Why I left Google (HN search results) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#71

Post by pinewurst » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #49

y3sh wrote: post #6

Tldr politics, glass ceilings, re-orgs, purposeless/abandoned projects. As a former Googler, I can see why people post these: internally Google is hyper-evangelized as the best place to work ever (why would you work anywhere else). When leaving, its a necessary step to form a good argument for yourself as to why you've decided to go against the culture. The personal spin makes it an interesting read.

If you have to evangelize about how awesome it is to work there, that sounds like a cult and not culture. It also sounds like Microsoft in the 90’s, when they were stepping on necks and didn’t give a shit about anybody else. Because they were better than everybody else and why should you worry about inferior people? Although in MS’s case they took it a step further: we are the best people in the world.

How is that Microsoft "best people in the world" any different from what Google projects to the world?

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#72

Post by fastball » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

shrikant wrote: post #22

reificator wrote: post #4

> Why I left Google for a Bitcoin startup - 4 years ago - 0 comments > 404 page not found

It's here now: https://www.digitaldrex.com/single-post/2014/07/08/Why-I-lef...

The Medium post probably has better longevity: https://medium.com/@DigitalDrex/why-i-left-google-for-a-bitc...

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#73

Post by Zhyl » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #56

JanLaussmann wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.deepl.com/translator is amazing, maybe even better than Google translate.

Started typing some Japanese in there and it detected French! Then I noticed that it only supports a small handful of languages. I have to admit I use Google Translate too, though it's often pretty bad at translating Japanese.

That reminds me of the TED talk [0] Luis von Ahn did when he announced duolingo.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ht4qiDRZE8

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#74

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

curtis wrote: post #54

On a somewhat related note, I have found Algolia to be an effective way to search for popular stories that got flagged. Once or twice a day I go to hn.algolia.com and view popular stories for the last 24 hours. This is also an effective way to review popular stories for the last day, whether they got flagged or not. Since Algolia is using a much simpler ranking than the Hacker News front page, you get a much more sta…

[deleted]

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#75

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

There was a tool at Google called 'percent' that you could run that would tell you what percent of the employees had joined Google after you (some measure of gravitas was associated with people who had been there 'a long time'). It was not surprising that Google hired a lot of people, there were like 50 people in my 'noogler' class. But the number of people reported as working at Google did not go up at a similar rate. When you did the math it was pretty clear there are many people who spend a relatively short amount of time there.

As a result I'm a bit surprised that there aren't even more of these stories. At lunch one day the topic came up and we joked it would be interesting if engineers could earn medals (similar to the ones in the military) for each company they worked for. It would make for an interesting fashion accessory.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#76

Post by drewg123 » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

y3sh wrote: post #6

Tldr politics, glass ceilings, re-orgs, purposeless/abandoned projects. As a former Googler, I can see why people post these: internally Google is hyper-evangelized as the best place to work ever (why would you work anywhere else). When leaving, its a necessary step to form a good argument for yourself as to why you've decided to go against the culture. The personal spin makes it an interesting read.

For me, it was easy. In 2015, we really wanted to move back to our east coast flyover-city home from the Bay Area. Google would not let me work remotely, but Netflix would. So it was a no-brainer.

It turned out to be a great move. In my experience, just about everything is better about Netflix as compared to Google: impact, pay, freedom, culture. The only thing that's worse is that I really miss the on-campus food at Google. And TGIF, eng-misc, etc.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#77

Post by godshatter » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

epaga wrote: post #44

romanovcode wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not using google is much simpler then it sounds. - iPhone - DDG - Firefox/Safari - Some other email then google That's pretty much all you need.

A coworker uses DDG and each time we are talking about a problem at work (software development) and need to search something, I am disappointed by the lack of good results and make him use Google instead. It is currently 5 - 0 for Google if I recall correctly. I would switch in a heartbeat if the results were comparable. Every time I’ve given it (or Bing) a shot for a few weeks, Google was simply better.

Use "!g" to have DDG send the query to google. You get the results you want without the tracking.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#78

Post by tbranyen » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:21 PM UTC

drewg123 wrote: post #76

y3sh wrote: post #6

Tldr politics, glass ceilings, re-orgs, purposeless/abandoned projects. As a former Googler, I can see why people post these: internally Google is hyper-evangelized as the best place to work ever (why would you work anywhere else). When leaving, its a necessary step to form a good argument for yourself as to why you've decided to go against the culture. The personal spin makes it an interesting read.

For me, it was easy. In 2015, we really wanted to move back to our east coast flyover-city home from the Bay Area. Google would not let me work remotely, but Netflix would. So it was a no-brainer. It turned out to be a great move. In my experience, just about everything is better about Netflix as compared to Google: impact, pay, freedom, culture. The only thing that's worse is that I really miss the on-campus food at…

Guessing not a full time engineer or some kind of niche talent? Never heard of anyone going remote or even being a possibility. Its written into the culture and all job postings.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#79

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

tahw wrote: post #70

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #2

I'm curious to see what kind of discussion this generates before the HN mods inevitably kick it off the front page. Most of these links seem to be of employees who quit, but I'll add my article as a user who quit: https://drewdevault.com/2016/11/16/Getting-on-without-Google...

Oh my god your youtube flow is GENIUS. I am extremely excited about trying it. How did you choose mpv?

It's just the best option. I was recently about ready to fork it, actually, but the political problems upstream were fixed and it returned to being the best option.

Re: Why I left Google (HN search results)

#80

Post by Zhyl » Thu, Jan 25, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

whamlastxmas wrote: post #46

viach wrote: post #39

Interesting, there are 39 pages for "why I left" vs 8 pages "why I joined". This is because bad news are always more popular, I suppose.

Or the reasons for joining are obvious and not interesting.

And have been since the beginning. The relevant XKCD [0] is from 2006.

[0] https://xkcd.com/192/