41–50 of 56 posts
Since Theodore brought this up: "(And those stories about Google paying $3.5 million and $7 million to keep an engineer from defecting to Facebook? As far as I know, total bull. I bet it’s something made up by some Facebook recruiter who needed to explain how she let a live prospect get away. :-)" I'm pretty sure it's real. Someone who either posts on here or who is frequently submitted -- I think piaw, or something…
Okay, so Google has a problem retaining the subset of great engineers who're also entrepreneurial. That's still a problem.
In Sweden, Google has aquired Marratech and Global IP Solutions. Both are all about hardcore codec innovation, not business model discovery. Google was licensing tech from GIPS long before they aquired it. If big companies are where heavy tech is developed, aquisitions like those would never happen. NB. Another Google aquisition from Sweden was Trendalyzer, Hans Rosling's visualization technology famous from his TED…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Same goes for every lasting business model: your cut Not if you sell weight loss pills, or run a demand media style content farm, or do cash for gold, or ... Sadly the amount of money you make is rarely a function of the value you create. How much money has linus torvalds made vs the value he's created compared to someone like jason CalAcanis?
fyi: it's CalAcanis.
I find this article misleading, Google certainly does not have problem retaining talents joining early stage startups. Those talents probably joined Google pre-IPO and funding their own startups now. The problem for the late Googlers is that they and their uncles all want to join the multi-billions dollar pre-IPO "company". And yes, their scale is big enough and affect millions, and the up side is, one day they can m…
Furthermore, given the huge amount of attention and hype about How Facebooks Success Is Assured, a lot of the "pop" in valuation that took place pre-IPO has probably already taken place. People who expect that Facebook will have its valuation (its market cap is currently estimated at $41 billion; Apple is $219 billion; IBM is $157 billion; Dell is $22 billion) "pop" by another 10x post-IPO will probably be sadly disappointed. And if you don't get that "pop", those stock options won't be worth all that much.
Which is one of the reasons I really don't believe the stories of $3.5m and $6m retention offers. It would simply be insane to make such offers, because the payout for someone jumping from Google to Facebook at this point, roughly a year before when people are guessing Facebook will IPO, are nowhere near that large (after stock reserved for the 5 stages of VC investment, and the founder's stock, and stock already issued to other employees, not to mention the shares that you know, need to actually be sold to the public, the number of options that could be granted per employee won't be that high). And, I'm pretty confident Google isn't insane. Furthermore, if Google was doing this, it would be bleedingly obvious on the quarterly 10Q statements it has to file with the SEC. So if you really think this is real, try doing some digging in the 10Q's 2-3 months from now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the flip side, much of the value you are able to create may come as the result of the infrastructure and colleagues provided to you by that same "someone else". Seems particularly true at a place like Google. When you work for yourself, you get to keep 100% (minus taxes) of (probably) a smaller number; whether that is best for you depends on your personality.
Even so, if you're a top performer, you end up subsidizing the paychecks of a lot of people.
Your subsidy argument cuts both ways.
"...the value Google is getting out of my work is worth many multiples of my total compensation. And that’s a position that every engineer should strive for, since that’s how you can be confident that you will remain gainfully employed." As an entrepreneur, something about this statement bothers me... something about all the value I create getting skimmed off the top and taken away by someone else. Yeah, that's proba…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the flip side, much of the value you are able to create may come as the result of the infrastructure and colleagues provided to you by that same "someone else". Seems particularly true at a place like Google. When you work for yourself, you get to keep 100% (minus taxes) of (probably) a smaller number; whether that is best for you depends on your personality.
Even so, if you're a top performer, you end up subsidizing the paychecks of a lot of people.
OP mentions this topic but mostly talks about his view, which I get. On the other hand, I've spoken with plenty of ex-Google employees who've left because Google is getting so large and has so many 20% projects that it no longer feels so entrepreneurial being at Google and so they leave. These are employees that don't care about a business model and just want to see their projects see the light of day.
So, Google has a problem retaining great engineers? Sure, it doesn't apply to OP, but that doesn't mean it's bullcrap.