Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home • Hacker News Board

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#321

Post by ghaff » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

mandeepj wrote: post #135

paxys wrote: post #81

Google is saving $1 billion per year because of COVID-19, not because employees are working from home. This is literally mentioned in the article, but the headline is twisted (for clicks no doubt): > During the first quarter, Google parent Alphabet Inc. saved $268 million in expenses from company promotions, travel and entertainment, compared with the same period a year earlier, “primarily as a result of COVID-19,” a…

It means all the consulting companies are also going to report better than expected results; no travels, food etc expenses. Clients don’t always reimburse that.

In general, the pandemic has not been great for services businesses.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#322

Post by geodel » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

squaredisk wrote: post #212

paxys wrote: post #81

Google is saving $1 billion per year because of COVID-19, not because employees are working from home. This is literally mentioned in the article, but the headline is twisted (for clicks no doubt): > During the first quarter, Google parent Alphabet Inc. saved $268 million in expenses from company promotions, travel and entertainment, compared with the same period a year earlier, “primarily as a result of COVID-19,” a…

If Google saved that much money and the business didn't see a considerable negative impact (34% increase? Quite the opposite in fact.), then that news should be telling not just for Google, but for every company that previously catered to spoiled employees who jump on an airplane just to have lunch with the customer. Two lies COVID has forcibly flushed out and helped dispel: Lie #1: Remote work, cannot work. Lie #2:…

> Lie #1: Remote work, cannot work.

I can see tech bros claiming, noshing on company catered meals, sweating in office gyms and finishing off with a massage is how world is made better place.

> It will be interesting to see how the corporate travel whores, spin this post-COVID in order to keep their Triple Diamond Medallion Platinum status.

Beautiful sentiment. I think there is "military-industrial-complex" like thing between corporate travel, hotels and airlines. So there will be enough "requirements" from clients to have face-to-face meetings, dinners and sports events to attend to. Besides off-sites and retreats are required for executives to keep the morale high of employees who do not get to travel.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#323

Post by cblconfederate » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:36 PM UTC

squaredisk wrote: post #212

paxys wrote: post #81

Google is saving $1 billion per year because of COVID-19, not because employees are working from home. This is literally mentioned in the article, but the headline is twisted (for clicks no doubt): > During the first quarter, Google parent Alphabet Inc. saved $268 million in expenses from company promotions, travel and entertainment, compared with the same period a year earlier, “primarily as a result of COVID-19,” a…

If Google saved that much money and the business didn't see a considerable negative impact (34% increase? Quite the opposite in fact.), then that news should be telling not just for Google, but for every company that previously catered to spoiled employees who jump on an airplane just to have lunch with the customer. Two lies COVID has forcibly flushed out and helped dispel: Lie #1: Remote work, cannot work. Lie #2:…

Some of #2 holds for academia as well

'Travel whores', lol

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#324

Post by JohnWhigham » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

guyzero wrote: post #10

There's a lot of employee travel at big companies. Many times of the year you can hardly book a hotel room around Mountain View/Sunnyvale/Palo Alto. I think the pandemic has shown how non-essential a lot of that really was.

Don't follow this at all. FAANG companies putting on their big conferences may ostensibly seem unnecessary, but they also helped keep event companies, hotels, tourist stuff all going in the economy.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#325

Post by notbitter » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #302

beambot wrote: post #4

Google may save $1B this year on the P&L, but I can assure you that a large cohort of employees are vastly less effective (especially parents!). Time will tell how wfh pans out in terms of long-term enterprise value creation, after confounding variables (i.e. COVID) are removed. Source: A lot of my Googler friends are itching to get back into the office -- whether parents or people whose social lives centered around…

As someone else says in the thread, all these "assurances" are based on combinations personal preference and anecdote. I am overall responsible for the team that produces and figures out developer productivity metrics for Google. I can assure you there is lots and lots of real data on this, so there isn't a lot of need for random supposition based on people's desires (WFH vs not) and biases. There are too many commen…

Care to share some of that real data? You're right about the haze of wishful thinking around the issue and seem to be in a position to clear it up a bit. You can infer something about the value of face time from the universal FAANG commitment to centralized HQs, despite the huge costs of this policy.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#326

Post by toomuchtodo » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 2:44 PM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #307

toomuchtodo wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your company is making up fairy tales to support a narrative.

I shudder to live in a world where no one tells fairy tales.

Fairy tales in good faith and with positive intent are always welcome.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#327

Post by DannyBee » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:24 PM UTC

notbitter wrote: post #325

DannyBee wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone else says in the thread, all these "assurances" are based on combinations personal preference and anecdote. I am overall responsible for the team that produces and figures out developer productivity metrics for Google. I can assure you there is lots and lots of real data on this, so there isn't a lot of need for random supposition based on people's desires (WFH vs not) and biases. There are too many commen…

Care to share some of that real data? You're right about the haze of wishful thinking around the issue and seem to be in a position to clear it up a bit. You can infer something about the value of face time from the universal FAANG commitment to centralized HQs, despite the huge costs of this policy.

Here's a longer answer:

I actually really wish i could (and other companies could), because I think it would make for some really interesting papers/studies/etc.

We normally publish a bunch of our productivity, inclusion, etc research in journals and conferences. For example, https://www.computer.org/csdl/journal/ts/5555/01/09361116/1r...

For this particular topic, I believe we have published some small amount of stuff, and there is some public info in articles like this: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/18/how-google-improved-employee...

But I know for both us, and others i've talked to, there is a bunch of good reasons folks don't want to publish the more raw data, some privacy, some competitive, some legal, etc.

In this case, not releasing the data often means we don't publish more formal papers or studies because of the inability to make the underlying data available with the paper (for example).

I will say while this situation is a bit sad to me from an academic perspective, pragmatically, even with all the data from us, MS, apple, etc, i don't think it would pragmatically answer the broader questions for a whole ton of reasons.

It's definitely useful for research and further exploration, and trying to distill overall considerations and insight. It's probably useful on the internet to spike someone who says "WFH is more productive" or "Office is more productive".

But it also won't tell you what the future of work should be for your company.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#328

Post by treesknees » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

SilverRed wrote: post #204

quantumsequoia wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is one of the most sought after companies, but this is due to them actively advertising Google as a great place to work. Actually talking to someone who works at Google makes it more real and attainable in candidates minds and reinforces Google as a desirable place to work If Google were to stop attending, they risk newer generations of engineers shifting their perspective on Google, especially these days when…

Sounds about right. The OP sounds like "Why does coke advertise their product so much when they are the most well known product in existence" Because that status will decline without advertising.

I recall Google coming to our career fair (maybe 10 years ago now...) and they weren't taking resumes or doing interviews, it was just them talking for a minute and telling you to go online to apply. Still had a queue of people probably 30-50 deep waiting all day.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#329

Post by second--shift » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

blaser-waffle wrote: post #311

underdeserver wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been working through VC across the atlantic during the pandemic. It's been horrible. There have been multiple projects that took months - and I know, from past experience, that if I could hop over the atlantic for a week they'd be solved in that timeframe. Why? Because of face-to-face experience and trust building and the ability to sit beside one another and grab someone quickly. It's 100% worth the ridiculousl…

Seconded. I did consulting for monitoring systems, and doing remote stuff (via email or weird late night calls) was just less effective and shitty. We got on a plane to Spain, brought some Spanish speaking folks, and crushed the issue in 3 days. Left us with 3 days to chill, and our Spanish counterparts were keen to show us around Madrid; several were locals and actually took us to see their old neighborhoods and fam…

Do you do much work in this space internationally, for Spanish speaking countries? I'm in something related, and bilingual. I'm also interested in post-covid work travel.

Re: Google is saving $1B per year as a result of employees working from home

#330

Post by bradlys » Thu, Apr 29, 2021, 3:49 PM UTC

vecinu wrote: post #203

bradlys wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're living in a dream world if you think $600K household is the norm in Silicon valley, even for FAANG employees. For married couples above 30 with one high TC earner - it's extremely common. You're not marrying a barista in SF if you work at FAANG. I haven't met anyone who is married, above 30, who also works at FAANG, the spouse can legally work in the country, and the household income is below $500K. I know t…

> I haven't met anyone who is married, above 30, who also works at FAANG, the spouse can legally work in the country, and the household income is below $500K. You may have a very limited circle of folks you talk to and are willing to share such details with you. Myself and a number of close friends do not have a $500k TC household as married couples. Not even close. > It's financial suicide to do otherwise. (Bye-bye…

And you’re at FAANG? If you have 10+ YOE, there is no reason you shouldn’t be ~70% of the way there as a single earner.

I’ve seen enough people have their marriages end and have insanely high and long term alimony payments even after the other partner has moved on and pseudo-married someone else. (But hasn’t legally married them because then they don’t get their alimony) Until marriage is treated like a business contract where consequences are agreed to before signing, it’s a terrible idea to marry someone in a lopsided financial situation unless you don’t care about any kind of risk. You’d never be able to get/afford insurance for such an incredibly risky venture.