This only works if you're interviewing with decision makers. At a larger organization, I don't think the person you're interviewing with would have any capacity to answer these (which could be a red flag for you, but also a very limiting one).
M doesn’t really do that for anyone but new grad hires. I’m not sure either A does that either (the A closest to M doesn’t, I know from personal experience). F and G definitely do, they are notorious for it.
I'm not entirely sure why, but here on HN especially I've seen a lot of the use of FANG with one A [Apple] used to mean Bay Area super-powers, as opposed to GAFAM for general tech majors, because some believe the Bay Area to matter more than the rest of the industry and Seattle-focused Amazon and Microsoft somehow "outsiders"/"foreigners" to the Bay Area.
It's also fascinating to me from an anthropological/sociological view point because Microsoft has had some sort of Bay Area campus (almost continuously) for longer than several other members of GAFAM have even existed (with PowerPoint headquartered there from its acquihire in the 1980s until a reorg shuffle in the mid-90s and HoTMaiL/Hotmail/Live Mail/Outlook.com and other "web properties" carrying the torch up until a lot of recent acquihires expanded that campus again to more Office-relevant tools beyond just "web stuff").
I didn't invent the FAANG acronym myself, but, having a lot of [ex]colleagues in those companies I can see why people want to work for the interesting and somewhat innovative "FAANGs" and don't put Microsoft (or IBM, Dell, Oracle) in the list.
What if as a condition to accept a job offer you request a meeting with the CEO? Would the company refuse or do they value you enough to make it happen?
I have never taken a job without talking to a top executive. You get a view of the company bigger than your team, you get to ask those business questions your manager may not know, and you have a head start on making good connections with upper management.
You can cross off any company over 1000 people from your list, if you had that as a requirement. My company is over 80,000 people, if our CEO met with each potential employee, he would never sleep.
And also, I have to say, it's a bit arrogant to think that you deserve the attention of top executives. You can't expect them to prioritize your interview over all of the other activities their company does.
It's also a bit arrogent for a top executive to think a request for meeting/conversing with a top executive from a potential new employee in a subordinate role is a demonstration of arrogence. I don't suggest making it an absolute condition depending on the organization's size but for a job seeker wanting to evaluate the potential company just the reaction/responce to this question may serve as a useful litmus test
That question reveals a very, very specific set of assumptions (applying to very small companies); which may be relevant to the most active HN audience, but by strict numbers, is not applicable to majority of actual employees.
Who's the CEO? At my last company (fintech with customers from Google to Exxon) CEO would absolutely meet you even if just for a second if you asked, but I doubt CEO at Google or Exxon would.
The last company I worked for was hiring around 20-25 people a week for a couple years. Do you honestly think the CEO would agree if a random potential new hire asked to talk to him?
I've worked in some companies under 300 people size and the CEOs had no problems meeting you to discuss. And talking to a senior VP was almost standard part of interview for a experienced role (but maybe less so for junior roles.)
