51–60 of 65 posts
Google tries to avoid the unavoidable, at least in astrophysics :
"After the type II supernova, only the collapsed core is left behind. If it's less than 2 or 3 solar masses, it is what's known as a neutron star, named thus because it's made almost entirely of degenerate neutrons."
This looks like a new bubble. Why would a Twitter IPO raise so much money? What are its growth prospects? Facebook may be different, but still, it all sounds very crazy.
Why does this look like a new bubble? Why wouldn't Twitter raise billions in a public offering? Their growth prospects are every web or mobile phone user - in any country - to use their service. The amount of attention Twitter has from its users is really noteworthy.
The thing failed silently and stayed broken for two months, and NOBODY NOTICED: neither he nor any of his "followers" (he had more than a thousand).
So, having found out about the situation, he decided to stop using Twitter altogether.
On LinkedIn I now have to see all the tweets of my "contacts" whenever I log in; this is so annoying that it may push me to quit LinkedIn for this reason alone.
People on Twitter are just copying and pasting news found elsewhere; there is an infinitely small proportion of original content: for one "Shit My Dad Says", there are millions of users who only mulch old content from the likes of Digg (RIP) or Reddit or HN.
Twitter users are not paying attention to one another; they shout in the desert and nobody cares.
This cannot go on forever.
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So, would you say it is no different than when companies offshore development to reduce costs? After all, when companies explore cheaper offshore options, it “simply allows software developers to be efficiently priced as market conditions change.” I’m sure I will get my share of down votes for this, but as a cofounder that has hired several developers, I’ve had people come to me with better offers and give me an ulti…
I’ve found to keep people, you need to pay them enough to take the “money” question off the table, and the ensure they have something meaningful and rewarding to do. I would conclude, then, if employees are seeking substantial[1] raises by whatever tactic, that they're not being paid enough to take the money question off the table. With Google, that should be no surprise. [1] There's an assumption of rational behavio…
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Why does this look like a new bubble? Why wouldn't Twitter raise billions in a public offering? Their growth prospects are every web or mobile phone user - in any country - to use their service. The amount of attention Twitter has from its users is really noteworthy.
There was a story not long ago on HN (can't seem to find it though) about a blogger who had a special Twitter pipeline to send tweets whenever he blogged, or something. The thing failed silently and stayed broken for two months, and NOBODY NOTICED: neither he nor any of his "followers" (he had more than a thousand). So, having found out about the situation, he decided to stop using Twitter altogether. On LinkedIn I n…
A lot of these counteroffers must be to stop the perception of brain drain. Perception is often more important than reality. I dont think there are that many "must not lose him/her, at any cost" engineers, even at google.
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Where do you get your 80% non-productive number? Every job I've had in the last 10 years, I've delivered production code on day one. I expect that anybody good enough to get hired at Google would be capable of the same. I mean sure, we've all hired our share of useless junior devs, but then we've all done that at places that were a notch or two below Google on the minimum-standards front. For talented developers with…
>Every job I've had in the last 10 years, I've delivered production code on day one. We all did, but it's not enough. You probably took time away from other engineers to coach you and explain the system. If you took more time than it would have took them to accomplish what you did, you're not productive. And his point is that's what you did.
One day one, of the last half dozen jobs I've taken, I've been handed a project and told to run with it. And I ran. Without any assistance from anybody except a couple quick chats with whoever's in charge over the course of the project, and QA when it was ready to push.
No hand holding, no coaching, no taking up anybody's time asking silly questions. You just figure things out for yourself and get up to speed. Inside of a few hours.
That's how you work if you're good, and I can't imagine anybody getting in the door at a shop like Google that couldn't.
The type of drain you describe is what happens when you bring a junior dev onto a team. It's a lot less when you bring in more senior people, and by the time you get to the big leages it's pretty much just background noise. That's why I questioned the great-grandparent's "20% throughput for an entire year" number.
My guess, based on experience, would be closer to 100% throughput, given an entire year to absorb the first few days.
Maybe I'm not used to the Silicon Valley processes but I think it is pretty uncool to tell your company you received another offer... even without explicitly mentioning you want a raise. You should either be happy with your company, or talk with your boss in order to get better conditions. And if there is no agreement you can look around and go in some other place. But playing the game of the higher offer is somethin…
But playing the game of the higher offer is something that always disturbed me. Not me. Here's my experience (many times): Phase I Me: I deserve more $ because . Boss: I can't because . Phase II Me: I quit (not bluffing). Boss: You can't. Here's more $.
"Hi, employee. Just wanted to let you know we've started interviewing for your position because we think we can find someone just as good to do it for less. Unless, of course, you'd like to take a pay cut..."
edit: A boss, but not my boss.
That summarizes it : "Only a sucker would sit and hope for recognition". Google tries to avoid the unavoidable, at least in astrophysics : "After the type II supernova, only the collapsed core is left behind. If it's less than 2 or 3 solar masses, it is what's known as a neutron star, named thus because it's made almost entirely of degenerate neutrons."
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Boss: You're fired. Is this your experience, Andys, are you speculating, or is this just a joke? This has never happened to me or anyone I know. Loyalty doesn't mean shit anymore and everyone knows it. On the other hand, my experience has shown that having the balls to stand up for yourself and do whatever you have to do earns new respect. Phase III (what really happens) Boss treats you better than ever before.
I've seen it happen (Phase 3: fired), though fortunately not to me. - company scrambles to come up with a good counteroffer, with more money and a transfer onto a more exciting project. - company decides it needs to lay people off - "more exiting project" manager sees some new guy on his roster, making more than everybody else. Seems like a safe choice for the axe. So in a few months, you can go from having two reall…
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> So, would you say it is no different than when companies offshore development to reduce costs? Yes. >I rarely counter as there is no guarantee they won’t come back sometime later with an even higher offer, and so on and so on. If I'm a builder and the price of wood goes up--but it's still the cheapest material for my needs--I keep using it. If it keeps going up, I keep paying more and more until there is a cheaper…
That's good - many people seem to fault the employer in my experience. Question though - the wood analogy was yours. You were expecting me to foresee that and list the difference between people and wood? I am also disappointed that your response did not address the differences between companies and....let’s say…Antarctica penguin colonies. ;-)
But, of course, people are more complicated than wood. So if you wanted to argue that you should refuse to pay the higher price, you would need to explain exactly what the difference between people and wood are, and exactly why it should lead you to reject the naive analysis.