am;
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

oinksy!

I want this:



Is the fur (hair?) soft, or is it bristly? I want to hold this little pig as I fall asleep.

fire extinguisher!

Sitting in my Mountain View townhouse with Azer.

Me: "The townhouse complex just sent an email. You need to put the fire extinguisher out onto the front steps on Saturday morning. They're going to inspect it."

Azer: "I'll do it right now. Where is it?"

Me: "On the balcony." [walking over to balcony, looking all over it without finding the fire extinguisher]

Azer: "Is it in a closet?"

Me: "Yeah, we should probably know where the fire extinguisher is, in case of a real fire."

Azer: "I bet the townhouse complex isn't actually doing anything to the fire extinguisher. This whole thing is just so that everyone will find their fire extinguisher."

Me: [lol]

interesting Soviet Union house

The architecture of this house is really interesting:



It's from this Guardian article about architecture in the Soviet Union.

what makes people into fascinating characters?

There are some people who fascinate me. They could be a movie character. One is my personal trainer Megan, who always has an interesting dating story or work dilemma. Another is my Seattle friend Wenarto, who throws elaborate dinner parties where he conscripts the guests to act in his youtube videos.

I was mulling over what makes these people so fascinating.

There's a guideline to writing fiction, wherein you ought to devise characters with strong motives. One book said, "If your character's only desire is to drink some water, make that desire very strong. Make him parched, and craving water as though his life depends on it."

The examples I gave both have strong passions. Megan is humorously opinionated about every area of her life. Wenarto lives to sing opera in youtube videos, and cook feasts of capon.

Is that the primary factor? Perhaps it is also because these individuals are not self-conscious. They rarely get embarrassed, and proudly own up to all their foibles.

chinese commercial about IM

I like the scene where you see the mom's QQ instant messager friend list, and it only has 1 contact (her son).

pot of meat as art!

J Michael designed how the "pot of meat" photo could be artistically made into a series of panels!

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Also, my colleague suggested that I color-correct and crop the photo:

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Here's another suggestion from the comments, courtesy of Jordan Brock: