As I sat down to chat with Carl Pei about some news related to Nothing OS — the software powering his company’s Nothing Phone 1 — I was surprised by how he opened up the conversation. He told me a story about one of the early hires on Nothing’s software engineering team. After a disappointing interview with the developer, Pei told his team, “Please do not hire this person.” However, the team informed Pei that this was the only person who applied, and they needed to bite the bullet. After one day of work, the developer quit, telling Nothing he got a better job elsewhere.
“The worst engineer didn’t even want to work two days for our company,” Pei says with an exhausted laugh.