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How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

aaronsw.com

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Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#61

Post by cromwellian »

auctiontheory wrote: post #37
blazespin wrote: post #26

Simply not true in 2013. They are aggressively hiring engineers of all sorts. College degrees are less relevant. Google, of all companies, have developed some of the finest talent recognition software in the valley.

Google, of all companies, have developed some of the finest talent recognition software in the valley. Maybe they have, but we won't know without hard evidence. Your assertion doesn't make it so. I like Google, I've eaten in their cafeterias (many friends work there), and I use several of their products. And ... I'm aware that essentially all of their revenue comes from AdWords and AdSense. Everything else is subsidi…

To be fair, with the exception of hardware and retail companies, almost all internet era companies make their revenue from selling ads because people have a negative reaction to roadblocks and paywalls. Facebook is just as beholden to ads to Google is.

I would argue that most of the Google products that are successes today in terms of users: Gmail, Chrome, Android, Maps, Search, etc have competed on the same merits as similar products from competitors. Yahoo Mail or Hotmail, for example, are subsidized by other products as well.

I don't think Google has a monopoly on talented individuals, but I do think Google has a better culture than other companies. You can have the smartest people, but a shitty internal culture can act to break their innovation, not multiply it. I've worked at IBM and Oracle and definitely, very smart people at Oracle that I knew of were hampered and stymied by a suffocating corporate layer.

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#62

Post by jrockway »

choosewisely wrote: post #59
jrockway wrote: post #43

I guess on some level this is true. Is there some place where you can work and get money for doing whatever you want, and defying authority whenever you want? If so, sign me up! Over in the real world, working for an employer like Google is a risk hedge. If your idea for a project this quarter turns out to not be useful, you don't run out of money and end up living in a cardboard box. You learn from your experience,…

>> At the same time, I feel like I'm doing impactful work, with some very smart people. Ah, you must be one of the stars getting people to click on ads, even more. No matter how you spin it, you make money by what can rightfully be characterized as fraud (1,2,3), or confusing ads with unbiased content(if there's still a thing like unbiased content at Google) while ripping your users off. But whatever makes you feel b…

I work on Google Fiber. You give us money, we give you an Internet connection.

I'm glad you made an account just for this, though. What a great community HN can be.

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#63

Post by cyphunk »

cyphunk wrote: post #55

Google is a mammoth. Generalising it would be similar to doing the same of a whole country. I do not work there but know many that have that speak so highly of its foundations. Like some sort of new form of knowledge discovery and expansion of thought. While it may be infantile this could just as well be seen as an advantage, at least for a while to come. It is one of the frontiers of innovation for company building…

Another 2c: Google[x] might be the founders way to avoid the sloth of a mammoth structure but it may also be the one thing that turns them into Xerox. To prevent that expressly avoid the patent-chest-trap and future reliance on this over innovation in product based wealth. If your investors cant give up on future patent wealth secretly plow efforts into reducing the effectiveness of patent-chests for all.

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#64

Post by cromwellian »

I'm 42. Most of the people I work with are in the 30s and 40s and have children. The stereotype of Google hiring nothing but Stanford grads has been over for a while.

As much as I like Aaron, here he is guilty of excessive generalization. Even in 2006 the claims don't match reality. I lived through the first dot.com boom in CA, where companies were falling hand over fist to offer perks, many of them financially unsustainable, because there was a huge competition to acquire and keep talent, as well as keep them in the office for long hours with the promise of striking it rich on what were often worthless stock options.

Google is pretty clear and upfront about what the compensation will be. Everything I was told about what to expect about stock grants, year bonuses, and benefits, has more or less hit the predicted windows. I was never really oversold on what my compensation would be and I was able to do financial planning around it because it was so transparent.

I also don't see what's wrong with 'infantilizing'. We lose creativity as we become adults because of the sheer numbers of rules, responsibilities, and requirements placed on us. If you want people to do good research or engineering, take away as much as possible impediments, like worry over money, laundry, or corporate politicking.

Do we also talk about Phd students and tenured professors in research labs being "infantilized" by an academic environment often isolated from the outside world? I don't view it as necessarily a bad thing. Although I guess you could claim that Einstein still did good work while working at the Patent Office.

All in all the essay is a rather convoluted and weak critique of Google culture and hiring practices based on anecdotal observations that don't match reality.

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#65

Post by blazespin »

auctiontheory wrote: post #37
blazespin wrote: post #26

Simply not true in 2013. They are aggressively hiring engineers of all sorts. College degrees are less relevant. Google, of all companies, have developed some of the finest talent recognition software in the valley.

Google, of all companies, have developed some of the finest talent recognition software in the valley. Maybe they have, but we won't know without hard evidence. Your assertion doesn't make it so. I like Google, I've eaten in their cafeterias (many friends work there), and I use several of their products. And ... I'm aware that essentially all of their revenue comes from AdWords and AdSense. Everything else is subsidi…

This is like saying essentially all of microsoft's revenue comes from selling things. Google gets paid via ads.

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#66

Post by choosewisely »

jrockway wrote: post #62
choosewisely wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> At the same time, I feel like I'm doing impactful work, with some very smart people. Ah, you must be one of the stars getting people to click on ads, even more. No matter how you spin it, you make money by what can rightfully be characterized as fraud (1,2,3), or confusing ads with unbiased content(if there's still a thing like unbiased content at Google) while ripping your users off. But whatever makes you feel b…

I work on Google Fiber. You give us money, we give you an Internet connection. I'm glad you made an account just for this, though. What a great community HN can be.

"I work on Google Fiber. You give us money, we give you an Internet connection."

Real revolutionary, I tell you. No doubt Page and Sergey are having wet dreams by dreaming of the extra data that they get by spying on even more things. Because that's what every Google products ends up being, a snooping device to help Google sell more expensive ads. There's no pride or code of honor at Google, just more ad clicks than the last quarter.

Maybe a put a microphone on each of our rooms to help us? Will that come before or after the brain chip? http://blogs.computerworld.com/privacy/23260/freaky-future-o...

By the way, is what I said true (fraud accounts for most of Google's income)?

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#67

Post by jsmthrowaway »

jrockway wrote: post #62
choosewisely wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> At the same time, I feel like I'm doing impactful work, with some very smart people. Ah, you must be one of the stars getting people to click on ads, even more. No matter how you spin it, you make money by what can rightfully be characterized as fraud (1,2,3), or confusing ads with unbiased content(if there's still a thing like unbiased content at Google) while ripping your users off. But whatever makes you feel b…

I work on Google Fiber. You give us money, we give you an Internet connection. I'm glad you made an account just for this, though. What a great community HN can be.

> I work on Google Fiber. You give us money, we give you an Internet connection.

...so that there's a pretty good chance that [you] will use Google Search, and [we] will then show you ads. Also, [we] inadvertently created a channel for analysis on [your] Web browsing habits if [we] were so inclined, which would enable [us] to refine advertising even more, among other things.

If those are not the entire rationale for Google's "everybody should be online" initiatives, like Fiber and Loon, it's at least a significant portion thereof and you know it. Hell, it's probably why the Chromebook exists. You and I are kidding ourselves if we arrive at a conclusion that Google is in any other business than data and advertising impressions. Facebook needs eyeballs, too, hence why Zuckerberg has been on the same warpath.

I didn't make the account just now.

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#68

Post by [deleted] »

sanderjd wrote: post #44
raldi wrote: post #17

A month earlier, Aaron wrote about his experiences working in a more traditional kind of office: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/officespace > Gray walls, gray desks, gray noise. The first day I showed up here, I simply couldn’t take it. By lunch time I had literally locked myself in a bathroom stall and started crying. So I'm not sure what kind of office would have ever met his approval.

Presumably one that is somewhere between those two extremes...

[deleted]

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#69

Post by yuhong »

choosewisely wrote: post #59
jrockway wrote: post #43

I guess on some level this is true. Is there some place where you can work and get money for doing whatever you want, and defying authority whenever you want? If so, sign me up! Over in the real world, working for an employer like Google is a risk hedge. If your idea for a project this quarter turns out to not be useful, you don't run out of money and end up living in a cardboard box. You learn from your experience,…

>> At the same time, I feel like I'm doing impactful work, with some very smart people. Ah, you must be one of the stars getting people to click on ads, even more. No matter how you spin it, you make money by what can rightfully be characterized as fraud (1,2,3), or confusing ads with unbiased content(if there's still a thing like unbiased content at Google) while ripping your users off. But whatever makes you feel b…

I don't pay much attention to these claims, but that being said I still remember testing the yellow-ish colors Google used to displayed their ads on the LCD display of the laptop I am typing this on by tweaking the angle and yes it can become close to white.

Re: How Google keeps employees by treating them like kids (2006)

#70

Post by git-pull »

sliverstorm wrote: post #49
raldi wrote: post #17

A month earlier, Aaron wrote about his experiences working in a more traditional kind of office: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/officespace > Gray walls, gray desks, gray noise. The first day I showed up here, I simply couldn’t take it. By lunch time I had literally locked myself in a bathroom stall and started crying. So I'm not sure what kind of office would have ever met his approval.

I have to think his head was wired differently than most of us.

Prodigies tend to receive a lot of encouragement and enabling.

Ying and yang, Too much nurturing can be toxic.

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