GoogleX Chief Scientist On Imposter Syndrome, Career Growth, Project Taste

Carey Nachenberg was a Chief Scientist at a GoogleX moonshot, a Fellow (senior most eng at Symantec) and a professor at UCLA. I interviewed him about his career story and we discussed: • Story behind his growth to IC10 (VP equivalent) • How high-level IC recruiting works • How imposter syndrome held him back • How to develop “project taste” • How AI is affecting his students Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (00:54) Growth to Fellow at Symantec (13:13) The most complex malware (16:13) Why C was faster than assembly (17:17) Imposter syndrome (21:28) What matters more than intelligence (28:03) Experience at GoogleX (34:24) Leaving GoogleX (37:43) Experience at Lyft (43:40) Getting credit on collaborative projects (46:53) Becoming a professor at UCLA (49:13) How to speak well (53:23) How AI affected his students (1:03:53) Career regrets (1:07:16) Finding work you enjoy (1:09:03) Advice for younger self (1:11:04) Outro Where to find Carey: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carey-nachenberg-14bbb03/ Where to find Ryan: • Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/ • X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/ • Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman