yo have u guiz seen da social network lololol. :3
Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
181–190 of 245 posts
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
At a certain size, corporate roadmaps and people management are inevitably political. Google modifying their search criteria to participate in China's market.. is political. Google's HR department working towards demographic goals.. is political ( I'm not judging its political-ness, but it ended up being political, didn't it?). Each of the major FAAMG companies has a political/dominance issue of some kind, one that c…
Microsoft is the oldest of them all. Microsoft had its own "teenage years" problems... maybe it has less problems these days because it's more mature?
The article mentioned participating with China in state surveillance and censorship.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the time Gmail was introduced, it's hard to overstate how groundbreaking and influential it was. Totally raised the bar for web apps everywhere by making effective use of XHR, which at that time was hardly known even to web developers. An absurdly large amount of storage space (1GB when Hotmail was 10MB, IIRC?), fast and effective search. There's a reason Google was the most loved and respected company in tech for…
But does it really take a coddled genius whose mind runs wild to develop a modern web app and give it lots of storage space? Or was it just a cool idea that a team of regular-old software developers decided to implement?
Lots of teams of regular-old software developers have done cool stuff over the years, but in this case, it happened to be a coddled genius. At least that is the story we've consistently been told over the years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Buchheit
I'm pretty sure there were plenty of geniuses on the Hotmail team at the time, too--maybe they weren't being coddled enough in the Ballmer era! ;)
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#184My 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…
From another perspective, you could say Westerners are people who don't let others have the best of them and bring them down. That they have incredibly high expectations and standards. That they don't take no for an answer. And they will assert themselves and their rights strongly, vocally and openly. Or in other words, give me liberty or listen to me ask for it until I die.
Now the question becomes, how much is this attitude responsible for all the richness you described? If it is partially or fully responsible, then others should adopt it as well, and they'd be better off "whining" as well.
Let's give a scenario, two kids at a table, one shouts "I demand desert". The other responds "Stop whining, I didn't even get to eat anything, at least you got an entree". Whose most likely to get what they want? Maybe the other should have whined instead: "And I demand a full meal!"
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
He's right that Google doesn't generally pay competitively, but wrong in comparing to smaller startups. It's some of the larger companies (Facebook, LinkedIn, AirBnB, etc.) that Google tends to fall short of.
Interesting, I don't have that impression. levels.fyi doesn't show much disparity, for example. Where do you get this from?
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in action.
I never know how seriously to take Maslow. It resonates intuitively for some people I guess. But he just made the theory up. There's not a lot of scientific evidence to support it. "In their extensive review of research based on Maslow's theory, Wahba and Bridwell found little evidence for the ranking of needs that Maslow described or for the existence of a definite hierarchy at all" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mas…
it would be very difficult to convince me that maslow's hierarchy is wrong.
I don't mean the specifics of the hierarchy, but the idea behind it. Sure, maybe the specific hierarchy isn't right, but the idea that some needs have to be satisfied before a person can contribute to other needs is absolutely spot on. I know this from life experience. So to convince me that the underlying idea is wrong would take a hell of a lot of evidence.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
This kind of flamebait is not ok on HN. We ban users who post like this, as well as the comment which you've since deleted. Please don't add any more of this kind of thing to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Could you explain what exactly makes this flamebaiting? I find the lack of modesty in the West at times appalling, so I can empathize with cultures with strict levels of modesty. It is also quite clear that women tend to behave more childlike and are less willing to take on responsibility. So it's not oppression, but cultural adaptations to biological realities. That's all.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
>That it is due to a vocal minority doesn't mean it is due to this vocal minority. Not all vocal minorities are equal, and nor should all vocal minorities be treated alike. This is obvious and should go without saying. The parent comment gave an example of a positive consequence of an instance of this so-called "vocal minority", since the grandparent comment left no room for any positive angle on this. I'm seriously…
>since the grandparent comment left no room for any positive angle on this. I do not see this. Grandparent said "a vocal minority", which I interpret as a specific vocal minority. Like when someone says "there is a vocal person in my team who is obnoxious" - it does not imply that all vocal people in all teams are obnoxious. My point was the example given by the person I responded to is kind of irrelevant. Yes, vocal…
My interpretation of the initial comment you replied to was that pointing out that there are consequences of "vocal minorities" in the past that have led to great improvements and considering such examples almost always have significant pushback implies the possibility that perception is misplaced.
However, I see where you are coming from and thank you for clarifying.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#189There's algae in the tube feeding the ice machine in my company's break room, multiple wet ceiling tiles all year long, signs telling us to literally not wipe our feces on the walls in the bathroom, shared desks with other shifts, a constant smell of mold and I make 35k a year, no chance of promotion at all without taking on tens of thousands of dollars of debt to get a 4-year degree in literally anything, at a rabid…
If it makes you feel any better, I work at Google, but have found toilets with pee all over the floor and toilet seat and much worse I'd rather not talk about. :-) Googlers are the first to admit we're spoiled. _Most_ of us are conscious of our privileges compared to other workers. But as others have pointed out that doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye to issues of sexism and lack of diversity, attitudes towards…
I think the issue is how strongly people are complaining.
For example.
I think we can all agree that sexism is bad, and that in a perfect world your coworker would not be looking at you with "hungry eyes". But the world isn't perfect, and you have a coworker who is attracted to you. Maybe even a bit too flirty.
But then people treat this as if the coworker is a horrible human being rather than maybe just an oblivious or socially awkward person who isn't really trying to cause any sort of harm. And this behavior then gets equated with sexual assault, "violence", and so forth.
The perspective is all skewed. It's not nearly as large of a problem as they're making it out to be. There was a story a while back about a woman who realized her drink (coffee I think) would start tasting strange in the middle of the day so she took it to a lab and had them analyze it. It turns out one of her male coworkers had been ejaculating into it when she walked away. THAT is horrific. Your male coworker being a bit flirty is not nearly on the same level, but people treat it as if it is. And that's where the problems arise.
And you just watch, atleast one person is going to respond to me affronted and imply that I must be arguing that it's ok for unwanted attention, or that I believe it can't cross unacceptable lines. It absolutely can, that's not the point.
Re: Three Years of Misery Inside Google, the Happiest Company in Tech
#190My 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…
I regularly have chuckles with friends about entitled tech workers. Complaining about the type of bottled water, the gym compensation plan, the type of company laptop. It's really sad.
> the type of company laptop.
Fun fact: when Google employees had Windows laptops, the government of China hacked them, trying to steal identifying information about dissidents.
Do you have state-funded hackers attacking your laptop so they can kill people?