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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?

#661

Post by shmageggy »

On top of the many other points raised in this thread, this bit struck me as really odd

> After the acquisition, we have an extremely long project that consumed many of our best engineers to align our data retention policies and tools to Google. I am not saying this is not important BUT this had zero value to our users.

What? Respecting the privacy and info-rights of your users provides zero value? BigCorp's data policies exist for a reason, one important of which is the law. People (aka his users) clearly valued these things enough to make them the law, so how does complying with what they want provide zero value.

This perspective (along with the others pointed out in this thread) betrays what I suspect is a disconnect between what the author defines as "value" and what I and I hope most reasonable people believe makes for a better world. If things like privacy, the ability to take personal days, not having to listen to biased or offensive speech from a superior, etc don't have value, then what does? At a deeper level, it's sad that we have to fight against this all the time. Somehow our society has come to so highly reward these sorts of narrow-minded "value-creators"to the detriment of everything that they don't consider "value".

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

#662

Post by MrMorden »

Miraste wrote: post #504
sangnoir wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft became almost irrelevant under Ballmer or was at least trending that way I'm not Ballmer's biggest fan, but I think he's often sold short (to Nadella's benefit), you'd almost believe Microsoft was tanking, but it grew a lot under Ballmer (mobile failures notwithstanding). As far as I can tell, Nadella just reprioritized projects that Ballmer launched or shepherded in his boring-but-efficient way: what new…

In a company the size of Microsoft, reprioritizing projects correctly is how you create a turnaround. He made Azure and Office 365 the central focus of the company just as software revenue growth was shifting to cloud hosting and SaaS, he stopped lighting money on fire trying to resurrect Windows Phone, he pushed Linux and OSS compatibility/development, and he put Phil Spencer in charge of Xbox which has saved the ga…

Azure was originally Windows Azure, but that was changed a month after satyan became the CEO.

(MS employee; I work in Azure, but didn't become an MS employee until 2019.)

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

#663

Post by throwaway3699 »

titanomachy wrote: post #512
throwaway3699 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not political correctness. I'm talking about a culture of fear around discussing topics like algorithmic bias.

BTW: A manager who's secretly a racist is still a racist. PC doesn't make this any better.

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

#664

Post by lallysingh »

sangnoir wrote: post #555
rrradical wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stratchery did a nice piece on this: https://stratechery.com/2018/the-end-of-windows/

That stratechery piece confirms that a number of Satya's "quick wins" were projects mostly developed under Ballmer but credited to Nadella... Which is exactly my point - that Ballmer doesn't always get the credit he deserves, for the sake of magnifying the contrasts between the 2 leaders.

I don't know about this. I think great engineers delete more code than they write. Perhaps something similar is relevant here.

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

#665

Post by ryandrake »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #363

9 years @ Google, and I too came from a company acquired by Google. (In my case, Google did not keep our product or tech stack around, so.) And yes, I can say many Googlers are entitled. It's a fair descriptor. And the pace of work is slower than a startup. In general. And I too have many criticisms of Google. But. Google has entirely different revenue constraints. It can afford an entirely different way of working.…

> Google can on the whole accomplish its revenue goals without being a meat grinder. So why be one?

This is a great take. I've worked in a place where the revenue was astronomical, to the point where the entire company could probably do nothing for 100 years and still be viable, yet it was run like a meat grinder, where everyone did insane hours and you always worried that it wouldn't be enough and you would be stack ranked out of a job. Truly awful, because it was so unnecessary. On the other hand, I've worked for a start-up with a visibly short runway, where it was obvious to everyone that if everyone didn't bust their asses, the company would fail. At least there you have an actual reason to be a meat grinder.

I think a lot of companies could succeed yearly and make Wall Street happy and still not be a meat grinder, but some sick, stubborn cultural norm makes "meat grinder" the default mode of operation.

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

#666

Post by ska »

DC1350 wrote: post #618
ska wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you set a really unusual bar for "subpar lifestyle for a professional" this is a very atypical situation. If you think of "professional" jobs only, developers typically have better than average compensation for around the least barrier to entry. The lack of need for credentials tends to translate to significantly less debt (more so US & maybe Canada specific) and earlier career trajectory entry too. This may b…

Most Canadian developers don't get paid enough to live in the tech hub cities.

And yet, they are tech hubs? How does this differ from devs in Montana be California ?

More to the point, are other professions doing notably better in those “tech hubs” relative to software developers ?

In my experience, no, which suggests your comment really boils down to “there are some high COL places where even professional couples struggle to afford a house” no?

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

#667

Post by Arainach »

cbushko wrote: post #304

Ooof. I think people are picking and choosing too many points to make it seem like this guy is an asshole and a toxic manager. I read that he wants people to: - Do their work - Provide value for their users - Get stuff done. vs - Work on flashy stuff to only get promotions - Be stuck with BAD employees that do very little - Have employees spend all day doing recreation Work/life is important to stay healthy but at th…

As the head of Waze, the author was the one responsible for setting the OKRs that people were judged against. He also had final say in promotions. If people were getting promoted for the wrong things, it was directly their fault.

>They were fantastic but caused a huge divide between the people that abused them and the people that worked their butts off.

Who was forcing these people to "work their butts off"? There are some people who seem to always feel that nothing is good enough and who put in unreasonable amounts of hours. If that's demanded by management (say, by a CEO who things that working weekends is OK), that's a cultural problem. On the other hand, there's a uniquely American problem with fetishizing long hours and no perks. People in general aren't "abusing" perks, they're taking advantage of them. If people are having to "work their butts off" on a regular basis, then teams need to be better at setting cadence and expectations. Once in a great while some crunch time will happen, but in general people shouldn't be having to work more than 40 hours.

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

#668

Post by thethethethe »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #628
thethethethe wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but this makes no sense. So what if he was invited to speak? Can we not hold people accountable for their actions just because they were invited to speak? How do you know whether or not the things he said were worthy of reporting to HR? He didn't say what they were for a reason

It seems like we're at an impasse. To me, it sounds like people wanted to "hold him accountable" for upsetting them. You clearly think otherwise. And I don't know, but the article makes me believe he is not out to attack people. Some people have also pointed out cultural differences that are likely at play here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26168899 . Again, you clearly think differently given one of your oth…

> To me, it sounds like people wanted to "hold him accountable" for upsetting them. You clearly think otherwise

No this is exactly what I think. I think it is valid for people to air the grievances. I think the difference here is that you are skeptical of the validity if their complaints. If I am right, this is a pretty fundamental difference in world view that I doubt can be reconciled on a HN thread at this point unless you disagree

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

#669

Post by yks »

JohnCarmack wrote: post #586

I can certainly see a lot of parallels with Oculus / Facebook. Perhaps unusually, I actually wanted FB to impress itself more strongly on Oculus post acquisition because, frankly, Oculus was a bit of a mess. Instead, Oculus was given an enormous amount of freedom for many years. Personally, nobody ever told me what to do, even though I was willing to "shut up and soldier" if necessary -- they bought that capability!…

Often workers are perfectly capable and eager of Really Caring but then the company incentives and politics force them into Just A Job category. Especially when joining Big Tech not via acquihire.

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

#670

Post by mgbmtl »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #558
guytv wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israeli here. cultural gaps are very much alive and kicking During my career I've worked with people around the world, all in the Tech industry. Israeli-Californian cultural gap is huge. It is made worse by the fact that Israelis usually have a good English level, some even have an okay accent - which makes their US counterpart expect them to use the same communication etiquette they are used to. Californians will go…

This is interesting to me, because you hear the same thing when discussing Japanese vs American culture, with the Americans being the more direct ones in that comparison. I wonder what happens when Israelis work with Japanese people.

Without getting too much into the politics of it, I think a key factor is how polarized people are.

Another one is how litigious Americans are, or at least are perceived to be.

(Quebec person here, we're not exactly known for our table manners, but you'll always get a direct answer) ;-)

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