Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#471

Post by vletal » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #459

gonehome wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft became almost irrelevant under Ballmer or was at least trending that way. Nadella’s turn around is almost miraculous and is itself probably an interesting story. I wouldn’t bet on that as the norm. I’d expect the norm to be more like IBM, RIM, or Nokia. I agree with most of the article, but one line stuck out to me as particularly wrong: >”After the acquisition, we have an extremely long project that consum…

I somewhat sympathize with those living in a small apartment who used to walk, take a shuttle bus, take the subway, etc. to work where they were fed 5 days a week or more--and now they're stuck in their small apartments with most restaurants closed and facing the prospect of maybe having to move to a bigger place. So one can choose to interpret complaints about meal expensing in that vein. That said, in general, at l…

I like how living in the close proximity to the city center might seem somehow special from the perspective of suburban oriented culture even though it is usually a norm in Europe.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#472

Post by jmull » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

Is that top 50 brands graphic real?

I recognize every brand on there and know at least a little bit what their consumer-facing products are... except waze (until now).

I realize it might just be me, but I wonder if this is some kind of vanity graphic?

(I have been at a company that would periodically pay for brand surveys, that would always tell us how great our brand was doing. I don’t think there was anything explicitly untoward going on, but I think the consultants were finding a way to tell us what we wanted to hear. I wonder if they same is going on here?)

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#473

Post by gonehome » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

rapsey wrote: post #465

gonehome wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft became almost irrelevant under Ballmer or was at least trending that way. Nadella’s turn around is almost miraculous and is itself probably an interesting story. I wouldn’t bet on that as the norm. I’d expect the norm to be more like IBM, RIM, or Nokia. I agree with most of the article, but one line stuck out to me as particularly wrong: >”After the acquisition, we have an extremely long project that consum…

I don't know about that. Was MS ever not filthy profitable? They are very successful with azure, was that started by balmer or nadella? People here give MS too little credit. Their reach is MASSIVE. No american company has the world wide reach that MS has. Practically every enterprise in the world is their customer.

Profit is a lagging indicator that often leads companies astray with short-term decision making at the expense of long-term relevance.

Look at Apple before the return of Jobs (though at that point, they were having profit issues too - but what lead to that was arguably short-term thinking).

Today, I'd argue Intel has made similar decisions that put them on a bad long term path.

MS would have stayed alive for a while, but been a shadow of their former self.

Obviously, it's hard to prove a counterfactual like this - but this is how I model it.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#474

Post by Aeolun » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #460

tinyhouse wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misinterpreting what he's saying. I didn't get the impression that he claims that employees growth doesn't matter. He's saying that most people optimize for promotion rather than building a better product. That's indeed the wrong thing to optimize for, esp for the company. Not being able to fire people is indeed a big disadvantage. Bad employees are much worse than just not contributing. They make the peo…

While optimizing for promotion is definitely a corossive aspect of large company culture, it's simply not true that you can't "fire" people in Google. There is a bi-annual perf cycle, and there are ratings, and they mean things, your peers are involved, ratings are discussed among managers, results are callibrated, and there are "needs improvement" flags and "performance improvment" processes. No you can't fire a per…

I dunno, based on what you wrote about the process it sounds impossible to actually fire someone.

Unless they are so toxic that everyone hates them, they’ll be able to swing performance to an even average.

Or at least squeak along until they leave of their own volition.

I can kind of see why that would be annoying to someone that used to be able to make personal arbitrary choices from his own authority.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#475

Post by throwmeaway_66 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

knuthsat wrote: post #432

gonehome wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take would be Google can afford it for now because they have a web ad monopoly and don’t have to compete. If they ever lose that, the culture they’ve built will cause them to be destroyed and irrelevant in not that much time. For now, it’s summer.

You're assuming the rest of the world is different but it isn't. There's a massive amount of companies where working pace is very slow. A large percentage of employees do barely anything and these companies exist forever.

This is something that was unknown to me until a few years ago and I believe it's unknown to many in the tech industry. I make a close to Google-level salary in my position (say, 85% of it) in a tech company and I barely do any work (or better, I do some work for some hours a week). Little accountability, zero stress. And when I say "I barely do any work", I mean that when I hear start-up people ridiculing the typical Google senior-and-up IC who works 30-35 hours a week with weekends off, I say to myself: that's crazy, what would they think of me working (barely) 1/3 of those hours? Would I be the village idiot?

There is always some drops fear trying to find a way up my limbic system whispering to me that one day this will be over. One day, I will have to work for real again and I will have to pass tough interviews and have new, possibly demanding bosses. But this has been going for more than 4 splendid years, very long-termism tend to make one's life pretty dull, and my dream is to open a bicycle shop anyway.

As a famous ad campaign used to suggest: "Think different".

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#476

Post by yardie » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

asidiali wrote: post #344

yardie wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where you ignore the email until the morning. The only place where working offhours has a use is in early startups where money is tight, deadlines are short, and products are loosely defined. If you're working at a well managed company managers will nip it in the bud. Either way I'm not in college and I'm getting my 6-8 hours of sleep. If I work late I arrive late and expect no argument over it. I've only eve…

Copying part of my reply to another comment: If my manager hits me up at 11pm asking for something, sure I can ignore him or her. Then I come in the next day, they already did the thing they asked for themselves because [insert business reason], and says “never mind”. Next time it happens, they go to the other dev who is happy to do it at 11pm. Guess who gets the promotion? Even if it’s unfair and shouldn’t happen th…

> my manager hits me up at 11pm asking for something

One thing I learned about management is they are getting more than salary, usually there is a bonus or RSUs attached to everything they do. But they aren't working at 11pm for the good of the company if the good of the company isn't directly benefiting them. Keep that in mind the next time you respond to that midnight email.

> they go to the other dev who is happy to do it at 11pm.

Believe it or not this dev sounds like management material. That's not a compliment! If you think back to every belittling, sociopathic manager/director story you've observed or heard, these are the places they are formed. Now some managers are great leaders and you recognize why they are in that position. The majority are sycophants who kiss the right ass, by working at 11pm on a saturday.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#477

Post by lostdog » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

nx7487 wrote: post #318

People offended here are exactly the bubble of entitled morons in Silicon Valley that this guy is talking about. I totally agree with everything he said, companies where you have to work long hours and don't receive lots of weird benefits like yoga and sushi are the places I want to work. I would much prefer to have my compensation include more equity in the company, and for my performance to actually be related to t…

> Due to a bunch of mistakes early on, we did not own substantial amounts of equity and had a pretty bad relationship with some of our board members.

Or maybe your work-life balance could be worse AND your equity stake could be meaningless.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#478

Post by Aeolun » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #456

viklove wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's saying that most people optimize for promotion rather than building a better product. If you want them to optimize for building a better product, give them more equity. Most people don't want to work during the best 40 years of their lives. Give them a way out or they will try to find one themselves.

In the article he says this doesn't work because people effectively view equity as salary.

And rightly so. Your google equity is absolutely disconnected from whatever product you are building there. External forces are more likely to affect it than anything you do personally.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#479

Post by titanomachy » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

guyzero wrote: post #451

jrockway wrote: post #290

He sounds kind of toxic and out of touch, and didn't really mention why he stayed so long despite that being the title of the article. You know someone is Up To Something when they rant about HR restricting their speech. It's weird to me that he's now a free agent, rants about how people complained that "I used a four letter word, my analogy was not PC, my language was not PG", and yet doesn't indulge in his blog pos…

At the risk of being not politically correct myself, I think there are significant cultural gaps between the west coast American standard and people from Israel (Bardin is Isralei). With the caveat that this is my experience only, Israelis are more blunt, direct and often openly critical vs Americans, especially Californians. They're often right and all the ones I've worked with have been very smart, but the way a me…

> at the risk of not being politically correct

I don't think it's so controversial to claim that different cultures have different default communication styles.

Israelis aren't the only ones who tend to be more direct than the average Californian. I usually appreciate it: corporate speech tends to dance around the point a bit, and bluntness saves time and clarifies where people stand. That said, I can also understand how some people would be taken aback or intimidated by excessive bluntness, especially from a superior.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#480

Post by caturopath » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

I agree with almost every point Noam makes, but I feel he could have done a better job steelmanning the counterpoint.

There are upsides of having managers not have the level of control over their reports' futures that they do at most companies. (It accomplishes goals of reducing discrimination and it makes people less vulnerable and thus boosts retention.)

There are reasons that the process overhead to accomplish anything at Google is more than at a company like pre-acquisition Waze. (It simply gets 100x more backlash when Google makes a misstep on some of this stuff than any company, in part because they have a responsibility as stewards of so many experiences and so much data. There's also a culture of doing a really crappy job in a first pass -- I think this might be fostered by the process overhead, but it certainly makes removing it very dangerous.)

There are benefits to a comp model that doesn't actually reward you for what you accomplish. (You can get some of your best people to focus long-term.)

There are OBVIOUS benefits to a culture that values political correctness. The author didn't make it clear that he wasn't just being an asshole.

I think, on balance, that Google is unhealthy and could use some more Noam in it, but I think it's not intuitive to everyone why these things are done.