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When Sophie Novati landed her first job as an engineering intern at Facebook<\/a> in 2011, the social media giant was firmly in its \u201cmove fast and break things\u201d era.<\/p>\n \u201cThe energy was buzzing early Facebook,\u201d the now tech entrepreneur recalls to Fortune<\/em>. \u201cThere were so many people just trying to build and ship cool stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt honestly almost felt like it was college,\u201d she adds. \u201cPeople were literally sleeping at the office\u2026 It felt like everyone that I was there with were just all buddies and hanging out. Everyone was working very hard. But it felt like the dorm room.\u201d<\/p>\n A few years later, Novati left Facebook (now Meta) to join the platform Nextdoor as its second iOS engineer hire. The 33-year-old helped build it from the ground up before founding her own firm, Formation in 2019.<\/p>\n The job placement company offers various subscription packages and programs to help engineers secure work or increase their earning potential. For a fee (ranging from $2,500 to $20,000), job seekers can get access to unlimited resume reviews, negotiation coaching, mentoring, mock interviews, exam drills and more.<\/p>\n Having been Facebook\u2019s de facto inclusivity lead in the engineering department, she says she was inspired to found Formation and help remove barriers to entry.<\/p>\n \u201cAt Facebook and Nextdoor, I was probably one of 15 people who was a woman and that ratio just didn\u2019t feel right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, over 1,300 job seekers have enlisted Formation\u2019s help to get a seat at the table\u2014on average, they\u2019ve landed a $127,286 pay rise in the process, according to the company.<\/p>\n But, Novati says, Formation\u2019s success today is partly due to a late-night chess lesson from her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was 2am on one night in 2011 when Zuckerberg was \u201changing out with all the interns,\u201d including playing a couple of chess matches with Novati (who claims she won).<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the vibe of the company at the time,\u201d Novati says, adding that it was the first time she was able to ask him the million-dollar question: How\u2019s the social network going to make any money?\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFacebook was growing users at a pace that no one\u2019s seen before,\u201d she adds. \u201cBut it couldn\u2019t make any money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, today, Facebook\u2014or Meta\u2014is a $1.3 trillion social media giant with Instagram and WhatsApp under its wing. However, up until 2012<\/a>, the year Facebook went public, its mobile app didn\u2019t actually make money.\u00a0<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t feature ads and the move to incorporate them was considered risky.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the end, the company was able to turn likes and shares into profit, by turning its users into the product.<\/p>\n The \u201caggressive\u201d strategy lifted Facebook from \u201cno meaningful revenue\u201d to $153 million in mobile ads,\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reported at the time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHis response to me was, if you can figure out a way to capture people\u2019s valuable attention, you can always figure out how to turn that into money later,\u201d Novati recalls.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat he was really focused on building is figuring out how to deliver value to people,\u201d she adds. \u201cLater on, you can always turn that value into dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s why Novati has always been hyper-focused on promoting how Formation is adding value to engineers\u2019 lives instead of worrying about its list of clients or sign-up rates.<\/p>\n \u201cWe look at increase in compensation as our number one metric,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n \u201cCollege in the U.S. costs on average around $100k for 4 years. The average compensation for people who go through versus those who do not is about $20km. So people are paying $100k for $20k value\u2014we are the flip here, we\u2019re helping people make $127k more and we\u2019re charging $10-15k.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pretty crazy that people are making over $100k more as a result of going through a program,\u201d she boasts.<\/p>\n So far, Zuckerberg\u2019s ethos has been on the money.<\/p>\n According to Novati, Formation has raised over $8.5 million in funding and is working with the likes of Netflix<\/a>, Google<\/a>, Twitch, Dropbox<\/a>, Adobe<\/a> and her old employer Meta among others.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s still a lot more that we can do to better capture the value that we\u2019re creating,\u201d Novati concludes.<\/p>\n But for now, her attention remains \u201con getting people into these top jobs and significantly improving the trajectories of their career.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nZuckerberg\u2019s advice over chess<\/h2>\n
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