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Working on my saas https://chartpoet.com Worked at Amazon from 2010 - 2012. Left because I wanted to create something of my own. Have failed twice at since then, hopefully will succeed this time.
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> That famous proverb about Japanese nails absolutely applies. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."
I'm guessing there are some "nail dimensions" that get hammered down, and some that are encouraged. (There are some anomalous characteristics that are accepted or incentivized, and some that are penalized.) I'm curious, could you (or someone in this thread working at google) help me understand which these are? Which weird character traits are ok, and which are not?
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How do you pay for your living expenses ? Do you work remotely ?
I had pretty substantial amount of savings when I quit. I expect my annual expenses for the next few years to be $15-20k, so I can either pay that with returns from my investments or drawing down from my savings. It's not enough to live the rest of my life on, especially if I want to start a family, but I'm set for the next few years.
I was a SWE L3 at Google for three years. I left after having similar problems with the promotion process mentioned by others. Since then, have moved from SF to Ecuador and started a humor publication explicitly making fun of companies like FANG ( https://techloaf.io ). It’s very cathartic...
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It's a good idea to improve your web developer skills, but I think the problem lies within your entrepreneur skills. I'd highly recommend the book Disciplined Entrepreneurship to you. It consists of 24 steps that is focused on product conceptualization, which I think you'll pretty much appreciate it.
Could you share why you think that's a problem in his approach/method?
The storage thing is already solved, people have no reason to switch from AWS. As he mentioned his product was worse, so even if it was just for the sake of competition...
Ex-Googler here. I was a SWE L4 and left after four years in frustration with the promotion process ( https://mtlynch.io/why-i-quit-google/ ). Since then, I: * Moved out of my $3.3k/mo Manhattan apartment and bought a home for $200k in Western Massachusetts. Paid in cash so I no longer have to pay rent/mortgage. I feel like my time is much less "metered" now because my annual living expenses are so low, I can pursue…
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Do you feel disconnected in Western Mass? I am not sure how remote you are but I live in a remote area now but work remotely and feel it. Hell, even in the Bay area I was remote-is since the commute was isolating. All I can say about the culture there is that you have to job hop to develop relationships that may lead to future opportunities. *Btw your cartoon on your blog is good. If that's your original creation you…
I don't, but I've only been here 7 weeks so far, so it's too early to tell. I'm pretty solitary, so I'm hoping the disconnectedness works out okay. I wish I could draw those cartoons. I work with a freelance cartoonist named Loraine Yow ( https://www.lolo-ology.com/ ). I wrote a blog post about how the process works: https://mtlynch.io/how-to-hire-a-cartoonist/
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It's a good idea to improve your web developer skills, but I think the problem lies within your entrepreneur skills. I'd highly recommend the book Disciplined Entrepreneurship to you. It consists of 24 steps that is focused on product conceptualization, which I think you'll pretty much appreciate it.
Could you share why you think that's a problem in his approach/method?
The single necessary and sufficient condition for a business is a paying customer. The day someone pays you money for your product or service, you have a business, and not a day before. You cannot define a business as a product, because if nobody buys your product, you simply do not have a business. The marketplace is the final arbiter of success.
Now, just because you have a paying customer does not mean you have a good business. In order to have a good, sustainable business, you will need to gain enough customers paying enough money within a relatively short period of time so you do not run out of capital, but instead, become profitable. And as a startup, you have few resources, so every action you take must be hyper-efficient.
Therefore, you will not start by building a product or hiring developers or recruiting salespeople. Instead, you will take a customer-driven approach by finding an unmet need and building your business around it.
I served at Google as an SRE for 2+yrs. I burnt out and ragequit. Now I'm an SRE at a startup. I hear that the median time of service for FAANG SREs is just shy of 2yrs. Dirty open secret if it is true.
https://www.payscale.com/data-packages/employee-loyalty/full...
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Big companies are all this way, people don't realize it before they work in one - you are just a cog.
Also, in a big company, culture is not homogeneous. Your direct manager and team will create their culture, with mild influence from the surrounding corporation.
If a smaller company has a toxic culture or you have a toxic manager you may have no choice but to leave.
Bad managers are everywhere!