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I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

mtlynch.io

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Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#101

Post by ouddv »

WalterBright wrote: post #85
nostrademons wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting reality check that in 2023, six years into his journey as a bootstrapped founder, Tiny Pilot made $225K in profit on ~$1M on revenue. For 2021 and 2022, it made roughly a $5K profit; the rest was all losses. He quit Google because he couldn't get a promotion presumably from L4 to L5, but $225K is less than what an L4 makes. This might also be a microcosm of why the working class is pissed off in A…

At one point Musk was within $100,000 of personal and business bankruptcy when Tesla ran short of funds.

I would bet a substantial sum that Tesla was insolvent early in the m3. They suddenly were firing people all over the place and not paying many vendors, and paying others quite late. Additionally, the finance pros kept quitting right then....

I think it went bk, but Musk bet that he could hype up the stock enough to raise cash in the next offering and then pretend it never happened...

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#102

Post by cdrini »

klipt wrote: post #97
cdrini wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's less about comparing to your ancestors, more your peers in other industries. If you're getting payed say $40/h, that's muuuuch more than most other jobs, and can give you a comfortable living for quite a while. I agree human psychology is part of it and can help explain someone's mentality, but I don't think human psychology can fully justify someone's behaviour, since humans aren't automatons beholden to their…

Not if you live in a very high cost of living area. Which is where the biggest Google offices are.

That's a good point, but I don't believe it scales at the same rate -- meaning I believe the salaries are much higher than the living costs.

Eg average us salary is probably somewhere around 60k. Let's say single bedroom apartment not in SF is maybe like 1.5k/mo, that leaves like 42k left over.

Google salary I would guess is closer to 150k (low end probably); SF single bedroom is probably closer to 4k/mo, that leaves 102k. Big difference, and note the ratio here isn't as important as the absolute value. You live a very different life with 102k than with 42k.

And also note wealth doesn't really increase linearly with how much money you have, it tends to be more than linear, because people with lots of money are more comfortable investing large chunks of it, which further increases their wealth.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#103

Post by [deleted] »

steelframe wrote: post #69
mtlynch wrote: post #14

Author here. Cool to see this pop up again! Happy to answer any questions about this post.

Forgive me if I seem presumptuous in my advice here. You've done things in your career that I can only dream of doing. What I can say is that I've somehow managed to survive a quarter-century in a string of Big Tech companies without dropping out (yet). It sounds like you may have been looking at the currents and picking the one that seemed best one to swim in. I found there's often -- but not always -- another optio…

[deleted]

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#104

Post by oblio »

WalterBright wrote: post #85
nostrademons wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting reality check that in 2023, six years into his journey as a bootstrapped founder, Tiny Pilot made $225K in profit on ~$1M on revenue. For 2021 and 2022, it made roughly a $5K profit; the rest was all losses. He quit Google because he couldn't get a promotion presumably from L4 to L5, but $225K is less than what an L4 makes. This might also be a microcosm of why the working class is pissed off in A…

At one point Musk was within $100,000 of personal and business bankruptcy when Tesla ran short of funds.

Based on which source? Musk?

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#105

Post by I_AM_A_SMURF »

nostrademons wrote: post #11
Etheryte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good highlight of what quitting your job can look like: > Six years ago, I quit my job as a developer at Google to create my own bootstrapped software company. For the first few years, all of my businesses flopped. The best of them earned a few hundred dollars per month in revenue, but none were profitable. We often hear about the successes, and it is easy to be loud with success, but it's important to keep in mind…

It's an interesting reality check that in 2023, six years into his journey as a bootstrapped founder, Tiny Pilot made $225K in profit on ~$1M on revenue. For 2021 and 2022, it made roughly a $5K profit; the rest was all losses. He quit Google because he couldn't get a promotion presumably from L4 to L5, but $225K is less than what an L4 makes. This might also be a microcosm of why the working class is pissed off in A…

> This might also be a microcosm of why the working class is pissed off in America, because looking at this experience, the optimal strategy for revenue is to blow smoke up the ass of a wealthy corporation until they give you a fat stock grant, then claim credit for the work of others so that they give you more.

I mean getting a job as a SWE at Google is hardly a good strategy if you don't enjoy writing software. But yes once you're there is very hard to justify doing anything else, there's a reason why they call them "golden handcuffs".

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#106

Post by I_AM_A_SMURF »

disqard wrote: post #66
rozap wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ain't this the truth. So many mediocre people hide in a giant company, learn how to hit their kpis and think they're crushing it, but get smacked in the face by reality when they leave. My experience at a small company is that I always feel mediocre :)

I assure you that Imposter Syndrome is a daily reality even for Senior Engineers at Google.

I thought once I reached Staff at Google it would go away. It in fact made it even worse now that I have a whole slate of incredible peers to compare myself to.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#107

Post by WWLink »

hinkley wrote: post #82
phyzix5761 wrote: post #64

I think you learned the most important lesson of any career: the customer is not your customer. The person/people who control your raise, bonus, and promotion are your real customers. Think about it like this. A customer is the entity that exchanges money for something they value; like a good or service. That's usually your manager. Or in the case of OP the promotion committee. (Many times it's both your manager and…

And the user may also not be the customer. Which is why UX and DevEx are so much more difficult. If you’re a person making a piece on commission, what the buyer wants and needs can be different and you can get to the end and they are still unhappy. But if you’re working for a boss, they can get in the way. It’s not enough that you do what the customer wants, you have to do it my way, even if that prevents the custome…

> And the user may also not be the customer. Which is why UX and DevEx are so much more difficult. If you’re a person making a piece on commission, what the buyer wants and needs can be different and you can get to the end and they are still unhappy.

This is exactly we end up with MS Products like Teams and Windows Phone 7/8 lol. A lot of MS stuff is built to sell to the companies not the employees.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#108

Post by Karrot_Kream »

cdrini wrote: post #102
klipt wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you live in a very high cost of living area. Which is where the biggest Google offices are.

That's a good point, but I don't believe it scales at the same rate -- meaning I believe the salaries are much higher than the living costs. Eg average us salary is probably somewhere around 60k. Let's say single bedroom apartment not in SF is maybe like 1.5k/mo, that leaves like 42k left over. Google salary I would guess is closer to 150k (low end probably); SF single bedroom is probably closer to 4k/mo, that leaves…

Internally most larger tech companies index their salary bands based on the CoL of the employee. The downturn over the last couple years has had many companies move reqs from high CoL areas to low CoL areas to save money.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#109

Post by indigoabstract »

alarge wrote: post #80
davidfiala wrote: post #3

> Your manager doesn’t promote you? > No, managers at Google can’t promote their direct reports. They don’t even get a vote. > Instead, promotion decisions come from small committees of upper-level software engineers and managers who have never heard of you until the day they decide on your promotion. AIUI, nowadays in 2022+ the manager gets the only vote.

No, your manager doesn't decide your promotion. The difference between before and now is that before, your manager was expected to make the case for your promotion. Now, the manager is expected not to be an advocate, but to provide their balanced input (ready now, ready soon, not yet ready). The promotion still goes to a promo committee - although now they try to locate it close enough to your org that they have hear…

Will Google turn into a university next?

Because this sounds to me a bit like how things work in academia. I think the push there is to publish, but the essence is that, for every decision, committees rule.

Re: I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

#110

Post by sangnoir »

nostrademons wrote: post #11
Etheryte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good highlight of what quitting your job can look like: > Six years ago, I quit my job as a developer at Google to create my own bootstrapped software company. For the first few years, all of my businesses flopped. The best of them earned a few hundred dollars per month in revenue, but none were profitable. We often hear about the successes, and it is easy to be loud with success, but it's important to keep in mind…

It's an interesting reality check that in 2023, six years into his journey as a bootstrapped founder, Tiny Pilot made $225K in profit on ~$1M on revenue. For 2021 and 2022, it made roughly a $5K profit; the rest was all losses. He quit Google because he couldn't get a promotion presumably from L4 to L5, but $225K is less than what an L4 makes. This might also be a microcosm of why the working class is pissed off in A…

> This might also be a microcosm of why the working class is pissed off in America

I know it's topical, but I really don't think the working class on America is pissed because they are struggling to increase their annual income from $350,000 to $500,000 at their Big Tech job. That's an elites-problem; or whatever you choose to call anyone in the top 5% earning bracket.

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