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Google was founded 25 years ago today

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Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#111

Post by psychoslave »

paxys wrote: post #99

Without commenting on the direction of the company in recent years and where it is today, I'll be forever grateful to Google for setting the standard for how tech companies need to treat their engineers. People who have entered the industry in the last decade or two may not realize it, but the sky high salaries, stock grants, benefits, flexible work hours, free gourmet meals, stocked pantries, gym memberships and lot…

Hmm, I still fail to realize that, as except flexible work hours, none of this is matching my experience as a software engineer. I live in Europe though.

It's not that I complain of my situation: I'm healthy, have a loving family, and work with a great team which is full of kindness and which is part of an international group, something that let me exchange with people from all around the world as part of my job in a full remote position.

So this is just to say that not all SE live in this ultra-privileged bubble. :)

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#112

Post by jhp123 »

paxys wrote: post #99

Without commenting on the direction of the company in recent years and where it is today, I'll be forever grateful to Google for setting the standard for how tech companies need to treat their engineers. People who have entered the industry in the last decade or two may not realize it, but the sky high salaries, stock grants, benefits, flexible work hours, free gourmet meals, stocked pantries, gym memberships and lot…

thank you oh benevolent Google, for allowing supply and demand to set labor prices after the DOJ shut down your wage fixing scheme

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#113

Post by throw_awy_1 »

crazygringo wrote: post #100
jjoonathan wrote: post #92

> The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. - Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine

But fortunately market competition ensures that a higher-quality search engine is only ever a click away. So the bar for quality search is always going to remain pretty high, in order not to simply go out of business.

And here's 20 Billion dollars that disagrees with you. If switching was just a "click away" why would Google pay Apple $20B per year to be the default search for iOS etc.

https://macdailynews.com/2023/02/21/google-pays-apple-20-bil...

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#114

Post by Retric »

paxys wrote: post #99

Without commenting on the direction of the company in recent years and where it is today, I'll be forever grateful to Google for setting the standard for how tech companies need to treat their engineers. People who have entered the industry in the last decade or two may not realize it, but the sky high salaries, stock grants, benefits, flexible work hours, free gourmet meals, stocked pantries, gym memberships and lot…

By 1998 many of the things you mentioned where common in Silicon Valley. So, Google was hardly the first company to pay very well or have great perks.

Historically a huge range of perks have been tossed around including some that have gone away like company cars due to tax code changes that eliminated the benefits. There’s long been ebb and flow around what perks are common, and which ones stick around as the company grows.

One that I wish caught on was Microsoft being rather famous for offering engineers an actual office with doors that closed.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#117

Post by Xenoamorphous »

paxys wrote: post #99

Without commenting on the direction of the company in recent years and where it is today, I'll be forever grateful to Google for setting the standard for how tech companies need to treat their engineers. People who have entered the industry in the last decade or two may not realize it, but the sky high salaries, stock grants, benefits, flexible work hours, free gourmet meals, stocked pantries, gym memberships and lot…

> the sky high salaries, stock grants, benefits, flexible work hours, free gourmet meals, stocked pantries, gym memberships and lots more that you enjoy every day

Just a reminder that outside of SV/FAANG (so, 99% of devs?) all of that is not even close to be a reality.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#118

Post by VirusNewbie »

drewg123 wrote: post #109
paxys wrote: post #99

Without commenting on the direction of the company in recent years and where it is today, I'll be forever grateful to Google for setting the standard for how tech companies need to treat their engineers. People who have entered the industry in the last decade or two may not realize it, but the sky high salaries, stock grants, benefits, flexible work hours, free gourmet meals, stocked pantries, gym memberships and lot…

Yes, no. They are also a major proponent of open office space, and (at least the group that I worked for was) very intolerant of remote work pre-pandemic. It was very grating to see all these showy spaces (cafes, gyms, theaters, climbing walls, ball pits etc) that were featured in the REWS (Google Real Estate and Workplace Services) newsletters, with absolutely no focus on the overcrowded open office spaces that engi…

Netflix is one of the few companies that imo, unequivocally have a better culture than Google (despite working for the latter). However, it's a much smaller engineering org so I don't think it would scale as well.

Re: Google was founded 25 years ago today

#120

Post by crazygringo »

throw_awy_1 wrote: post #113
crazygringo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But fortunately market competition ensures that a higher-quality search engine is only ever a click away. So the bar for quality search is always going to remain pretty high, in order not to simply go out of business.

And here's 20 Billion dollars that disagrees with you. If switching was just a "click away" why would Google pay Apple $20B per year to be the default search for iOS etc. https://macdailynews.com/2023/02/21/google-pays-apple-20-bil...

Competition being a click away is what keeps quality between Google and Bing comparable, and what keeps Google always trying to invest to stay a step ahead.

But once quality is close like that, defaults matter, which is why Google pays Apple.

If Bing wasn't there (or barely worked) and there was no competition to Google, then Google wouldn't need to pay Apple, because Apple would never consider Bing as a default in the first place.

The payment is a sign of how strong competition is, not a sign of a lack of it.

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