‘Worst financial decision ever’, engineer says turned down Perplexity for FTX, netizens joke: ‘goated, hall of fame…’

It was story-time for engineers on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), as one recalled making the “worst financial decision ever” by turning down a chance to be a founding engineer with Michael Truell at now celebrated start-up Cursor.

But he was beaten to the “worst” title by another, who then shared that he turned down an offer from Perplexity AI's Aravind Srinivas for Sam Bankman-Fried's now tanked crypto businesses FTX and Alameda Research — and now regrets the decision.

How The ‘Worst Financial Decision Ever’ Were Made

“nah i’ve got you beat for worst financial decision. (i said no because of how well things were going at Alameda Research/FTX),” (sic) wrote X user identified as Adi (@aditya_baradwaj).

X user Adi posted a screenshot of Srinivas soliciting him for a role as “founding engineer” at what has become Perplexity AI. Srinivas can be seen having written a message to Adi on July 18, 2022 saying: “hey Aditya - been a long time - wud u like to catch up some time? i am starting a company building LMs for businesses and and would like to talk to u abt it for a founding engineer..” (sic)

While the initial response in the screenshot is positive, according to Adi's own update on X, he “said no because of how well things were going at Alameda Research/FTX”. He added in a subsequent post: “kudos to Aravind Srinivas and team though, Perplexity is a great product” (sic)

Meanwhile, X user Peter (@peterthedecent) recalled his almost stint with Michael Truell's Cursor.

How Did Netizens React?

The reactions on X were encouraging, one user commended Adi's belief, saying, “Goated. You believed in something. (Believed wrong but still)” (sic)

Another took a humourous take: “passed on perplexity for memes you must be legendary cracked” (sic), and one said: “Oh lol, hall of fame right here!” (sic)

Another shared their own miss with Perplexity, saying, “i declined to interview at perplexity Oct. 2022 because i was ‘too focused’ on my promo packet at Airbnb lol. now i use perplexity almost every day! big fumble” (sic)