Someone who has founded a startup.
Someone who has left Huawei.
Someone who has been a Chief Scientist. Yet he lost a night's sleep over a single job interview.
This is the most jarring detail in the recent DeepSeek interview controversy.
Dual screens, coding, suspicion of cheating... frankly, these are not the point.
The real question worth discussing is: why was a "Huawei Genius Youth" so shaken by an ordinary interview?
I. The Incident Is Simple
On July 6th, Li Bojie posted on a social platform.
During a remote second-round interview, while coding, he habitually glanced at his other screen. The interviewer suspected him of copying code and asked him to prove his innocence.
He left the meeting.
The post sparked heated debate. Some criticized DeepSeek for arrogance, while others countered by asking what entitled the 'genius youth' to skip basic tests.
Arguing over right and wrong is meaningless.
What's more noteworthy is that someone who has weathered storms had his emotions shattered by a remote interview, leading to insomnia, long posts, media interviews, and repeated explanations.
The answer lies in another line from the interview.
II. He Wasn't Waiting for an Offer
"In my heart, DeepSeek is the undisputed pinnacle of the entire Chinese tech circle."
This sentence is more important than dual screens or coding.
He submitted his resume, completed the written test, waited three weeks, and followed up five times. He received offers from other companies but kept waiting for DeepSeek.
This wasn't about finding a job; it was about waiting for an identity confirmation.
Li Bojie wanted to prove he belonged at the center of this era. DeepSeek just wanted to assess if he fit the role.
This mismatch between supply and demand constitutes the core of the conflict.
Coding was just the trigger. What truly stung him was that the place he had long admired did not respond as he expected when they finally met.
In the 36Kr interview, the reporter asked Li Bojie: Was your insomnia because the interviewer negated you, or because of the sense of disparity?
Li Bojie replied: More the sense of disparity.
What kept him awake wasn't the offer; it was the shattered expectation.
III. Treating Screening as Conversation, Rules as Arrogance
In the interview, Li Bojie said: I actually resent how the media always slaps the 'Genius Youth' label on me.
Yet this is how he evaluated his various interviews:
At MiniMax, Yan Junjie gave him feedback on voice model training. The Chief Scientist at StepFun had read his paper and pointed out issues with parameter estimation. Luo Fuli at Xiaomi discussed team management with him.
Then Li Bojie said of these companies: I could learn something from every interview with them. Not with DeepSeek.
Here, Li Bojie's standard for a good interview was not the process, nor the match, but whether the other party treated him as a peer.
An interview is first and foremost screening, a process of mutual selection, not a peer review. But he, with a sense of superiority, treated the interview as a peer discussion.
Someone who repeatedly declared "don't call me a genius youth" subconsciously expected every interviewer to treat him as one.
The halo isn't on the label; it's in his expectations.
This mismatch belongs to the inertia accumulated by the entire internet industry over many years.
Over the past two decades, the Chinese internet established a set of default rules. The company is your identity; the title is your credit.
A Huawei Genius Youth naturally implied acknowledged ability and pre-extended credit. Wherever he went, he was treated like a star.
MiniMax treated him this way, StepFun treated him this way, Xiaomi treated him this way.
This wasn't Li Bojie making special demands; it was the industry being accustomed to this rule: if you're at this level, you get received at this level.
He just didn't expect DeepSeek to break this default rule.
IV. Why DeepSeek Doesn't Recognize Halo
Why is DeepSeek so focused on process today?
The biggest risk in the AI industry is hiring the wrong person, not missing a genius.
A model-related position today might receive thousands of resumes in a day. As organizations grow larger, screening standards must become stricter. It cannot afford to trust anyone.
Huawei Genius Youth? Code. Chief Scientist at a startup? Code. MSRA background? Code.
You can call it rigid, mechanical, lacking warmth. But at least, the standard is consistent.
Many truly strong organizations share a common trait: corporate culture is above the individual; rules don't change for the excellent.
Other companies treated him with a peer-discussion attitude; that was the halo at work.
DeepSeek was the first company that saw the halo but still insisted he write the code first.
If the matter ended here, it would remain just an interview story.
What truly sparked widespread resonance is the underlying shift of the era.
V. Excellence is Becoming Real-Time Computing
For the past twenty years, the internet's way of evaluating a person was simple. Which company are you at? What's your position? What projects have you done? Tencent, Alibaba, ByteDance, Huawei — your resume was your ticket.
The underlying assumption of this system was that excellence could be accumulated. Education, experience, title — they could sustain you for many years.
In the AI era, this assumption has completely failed. The rate of knowledge obsolescence now exceeds the rate of experience accumulation.
Last year's most important methodology is obsolete this year. Yesterday's proud architectural skills can be replicated by a new graduate using an Agent in half a day today.
AI has turned excellence into real-time computing.
This leads to a bizarre phenomenon: the more excellent a person is, the more anxious they become. The more glorious the past, the greater the sense of disparity caused by the depreciation of identity.
Today, more and more top talents constantly job-hop, start businesses, and squeeze into the most cutting-edge companies. This is hard to explain with money alone; what they truly fear is falling behind.
Li Bojie waited three weeks, followed up five times, just to complete the DeepSeek interview.
What he was truly anxious about was: if DeepSeek didn't want him, did it mean he was being left behind by the times?
Words from [Beyond the Layout]:
In the past, a halo could define a person. Today, a halo can only prove a person's past.
Li Bojie is merely the first to voice this anxiety.
Soon, every programmer, every product manager, every researcher, every entrepreneur will experience a similar interview.
The interviewer has become the AI era itself.
It asks everyone the same question every day:
You were excellent yesterday. What about today?
This article is from the WeChat public account "Beyond the Layout", author: Huahua
