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Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

mtlynch.io

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Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#271

Post by [deleted] »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #248
whataretensors wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Second, you're a lot better off working at a good company -- MUCH better off I disagree. There is a whole category of people who want high reward for their efforts. There exists no way to get high rewards or royalties outside of starting your own venture. The downside is the risk of course. I do agree that you shouldn't be angry, but there are so many new ways to exist and survive these days.

I suppose that depends on what you categorise as 'high reward'. I basically mess around writing software—something I like doing—for 6 hours a day, attend a few meetings, and every month somebody deposits a ludicrous amount of money into my bank account. And I'm not even working for one of the larger companies with correspondingly better salaries. I'm certainly not going to become a cash millionaire off the back of it…

[deleted]

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#272

Post by thrownaway954 »

one take away I found: ship early ship often

For all the projects I've done over the years, I didn't "wait til the end" to ship something. Get a feature done and ship it out. If you wait until "it's finished" it will never be and you risk both losing interest and losing clients.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#273

Post by thrownaway954 »

eldavido wrote: post #91

To author: you lost the political game. I busted my ass at a startup for years and also lost the political game. So I'm speaking from experience here. You can either get all mad and worked up and pissed off about it, and waste years of your career (as I did) being pissed off, stubborn, and refusing to change. Or figure out how to play. I'd like to think there are places with better politics but I think it's pretty en…

"In the first place, nobody "works for themself". You might work for customers, or clients, or whatever, but not "yourself"."

nail on the head... so many people don't get this simple fact that if you DO NOT have clients, you DO NOT have a business. You can't ever "pay yourself", some outside entity have to pay you for your product.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#274

Post by phamilton »

zacherates wrote: post #227

Completely anecdotal but I was talking to a Googler who had basically the opposite experience and recommended working at Google because of the promotion panel. The fact that their manager had no say in the process and that they could put together their promotion packet on their own was a feature in their mind, because their experience included their manager "forgetting" to put them up for promotion repeatedly at othe…

I worked at Yahoo during a time of pseudo stack ranking (QPR). Managers had a target for average rating, and most managers would identify a few people for promotion and give everyone else "Meets Expectations" reviews so they could give the promotion candidates "Exceeds Expectations".

Even worse, managers generally used the success of their reports as part of their success criteria, so they we're always actively trying to promote people because if they didn't then they weren't successful at their jobs. So managers would help that one or two people get promoted, even if they we're generally useless. And the other devs on the team would get ignored.

It was a unique time in my career, when I had a performance review rating of "Exceeds Expectations" in a review that described my contributions as "mediocre".

To be fair, my manager was actually pretty good and acknowledged the disconnect is the review. I had been down leveled in an acquisition and was doing a job 2 levels higher than my own, and he wanted to give me useful feedback and knew nobody would actually read it but me.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#275

Post by ithinkinstereo »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #253
ithinkinstereo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for yourself really does mean working for yourself. Yes, you might have customers to answer to, but you can always tell them to fuck off if you want. You suffer the consequences and reap the rewards. Your actions, small or large, matter. Yes, working for a corporation is safer and more stable. In the grand scheme of things, this is the risk-adverse, safe thing to do. The OP may waste years of his life, or he…

That doesn't really follow. As an independent worker, you answer to your clients. As an employee, you answer to your single client. It's basically the same deal.

It's not really the same. You have way more control as an independent operator. Yes, you have to answer to your customers, but only to the extent and to the degree you desire. It's not at all the "same" as working as an employee.

My point is less applicable to freelancers with one/few customers and more directed towards operators that manage product/service oriented businesses with dozens/hundreds/thousands of customers.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#277

Post by ithinkinstereo »

madeofpalk wrote: post #165
ithinkinstereo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working for yourself really does mean working for yourself. Yes, you might have customers to answer to, but you can always tell them to fuck off if you want. You suffer the consequences and reap the rewards. Your actions, small or large, matter. Yes, working for a corporation is safer and more stable. In the grand scheme of things, this is the risk-adverse, safe thing to do. The OP may waste years of his life, or he…

Doesn't the same exist for a workplace though?

Not really. In a workplace you're forced to follow all sorts of rules. As an independent operator, you set your own rules.

In regards to rewards vs consequences, my point is that in a workplace you're abstracted away from the direct results of your actions (as OP mentions in his post).

You can be rewarded for other people's contributions (while having made no contributions of your own) and vice versa. When I worked in corporate, this lead me to experience a somewhat "wtf is the point" type of existential crisis.

When you're running your own shop, you have a much more "direct" relationship to your actions and the resulting outcomes. Not just in terms of costs and rewards, but also in terms of just seeing the direct "value" your actions provide. I mean think of all the countless cubicle jobs or professional services jobs where the sum of your productivity is basically meaningless, just random filler designed to keep the machine moving... (think of all the business consultants spending 80 hours week at the client site putting together decks that no one will read or remember in a few months)

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#278

Post by dceddia »

rdtsc wrote: post #103

> Google does a good job of building a sense of community within the organization. That is the true test. You are supposed to pretend only to buy into it but never really believe it. Understanding that things function on two levels is critical. One level is the superficial "we are a family, community, we are not evil, making the world better". But that's the trap to catch all the naive people and extract extra work h…

There is an excellent book I read recently called Developer Hegemony [0] which goes into depth on your first point. It calls the naive folks "optimists" -- unfailingly devoting themselves to the company ideal. It discusses two other factions, the pragmatists (come in, do work, get paid, go home) and the opportunists (take every opportunity to rise to the top). I recommend checking it out, and the author's blog too [1];

0: http://a.co/e22BQ4n

1: https://www.daedtech.com/blog

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#279

Post by jcheng »

AlexC04 wrote: post #197
popcat wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a junior engineer, what the best way to learn about and master the political game? I feel like it all goes way over my head. Does anyone have any recommended reading?

I think the author said it in the article: Optimize for promotion. Work from day 1 to game the metrics. If it helps your metrics, do it, if it doesn't approach with caution. If you start that from day 1 you'd be 2 years ahead of the author. Honestly, it sounds like a really shitty way to live. I personally prefer doing great work and having faith that it will work out. It has, a lot slower than that, but I'm proud of…

There's another position that's similar but less gross, which is to have some humility about what you think is important vs. what work your manager/manager's manager think is important. Try to work on what they think is important not (just) because of a cynical desire to game the system and get ahead, but because they have probably more experience and (often a lot more) context than you do.

Of course, this only works if you have managers you feel like you can trust and respect in the first place.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#280

Post by ordinaryperson »

After 15 years of doing this my theory on corporate promotions is simple: you need an executive sponsor.

VPs don't know who you are by default, they have too many reports. And if you're assigned unsexy work like keeping the trains running, well the better you do your job ironically the more you become like wallpaper.

I'm not saying you have to be a kissa*, although that does work at a remarkable number of companies, I'm saying you have to make yourself known to a person with power. Otherwise you're just a name and easy to reject.

You want to believe in meritocracy but in my experience the correlation between effectiveness and promotions is weak to nonexistent. If you want to get promoted -- besides doing a good job (and sometimes not even then) -- the reality is you probably have to market yourself upwards.

The OP complains about not having enough metrics in his assignments but do committees promote people based on stone-cold, anonymous metrics? I'm guessing a lot of it is how they 'feel' about someone.

But these days as a developer the sad reality is you probably need to switch jobs every 3-5 years if you want to keep moving upwards, unless you're really lucky.

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