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The Peterman Pod · 3 min · Oct 5, 2026
His give-up video was meant to challenge, not dismiss, viewers
NeetCode says the title was meant to push viewers who gave up early, not tell them to stop. He says responses, including from a Microsoft intern, showed that the message landed.
NeetCode
NeetCode is a coding interview prep creator.
Ryan Peterman, Host · Host, The Peterman Pod
Went from new grad to staff engineer at Instagram in three years.
About this segment
NeetCode says the title was meant to push viewers who gave up early, not tell them to stop. He says responses, including from a Microsoft intern, showed that the message landed.
From “Neetcode: Google vs Amazon, Programming Interviews, Quitting Big Tech”, Oct 5, 2026. Watch the full episode
Thanks. We'll look at and fix what's off.
“i want people to like push themselves and to be like the best that they can be”
Takeaways
- He wanted viewers to push themselves rather than give up early.
- He says many responses treated the video as a wake-up call.
- A Microsoft intern said it motivated a focused prep push.
In this episode
Full episode- 8:04Interview success depends partly on which question you get3:22
- 12:52LeetCode is not a clean measure of intelligence3:19
- 0:32Amazon’s team culture made the job harder than the work2:55
- 27:40He left Google to pursue work he enjoyed, not escape it3:14
18:28His give-up video was meant to challenge, not dismiss, viewers2:34
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 18:32
what's your your take on okay um yeah i i don't like i don't recommend anybody to give up i really don't i swear i like it for me like i want the opposite i really do like i want people to like push themselves and to be like the best that they can be and i don't know i guess it's just that like the reason i made that video i guess is like there's a certain attitude that i feel like it just really like turns you off like sometimes you'll see it in school especially like early school where like half the class like is paying attention and half the class just doesn't really care and that's fine um but it's like i don't know it's like the more seriously you take something and you spend like a bunch of time like making this video explaining all these parts and somebody asks you a question that like you know they could have answered it just makes me like disappointed
- 19:23
just makes me think like like i know you're better than this like like you can like you you can figure it out yourself like you can like you're smarter like you're too smart to like give up that early like that's like how i feel but obviously like the words that i said and like when i like say it a certain way like i recognize that people aren't going to interpret it that way so i have to live with that but i think i had a lot of people i'd say like 95 of people actually like liked that video like clicked like on that video which was surprising to me most people that like reached out or commented they said that hey like i needed to hear this this was like a wake up call and i had somebody like message.
- 20:00
Me before they were like, Microsoft intern interview, and they're like, hey, I really needed this. I'm going to lock in for the next couple of weeks. And I was like, okay, I guess I'll leave that video up because at least somebody got something out of it. I see. So the energy in that is, it's like a disappointed teacher. Yeah. Because why would I make videos that are teaching people and then on the same side, tell people that they should give up and not do this? It doesn't make sense and yeah so like i said i can live with like what i said it wasn't the nicest thing if i could do it over again probably whatever i think like the only thing i said in that that video though i think that was actually offensive is that i can't believe somebody would ask me this dumb and i said another word after that and i said question that's that's literally the worst
- 20:48
thing i said i didn't make it personal with that person i didn't call anybody like not smart enough for anything but yeah anyway i'll stop i'll stop there before i like do more reputational damage