u/teganlinux wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Glad to hear that you love what you do and you do it even though you are already FIRE and financially independent. I also love my job! I teach at a bootcamp (one you mention sometimes in your posts), and I also really enjoy seeing my students grow, and attain their dreams. Howev
u/michaelnovati replied · ★ FEATURED
Hi, nice to meet you, lots of questions I'll try to address.
RE: Formation fit. Yes, 1+ years of real SWE experience, even if it was in the past, and teaching experience is a good fit. We've worked with a number of people that have taken multi year career breaks, and it's a very good fit not just for the technical aspects, but for building confidence in your behavioral narratives. For FAANG companies, you don't need to so much worry about updating your practical skills to the newest frameworks as much as building confidence in the fundamental skills and story, and building confidence happens day by day as you practice and get feedback that you are improving.
RE: Timing. It's not the best time for classic FAANG, but it's still a decent time for FAANG-level companies. Depending on how much experience you have, you could be aiming for mid-level roles. One of the nice things about Formation is you can do it part time and ramp up or down your weekly workload, so as long as you are actively job hunting and expect to get a job within well within the next year, it's a good idea to start earlier and be ready when the opportunities arise. It's something unique about us that is absolutely a strong value proposition for Fellows right now in this market.
RE: the FB of 2009. Two ways to look at this.
1. Double down on your super powers. So maybe Duolingo is something you would like for example. I don't know if it's going to 100X like FB did since 2009, but you might do very very well there, progress fast, get bonus stock, etc... and do quite well for yourself.
2. Try to find the objectively 100X'able companies. So it's simple math. $1B now -> $100B is 100x. So look at the "unicorns" and see which ones you could see becoming FB/Google/Amazon sized in terms of revenue and profits. Are the companies making revenue, do they have a very profitable business model, and can the market size justify tens of billions of dollars of revenue in the future. Another path is joining a startup that might be valued at $100M and it becoming a decorn at $10B, that's 100X. Stripe, Instacart, Doordash, Uber, are all companies at around the $1B mark had the 100X potential and ended up 50Xish roughly. The $100M companies are very hard to identify, don't have time to write a novel on this, but some you are looking at Series A and B companies that have properties of the $10B valued companies of today. Stripe was one at that stage, Databricks is another one that would have been a great choice at that phase.