But it felt like the dorm room.” A few years later, Novati left Facebook (now Meta) to join the platform Nextdoor as its second iOS engineer hire.
The job placement company offers various subscription packages and programs to help engineers secure work or increase their earning potential.
But, Novati says, Formation’s success today is partly due to a late-night chess lesson from her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg’s advice over chess It was 2am on one night in 2011 when Zuckerberg was “hanging out with all the interns,” including playing a couple of chess matches with Novati (who claims she won).
According to Novati, Formation has raised over $8.5 million in funding and is working with the likes of Netflix, Google, Twitch, Dropbox, Adobe and her old employer Meta among others.
The current tech entrepreneur reminisces to Fortune, “The energy was buzzing early Facebook.”. “So many people were just attempting to construct and ship amazing things. “.
As she puts it, “It really kind of felt like college.”. It seemed like everyone I was with was just hanging out and friends because people were literally sleeping at the office. Everyone was putting forth a lot of effort in their work. However, it had the vibe of a dorm room. “.
After working for Facebook (now Meta) for a few years, Novati joined Nextdoor as its second iOS engineer hire. Before starting her own company, Formation, in 2019, the 33-year-old assisted in its inception.
She claims she was motivated to found Formation and assist in lowering barriers to entry after serving as Facebook’s de facto inclusivity lead in the engineering department.
I was presumably one of fifteen women at Facebook and Nextdoor, and that ratio didn’t feel right. “.
Now that more than 1,300 job seekers have turned to Formation for assistance in getting a seat at the table, the company reports that they have, on average, increased their pay by $127,286 as a result.
However, Novati claims that part of Formation’s current success can be attributed to a late-night chess lesson she received from Mark Zuckerberg, her previous employer.
The chess advice from Zuckerberg.
One night in 2011, around two in the morning, Zuckerberg was “hanging out with all the interns,” which included a couple of chess games that she (Novati) claimed to have won.
“That was the company culture at the time,” Novati says, noting that it was her first opportunity to pose the crucial query to him: How will the social network generate revenue?
She continues, “Facebook was growing users at a pace that no one had ever seen before.”. However, it was unable to generate any revenue. “.
Facebook, also known as Meta, is a social media behemoth valued at $1.3 trillion, and it controls Instagram and WhatsApp. But Facebook’s mobile app didn’t truly turn a profit until 2012, the year it went public.
Advertisements were not included, and adding them was seen as a risky move.
Ultimately, by transforming its users into the product, the company managed to convert likes and shares into revenue.
The Atlantic said at the time that Facebook’s “aggressive” approach helped it go from “no meaningful revenue” to $153 million in mobile ads.
Novati remembers, “His response to me was, if you can figure out a way to capture people’s valuable attention, you can always figure out how to turn that into money later.”.
She continues, “He was really focused on building and figuring out how to deliver value to people.”. “You can always convert that worth later on into money.”. “.
“Our primary metric is an increase in compensation,” she says.
Universities in the U.S. s. costs, on average, $100,000 for four years. For those who make it through, the average compensation is roughly $20 km higher than for those who do not. People are thus spending $100k for $20k worth of value; however, we are the ones who are making $127k more for our clients while charging $10–15k. “.
People are making over $100k more after completing a program, she claims, which is pretty amazing.
Thus far, Zuckerberg’s philosophy has proven to be sound.
Novati claims that Formation has raised more than $8.5 million in funding and is collaborating with Adobe, Twitch, Dropbox, Netflix, Google, and her previous employer, Meta, among other companies.
Novati says, “There’s still a lot more that we can do to better capture the value that we’re creating.”.
For the time being, though, she is still focused on “getting people into these top jobs and significantly improving their career trajectories.”. “.
