How to move mount Fuji

by Wojciech Adam Koszek   ⋅   Jul 17, 2012   ⋅   East Palo Alto, CA

I write this review 4 years after reading this book, and the only thing I remember is that it was a pretty good take on Silicon Valley history. You decide.


…or Shockey Semiconductor and hiring smart people

Interesting feeling it is when you’re reading about places where significant accomplishments had happened before you’ve been born. And especially when you do it while sitting in one of these well-known places.

I started reading “How to move Mount Fuji” and actually this book positively surprised me. I expected only questions and reasoning on how recruiters think, but encountered a pretty big chunk of history of Silicon Valley and the background behind it after all. Lewis Terman’s craziness of IQ testing, Shockey’s genius and his magic team of 8; Fairchild Semiconductor and others.

Ever wondered how Google questions map to your real abilities and why Microsoft recruitment questions can be a bit awkward? By the way, let me tell you, hardware industry sometimes uses similar questions as well, so be prepared…

Not only is this book for people fresh out of college, or aspiring Googlers, who would love to work in a place where riding a skateboard is permitted in a working hours. This book, I feel, is good for hiring managers, who’re struggling with lots of submitted resumes, out of which 3% are worth looking at.

Fortunately to me I don’t deal with hiring, but if I had, I believe I’d just try to follow what’s written in this and….

…yet another book:

Ha! Joel tricked as all, but unless you’ve read his blog carefully, you won’t know what the trick is all about!

Anyway, excellent book, like most of his writings. Looks like my strategy of buying his books no matter what works pretty well for me – I learn a lot! Highly recommended (unless you know the trick!)


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About the author: I'm Wojciech Adam Koszek. I like software, business and design. Poland native. In Bay Area since 2010.   More about me