Wow this article went into zero depth about the struggles of his application process. I could've just read the titlebait. I think the title misrepresents what the article is about.<p>Commenting on the title -- how many extremely poor visa applications are rejected correctly though? Is the process expected to be absolutely perfect? Are 100 valid rejections and 1 invalid rejection worth not being able to reject any applicants at all?<p>FWIW, I'm not saying the process isn't broken. We shouldn't be consistently rejecting a brilliant application -- it hints that the process has some severe flaws. Perhaps it should be easier for the process to "forget" someone.
TFA leaves out what the problem is with Cisco that wouldn’t allow him to allow his engineers to improve webex while they all worked for Cisco.<p>What else aren’t people at Cisco able to achieve because they are at cisco?
This article is garbage for so many reasons. The worst offense is using the "don't be afraid to pursue your dreams" nonsense. That line is so old and cliche and that's not even the real takeaway here.<p>The most important takeaway for all you up-and-coming-CTOs-and-Founders is "Be the type of leader that can bring 40 of your engineers with you to your new company".<p>40 engineers is staggering. That's an instant engineering org. You start the ground running and you all have a common history and language. I would easily wager that Zoom wouldn't be the company it would be if Yuan wasn't the leader that could attract 40 current workers to his startup.
If you're the VP of engineering for a product, and your product universally sucks (and you're fully aware of how bad it sucks), what's wrong with the company structure that prevents you from fixing it? That's a better question.
I think if they really don't want you, you should just stop trying so hard to get in. Especially these days when the American dream isn't quite what it used to be anymore. There are always opportunities elsewhere.
FTFA:<p><i>"After he left, 40 of the 800 engineers he worked with immediately joined him at Zoom.<p>And according to this tweet, almost all of the others sent in resumes to work with him. He had something like 1000 job inquiries within a week of announcing his leaving.<p>Talk about engineering loyalty."</i><p>No, let's talk about Intellectual property(IP):<p>How much does Zoom's software differ from Cisco/Webex? If Yuan got 40 developers overnight from Cisco/Webex and more later, how much IP did they bring to Zoom from Cisco/Webex? Should Cisco/Webex sue Zoom for IP theft? I don't see how such a lawsuit could fail.
I read a funny article about a 2 billion dollar Cisco vs. Zoom trial that occurred during the pandemic. It all took place on ZOOM.<p><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/10/06/cisco-fined-nearly-2-billion-as-trial-by-zoom-concludes" rel="nofollow">https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2020/10/06/cisco-fi...</a>
> Keep moving forward and don’t settle. You might be surprised at how many people follow you.<p>Everyone at a former startup I was also an employee at rejected working with me lol.<p>But yes, new people did follow my journeys after a lot of my "thought leadership" shitposting on Quora, Twitter, ghostwriting on Forbes... the usual "organic" stuff. It is still funny how that was written in the article, compared to the expressions on my former co-workers faces as they quickly tried to nicely reject me as if I had just grown two heads. This isn't a story about success or redemption or anything, its also what happened and what probably happens more commonly.
> Yuan migrated to the USA from China in the 80s. He had heard Bill Gates speak about the internet<p>The same Bill Gates who neglected to mention the Internet in "The Road Ahead", published 1995?
What I find frustrating about our immigration system is that some people are held to such a higher bar than others.<p>I know of colleagues who are made to submit hundred page applications to be admitted under talent-related visa programs.<p>In the meantime, we wave in (or just look the other way) for people who happen to come from countries next door, or because they came in illegally and had a kid.<p>It makes you think less of the US as an equitable place.<p>It would be more intellectually honest to have a global lottery. No country-based quotas, no grandfathering in.<p>Unless the truth is that because of our geography, you simply have to give up and say that we are forever going to have to treat some countries and people differently.<p>That's systemic racism if I ever saw it.