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Why I left Google

fogknife.com

51–60 of 92 posts

Re: Why I left Google

#52
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be friends, but more often than not, coworkers are NPCs you’ll never hear from again after separating from the org. Certainly keep friends, but don’t sabotage yourself for some mistaken idea of collective and shared struggle. It’s just a job.

> NPCs you’ll never hear from again after separating from the org Isn't this also on you to maintain those relationships if they're people you care about? And on the same note, if you care about those people you can find ways to keep in touch, like starting a regular group activity.

How much effort would you expect in the current macro? Absolutely, effort is required to maintain relationships, and one must evaluate who is and isn’t worth the investment of time and effort. Some are worth it, some are frankly not. Not from an ROI perspective, but meeting you half way in an adult relationship.

Not many people are willing to put the effort in, in my experience. YMMV. I wish others more favorable outcomes.

Re: Why I left Google

#53
post #28

The author took a tangent so fast and so long into some theater that they didn't ever explain what his problem with AI is. I would love to hear more about it and specifically how Google changed in the last 3 years. I'd like to know what the outlook was 3 years ago and how it drifted.

I personally loved the tangent to a more spiritual side, probably a moral/tech/ai topic that is pretty common this days will make me skip it.

Re: Why I left Google

#54
post #47
post #2

A management training course I took 20 years ago said when your personal values were out of step with the company then you had to leave for your own mental health. I've thought about that a lot since.

I think surely the implied bit is ' enough out of step', and then the whole 'draw the rest of the owl' thing is figuring out where that line is (and what constitutes 'values') and if it's been crossed? There's so much I would do/have done differently if I had carte blanche, but it's not my startup, and no reason to think I would have done as well nevermind better, it's easy to judge from the position of not being bot…

The advice went mainly to the command role. You have a duty of care up and down. If you find you're being asked to make command decisions to underlings, despite having advocated otherwise to above, you have to ask yourself if you're in a good place making others do things you don't believe in.

Re: Why I left Google

#57

I took a 50% paycut to quit working in advertising because I think it is a profoundly evil and useless industry. I have never regretted it, and you wouldn't have, either.

When I worked at Big Bank we had this junior kid, who finished both law school and made a CS degree. One of the smartest guys with whom I worked. Me and other lead made a huge effort to put him on a fast track and promote him to a senior role to match salary to his contributions. Shortly after he decided to leave because, as he put it, he wasn't comfortable working for this evil company and decided to move to a NGO. We haven't spoke too much about it, but I feel it could be even more than 50%. For a while I thought of him as my personal hero. I too worked in ad, games, and ended up in big co. He threw it all away for the greater good. What a champ.

I've met him few years later, at a annual meetup of ex Bank workers and he was bascially begging for recomendations anywhere because he ran out of money.

Re: Why I left Google

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I would because it's quite vague and metaphorical. But it may not even happen to me, certainly not by Google because I'd never work for them. Hence my question...

In good faith, (as someone who's never made it into a FAANG, but who's severely burnt out before) I would speculate that one of the few ways an org could metaphorically do this, would be to threaten your ability to work for anyone else or in the country, which could take a variety of forms including holding your visa hostage or colluding with other companies to ensure you're unemployable. Either way, being in this po…

Edit: I meant to say that using waterboarding as a metaphor would seem hyperbolic to anyone who hasn't experienced their boss trying to metaphorically drown them, but not anyone who's actually been physically tortured in this way.
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