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What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

wired.com

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Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#371

Post by bakhy »

msutherl wrote: post #347
lagadu wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they pay. I didn't sign off 37 of my hours each week because I like a company's logo. I did it because they pay me for it.

My question was a rhetorical one to get the OP to think about what the relationship between "making money" and "generating value" might be. The way he put it, it's as if they are completely disconnected. Another way to phrase "making money" is "providing a service that people are willing to trade some of their livelihood for." Could that not be a proxy for at least some "positive change"? And anyway, is "change" the…

and i ignored you because this method of trolling with "rhetorical" questions is first of all very disrespectful, and somehow always used by people with predictably boring insights.

if you will pay more attention to what i actually wrote, i never implied that "making money" and "positive change" exclude each other, nor did i ever say something so incredibly stupid like saying that providing a livelihood for people was wrong.

edit - ok, after rereading the comment: i'm sorry, this was an over the top reaction..

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#372

Post by nicboobees »

eropple wrote: post #329
nicboobees wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's different here. In the UK it's considered vulgar to discuss money or how much you earn.

Have you paused to consider who would benefit from instilling that idea in you? Because it's not you who benefits.

It certainly is me who benefits.

In 2 previous jobs, I found out what others at the company were making. OK, they were managers, but still, it just made me pissed off. It didn't make me happy by any means.

As others note, people tend to generally think they're above average. Can you not see that exploding their delusion might not be such a great idea? Some of them have to be below average. A team who doesn't share salary info, can all be happy that they're all above average. If they start sharing salary, half will be below average and probably pretty pissed off.

The people who benefit, are people who are generally happy as they are. Would you like to know how much money your neighbours have? Why should it matter?

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#373

Post by zippy786 »

cbr wrote: post #301
zippy786 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be fair, Google respects robots.txt Not all of their crawlers respect robots.txt

Do you have an example? A crawler ignoring robots.txt sounds like a bug, and if you have details I can file a bug with the appropriate team.

FeedFetcher User Agent

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#374

Post by nsfyn55 »

nicboobees wrote: post #192

Nothing good comes from knowing other peoples salary. Only jealousy, resentment, unhappiness, and greed.

Sorry friend this is nonsense. One of the key pieces of negotiation is access to information. Organizations and managers respond well to rational appeals like "so and so has the same experience and does the same job but earns 10% more" or "I have an outstanding offer for X I am currently at (X-$10000), I know your position(BATNA) to imply a cost of (X-$1000) I think its reasonable to settle here for (X-$5000)"

The key is having information specifically to formulate your company's BATNA. The notion that salary sharing is bad for the employee is hogwash from unfair labor practices developed over decades.

Would you buy a car from a dealership if the dealer told you "you shouldn't comparison shop it will only make you resentful"? Yet we are willing to accept that claptrap from a company. Not in this lifetime.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#375

Post by mhluongo »

spinchange wrote: post #321
mhluongo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone sharing something on Twitter isn't supposed to be journalism. AFAIK the original author isn't a journalist, she's a technologist who got fed up.

We are not commenting on an HN submission that is a link to someone's tweet/tweets. We are commenting on a submission to Wired Magazine, a publication owned by Conde Nast. Wired's reporting added nothing to this story. (There is no reporting) They didn't interview the person, they didn't interview her employer, and they didn't offer any analysis whatsoever. The reporter didn't storify the tweets herself. Wired did in…

Fair enough- and I do. I assumed you were commenting on the tweets, my mistake.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#376

Post by pennaMan »

veidr wrote: post #166
abrahamepton wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel similarly about Facebook. I feel it with some justification, but I'm probably wrong. To do what they do at the scale they do it, for it to even work let alone work pretty much perfectly, pretty much all the time for pretty much everyone is a goddamn miracle. But there are so many little things about FB software (mostly the UI/UX) that annoy the shit out of me, so I get grumpy and think their software sucks. Ha…

Here's my list of things that you mentioned which aren't shitty: search

Can you name any other huge scale user facing software product that isn't shitty by your standards?

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#377

Post by carrotleads »

eropple wrote: post #351
msutherl wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be equating 'acting within the law' with both moral conduct and efficacy (from the perspective of the charter). This is denying that efficacy from the perspective of the company, contra the law, moral code, or the charter could have a positive outcome. In fact, it appears that successful corporations are constantly pushing on all 3 restraints, and in the marketplace, corporations that ride the edge are mo…

> How then does it make sense to immediately dismantle a corporation that breaks the rules even in a small way (destroying huge amounts of value)? It determines the values of your society. Fuck with the powerless at your own, extreme risk . If your values are more important than your spreadsheets, then the violation of the rights of the weak must take precedence. And, for me, it does; I'm proud to say that I've been…

Can I say thanks for clarifying my thoughts on this topic... I benefited quite a bit from understanding your arguments.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#378

Post by WorldWideWayne »

eropple wrote: post #312
bostonpete wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the reddit comment thread for this u/dickbutt_md had a lengthy comment that seemed to call into question some of the details of this story. His facts weren't first hand, but then again, sometimes a little distance can help with objectivity. In any event, I tend to take comments from possibly-disgruntled former employees with a pinch of salt.

On one hand, we have a primary source putting her name on the line, publicly, with a story about her personal experiences. On the other, you have "dickbutt_md" talking about his-friend-at-Google/his-uncle-at-Nintendo and how the primary source that the secondary source doesn't know personally is "a passive aggressive rabble rouser." And we have HN posters reposting it like it means something. I think we just hit the…

Is this one of those "high information", intelligent comments? Seems like it amounts to little more than gossip. I'm also wondering if you could point me to what you think your best comment is? Thanks.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#379

Post by WorldWideWayne »

eropple wrote: post #203
nicboobees wrote: post #192

Nothing good comes from knowing other peoples salary. Only jealousy, resentment, unhappiness, and greed.

Or an actual understanding of market position and--in the case of less privileged folks--a way to smoke out systemic bias. You know--things that any worker should want to know.

Wow, this has got to be the best comment I've ever read. Really deep bro.

Re: What happens when you talk about salaries at Google

#380

Post by vtlynch »

mhluongo wrote: post #94
deadmik3 wrote: post #47

Was stringing together a couple dozen tweets really the best format to share a story like this? There is a lot that's left out. Once she vaguely mentions that another employee who was "involved" was still getting all of his peer bonuses (which may or may not have been PB's for his "involvement", we don't know), the whole thing just crumbled into a victim story for me. OF COURSE the MALE coworker can do WHATEVER HE WA…

> tl;dr she got exactly what you would expect when you're intentionally stirring shit up at any company. I'm not sure what she expected. What? Sharing salary information is a protected employee activity, and retaliation is illegal.. so maybe she expected there wouldn't be retaliation?

Fuck, I just realized this piece of trash wrote his own version of "she was asking for it."
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