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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

#231

Post by jujube3 »

nerdponx wrote: post #218
WalterBright wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously you realize that investing in stocks is risky. Risk is the flip side of making investment gains. Anyone who invests in stocks takes a risk that it tanks. No risk => no gains

You asserted that Robinhood is evidence that "labor" in general has access to "rich-get-richer" mechanisms. My assertion is that this assertion is not valid. The rich-get-richer mechanism in question is investing pre-existing large amounts of money in investments that are more or less zero risk, specifically from the perspective of the investor's personal livelihood and well-being. This is simply not available to mos…

Investing in Google is not zero-risk.

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

#233

Post by paxys »

hsn915 wrote: post #222
paxys wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I bet you think your $50K/$100K/$150K or whatever else salary is perfectly justified and you are adding great value to the world. Why is that? Or will you admit that you are privileged as well?

I have admitted multiple times on HN and elsewhere that I don't think anything I've done in my career has been particularly valueable or useful to society. I totally own it. I not only don't complain about being "laid off". I often quit jobs myself and spend some "gap" time doing nothing before I find the next job. Currently I'm not working for anyone because I'm sick of all tech jobs.

Okay then I guess everyone on the planet with a steady job is privileged. What about the business/corporate class? Do you think they have more or less privilege than their workers?

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

#234

Post by winrid »

fnfjfk wrote: post #12

I understand that layoffs are a blunt instrument and it is unlikely that all of the “right” people were affected, but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and vest. No Facebook PSC, no Amazon stack ranking, no Netflix “sports team”. Obviously it is team dependent, but it really has that reputation. The well-known tradeoff is that getting a promo to a post-senior level is borde…

I personally know someone that joined Google and had some bug fixes or something ready in their first couple weeks and their team told them they don't work that way, don't be competitive. Sounds great! :)

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

#236

Post by ido »

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 ;)

Remember when people used to say this kind of behavior is why the Soviet Union fell behind the capitalist world?

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

#238

Post by pas »

jujube3 wrote: post #228
paxys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a significant difference when you factor in stock appreciation (particularly for the long timers), but I'd wager base salary stays within 10-20% at all these companies for the same level/experience/location.

You would lose that wager.

can you provide some data for those who are absolutely not "in" the stock market? how did you interpret that wager? what starting date and what sell price?

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

#240

Post by pas »

WalterBright wrote: post #83
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…

> most leadership/upper management is poor Most everyone who is not in leadership/upper management has endless complaints about what idiots they are.

I am doing management and I'm an idiot at it.

Because it's like child rearing, or teaching, or vim vs emacs but there are more choices and many more dimensions, oh and there's almost no data, big cargo cults (from Toyota Improvement System, Deming, Agile manifesto to endless books by those who made it in the last decade), uncertainty is high, general intelligence is low, the interpersonal skills deficit is mind-boggling, burnout/disillusionment/fanaticism are rampant, perverted/misaligned incentives too, and of course all of that is driven by fundamental business constraints and various other sources of path-dependence.

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