[argonaut]

This doesn't really apply. At the executive/management level things are hugely different. Politics, how well you work with others, investor perceptions, "vision", experience, communication skills, etc. all become more important than raw individual contribution skills.

Another common example that people like to use, but which also doesn't apply is the example of Brian Acton getting rejected from Facebook before starting WhatsApp. I have no doubt he would have been able to get hired as an engineer. All indications are that he was interviewing for an executive position, though (he had previously been a VP at Yahoo).

[_yosefk]

AFAIK Lasseter wasn't that senior when Disney fired him.

[pc86]

> John Lasseter was fired from Disney because he was too enthusiastic about cutting edge digital animation

It's possible that Lasseter was the animation equivalent of the programmer who has a job in a web design firm that traditionally does everything in Rails (or .NET or Django or whatever) and constantly says "let's use Haskell!!" when they're just building CRUD apps for clients.

The "works well with others" thing is important even for junior folks.