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About a Month at Yahoo

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Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#31

Post by jedberg »

rdouble wrote: post #27
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon now. Sunnyvale isn't Las Vegas, but most of the time, "there's nothing else worth doing here besides working" is simply an excuse. And not a very convincing one at that.

Can you name five things to do in Sunnyvale when you're bored?

Eat (lots of great restaurant) Drink (lots of fun bars) Hike (plenty of hiking trails in the nearby mountains, biking trails, etc) See a movie (lots of great theaters) Hang out (lots of great open spaces, big parks, and downtown sunnyvale is nice to just hang out).

Now, to be fair, I live in Cupertino (right next to Sunnyvale) and I would rather live in Berkeley or SF, because there is certainly MORE to do, but Sunnyvale isn't THAT bad.

If you can't find something to do, you're probably just being lazy.

Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#32

Post by chuhnk »

reid wrote: post #15
michaelochurch wrote: post #13

Acq-hired people are not going to be having the normal employee experience. I would honestly rather have a $100k take-home but my employer pay $500k (i.e. 400k goes to charity) and think that's my salary, than a regular $150k. You get treated better if you cost more. Your salary is what it costs your employer to waste your time, so if you're at a high level, management actually fucking listens to you. Taking a long-t…

I've been at Yahoo for 5 years as a Software Engineer. This really is a new company under Marissa. I wasn't special, aqui-hired, or anything. I now can easily access management when I need them, my suggestions are taken seriously and acted on, and I get everything I need from upper management to excel at what I do. My manager has always been great, but now she is more empowered to get stuff done more than ever before…

Hey congratulations on doing that and thanks for shedding some light on things inside. Sometimes I actually consider applying but the SRE jobs are a but scarce in London.

Can you speak a bit more on your unique situation of before a software engineer there since you were 19? Im quite curious what led to that.

Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#33

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

rdouble wrote: post #27
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C'mon now. Sunnyvale isn't Las Vegas, but most of the time, "there's nothing else worth doing here besides working" is simply an excuse. And not a very convincing one at that.

Can you name five things to do in Sunnyvale when you're bored?

I'll give you 10:

1. If you like the outdoors, there are plenty of wonderful places to run/hike/bike in the South Bay/Peninsula. 2. There are frequent sporting events at HP Pavilion. 3. Sunnyvale may not be Paris, but museums and art galleries do exist in the area. 4. The diversity and quality of Bay Area restaurants is unrivaled. 5. Nightlife can be found in San Jose. 6. For weekend getaways, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay and Napa are all within reasonable driving distance. 7. Like most metropolitan areas, there are tons of gyms where you can stay in shape and meet people. 8. Meetups of all types abound in the Bay Area. 9. If you like shopping or window shopping, you could do a lot worse than Valley Fair Mall and Santana Row. 10. A lot of the downtowns in the area are great for grabbing a cup of coffee and people watching.

Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#34

Post by endlessvoid94 »

ryandrake wrote: post #26
michaelochurch wrote: post #13

Acq-hired people are not going to be having the normal employee experience. I would honestly rather have a $100k take-home but my employer pay $500k (i.e. 400k goes to charity) and think that's my salary, than a regular $150k. You get treated better if you cost more. Your salary is what it costs your employer to waste your time, so if you're at a high level, management actually fucking listens to you. Taking a long-t…

Kind of off-topic, but your comment raises a question that I've been mulling over for a while: Given that the "acqui-hire" employee experience is so much better (more lucrative, more responsibility, more exposure to upper management, whatever your definition of "better" is), you'd think there would be more people trying for this path. Why jump through the traditional hoops applying at 100 companies, interviewing at 1…

If your plan is to get acqui-hired, your goal is not to build something awesome for your users.

That's not the same thing as saying people who are acquired for their talent didn't try to build something awesome -- it's just that, if your GOAL is to get acquired, that's a different goal than building something people want or need.

Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#35

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

steveklabnik wrote: post #28
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #23

> My apartment's sole purpose has become a place for me to sleep. Not for long, hopefully! There is clearly a need for on-campus dormitories so that employees don't have to worry about maintaining their own spaces and finding things to do on their own time. I can see it now... Google employee: "I live in the Adwords Apartments. Pretty ritzy. Where do you live?" Yahoo employee: "I'm in Flickr House. It was recently re…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

Please delete that link! How are mainstream business magazines going to write glowing articles about this latest Silicon Valley innovation if everyone knows this didn't start in Silicon Valley?!?

Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#36

Post by volaski »

ryandrake wrote: post #26
michaelochurch wrote: post #13

Acq-hired people are not going to be having the normal employee experience. I would honestly rather have a $100k take-home but my employer pay $500k (i.e. 400k goes to charity) and think that's my salary, than a regular $150k. You get treated better if you cost more. Your salary is what it costs your employer to waste your time, so if you're at a high level, management actually fucking listens to you. Taking a long-t…

Kind of off-topic, but your comment raises a question that I've been mulling over for a while: Given that the "acqui-hire" employee experience is so much better (more lucrative, more responsibility, more exposure to upper management, whatever your definition of "better" is), you'd think there would be more people trying for this path. Why jump through the traditional hoops applying at 100 companies, interviewing at 1…

Have you worked on a startup before? That's not how it works. There's no such thing as "moderate amount of risk". People who just read Techcrunch may think that it's so easy to get acq-hired, they think "Hey I could have built that, I guess it's so easy to get acq-hired". But what they don't realize is there are tons of other--failed or ongoing--startups that did the same thing started by founders who may be much smarter than the one that got acq-hired, but it's all based on luck. There are many factors, for example if you got an investment from a prominent VC or angel investor it's much easier to get acq-hired compared to you doing it alone. Doing a startup for the sake of getting "acq-hired" is the stupidest thing one could ever do.

Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#37

Post by rdouble »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #33
rdouble wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name five things to do in Sunnyvale when you're bored?

I'll give you 10: 1. If you like the outdoors, there are plenty of wonderful places to run/hike/bike in the South Bay/Peninsula. 2. There are frequent sporting events at HP Pavilion. 3. Sunnyvale may not be Paris, but museums and art galleries do exist in the area. 4. The diversity and quality of Bay Area restaurants is unrivaled. 5. Nightlife can be found in San Jose. 6. For weekend getaways, Santa Cruz, Half Moon B…

I lived in the area for years. I know what there is to do in the Bay Area in general. None of the stuff to do is in Sunnyvale. It's nice (sorta), but it's boring. That's sort of the point of the suburbs. The skatepark is pretty good, though.

Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#38

Post by [deleted] »

jaredgeorge wrote: post #24

> I wake up, shower, and drive to work early to have breakfast. I spend all day at work, go to the gym and have dinner, do a little bit more work and don't get home until 9 or 10 every night. My apartment's sole purpose has become a place for me to sleep. I'm glad he's happy (right now), but this is exactly why I will never work for a company like Yahoo. I absolutely love what I do. And I protect it by ensuring I hav…

[deleted]

Re: About a Month at Yahoo

#40

Post by volaski »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #33
rdouble wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name five things to do in Sunnyvale when you're bored?

I'll give you 10: 1. If you like the outdoors, there are plenty of wonderful places to run/hike/bike in the South Bay/Peninsula. 2. There are frequent sporting events at HP Pavilion. 3. Sunnyvale may not be Paris, but museums and art galleries do exist in the area. 4. The diversity and quality of Bay Area restaurants is unrivaled. 5. Nightlife can be found in San Jose. 6. For weekend getaways, Santa Cruz, Half Moon B…

@7Figures2Commas sorry to say this but "45 minute drive to SF" would have been less boring that the 10 reasons you gave. Seriously, I think I would do the same if I were in Ben's shoes. If you're in your twenties and can't be in an exciting city (San Jose is large but I don't think it's comparable to SF), it's much wiser to work hard and improve skills than wasting time engaging in a mediocre entertainment like hanging out at a Sunnyvale museum. Maybe after 2 years when he's free to go, then he'll move to SF (and probably start another startup), and that's when he should enjoy his life.
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