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Leaving Google

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Re: Leaving Google

#81

Post by kenjackson »

stephencanon wrote: post #70
eevilspock wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vancouver is a real city. Seattle is provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated. A hick town with skyscrapers as I've often called it. Californians who've moved there almost unanimously agree with my first sentence, and crack up at the latter. (Sadly, I lived in Seattle for 17 years. The Bay Area before that, and New York now.)

Seeing as California is extraordinarily passive-aggressive (from a New Englander’s perspective), that really says something.

Where aren't people passive aggressive? No where I've ever been.

Re: Leaving Google

#82

Post by hashberry »

eevilspock wrote: post #68
haberman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little sad he didn't say anything about Seattle, only a couple hours from Vancouver and with sizable and thriving Google offices. It is also has "greens and greys and unfussily variegated people" -- clearly it's not Canada, but in general it would be a much less drastic transition!

Vancouver is a real city. Seattle is provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated. A hick town with skyscrapers as I've often called it. Californians who've moved there almost unanimously agree with my first sentence, and crack up at the latter. (Sadly, I lived in Seattle for 17 years. The Bay Area before that, and New York now.)

C'mon troll, Seattle is where people go to make money. Seattle's tech industry beats Vancouver any day.

Re: Leaving Google

#83

Post by georgemcbay »

stephencanon wrote: post #70
eevilspock wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vancouver is a real city. Seattle is provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated. A hick town with skyscrapers as I've often called it. Californians who've moved there almost unanimously agree with my first sentence, and crack up at the latter. (Sadly, I lived in Seattle for 17 years. The Bay Area before that, and New York now.)

Seeing as California is extraordinarily passive-aggressive (from a New Englander’s perspective), that really says something.

As someone who lived his first 22 years in the metro Boston area but has lived in various parts of California for something like 16 years, I'd argue that it is impossible to paint "California" with such a wide brush.

I live in San Diego and it is very different here than in LA or the SF Bay Area (with each of those also being very distinct from each other).

Re: Leaving Google

#84

Post by zem »

eevilspock wrote: post #68
haberman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little sad he didn't say anything about Seattle, only a couple hours from Vancouver and with sizable and thriving Google offices. It is also has "greens and greys and unfussily variegated people" -- clearly it's not Canada, but in general it would be a much less drastic transition!

Vancouver is a real city. Seattle is provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated. A hick town with skyscrapers as I've often called it. Californians who've moved there almost unanimously agree with my first sentence, and crack up at the latter. (Sadly, I lived in Seattle for 17 years. The Bay Area before that, and New York now.)

anecdata: my sister lives in los angeles, and her company once posted her to their seattle office for a few months. her impression was that it was an extremely white city; that might not be the sort of thing that strikes you if you're white yourself, but coming from california it would definitely reinforce the provincial impression.

Re: Leaving Google

#85

Post by CompleteMoron2 »

varelse wrote: post #19
theoh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bur…

no one. they are covering that base with AI and Robots. We're all doomed.

Re: Leaving Google

#86

Post by tobyjsullivan »

haberman wrote: post #26
psbp wrote: post #5

"Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced." I like this guy.

I'm a little sad he didn't say anything about Seattle, only a couple hours from Vancouver and with sizable and thriving Google offices. It is also has "greens and greys and unfussily variegated people" -- clearly it's not Canada, but in general it would be a much less drastic transition!

This was Google's thought when I was talking to them. "Seattle's only a couple hours away. You could possibly even commute!"

I checked out the area through the lens of possibly living there when I went down for my interview. Seattle and Kirkland are not comparable to Vancouver in the slightest. Mostly the ghettos and rampant poverty, combined with the fundamental social differences between the countries. Didn't help that the one restaurant I ate at in the suburb of Kirkland had a fresh bullet hole in one of the windows. No thanks.

I found areas of New York (Williamsburg and Dumbo to be specific) that felt more like Vancouver to me than anywhere in the Seattle area.

My calls with Google are now pretty short. "Is there a Google office in Vancouver yet? No? Not interested, thanks."

Re: Leaving Google

#87

Post by ulfw »

psbp wrote: post #5

"Plus I find the Bay Area congested, racist, incestuous, and overpriced." I like this guy.

Glad to see people feeling free enough to voice their honest opinion for a chance.

Re: Leaving Google

#88

Post by sharkweek »

eevilspock wrote: post #68
haberman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little sad he didn't say anything about Seattle, only a couple hours from Vancouver and with sizable and thriving Google offices. It is also has "greens and greys and unfussily variegated people" -- clearly it's not Canada, but in general it would be a much less drastic transition!

Vancouver is a real city. Seattle is provincial, passive-aggressive, unfriendly to outsiders, and segregated. A hick town with skyscrapers as I've often called it. Californians who've moved there almost unanimously agree with my first sentence, and crack up at the latter. (Sadly, I lived in Seattle for 17 years. The Bay Area before that, and New York now.)

Seattle is my favorite place in the entire world.

People always complain about the "freeze" but I call bullshit. Seattle is the perfect place for people who enjoy a small social circle (Larry David style - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG_M73MoxJE)

The one thing I always tell outsiders when they ask about finding friends when they move here is to pick an interest and go from there. For example, I love hiking/climbing. I joined a climbing gym and found a few great friends with that in common.

People here aren't outwardly friendly to strangers, but find a commonality and go from there, it's super effective.

Re: Leaving Google

#89

Post by ChuckMcM »

typicalrunt wrote: post #62

On the topic of living costs for Vancouver, coincidentally enough WorkSafeBC (Vancouver's version of OSHA) just released a cost of living calculator for the BC region. You can see that housing will eat up the majority of your paycheque for an average wage (maybe not rockstar IT devs) [1]. http://www.costofliving.welcomebc.ca/ [1] Median family income in BC is $69,150 as of 2011. Source: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/table…

Interesting that the median price for a detached single family home in Vancouver is now $929,700 [1] and in Santa Clara county (which is San Jose and the cities around it) is "only" $754,400 [2], of course a house in San Francisco is like over a million dollars.

[1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/house-prices-still-rising-in...

[2] http://www.zillow.com/santa-clara-county-ca/home-values/

Re: Leaving Google

#90

Post by sixothree »

varelse wrote: post #19
theoh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bur…

Hopefully it will be someone who values privacy. I look at the generally negative reaction to Google buying nest and can't help but think if it had happened a year or two earlier the reaction would have been completely opposite.
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