This is how I got three job offers as a 16-year-old high school student.

( and why I rejected them )
๐Ÿงต๐Ÿ‘‡

June 2020.

I receive a DM from a college student in California. The message read something like this "Hey Pratham, I am one of the co-founders of XYZ Inc, a robotics company, we are looking to add enthusiastic people to our team, would you be interested?"

(2 / 11)
It was the first time I had ever been offered a job, so I said Yes! (I did reject it later)

There were a couple of interview rounds I had to go through. None of them included technical questions, which was interesting.

(3 / 11)
After the first interview, I saw the list of the roles I could apply for. I realized how little I knew, terms like "Ui/UX, ROS(Robot operating system)", at that time, I was overwhelmed.

(4 / 11)
I knew that this wasn't a job for me. I decided that I would reject this job role even if I cleared the second round, which I ended up doing.

(5 / 11)
August 2020

I had quite a bit of free time with me, and I had learned a decent amount of HTML, CSS, and JS.

What should I do next? Of course! Search for a job ๐Ÿ˜…
(Spoiler Alert: Bad decision)

I made a tweet asking if anyone wanted to hire me as a front end developer.
(6 / 11)
That tweet exploded, and within an hour, I got a job offer.
I ended up having a zoom call with the CEO of the company.

(7 / 11)
Things did not look right. They wanted me to create a full-stack production-ready application without any team or a senior developer's help. I ended up rejecting this offer.

(8 / 11)
Late 2020

I get a DM from this person working on a startup based on a blockchain recommendation system, and the company was profitable. ( According to him)
They were even willing to pay me a very good salary.

(9 / 11)
However, I honestly did not believe in the company's idealogy, which is why I rejected this offer too.

My parents told me that at this age, learning and exploring new things was really what I should be doing, not look for jobs.

(10 / 11)

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"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".