Did I ever mention that interview with a whizzo East Coast startup where the interviewer couldn't answer where the company was planning to be in five years time? It's one of those questions where they will squirm like eels, but you have to know, because you are committing your time and future earnings to them. Squirming is fine, but being struck dumb is not acceptable. The experience was epic, it ended with a greybeard apologizing for the HR lady.
That's pretty direct, I like it. I try to ask "what is the worst thing about X right now?" where X is the project/product/thing being worked on.
Caginess and dodginess in this answer is a flag. Of course, different interviewers will be more or less forthcoming and straight with you, but if the entire slate of interviewers hem and haw around the question, I take it as a bad sign.
An organization where people are afraid to be frank and call a spade a spade is hiding a lot of systemic problems.
Right vs. wrong isn't what he's concerned about, I think.
Every company/organization/person should have a long term strategy. That way you can weigh potential actions to see if they are moving you toward or away from your goal. If you don't have that goal, or it isn't well communicated, everyone scrambles to optimize for different things, which frequently leads to people pulling against each other.
It's totally acceptable to update the long term goal as you go along, but it's very helpful to always keep one in focus.
I think that's becoming an increasingly popular opinion, but I really don't buy into it. If you have one year of runway, certainly you should have a one year plan, but I like to see something longer term as well.
