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The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

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Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#111

Post by ipaddr »

whateveracct wrote: post #30
themitigating wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and ves" Is that a fact or just your perception?

When I was in college years ago, I knew a guy whose plan was to turn his Amazon internship into a FTE offer, work there a couple years, and then go to Google and quote "sit." It worked. Not a bad plan in the early/mid 2010s ;)

When I started 10 years earlier just being able to get paid to program was amazing. My first job in 2001 was for minimum wage. I wonder how many developers exist who wouldn't if pay wasn't so high.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#112

Post by Panini_Jones »

propter_hoc wrote: post #72

> You chase after vanity metrics about you looking good like active users rather than how useful your product is. In what conceivable world is "active users" a vanity metric??

It doesn't encapsulate the abstract goal you're trying to achieve, which might be value to the user. Heroin has many active users, but some might argue that heroin doesn't maximize value/usefulness for the user over the long run.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#114

Post by gretch »

girvo wrote: post #99
fzeroracer wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And below you in the IT sewer are the poor and forsaken, who look upon your work and statements and call you equally privileged while you post on a startup forum started by some of the wealthiest individuals around. You are equally out of touch and yet unable to see this as you look upwards and claim no, it is them that are out of touch.

None of that really disagrees with the commenters point though. They might indeed be privileged and out of touch (nearly guaranteed in fact), but that does not mean Googlers aren’t even more so. Not that I particularly mind either way: we are all a privileged lot in the tech world. Myself absolutely included!

It's not a useful/interesting to just say "you're privileged, stop having thoughts/opinions".

We'd quickly just shut down all conversation ever because none of us are 8 year old british chimney sweeps covered in soot. In which case, how is the world a better place?

We can acknowledge that there's a lens where some people have privileges ("privileged isn't a binary state") and then still have a discussion about what happened.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#115

Post by absrd »

kerblang wrote: post #20

You work for google because you make insane money and have cachet you can take anywhere and get hired instantly. Hell, you can pull in 10 million funding for your startup idea if you like. Or just retire, get a boat, go sailing. Of course all of this had to go bad. Come on now. Stop whining already. I work in the IT sewer fighting rats. I will always have work. I'm filthy and I smell bad, but I'm doing fine, and no,…

If you're upset that you spend your days fighting rats and not making insane money, I think you should target your anger at your boss who keeps you in that situation, rather than at other workers who have it better than you.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#116

Post by taeric »

abadger9 wrote: post #44

I'll say something I wish someone told me in my 20's: most leadership/upper management is poor. I've worked at FAANGs, a unicorn, and currently @ a company that recently IPO'd. Most people in product leadership neither really understand how to make original ideas that effect the product at a high level or the technical details of the product, their responsibility is to be good stewards of a certain revenue stream and…

There is no exception. Don't fool yourself. Nor should you fool yourself into thinking this means management is inferior/inept. Or that it is sales.

The reality is dumb people do not have a monopoly on dumb things. Nor smart on smart things. Timing and circumstance are impossible to separate from any situation. Are lucky people also skilled at taking the correct risks? Almost certainly. Is this a learned thing? I'm not sure.

My gut is it is learnable. But not if others are learning the same thing. What makes a smart choice is influenced by what everyone else is doing.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#117

Post by dvsdvasvvsavas »

girvo wrote: post #99
fzeroracer wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And below you in the IT sewer are the poor and forsaken, who look upon your work and statements and call you equally privileged while you post on a startup forum started by some of the wealthiest individuals around. You are equally out of touch and yet unable to see this as you look upwards and claim no, it is them that are out of touch.

None of that really disagrees with the commenters point though. They might indeed be privileged and out of touch (nearly guaranteed in fact), but that does not mean Googlers aren’t even more so. Not that I particularly mind either way: we are all a privileged lot in the tech world. Myself absolutely included!

What is with this thread? Why is a job being called a privilege? Are we completely discounting hard work and merit. Its not like people are inheriting jobs at Google.

If working at Google such a privilege and is the goal, work towards it. Like so many other people did, take up a student loans and put yourself through school, build your resume, take up projects, internships, work experience etc. Prep for interviews, what ever it takes. Then you can take the job and enjoy the "spoils", what ever those are.

One can't just decide not to put in the work and then look at the guy who did and say... privileged.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#118

Post by nugget »

analyst74 wrote: post #101
abadger9 wrote: post #44

I'll say something I wish someone told me in my 20's: most leadership/upper management is poor. I've worked at FAANGs, a unicorn, and currently @ a company that recently IPO'd. Most people in product leadership neither really understand how to make original ideas that effect the product at a high level or the technical details of the product, their responsibility is to be good stewards of a certain revenue stream and…

I have a very similar observation. My belief is that when you have a group of extremely smart and hard working people competing for promotions, the ones focusing on managing perception and relationships will do better than those focusing on the business or product.

Big companies are all about politics, all the time, in my experience. Smart business/product decisions require many quarters, sometimes years, of discipline and commitment to pay off. Whereas a shorter term focus results in less headache, possible promotion, and guaranteed bonuses. If/when the company craters, you can just bail. The sign of a great executive is somebody who empowers their organization to think ahead of the next earnings report, and backs it up (and doesn't get fired themselves in the process). They're an endangered species.

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#119

Post by [deleted] »

gretch wrote: post #107
mediaman wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given median comp at Google, working at Google is quite privileged. Going to Stanford is likewise privileged. Being privileged isn't an insult, just a recognition of fact.

> just a recognition of fact It's literally not a fact, it's an opinion. Hey what's your job? You don't need to tell me. But I'm gonna go ahead and say you're privileged compared to a rural chinese farmer that has never held a phone.

[deleted]

Re: The Google layoffs are about personal ambition and poor leadership

#120

Post by tmathmeyer »

yehNaw wrote: post #24

My two cents; by picking a CEO who only knew Google, an environment full of self delusion that Google itself was responsible for Google’s success. A general social trend to value tech in our lives seems lost on the genius CEOs. They really seem to think billions care they specifically exist, when really if they did not someone else would have been CEO. Some other company that came before Google would be Google big if…

Sundar had some extensive history prior to google, including mckinsey
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