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Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

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Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#81

Post by CoolGuySteve »

joelx wrote: post #60
high_derivative wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics and are primarily focused on doing good work (people in their 20s), or on putting in their 8 hours and going home to their families (people >30 mostly, of course they also want to do good work, just have additional new priorities in a young family). Then there is a vocal minority who leverage that no individual's perfor…

I agree completely with this. Keep in mind that true evil is MBS ordering the murder of journalist Khasshogi. True evil is invading and conquering Crimea. True evil is murdering your generals with anti-aircraft guns or watching dogs tear them apart while still alive. Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.

Yes and no, some of the projects mentioned in the article, like Project Dragonfly, involved developing the kind of censorship tools necessary to prop up dictators like the ones you mentioned.

That’s not whining imo, that’s standing up to exactly the breed of ‘True Evil’ you define here.

We have seen this before in tech: Nazi Germany was probably IBM’s second largest customer at the time. There is a moral imperative to not let something like that happen again.

We should all be disturbed that the executive team at Google felt that Project Dragonfly was appropriate.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#82

Post by terminalhealth »

high_derivative wrote: post #42
segmondy wrote: post #32

My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Most companies have issues, and these issues are not "Company" issues but PEOPLE issues. Once you're large enough, you are going to have people with differing opinions, beliefs and values. These are going to clash. If you happen to be on the losing side and don't learn to accept it, y…

My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics and are primarily focused on doing good work (people in their 20s), or on putting in their 8 hours and going home to their families (people >30 mostly, of course they also want to do good work, just have additional new priorities in a young family). Then there is a vocal minority who leverage that no individual's perfor…

Forcing women to wear veils is not oppression in the same way scolding a child is not oppression. Both have a measurably positive effect on social functioning (e.g. consider how weak modesty norms in the West are beginning to make Western culture rather uncomfortable to live in at times). Genital mutilation, on the other hand, is oppression because it is unnecessary; it does not improve the living conditions of anyone at all, but one could perhaps admit religious freedom in this regard as long it does not impinge on the rights of other people. Forcing people to align themselves with a system is not oppression because a system needs aligned people to exist at all. Though if you force them to unnecessary extent, then it becomes oppressive and what is happening in HK is probably oppressive unless my news sources are heavily biased.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#83

Post by deskamess »

I have a feeling Amazon would not tolerate this level of push back to products and business strategy (and they have the corresponding "don't care" reputation!).

Google management seems to give in so much and if you are a GOOG shareholder you could have a real case here (re the Maven project). [Disclosure: I am not a GOOG shareholder]. Management has to keep the interests of the company at heart - they are legally bound to do whats best for the company. One could argue that getting involved in AI+Warfare is bad for the image of the company, but the revenue it brings in as well as getting an entry into defense dollars would be a huge benefit for its nascent cloud division.

Whether you like it or not, employees will have personal opinions and it is great to accommodate their expression of such opinions. However, as a public company, GOOG management has legal obligations too. As conflicts with and demands of management increase, and it impacts revenue, we shall see top level management excuse themselves from interacting this openly with employees.

Unfortunately, more open and liberal companies are also more susceptible to such attacks and lawsuits when compared to a corp that is more authoritarian.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#84

Post by NeonVice »

cj wrote: post #79
joelx wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely with this. Keep in mind that true evil is MBS ordering the murder of journalist Khasshogi. True evil is invading and conquering Crimea. True evil is murdering your generals with anti-aircraft guns or watching dogs tear them apart while still alive. Serving banner ads across sites does not even remotely compare.

Did you just compare Google's advertising business to assassination, murder, and war crime?

He was contrasting them.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#85

Post by throwaway77384 »

notacoward wrote: post #50

> To invent products like Gmail, Earth, and Translate, you need coddled geniuses free to let their minds run wild. That statement needs to be challenged. The Montessori method might be great at small scale in an educational context, but that doesn't mean it's a great way to run a company worth most of a trillion dollars. Yes, empowering employees is good. Yes, having a few "coddled geniuses" to drive basic science or…

  That statement needs to be challenged. 
  The Montessori method might be great at small scale in an educational context, but that doesn't mean it's a great way to run a company worth most of a trillion dollars. 
  Yes, empowering employees is good. Yes, having a few "coddled geniuses" to drive basic science or radical innovation is good too. 
  OTOH, having every single engineer haring off in random directions all the time might not be so great.
Your whole post seems to be very reasonable, but there is one thing I'd like to mention, which is that you will immediately run into problems if you have rigid standards for what constitutes a "genius" and who is part of the just "the normal engineers". A "genius" can't very easily be defined. Historical examples like Mozart or Einstein make it easy to think that there are only a few geniuses whose talent is immediately entirely obvious to everyone, and the rest of society is merely average.

That is not true. To bring that kind of potential about in many people who thought they were not geniuses prior to encountering an environment where their skills are fostered is one of the greatest advantages a company could possibly have.

Some might just call this "good HR", or "caring about people". I have worked in companies where there were people who truly cared about their employees and about their strengths (and who could not afford the obvious "geniuses") and who thus almost "created" these geniuses. I know there are many ways in which I am simplifying this and I know that no company should try to employ purely geniuses. I have worked in a small team of six "very, very advanced" people in their respective fields. It was basically impossible to create any kind of cohesion. I would suspect it would be similar with other teams of "geniuses". Maybe not, but I think you are overall right in what you say, but it is so incredibly important to understand that the lines between a "genius" and a "run of the mill" developer may be more blurred than most people expect.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#86

Post by jey »

terminalhealth wrote: post #82
high_derivative wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics and are primarily focused on doing good work (people in their 20s), or on putting in their 8 hours and going home to their families (people >30 mostly, of course they also want to do good work, just have additional new priorities in a young family). Then there is a vocal minority who leverage that no individual's perfor…

Forcing women to wear veils is not oppression in the same way scolding a child is not oppression. Both have a measurably positive effect on social functioning (e.g. consider how weak modesty norms in the West are beginning to make Western culture rather uncomfortable to live in at times). Genital mutilation, on the other hand, is oppression because it is unnecessary; it does not improve the living conditions of anyon…

> scolding a child is not oppression

This is not as self-evident as you imply.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#87

Post by gadders »

terminalhealth wrote: post #82
high_derivative wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My inside-FAAMNG experience has been that most employees seem to be not interested in the politics and are primarily focused on doing good work (people in their 20s), or on putting in their 8 hours and going home to their families (people >30 mostly, of course they also want to do good work, just have additional new priorities in a young family). Then there is a vocal minority who leverage that no individual's perfor…

Forcing women to wear veils is not oppression in the same way scolding a child is not oppression. Both have a measurably positive effect on social functioning (e.g. consider how weak modesty norms in the West are beginning to make Western culture rather uncomfortable to live in at times). Genital mutilation, on the other hand, is oppression because it is unnecessary; it does not improve the living conditions of anyon…

>> Forcing women to wear veils is not oppression in the same way scolding a child is not oppression

Women can be compared with children now?

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#88

Post by username90 »

jey wrote: post #59
segmondy wrote: post #32

My eyes are hurting from seeing these articles whining about their misery while collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Most companies have issues, and these issues are not "Company" issues but PEOPLE issues. Once you're large enough, you are going to have people with differing opinions, beliefs and values. These are going to clash. If you happen to be on the losing side and don't learn to accept it, y…

puts on international hat Actually, all of you Westerners[1] are rich entitled whiners. You have consistent access to clean water that comes straight to your house, you even have a house, with insulation and carpets no less. You have a cornucopia of diverse and nutritious foods, and your social institutions will even feed you if you're poor! Not only do you have all these necessities, even your poor people have opule…

> all of you Westerners[1] are rich entitled whiners

This is provably wrong, many people are not whiners no matter which country you look at.

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#89

Post by chadlavi »

ggambetta wrote: post #73
chadlavi wrote: post #41

Google doesn't even pay well enough to treat people poorly. They're wagering an awful lot on the premise that working for Google is prestigious enough to sustainably attract and retain talent. Meanwhile a smaller tech startup will pay better and give you way more of a hand in shaping the product, and maybe even not work you 80+hours a week. I'm not sure what the appeal of the big names is for devs.

> Google doesn't even pay well enough to treat people poorly. [...] Meanwhile a smaller tech startup will pay better [...] maybe even not work you 80+hours a week Having worked both at Google and at smaller tech startups, this is pretty much the opposite of reality. I wonder where are you getting these ideas from.

Is google just particularly dogged about salary negotiations, then? The numbers I've seen for someone new to the org don't impress me relative to the competitive baseline. Maybe you have to ask way higher, or you have to come in at a high level already?

Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech

#90

Post by chadlavi »

trevyn wrote: post #56
chadlavi wrote: post #41

Google doesn't even pay well enough to treat people poorly. They're wagering an awful lot on the premise that working for Google is prestigious enough to sustainably attract and retain talent. Meanwhile a smaller tech startup will pay better and give you way more of a hand in shaping the product, and maybe even not work you 80+hours a week. I'm not sure what the appeal of the big names is for devs.

A smaller tech startup only pays better if you pick the right one and it has an exit. One appeal of the big names is exactly that — name recognition. It does a lot for the ego when everyone you meet knows that your employer provides free massages and a sushi bar for lunch.

Free massages and sushi bars don't pay rent!

And I'm not talking about mythical exit money, I'm talking about cold hard biweekly salary. I make more money at a small startup than it seems I would make at Google, for example.

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