"Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced." I like this guy.
I am also of the same opinion. Plus he probably doesn't want to lose his Canadian healthcare.
Congested and overpriced yes, but racist and incestuous? Why so?
Leaving Google
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Re: Leaving Google
#12Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced. Isn't Vancouver equally overpriced or worse? It's a beautiful city and seems like an amazing place to live, but I thought Vancouver's house prices were into the millions as well. In what way is the Bay Area racist? I'm not a fan of that region, but I've never had that particular impression (except among upper-tier VCs, who aren't specifically rac…
Yes, Vancouver housing is incredibly overpriced. Perhaps more-so than the Bay Area because wages have kept up even less (supposedly due to Vancouver's desirability as a destination). That doesn't mean there aren't good, well-paying jobs there, but on average, wages in Vancouver are much lower than, say Toronto.
As for the racism aspect, I think the choice of word is a bit hyperbolic. That being said, as a Canadian who has lived and worked in SV, I think there are major differences between the way visible minorities are integrated in Canadian and American society. California is probably one of the less jarring transitions for a Canadian (fairly liberal society), but even then, you can't help but notice. Note that I'm not saying it's better or worse (that is a matter of opinion), but that it's just very different.
Re: Leaving Google
#13"Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced." I like this guy.
Congested, overpriced are ok. I don't know about other too..
Re: Leaving Google
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am also of the same opinion. Plus he probably doesn't want to lose his Canadian healthcare.
Congested and overpriced yes, but racist and incestuous? Why so?
think about living in the weird Bay Area bubble and how that doesn't translate at all to the rest of the world and Oakland.
Re: Leaving Google
#15Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced. Isn't Vancouver equally overpriced or worse? It's a beautiful city and seems like an amazing place to live, but I thought Vancouver's house prices were into the millions as well. In what way is the Bay Area racist? I'm not a fan of that region, but I've never had that particular impression (except among upper-tier VCs, who aren't specifically rac…
For the most part, Vancouver house prices are pretty expensive, it's virtually impossible to find a house for under 1 million in Vancouver. Given these prices, anyone familiar with the wages in Vancouver will tell you we're depressingly behind most cities with similar cost of living. I do feel like rent prices are quite a bit cheaper than the Bay Area though.
Recently saw some articles claiming that Vancouver has the highest living costs in all of North America but I doubt that without seeing any extensive data and thorough comparisons.
Re: Leaving Google
#16Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced. Isn't Vancouver equally overpriced or worse? It's a beautiful city and seems like an amazing place to live, but I thought Vancouver's house prices were into the millions as well. In what way is the Bay Area racist? I'm not a fan of that region, but I've never had that particular impression (except among upper-tier VCs, who aren't specifically rac…
Yes, Vancouver housing is incredibly overpriced. Perhaps more-so than the Bay Area because wages have kept up even less (supposedly due to Vancouver's desirability as a destination). That doesn't mean there aren't good, well-paying jobs there, but on average, wages in Vancouver are much lower than, say Toronto. As for the racism aspect, I think the choice of word is a bit hyperbolic. That being said, as a Canadian wh…
As an American East Coaster, where we have longer social experience with massive immigration (and with our own share of racism and segregation), lots of CA seems like a throwback to an even more highly segregated and almost racist time period. It's not quite the Deep South, but it's definitely uncomfortable with minority groups that tend not to be involved in tech or finance.
People lament the dying of ethnic enclaves like Chinatowns, but what it really means is that those ethnic groups are starting to integrate with the majority ethnic group.
Re: Leaving Google
#17Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced. Isn't Vancouver equally overpriced or worse? It's a beautiful city and seems like an amazing place to live, but I thought Vancouver's house prices were into the millions as well. In what way is the Bay Area racist? I'm not a fan of that region, but I've never had that particular impression (except among upper-tier VCs, who aren't specifically rac…
To get some context on the "racist" comment, Google [bart killings]. There are multiple cases of BART transit cops shooting unarmed people of color.
Also, the Oakland police department was on the verge of Federal takeover last year largely due to a series of racist-overtoned cases.
Re: Leaving Google
#18Re: Leaving Google
#19So my first response was who the $^!% is Tim Bray? Then I read. TLDR: famous enough to merit an article about his departure but not famous enough for Google to give an inch to retain him (see Hinton, Geoffrey for a counterexample). No surprises here. Google is setting the stage for its own disruption. But that event is a total black swan much like paying $16B for a messaging company.
It does seem that he left on better terms that Brian Reid, but possibly for similar fundamental reasons...
Brian Reid was kicked out of Google by Urs Holzle ahead of the IPO after helping to build the company (so much for don't be evil and all that). I don't think the issue here is age discrimination - Geoffrey Hinton is in his late 60s - but rather that his skillset is not sufficiently critical to Google's flavor of the week to merit special treatment.
But as an ex-googler myself, they have become amazingly rigid and bureaucratic compared to who they were even 5 years ago. And end-user experiences of services like GMail and youtube are atrocious. I have a love/hate relationship with Android, but to stay in that relationship I had to ditch 2-year device contracts so I could keep up with whatever brand new shiny gets 6-12 months of tech support before being brickified.
Microsoft disrupted IBM. Google disrupted Microsoft. Who's going to ruin Google's day and relegate them to a 2nd tier player?
Re: Leaving Google
#20So my first response was who the $^!% is Tim Bray? Then I read. TLDR: famous enough to merit an article about his departure but not famous enough for Google to give an inch to retain him (see Hinton, Geoffrey for a counterexample). No surprises here. Google is setting the stage for its own disruption. But that event is a total black swan much like paying $16B for a messaging company.
> famous enough to merit an article about his departure but not famous enough for Google to give an inch to retain him
I do not work at Google, but I suspect there is a bit more involved in these decisions.