8 Regrets from my time at Facebook
What I would change if I went back
If I ever went back to being an employee, I would do things differently.
First, I wouldn’t have spent so much money.
When you’re a new grad making $150k a year, you feel absolutely invincible. Although I avoided the usual culprits like leased BMWs and serendipitous trips to Hawaii, my track record wasn’t great. I spent too much on fancy meals and nice apartments.
I would’ve instead spent money on two things:
Education (like classes on marketing & sales)
Giving more gifts
Invest in my earning potential, and invest in my relationships.
Speaking of relationships, I should’ve met more people. Specifically, not doing more interviews was an absolute waste of opportunity. You just learn so much from interviewing others: both about yourself, your company, and others. Not once have I met someone that told me “I wish I didn’t interview so many candidates.” It always serves them well in the future, whether they’re switching jobs or hiring people for their own startup in the future.
Also, the regret of interviews goes both ways. Even during my time at Facebook - when I had no intention of leaving anytime soon - I should’ve proactively interviewed with other companies (once every 6 months or so). Staying in the loop with the hiring market will serve you. It’ll present you with serendipitous open doors that could alter your life, as well as ensure that you’re getting paid what you’re worth. If anything, it would’ve kept me on my toes and prevented me from being so comfortable.
If I had to choose, that might actually be the one.
My number one biggest regret was optimizing for comfort and not progress. I had all these ambitions during the first 4 weeks. I wanted to experience record-breaking promotion speeds, create life-changing products, and become recognized in the company. But after months of slow-paced product cycles and an infinite amount of free food, my priorities quickly shifted from progress to comfort.
It ended up less about learning and more about making money while taking it easy.
Ah, and yes. The food.
I wish I didn’t eat so damn much.
I don’t remember many of the speeches I’ve heard at Facebook. Even from people like Zuck himself. But the one speech I remember - it was given by a bald orientation leader who spoke on the first day I arrived at campus.
His first sentence: “You heard of Freshman Fifteen. Well, I’m here to tell you about Facebook Fifteen. And it happens every year”
Although I ended up losing it, I wish I hadn’t eaten out of my mind in the first place.
When it came to the actual work, I made a boatload of mistakes too. The first two go hand-in-hand.
Don’t work on things you’re not passionate about. And don’t be afraid to ask for anything.
If you don’t set your own priorities, someone else will set them for you.
You actually have a surprisingly decent amount of authority as an employee. If you have conviction, voice your opinions, and push to work on something you are passionate about, you’ll get the chance one way or the other.
It’s such a “student mindset” to just accept whatever is given to you as truth.
You’re given an assignment.
You’re given a list of instructions.
You’re given a list of tasks.
If you don’t start taking initiative, then you’ve never really graduated in the first place.
This brings me to my last two points. On paper, I was an employee. And Zuck was my boss (well, not directly. Although that would’ve been awesome).
But even if that’s the case, I should’ve worked for myself, not for the company. At the end of the day, my goal is to make progress in my own life. Not to make more money for the board of directors.
Whether it’s the hours, the mindset, or anything else, I should’ve made this clear in my mind. Oftentimes (especially at the beginning), working for yourself will likely lead to what’s best for the company. But when that stops being true (e.g. you’re not learning as much as you could), you should act to change things up.
And with that in mind, don’t take things too seriously.
Really.
No one likes a stuck-up try hard. Not even in the corporate world.
Ideas
Here are 17 business ideas I had in the past 2 months.
I’ll vent here so I don’t distract myself on them with Shiny Object Syndrome.
Twitter time capsule
Custom-built
nof 1 programming coursesAI-based personalized fitness app & meal planner
Newsletter & Podcast swap + collab finder
E-Commerce brand launches for content creators (done-for-you service)
Auto-lawsuits against scam/robocallers
Fine-tuned AI headline generator by scraping the most popular articles on the web
Podcast on the stories of rich, but not super-rich people (~$15m)
AI prompt security firm
Analytics for Linkedin growth
AI data company on seed-round startups
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—Jayjen
P.S. As some of you may have noticed, this week’s edition is in a different format. This is already Letter #21, but I’m still figuring things out. Thanks for the support!
P.P.S. For anyone that loves bacon.