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Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

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Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#31

Post by malandrew »

malandrew wrote: post #9

When companies pay each engineer X and earn 10 times X on each engineer, this is inevitable. Near as I can tell, this is a strategy that is helping engineers retain more of the value they are creating. If the difference was more subtle such as 2 to 3 times X, then the incentive to go through this much trouble to retain much of the value you create is much smaller.

In light of this observation, Google's current lawsuit could be viewed as an attempt to deter employee defection by signaling liabilities for potential acquirers, which will suppress the valuation of any acquisition.

Google was already at the center of the high-tech employee wage-fixing earlier this decade, so filing lawsuits to create deterrence wouldn't be that surprising.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#32

Post by joshvm »

malandrew wrote: post #9

When companies pay each engineer X and earn 10 times X on each engineer, this is inevitable. Near as I can tell, this is a strategy that is helping engineers retain more of the value they are creating. If the difference was more subtle such as 2 to 3 times X, then the incentive to go through this much trouble to retain much of the value you create is much smaller.

Wasn't Google recently on the opposite end of this? They paid their engineers so much that some of them left because they had the financial security to take riskier options.

Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#33

Post by andrewfong »

SEJeff wrote: post #29

Am I the only person genuinely shocked Google doesn't slap their self driving car engineers with non-competes? I realize that non-competes are illegal by CA law, but perhaps they should do the engineering in a different state to stop hemorrhaging talent that tries to compete with them?

(1) When most of your existing operations are already in CA, moving to a different state isn't exactly trivial. And if the primary reason you're moving is to enforce a non-compete, I bet it'd make recruitment of the better engineers more difficult.

(2) Even if Google did their engineering in another state, let's say the engineer in question then moves to CA. There's a good chance that CA law would still apply.

Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#34

Post by malandrew »

SEJeff wrote: post #29

Am I the only person genuinely shocked Google doesn't slap their self driving car engineers with non-competes? I realize that non-competes are illegal by CA law, but perhaps they should do the engineering in a different state to stop hemorrhaging talent that tries to compete with them?

It's exactly this type of thinking that lead to the decline of Route 128 in the post-war years and the rise of Silicon Valley. If Google were to do this, they'd be cutting off their nose to spite their face. They could not enforce such a contract with existing employees and all new employees would look at such a provision and join an employer who doesn't do this.

The truth is that Google lost this market (or never really had it to begin with). At best they will end up like Microsoft, simply extracting rent via their patent licensing program.

For more information about Route 128 vs Silicon Valley, I cannot recommend the book Regional Advantage by AnnaLee Saxenian enough. It's a bit dated and academic, but it's fascinating if you want to understand why the tech industry in and around Boston lost to Silicon Valley despite having a huge head start.

Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#35

Post by malandrew »

gallerdude wrote: post #27

This kind of articulates a larger attitude I feel about startups in general - too many people are going for too much. Right now, a bunch of companies are going for too much of the metaphorical self-driving pie. But, there's a lot of niches with less competition - yeah, the slice might be smaller, but I'd rather have a 90% chance at 10% of the pie than a 10% chance at 90% of the pie.

What niches do you consider unexploited or lacking in competition?

Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#36

Post by poikniok »

joshvm wrote: post #32
malandrew wrote: post #9

When companies pay each engineer X and earn 10 times X on each engineer, this is inevitable. Near as I can tell, this is a strategy that is helping engineers retain more of the value they are creating. If the difference was more subtle such as 2 to 3 times X, then the incentive to go through this much trouble to retain much of the value you create is much smaller.

Wasn't Google recently on the opposite end of this? They paid their engineers so much that some of them left because they had the financial security to take riskier options.

The logic on this statement doesn't really check out, as if this were the case it would be impossible to retain CEOs, they would all leave after a month. Yet somehow companies do so ...

Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#37

Post by sorenjan »

SEJeff wrote: post #29

Am I the only person genuinely shocked Google doesn't slap their self driving car engineers with non-competes? I realize that non-competes are illegal by CA law, but perhaps they should do the engineering in a different state to stop hemorrhaging talent that tries to compete with them?

Or maybe Google should put out a self driving car product of some kind? They don't seem very business savvy at Google, imagine if they didn't have their ad revenue to fall back on.

Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#38

Post by eitally »

poikniok wrote: post #36
joshvm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't Google recently on the opposite end of this? They paid their engineers so much that some of them left because they had the financial security to take riskier options.

The logic on this statement doesn't really check out, as if this were the case it would be impossible to retain CEOs, they would all leave after a month. Yet somehow companies do so ...

But it's 100% true: https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/13/14599186/google-waymo-sel...

Re: Another Group of Google Veterans Starts a Self-Driving Technology Company

#40

Post by sorenjan »

return0 wrote: post #16

From their website https://www.deepmap.ai/ it seems they are focusing on high-definition, centimeter-accuracy maps. Why is that important? It seems with a rough map and training, a robot can find its destination.

This might have changed since it's been a few years, but I think Google used to use high resolution 3D maps together with LIDAR on their cars to do accurate positioning. If I understood it correctly, it was basically a 3D pattern matching.
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