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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

#741

Post by gaius »

derefr wrote: post #295
inetknght wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often the non-technical reasons are "management doesn't want to assign the super-lead to the work, but also doesn't want to let the new hire have free reign to rewrite a legacy product. Just fix it."

I've often wondered whether this dynamic is exactly the reason tech culture is ageist. If we hired older developers, the culturally-assumed "gravitas" of age would make their relative social status to more-"senior"-but-younger devs illegible . We might actually have to sometimes give them the right-of-way on making the changes they want to make, even though they're new!

I've often wondered whether this dynamic is exactly the reason tech culture is ageist

No, it really, really isn’t. Maybe 1 in 1000 cases are like you describe but the rest is just that older engineers are harder to exploit.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#742

Post by eldavido »

jorblumesea wrote: post #722
dx034 wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd choose a $200k job that gives purpose and makes me happy over a $300k job where that's not the case. At those levels where you're well off but still have to work (can't retire after 5-10 years from the salary earned), the increased happiness of 50% is often not that much.

If that works for you, sure. But most would seriously weigh that trade off. With another 70k / year after taxes you could retire way earlier and do whatever you want.

This is a false tradeoff.

Early retirement is almost always an option for middle-class or better Americans. It's just a question of how much pain you want to put up with in terms of housing, lifestyle, where you want to live, whether you want great education for your kids, etc.

I used to agree with your comment but don't anymore. I have enough money at this point to earn 10s of K/year investing in real estate or doing something else. I don't because I like working in tech, being part of a team, using my education and talents, and generally working on making the world a better place.

I don't really want to "do whatever I want".

These guys are right: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1930-mojito-island-is-a-mirag...

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#743

Post by mtlynch »

iampliny wrote: post #717

Hi, Indie Hacker here who also has some experience with politicized corporate environments. I’d like to encourage you to ignore some of the bad advice in this thread. Sounds like you were in a gnarly situation and did well to get out. You are what you do, and those types of places can have a long-term corrupting influence on your professional habits and instincts. The observation that “all companies have politics” is…

Thanks for reading and for your advice!

I like your analogy about Venezuela and Denmark. : )

I do think they have a point. Throughout this process I've continually tried to consciously avoid a "grass is always greener" mentality and recognize that starting my own company will have difficult challenges as well. So I appreciate the feedback from both sides.

That said, Indie Hackers is filled with stories of people who left corporate jobs and found greater satisfaction in their own companies, so I think it varies by person and requires some luck. I'd like to see what happens regardless.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#744

Post by ultrasounder »

FullyFunctional wrote: post #659
ironjunkie wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's part of a subtle marketing machine. It starts with the interview process Did you realize that Google is the single company in which people are actually bragging about interviewing there? (even if the outcome was negative) They also select a specific type of engineers that are influenceable enough to be convinced that everyone at Google are the absolute best. Those same engineers are then writing those type of Bl…

I want to add that I do think google has a _culture_ that allows great people more visibility. You don't see [as] many blogs by say Apple engineers :)

Thats coz, You sign a waiver as part of your "1 week intensive keeping secrets bootcamp + orientation" that Thou shalt not blog about anything while you are employed at Apple. That means anything. Infact there is a very stringent policy on what is acceptable and not kosher when it comes to posting on social media. Thats why you dont see anything from Apple employees. Not that they didnt buy in to the Steve Jobs Think Different, Your work is so much more important than yourself Koolaid. Its just that posting anything without approvals can be a career limiting move. Source- Have a couple of friends working on Hardware side and one working Frameworks test group.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#745

Post by md_ »

popcat wrote: post #182
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…

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?

Don't.

The issue in Michael's case is not politics, and I don't know how HN gets on this stupid tangent about the "political game."

The issue--speaking as a Big Company engineer/manager--is quite obviously misalignment, either between Michael and his manager or between his manager and the committee.

If you don't know what your manager thinks is important or disagree with it, you have a problem. (Possible solutions: ask, argue, switch teams.) If your manager's priorities don't match the org's, you may also have a problem (depending on your manager's ability to protect you). (Again, possible solutions: discuss with your manager, discuss with your skip, move.)

The idea that there's a "political game" that you can play to get ahead is, mostly, belied by my experiences. It's probably true in some places some of the time, but it's unclear to me that it yields better results (faster promotion, greater happiness) than being smart and motivated.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#746

Post by tomkarlo »

r00fus wrote: post #736
tomkarlo wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use something like this in my org, and Google has "kudos", but I've found that the problem is their usage is highly variable even within a medium-sized or (we're roughly 1,000.) On some teams, the average employee will have hundreds of these kudos, whereas on others, the average might be 1 or 2. This was highlighted to me recently when someone in Slack noted that one person had ~50X the kudos of everyone else and…

Could this be combined with a group-level kudos/tacos metric? Even if it is - don't be that manager of the group with the least group kudos/tacos?

Some roles (ops, sales) are just naturally a lot more inclined to use these kinds of systems. I generalize like that after having watched similar systems at 3 companies; you hardly ever see an engineer give a "taco" for a code review, but someone in another team might give one simply for someone knowing which room a meeting is happening in. It's hard to normalize the culture. I think peer bonuses (which usually require manager approval on one or both sides) tend to be a bit more normalized across teams.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#747

Post by jimbob21 »

nilkn wrote: post #655
martinraag wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of someone (not in the same company) who was offered a one time large cash bonus to stay for at least 12 more months. He took the offer. Unfortunately I don't know where that has lead to in his relationship with the employer. I too would be interested in knowing if that has actually worked out for anyone long term.

It worked out for me long-term. It really depends on a lot of factors. In my case: * I didn't actively seek out employment elsewhere. A place I'd interviewed at and turned down in the past contacted me again after they'd finished a large fundraising round. They had a new office, and I was curious just to see how they'd progressed. The whole thing happened fast and they ended up offering me a 50% raise. * I preferred…

Well that's the difference then, you were headhunted and they wanted you to stay. That isn't perceived disloyalty, it is the exact opposite: you wanted to stay there but be compensated the same way.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#749

Post by cookiecaper »

arkades wrote: post #641
cookiecaper wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. You can't change people. Your actual job description is worth 20% or less of your workplace success; as long as you're doing enough to stave off disaster, you are pretty much fine. There is a simple metric for workplace success: if most people are happier while you're around (including and especially anyone above you in the chain of command), you're winning; if not, you're not. This can probably be summarized as…

> I have a theory that the more a person cares for niceties, appearances, and superficialities, the more it shows that they're incapable of operating at a level any deeper than that The third category, of whom I’ve known several, is “capacity/competence, with an attention to the superficialities because they know how much those matter.” That is, I haven’t found it to be an inverse relationship. I find it to be a 2x2,…

You're right that there are definitely people who are competent and have accepted the necessity of the surface-level accoutrements. The problem is that their direct knowledge of the worthlessness of those tokens means they will never wear them as sincerely and earnestly as an incompetent person, who believes that the surface-level tokens are competence itself.

A little bit of pushback on the more technical or capable people and they will start dropping the facade, whereas the less capable will just hold it up higher, because it's the only thing they know. They have no conscience accusing them of misrepresentation, no sense of guilt or concern that they may be drifting afield from an acceptable core. They only learn that they need to wear the tokens more convincingly next time.

So yes, you can have people who wear the tokens for expedience and out of a recognition that its important to fulfill the heuristics, but they're no competition for those blissfully unaware that there is anything else involved.

Re: Why I Quit Google to Work for Myself

#750

Post by Jemmeh »

cookiecaper wrote: post #749
arkades wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a theory that the more a person cares for niceties, appearances, and superficialities, the more it shows that they're incapable of operating at a level any deeper than that The third category, of whom I’ve known several, is “capacity/competence, with an attention to the superficialities because they know how much those matter.” That is, I haven’t found it to be an inverse relationship. I find it to be a 2x2,…

You're right that there are definitely people who are competent and have accepted the necessity of the surface-level accoutrements. The problem is that their direct knowledge of the worthlessness of those tokens means they will never wear them as sincerely and earnestly as an incompetent person, who believes that the surface-level tokens are competence itself. A little bit of pushback on the more technical or capable…

I really don't understand your point. It's not as though wearing clothing "good enough" to get "social brownie points" is difficult in most places. An ironed, well tailored outfit and simple color coordination is usually good enough to signal to people that you're credible. Most folks will not need to get into the finer points of fashion like the very latest trends and brand names. So I don't see where sincerity plays in when the bar to just reach the level of "looks like they have their things together" is pretty low.

In my experience (I sort of enjoy fashion) most people cannot tell the minute differences between "tailored outfit & basic color coordination" and "total fashionista who keeps up with everything." I can walk around with a fake Coach bag, get compliments all day, most people just do not know.

There's exceptions of course, certain offices/fields of work. But it's not common.

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