Actually, I don’t know that person very well, only have a few impressions.
When I was an intern, it coincided with policy suppression and company layoffs. Half of the interns in the same batch were let go, including a colleague from another team in my department. It should be the department leader at that time who handed over my resume to another department, and I was transferred to the blockchain department later.
The first person I met in the new department was that person, who was also the leader. From the conversation, it seemed that he had seen the blog address I left on my resume. After that, all my work was assigned by the team leader, starting with web development and later on to other tasks.
Shortly after I graduated and became a full-time employee, that leader left the company to become a partner at a startup that is currently working on an open-source consortium blockchain. Because of this, I don’t have much confidence in the technology of that open-source consortium blockchain. At first, I even felt I could see a bit of my previous company’s blockchain product in their project. Maybe all consortium blockchains are like that.
At his farewell ceremony, I remember him saying some things I didn’t like.
“Some people leave right on time after work, not working overtime. How can they improve themselves?”
It seemed he also said that although he left early, he continued working at home. It’s been too long, I can’t remember the exact words, but that was the gist. Of course, he wasn’t saying it to me directly but to everyone, not targeting anyone specifically.
Although I was still young at the time and could handle working overtime, I completely disagreed with that kind of jerk logic. Later, the company required 996 work hours for a while. I could manage to be the earliest to arrive and the last to leave, just short of sleeping at the company. Besides, I was quite serious at work, mainly doing simple web development, my old profession. And how do you know you’re the only one doing useful things after work hours?
“If my startup fails, I hope you all can leave a position for me.”
I couldn’t understand this statement. If you’ve already left, why still think about a way back? Unfortunately, “everyone” fell faster than his startup career, perhaps because he left.
“None of you are capable!”
At a dinner, someone said, “If you start a business, take us with you?” And then he said this. Finally, he spoke his mind when leaving, haha.
There’s nothing much after that. In short, I felt I saw the classic image of a greasy uncle. I remember I started feeling dizzy after two glasses of baijiu.
The next time we met was at a department team-building event, and he was invited too. He was quite familiar with the department leader. Another department leader also joined the team-building.
During the meal, the other department leader mentioned a cliché question, and no one really responded. Then the topic shifted to whether there were any women in his startup, and if so, could he introduce some to us.
“There are women. (pauses) Female PhDs!”
This kind of statement almost completely contradicts my values. The implication was, PhDs, huh! And what about you?
On an anonymous community, you can find comments about their company saying it has the corrupt culture of a state-owned enterprise combined with the excellent tradition of overtime and on-call duties of an internet company.
Once, during a major product release live broadcast, they were chatting and laughing, the atmosphere was lax, and both the attire and environment were very low-end.
In the same year he left to start his own business, their company began working on their current project, maybe a few months later. Anyway, not much time has passed since then, and they don’t have many people, but they release versions quite frequently. I saw him post on his moments saying they aim to build the best blockchain platform in China.
Looking at their presentations in other live meetings, the most striking thing is a slide listing a bunch of guiding and member units.
Occasionally, headhunters contact me, saying that the company is recruiting.
For these special reasons, I might never go or be able to go to that kind of high-end company with female PhDs.