[kkowalczyk]

If he was hired by Facebook, he wouldn't have (co)developed WhatsApp. If Facebook hired him, he would most likely be worth (to Facebook) as much as any other random Facebook programmer.

Unless he's the one who started WhatsApp, it would have been developed and successful anyway and Facebook would have to buy it for the same amount of money.

The reality is that product/market fit is much more powerful force than programming capabilities of any single engineer.

[marvin]

I think the real issue is that when Facebook didn't hire him, he went on to found a competing company which Facebook felt compelled to pay 16 billion for. That's a big cost.

[gohrt]

If FB hired him, then one of the other N messaging apps would have become the biggest one, and Facebook would have bought that company.

[crassus]

That value may never have been created otherwise. If the acquisition turns out successful then not hiring him may absolutely have been the right thing to do, even in hindsight

[waterlesscloud]

Is it his programming capabilities that make him so valuable?

Or something else?

Can those traits be identified and valued in the hiring process?

[kkowalczyk]

I would say that the reason he struck gold (which is different from being valuable) is because he's a good programmer who happened to work on a break away product.

There are much more good programmers out there than break away products like WhatsApp.

You can't create successes like WhatsApp just by hiring good programmers. There are plenty of great teams that didn't achieve product/market fit and failed.

There are plenty of great programmers at Facebook or Google that do important but not wealth creating work (not on the scale of WhatsApp wealth).

In cases like this most likely the reason why WhatsApp is popular is that there was a person in charge who had the right vision for the app and came up with just the right set of features and a little bit of luck.

But even that person isn't valuable per-se in the sense that you should hire him for your company at all costs hoping that he will create similar wealth for your company.

I'm sure I'm butchering the analogy, but those are Schrödinger's successes: you can only tell they're successful at the time of the exit, but not at any time before that.

[kamaal]

I'm not sure- great programming skills, algorithm knowledge et all still one thing.

The key here is 'gumption'. Raw enthusiasm, high spiritedness and child like courage in approaching ideas and implementing them. To work on projects that kill you. To take routine, crippling failure and weather and grow stronger every time that happens. Most companies have processes to avoid hiring these kind of cowboys. Companies have processes to exactly avoid hiring these kind of people.

You see bulk of these things have nothing to do with skills, or genius or talent. If fact these skills can build other skills.

The problem is most companies check problem solving skills. Do these companies test problem identification skills? Do they check how a person can take failure? Do they measure how hardworking a person is?

If you see it in a way, we don't seem to check the actual skills at all.

[narag]

Most companies have processes to avoid hiring these kind of cowboys.

LOL!

Do these companies test problem identification skills?

On the mark. Maybe it's because the problems prefer not to be identified.

[nailer]

> I would say that the reason he struck gold (which is different from being valuable) is because he's a good programmer who happened to work on a break away product.

'Happened to work on' makes it sound accidental. Maybe he's a good programmer and a good businessperson?

[tostitos1979]

I'm curious what you mean by wealth creating work? I think you have thought about this deeply. So, if I code as an employee, that is not wealth creating (for me). Is working for yourself always wealth creating (or at least, an attempt at it)?

[iopq]

They're not working at the "minimum viable product" level on core features that either make billions or nothing (high upside, but also 95% of the time all downside)

They're working on "something worth $200 an hour always" extra bonus features and bug fixes and getting paid $100 an hour compensation for it.

[pajop]

"The reality is that product/market fit is much more powerful force than programming capabilities of any single engineer." - kkowalczyk

I'll start using this quote! May I know your full name for proper attribution? :)

Are you Kacper Kowalczyk of https://github.com/kkowalczyk ?

[LiweiZ]

+1 for having the big picture