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Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

reuters.com

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Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#381

Post by colinmhayes »

electriclizard wrote: post #352
ASinclair wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's based on where you work. Though you can work remote from the same city as your current office and have no pay difference.

It is a bit ridiculous to base these things off location when the location would reduce the taxes the company pays for you. I'd like to understand how these market values are calculated. It can't be supply and demand, because if you move to a place with 0 supply you do not maximize your value. I should be able to say to them "hey, I create $x for you now and I cost $y, but if I move I will make the same $x for you fo…

You are not paid the value you create. The value you create has nothing to do with your salary(other than whether you get fired if value < salary). Your salary is the least your employer thinks they can pay to get an acceptable candidate. As they expand the pool of applicants they figure they can find people willing to work for less.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#382

Post by rob_c »

librish wrote: post #84

I think anyone who's claiming that remote work has been "proven" to be better or worse is wrong. There are some studies but they use estimations and proxies, carrying the same flaws as doing performance reviews based on lines of code. We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, s…

Yes and other things haven't been proven either...

Its been shown by example, this distinction doesn't change the fact that money and productivity go hand in hand. Counter examples are counter examples and certainly they exist, but several large scale examples of it not being sustainable prove the risks are indeed real if it's mismanaged...

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#384

Post by LightG »

librish wrote: post #84

I think anyone who's claiming that remote work has been "proven" to be better or worse is wrong. There are some studies but they use estimations and proxies, carrying the same flaws as doing performance reviews based on lines of code. We've proven that the big tech companies can go fully remote and not completely crash and burn, that's about it. Some people love the lack of commute and less semi-forced hanging out, s…

All of your concerns die away in a hybrid enviroment.

And I disagree with your "tap on the shoulder" problem. That is easily resolved with a one line email/message which can be answered equally quickly with a one line answer without all the social BS ... if it needs more than that then it is interfering with productivity at that moment and a short or appropriate meeting can be scheduled to elaborate. Anything else and ... sorry, you don't value good work.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#385

Post by ceras »

dekhn wrote: post #205
adenozine wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily, there will be plenty of remote firms to scoop up all the engineers Google is about to hemorrhage. What a miserable work culture it must be for them to even have the nerve to declare this. Downvote away, I’ll be hiring some of them! ;-)

There is already a huge google engineer hemorrhage. A number of principal engineers and other folks I thought would be google lifers moved to snowflake. I don't expect this to affect Google's ability to continue to grow at 15-20%, though. There will be armies of younger people who still want to jumpstart their career there.

Google has always lost top people to the next hip large-but-not-too-large tech company as they try something fresh / try to win the tech stock lottery. It was Facebook over 10 years ago, for example. You could get counter-offers to not leave for FB in that era. Is the current attrition any different?

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#386

Post by weq »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #244
ejb999 wrote: post #111

I have been fully remote my entire career (several decades), in fact in 30+ years have never been on site anywhere for more than 2 weeks total. Wouldn't have it any other way. But as a counter-point, seeing a whole bunch of people who were never remote before, how little work they are actually doing, it is no surprise to me that a lot of employers are going to start forcing - to the extent possible - employees back i…

> But as a counter-point, seeing a whole bunch of people who were never remote before, how little work they are actually doing, it is no surprise to me that a lot of employers are going to start forcing - to the extent possible - employees back into the office My suspicion is those people probably don't do anything while at the office either but they are good at making themselves very visible and appearing to be prod…

Yeh exactly. Same thing happened in office, seems easier to hide with lots of water cooler chat. Covid provided the cover for slackers to get even slacker. My company was very empathetic to covid needs including reinstating forced leave due to sickness/family reasons.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#387

Post by redisman »

abvdasker wrote: post #374
ejb999 wrote: post #111

I have been fully remote my entire career (several decades), in fact in 30+ years have never been on site anywhere for more than 2 weeks total. Wouldn't have it any other way. But as a counter-point, seeing a whole bunch of people who were never remote before, how little work they are actually doing, it is no surprise to me that a lot of employers are going to start forcing - to the extent possible - employees back i…

Even if what you're saying is true, I don't see the problem with everyone working less in the remote world. If everyone secretly wants to work less maybe we should all just work less. If we collectively need an excuse like remote work to do what we all actually want to do, then so be it. Everyone wins...

I was at the office yesterday and was shocked by how little got done. Hanging out, grabbing snacks, going for lunch, commute. I got much less long stretches of time of freedom where I do most of my productive work. Everyone sees that you were there doing stuff so I also felt less pressure than wfh where I felt bad if I didn’t get what I talked about in the standup done

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#388

Post by jjeaff »

mc32 wrote: post #330
Godel_unicode wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it get's very difficult to manage a large company without at least some sort of consistent policy. Why would that be true? Trust your staff to behave like adults, and trust your team leadership. This feels like a cop out from leaders who don't understand how to manage uncertainty, as opposed to an actual requirement.

Remember those Yahoos! Whom Marissa had to fire because those adults could not be trusted to do what they were expected to do and be responsible? Some had “multiple jobs” and both or more employers were getting the short shrift. Small orgs are like small towns, everyone knows who’s up to what. Large orgs are like cities…

It's a wonder cities don't just fall apart and stop functioning completely without someone taking an attendance headcount everyday and peaking over their shoulders to make sure they are doing their job.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#389

Post by pembrook »

Google is a giant legacy company that has been around for decades now. All its executives have set their lives up around the idea of commanding a fiefdom of underlings, in person, in the Bay Area. Google execs have the ability to totally ignore the rational pull of a much cheaper distributed talent market, because Google is a Monopoly minting Monopoly-level profits.

"Monopoly does what it wants" is not interesting, nor is it big news to me.

What's more interesting is all the companies that are never going back, and all the companies started in the last 2 years that will be remote-native going forward. Given the tight market for talent right now, and falling stock prices for growth companies, I'm already pulling out the popcorn now.

Google executives have never had to think seriously about silly things like "cost-structure" before. In this next market cycle where Growth takes a back seat, it will be very fun to watch decisions like these pile up to eventually bite them in the rear 5-10 years from now.

I can see it now, investors tanking their stock price in 2026, wondering why an old company that hasn't innovated in 10 years is paying 50,000 engineers half a $million a year to sit inside the most expensive real estate on earth and do nothing.

Re: Google mandates workers back to Silicon Valley, other offices from April 4

#390

Post by DataJunkie »

yupper32 wrote: post #327
dsl wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is vastly different in the bay area where public transit is a horrible mess and the freeways are all at 300% capacity. A friend who is a Googler is looking at a 30 minute commute to a GBus stop for a 90 minute ride each way. Going to the office is cutting productivity basically in half.

Honestly that's their issue that can be fixed. There's no reason someone with a Google salary needs to be 2 hours commute from the office.

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