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

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

#511

Post by didibus »

Not going to lie, it just sounds like he failed to adapt and be a good CEO in this new system. What did he say about needing to do with people who can't adapt and don't have the skills needed at a new stage of company growth? Fire them? Well him leaving might give Waze a new life, if they find a CEO with more experience working in bigger companies, who knows better how to navigate the political landscape of a place like that.

Also, my personal issue is that, being part of Google, he seemed to still only focus on the success of Waze, not on the success of Google. And that's contradictory to his own statement of needing to align with company success and investors success. I mean, even his "does nothing for users" argument fails for me, when Waze was acquired I dreamed of all its features just rolling up into Google Maps and Waze going away, so that the best of Maps and Waze would combine into a better Map app.

The only thing I can agree with, but honestly that's really not new insight at this point, is promotion driven development. Though I think he undermines a little how that favors new ventures and moonshots over continued refinement of existing products. Yes this is a common criticism of Google, but it's also how Gmail, Maps, and a lot of the really big money maker success of Google happened. It's not that the promotion process is "bad", but it optimises for people to always try and grow brand new products and enter new markets. Which arguably could be best for Google investors.

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

#512

Post by titanomachy »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #492
caturopath wrote: post #480

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 any…

No, political correctness creates a stranglehold on ideas, the very last thing those in SV need when they are regulating their own monopolies of ideas online.

Excessive political correctness does that. A good amount of political correctness means that you never have to work for a manager who openly respects you less because of your race or gender.

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

#513

Post by raclage »

> I began racking up my HR complaints. I used a four letter word, my analogy was not PC, my language was not PG… I actually stopped speaking at events where the majority appreciated what I was saying but the minority that was offended by something (words and not content) made it a pain. I began watching what I said, what I discussed and began wearing a corporate persona (I was still probably one of the less PC characters at Google but this was my cleaned up act…).

At this point I can't help but be extremely skeptical of people that talk about how they've been oppressed by PC censorship and don't provide any examples as if it's not the case that there aren't lots of people who say widely unacceptable things and use this as a shield.

> Having trouble scheduling meetings because “it's the new Yoga instructor lesson I cannot miss”

Yeah that's a pretty lame excuse.

> or “I’m taking a personal day” drove me crazy.

Are you kidding me? Days off is the evidence of poor commitment to the job? That seems extremely telling about the author, not the company.

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

#514

Post by reidjs »

CydeWeys wrote: post #376
ck425 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of that except the swearing part. Is swearing in work a big deal in US? I'm Scottish (even worse Glaswegian) so perhaps have a skewed view.

It depends entirely on the context. If swears are being used in a way that even remotely touches on other employees or the company's products, then it's a huge morale drag. Yelling out "Fuck!" because you just stubbed your toe on your desk, or because you've been stuck on a frustrating problem for awhile that you just can't solve, is fine. Saying "Why does team X's product suck so fucking much?" or "Why do you keep m…

My view on swearing in the workplace is that you can only do it if everyone who hears it is one of your immediate peers. Swearing down rank is an abuse of power (lower ranks are expected to be polite). Swearing up is a sign of immaturity (can’t contain emotions, etc).

Also swearing should only be used verbally and only in humorous ways: “this code I wrote is fubar” is ok, “Johnson is an asshole” is not.

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

#515

Post by DC1350 »

nicoburns wrote: post #403
bradlys wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really varies on the company and where you live. Where I am, unless you’re at a select few companies, you’ll barely make ends meet or have to choose to live a particularly subpar lifestyle for a professional.

Interesting. I thought software developers were paid better than most other professions almost everywhere. Out of interest, is this because you live somewhere with low wages, or because you live somewhere with high living costs?

Most good jobs are in places where it's not possible to buy a house as a single engineer, which is a pretty basic standard of life that even low income people expect all over the country. If you don't optimize for money then your options are to either give up and move away, or accept poor living conditions like hour long commutes or having roommates as a grown adult.

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

#516

Post by caturopath »

throwaway3699 wrote: post #492
caturopath wrote: post #480

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 any…

No, political correctness creates a stranglehold on ideas, the very last thing those in SV need when they are regulating their own monopolies of ideas online.

I doubt you actually think that political correctness is not valuable; I bet you just mean that tech companies have swung way too far in one direction in your view.

I bet you'd not be sympathetic to the blogger if the 'words' mentioned were "nigger" or "wetback" without some special context or if his analogy was a visceral description holding down and raping the head of a department they had an issue with. (I'm sure they weren't!) There's a balance here, and it is silly not to be sensitive to the desire of companies and folks at them to tiptoe around things, even if you think they should be more open to crudeness.

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

#517

Post by raclage »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #461
justapassenger wrote: post #309

While he has valid points of how corp life is different from startup, he seems like a horrible, entitled person to work for. General attitude that comes out of it to me, is that your employees growth doesn’t matter, only his vision of product matters. He complains about people being entitled, and at the same time he complains that as CEO of subsidiary of one of the biggest company in the world, he cannot say offensiv…

He seems like the kind of CEO I would love to work for. It seems like he tries to care about his users a lot, and wants his team to as well. Also, the "offensive things" in his talks were only offensive to a small vocal minority by his own account.

> Also, the "offensive things" in his talks were only offensive to a small vocal minority by his own account.

Is that really something we should take at face value? There are plenty of instances of people getting unreasonably offended but it's also extremely common for people to be shitty to their colleagues and use this as an excuse. He provides no actual examples.

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

#518

Post by ghaff »

hundchenkatze wrote: post #485
ghaff wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's still a ton of entitlement... "Oh no! I make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and I have to live in my tiny apartment, buy food, and I might have to get a bigger apartment." vs "Oh no! I don't have a job, and I'm about to lose my apartment because I can't pay rent."

Lots of people at Google, including many developers, don't make "hundreds of thousands of dollars." It's also just a unilateral change in the terms of their employment (unavoidable as it is during the current times) that might increase their costs by $25K? after taxes. That other people have it much worse doesn't change the fact that a fair number of people are seeing a change from what they agreed to.

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

#519

Post by titanomachy »

Diederich wrote: post #497

A quick story about "entitlement" at some of the most 'employee benefit focused' tech companies. I haven't worked at Google, but I've worked at two of the other so-called FAANG companies. The soft benefits and perks were amazing, no doubt about it. For a time, a certain (popular) subset of the free snacks became unavailable. My immediate team and I made some jokes about it. A week or so later, word got around that so…

Lines up with my experience. For every person having an entitled fit, there's two or three people pointing out how silly the whole thing is.

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

#520

Post by Nimitz14 »

screye wrote: post #105

> It is practically impossible to fire someone for the basic reason that you don't need this role any more or there is a better person out there or just plain old - you are not doing a great job This is a rather dangerous thought process that reflects the skewed view that some Americans have of employment: that anything less than 'Great' should be considered fire-worthy. Employment security is pushed to its exploitat…

At will employment is the correct method. Otherwise you end up with stagnant economies with low pay like in Germany and France.
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