I quit Google to work for myself (2018) • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by fuzzfactor » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 7:00 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #41

rockemsockem wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Google is so large that I'm definitely willing to believe that there are parts where people are like this, but I found that people generally did not care about my level and while there are many docs/slides about how to get promoted it was largely oriented towards helping people advocate effectively for themselves and was not "thou shall be promoted". There was/is the expectation that eventually ever…

> There was/is the expectation that eventually everyone can reach a certain level within a certain (very generous) amount of time, but I don't see that as the same thing at all. The fact that you are expected to reach a certain level in a certain time period, and going up levels involves a largely arbitrary process that is disconnected from your actual work performance seems pretty problematic to me. Seems like it'd…

There's different kinds of customers for different kinds of bureaucracies though.

However, it looks like the people working at L4 for Google are being handled no differently by HR than assembly-line workers at other top Wall Street companies. Better pay for more people than most of the old guard, but why can't they do this part of it with some ingenuity.

>The fact that you are expected to reach a certain level in a certain time period

At least factory workers know this is not going to happen from the get-go. This is even more non-congruous for the kind of HR involved. Probably why factory workers have as much of their productivity leveraged as they do. Most of those companies are so far from bonanzaville, if they didn't do it right, they would have failed a long time ago.

You would think Google was built from a different foundation well enough to avoid this, or would have been able to migrate further away from useless bureaucracy than some of the hundred-year-old companies. It's almost like they didn't know any better.

Well, when you do the math it seems like for quite some time that everything truly worthwhile going on at Google has been, to a very large extent, the conserved portion of the output of people who never got promoted.

Financially, if you were going to invest in people, that would make them the better investment than those who did get promoted :\

It might be difficult to put some exact numbers on it, but you could probably tell how high-performance the unsung heroes are, by whether or not Google is making any money or not any more, and how much.

Now what about the people who could never get hired at Google or places like that to begin with?

If you could invest in somebody like that, woo hoo the sky's the limit !

You'd be raking in the bucks way more on a hard-working non-corporate scrapper than Google makes from a highly credentialed true genius who is the least bit decent at corporate climbing :)

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

#202

Post by buzzert » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 7:05 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #23

emmanueloga_ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw your post about selling TinyPilot, congratulations! FWIW I agree with all your points in your 2018 article, and I wish I had left Google sooner too. I was wondering if you could share if you are working on a new project? I saw your posts about fuzzing a PDF parser but there's no context if this is for a new project, or I missed it :-). Cheers! -- 1: https://mtlynch.io/i-sold-tinypilot/

Thanks! No, the fuzz testing is just for fun and probably not anything serious, although it would be fun to find a fuzzing target that has a good bug bounty program. My wife and I just had our first child, so I'm mainly focusing on family time for now and slowly easing back into work over the next few months. My main priority is to finish the book I've been promising to write for the past four years.[0] [0] https://r…

Love the book title!

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

#203

Post by hinkley » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 7:28 PM UTC

WWLink wrote: post #107

hinkley wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

MS offers bundle deals to managers who eat that up like a 1980’s TV wife bragging about how she “saved” the family $300 by buying $1000 of shit they didn’t need.

It’s been their schtick practically from the beginning.

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

#204

Post by shostack » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 7:38 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #110

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…

> 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.

Your attempt to sow a divide among people by labeling them the derogatory "elites" in line with GOP talking points isn't helpful here.

If you want to ground this conversation in facts, here's a few for you to chew on:

1. Someone earning $500k/year TC still has far more in common with someone earning $80k or even $50k when you compare them against people with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars who control capital.

2. Someone earning $500k in a vhcol area like the Bay Area still likely cannot afford what historically was considered a "nice" home in a "nice" neighborhood without years of saving up when those homes cost $3M+.

3. Someone earning that may not necessarily be wealthy and be largely dependent on their ability to continue receiving a paycheck compared to those with true wealth who can take loans against like billionaires.

The reality is, someone earning that much is likely financially comfortable where a major disaster likely won't bankrupt them, and can likely afford reasonable housing for a family, and retire one day. That is more than most of America for sure right now and that sucks, but it absolutely does not make them "elite" and it speaks volumes of the efficacy of the GOP propaganda machine that you and so many others think that.

That used to simply be "the American dream."

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

#205

Post by runeblaze » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 8:08 PM UTC

throwaway_5753 wrote: post #37

asdfman123 wrote: post #32

This is also why I'm thinking about leaving Google. I have little to sit through meetings, try to pawn necessary work off to others, and play the game while there's a hundred small tasks that my project desperately needs me to get done. I can jump ship and make $50-100k/yr more because the next place I work will actually value my experience, even though it's technically much more useful to Google.

Where will you go that will be a 50k-100k bump over google comp?

Smaller companies need to outbid Google for talent, especially if they carry less stability. I imagine there are quite many who went like: leaves Google for great cash package at smaller company/start up -> smaller company goes belly up -> go back to FAANG

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

#206

Post by amrocha » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 8:43 PM UTC

avereveard wrote: post #194

amrocha wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they’re not. A “salaryman” earning millions has financial independence in 5 years maximum if they so choose. Most people are forced to work or starve. These are not the same.

> has financial independence well yeah the dream is not the salaryman lifestile, but the financial independence, thanks for agreeing with me

The “salaryman lifestyle” necessitates low wages. It’s a “lifestyle” because you can’t quit it. You make barely enough money to sustain your family, so that you’re forced to keep working against your will.

If you’re making millions of dollars, you’re not a salaryman. You’re making a choice to sell your labor, but you can always quit and the impact to your livelihood will be minimal.

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

#207

Post by epolanski » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 8:47 PM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #193

ryandrake wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes can't even detect sarcasm on HN anymore. What 16-18 year old kid (or their parents) has the capital and time to start and run their own business? Even when they're adults, they likely will not have access to business ownership. Depending on the source you use, somewhere between 5 and 10% of Americans own their own business. I'm not saying basic business skills aren't valuable--they are, but the vast, vast…

I don't know if this is sarcasm or not but: You could make it work if this "everyone forms an LLC in school" initiative comes with "everyone gets a chunk of cash to invest into this business". I assume the time would come from restructuring curriculums so that half of your senior year is spent on this project. Maybe add another year onto high school instead that is the Business Year. This would also require a massive…

I would legit support a law that gives every 18 years old 50k to decide what to do in their life. And to adjust it with life.

As a society we would be making a better long term investment in the economy.

And give them good education, but most importantly examples we can.

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

#208

Post by grisBeik » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 9:11 PM UTC

Screw promotion. I just want a job that provides intrinsic motivation (meaningful, inspiring work; Flow), and pays enough for me to make ends meet and to save reasonably.

There are three problems:

- many companies pay like crap, so if (God forbid) you want to save some money, a promotion is required (the only way to increase benefits is to get promoted);

- meaningful work is a unicorn in its own right;

- most annoyingly, a worker that is in their comfort zone and has been delivering consistently well in their role, will inevitably be forced to "grow" and "develop their career", or will be called a "straggler", at an American corporation.

Consistent excellence at a certain level is not "stagnation", it may just as well be deliberate stability. Infinite growth (or at least, infinite perturbation), in the personal context, is an unfathomable mania of American corporations.

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

#209

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 9:56 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #179

sangnoir wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's not the dollar values so much as the incentive structure. I think most Americans have a core value of "work hard, get compensated for your work". There's a basic value of fairness and meritocracy, that you can take steps to control your destiny and will be rewarded proportionally. When you've been at Google for a few years these days, you realize that this isn't really true. Nobody knows or cares how good a prog…

[deleted]

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

#210

Post by sjs7007 » Sat, Nov 09, 2024, 9:59 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #14

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

I don't have anything useful to add but just want to say, like many others have said, I really appreciate the way you have continued to document your journey from start to today and not shied away from sharing details. Thank you for that!