Issue #2 - Big Tech Interview, Portfolio Diversification, Handling Change and an adventurous person
Hey all, and a huge thank you for checking out this week’s newsletter.
This week I’ve written about…
Why stock diversification is important
The process we go through with ‘change’
Sharing my experience of interviewing at LinkedIn
Shared links to an adventurous person
Some engagement and growth numbers of the newsletter…
+55% more subscribers this week
44% open rate on last week’s newsletter
4 times more people reading the online version compared to the email (not sure how but I’ll take it, maybe it was Twitter, IDK)
I’m still trying to figure out which day is best to send it out - so please keep an eye out for it.
TBH - I’m blown away and really grateful.
PS. I am still trying to figure out which is the best day to send out the newsletter. This week I am trying a Thursday. Next week I might try Tuesday or Wednesday.
Books & Adventure - Alastair Humphreys
Three reasons I like this guy. 1. He cycled around the world 2. He talks about micro-adventures 3. He makes a living off all of that.
If you’re stuck for Christmas present ideas - he’s written a bunch of books, some aimed at children, some aimed at adults - all aimed at trying to get people to be more adventurous. Find his links below.
Wedsite | Instagram | Books on Amazon
Stocks - Diversification
Ever heard the saying “putting all your eggs in one basket”? It is essentially a warning that you should not concentrate all efforts and resources in one area as one could lose everything.
This applies to shares/stocks. So to overcome this we diversify. In other words, we don’t just buy shares in one company, instead, we buy shares in multiple companies.
An example of “putting all your eggs in one basket” is using all your savings to buy 10 Google shares 1 year ago which would have cost you $1,449. Today they would be worth $950 (-34%).
However, if we had split our investment equally between Google and Conoco Phillips we would have bought 9 x Conoco Phillips ($720 @ $80 each) and 5 x Google ($725 @ $95 each). We would have still lost 34% on Google but we would have made 55% on Conoco Phillips. Increasing the value of our portfolio from $1,445 to $1,591 (+10%). This is diversification - you win some, you lose some - you just hope to win more times than you lose.
So how many companies/shares would be a well-diversified portfolio? While there is no magic number, it is typically advised that it would be between 20 and 30 shares/companies (as a minimum). Ideally from different sectors. A longer explanation can be found here.
Is there an easier way? Yes, one way is buying an exchange-traded fund (ETF) instead of single shares. ETFs are already diversified investments. They come in many different flavours, some are very broad while some are very sector focused. To get started, have a look at Vanguard.
MBA Bitesize - Kübler-Ross Change Curve
Change is change, for some it is challenging, for others it’s an opportunity. When dealing with change which is difficult it can often be helpful to understand some of the stages we may go through and this is where the Kuber-Ross Change curve is useful.
The Kuber-Ross Change curve shows 7 stages starting with the initial shock of the change. This is followed by the denial that the change happened, followed by frustration and an altered mood. These stages of change are often negative or have negative feelings attached.
After these initial stages, things start to improve. First, the Kuber-Ross Change curve states that we start to experiment and try to engage in the new situation. Later we start to feel more positive about the change and eventually we accept the change and can function well again.
One situation where this is useful in a leadership role is when introducing a change within the work environment. Perhaps the team has been re-structured or perhaps a project which people had been working on had to be deprioritised. Here, having awareness of how people and teams process change can help you as a leader empathises with what others are going through and what emotions they are processing. This in turn helps you know where and how you can provide support.
Another example where the Kuber-Ross Change curve is useful is if you are going through change yourself. Perhaps you have been made redundant, perhaps the project you have been working on for a long time has just been cancelled, or perhaps there is a change in your personal life you are dealing with. Understanding the Kuber-Ross Change curve can help you understand that those negative emotions are ‘normal’ and also provide assurance that things will improve with time.
Recently a friend was trying to support a family member who had suffered a death of a close relative. My friend was unable to relate to his family members’ emotional state and wasn’t sure how he could support them. I showed him the Kuber-Ross Change curve which enabled him to provide some support through each of the states but also gave my friend the comfort of knowing eventually things would be ok.
Read more about the Kuber-Ross Change curve.
Big Tech - an interview at LinkedIn
At the start of the year I interviewed at LinkedIn for the position of Engineering Manager (Machine Learning), I thought it would be good to share with everyone how that experience went.
Context - Towards the end of 2021 I actively started exploring opportunities to become a people manager. I had just completed some internal training and I had spent the last number of months working as an IC and also supporting a small team. This training and experience made me reflect on where I was and what I wanted to do next, so I applied for several internal manager roles (at Meta). During this same time, I also spotted the role at LinkedIn and this is that story…
Application - The application process was very similar to any other application, you submit your details and hope to get a reply. Within a couple of days a recruiter reached out and we arranged to meet via VC - this kicked off the entire process.
The first interview was with the recruiter, he wanted to go over my background and motivation for the role. I’d say this first part of the process is to filter out most people as one thing I’ve learned at Meta is that the full interviewing process is very time intensive (for the team).
Next, I had 4 more interviews split over 2 days. This was 2 interviews each day which were back to back, with a 15 minute break in between. I would describe them as split between 2 core focuses - management and technical skills.
The thing which I wasn’t expecting was such an in-depth technical interview. I’ve had a lot of technical interviews before, but this was by far the most interesting. Why? Because the interviewer knew their stuff and probed into every aspect. The task during that interview was to discuss how I would build an ML system to solve a specific problem. What I didn’t know until the end was that they had recently developed a solution to this, hence the very in-depth probing of the answers.
Finding out I had passed this round was a fantastic feeling, but at this stage, I still had another round to go. The next round would have been another 3-hour commitment involving meeting the team, plus 2 more interviews. Unfortunately at this stage, I withdrew my application because I had been offered a new role within Meta. It was a very difficult decision to make. The ultimate reason was - that Meta moved quicker, and offered me a role, and I would have still been interviewing for LinkedIn while joining a new team at Meta - and that just felt wrong.
So what are the key lessons I learned?
Technical skills are really important - Even though I was applying for a people manager role, my technical skills were thoroughly tested. TBH - I’m happy about that, I’ve worked really hard to develop my technical skills and I am happy to see that they are still needed.
Leadership skills are equally important - sounds obvious, but I see so many great technical people who deprioritise some of the softer skills such as communication, presenting, stakeholder management and also conflict resolution.
Timing is everything - reflecting back, it seems crazy to think I could have been working at LinkedIn and the reason for me withdrawing my application was purely down to bad timing.
Batch Preparation - this was a huge thing for me during the interviews. As I mentioned, during the same time I was interviewing for multiple roles within Meta. While each interview is unique they often share some themes, mainly giving examples of <something> during your career and how you handled it. By applying for multiple roles I was able to share the preparation time between all of them.
Interviewing is hard - while having multiple interviews during this period helped with the preparation, the whole process was exhausting - IDK if I’d recommend doing multiple interviews at the same time.
Fin.
Thanks for getting this far, wishing you all a fantastic week 🙏