goltrpoat

You might want to let people know what industry you're in -- I've compared my experiences to those of people in other industries, and it seems that they diverge pretty significantly.

For what it's worth, in my entire 13+ year career spanning every position from junior to lead to executive/co-owner, and having been on both sides of the interview desk, I have spent approximately 20 minutes total speaking to HR personnel during the interview process.

Whenever I was involved with the hiring process, the resumes went directly to me, HR was not involved at all.

Hi Hikaru, thanks for doing this AMA. I have way too many questions, feel free to pick and choose.

1. Why do you play chess?
2. Due to a rift in spacetime continuum, you're 12 years old again. Do you still become a professional player?
3. Favorite game? Favorite opening novelty? Favorite endgame?
4. On Russian resources, there's an oft-quoted story about an interviewer asking you something about Smyslov, and you replying with something like "Who's that?" I've heard even top-40 GMs repeat this, but it seems to be a bit hard to believe. Any idea where that could have come from?
5. What does your training schedule look like? I realize you may not want to share too much of it, but it'd be interesting to know the general breakdown.
6. Kasparov or Ilyumzhinov or neither?

Would've been great to see you in this year's Candidates, hope you make it into the next cycle!

Found out about the opening for my current job through LinkedIn. It's also kind of nice for keeping in touch with co-workers you haven't seen in ten years that you don't have a good reason to talk to, but wouldn't mind being able to contact if necessary.

On the other hand, I see people put up their entire work history there and turn it into almost a resume, and have 600+ people in their network, and that's probably approaching the waste of time territory there.

I love jalapeño and banana peppers.

This guy is okay.

I'm a techie in a whole different field, so I don't have any clever questions. Here's the usual set:

Any weird/funny stories?

What's your typical day like?

Favorite pizza toppings?