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Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

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Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#101

Post by presootto »

MCRed wrote: post #41

For a period I was heavily recruited by google. Their recruiters tried a great many variations of attempts to trick me into interviewing for a job. It seems weird that they would do this, because pretty soon, it would become obvious that it was a job interview and nothing more. Maybe there are a lot of talented engineers out there who are doing startups but aren't really committed to them and google manages via the f…

A lot of recruiters at Google are temps and will lie through they're teeth in order to get candidates interested.

Google still has a reputation of being an amazing workplace. This, however, is becoming less and less true. Just last week Victoria Lease resigned after months of sexual harassment without any consequence for the perpetrators.

There are much better places to work for then Google these days.

Disclaimer: I work for TAGA (The Arrogant Google Assholes)

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#102

Post by mojuba »

potatolicious wrote: post #93
mojuba wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The double integral of acceleration is displacement. Have you actually tried this? I have and the results were totally unusably off. If the accelerometer that costs a few dollars at best could be that precise, you'd see thousands and thousands of new apps that would use it in creative ways. It's just from my experience you can't calculate displacement using an accelerometer that cheap and therefore you don't see iP…

> "It's just from my experience you can't calculate displacement using an accelerometer that cheap " I disagree. You clearly can - the app and the people who use it are proof positive of the sensor's capabilities. Having seen the raw output from these sensors a few times they're also startlingly accurate . The problem is of course that it's not simple and there's real complexity in the solution. It's (of course) impo…

So you've seen raw output from the accelerometer and you think they were fine, but do you realize that the error gets cubed when you calculate displacement from those values?

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#103

Post by julien_c »

cromwellian wrote: post #76
julien_c wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 2M still an acqui-hire though? Even in Silicon Valley? Where's the threshold between acqui-hires and acquisitions these days?

$2M is basically a large signing bonus. I think for most companies, like Google, FB, et al, something like $2M doesn't even need board signoff, it's basically a restricted stock grant as a bonus with clawback provisions.

Is it a common occurence to get a 1M+ signing bonus at Google or FB?

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#104

Post by declan »

cromwellian wrote: post #74

I think there's an either-or fallacy here, it could have been an attempt at an acqui-hire, but when the people talking to him tried to push it through, other people reviewed the situation and decided just to offer a generous employment package. Consider, a single-engineer company with an interesting app and talented engineer, just how much do you expect to be acquired for? Recognize that a $1M-2M offer is about what…

Well put. Also as suggested nearby, the author of the linked article, Max Christian, fumbled the exchange and instead of a million-dollar exit ended up with... what?

Instead of the claim of "I can easily get to twice £X million" -- in revenue? profit? valuation? -- it looks like the author's RoomScan app is near-moribund. RoomScan Pro, which sells for $4.99, hasn't been updated in over half a year and is listed as "optimized for iPhone 5." It's been mentioned in only two articles indexed by Google News in the last eight months. The Roomscan Twitter account hasn't been updated since November. The free version of the app has been updated more recently, but free in this context isn't exactly going to pay the bills.

These are not the signs of an app that is getting to "twice £X million" anytime soon.

I do think it's an innovative idea and a good implementation, but as we see on HN all too frequently, not all innovative ideas and good implementations amount to a "twice £X million" valuation. Any company (or product) is only worth what the market will pay.

As for Google, I don't know how their corpdev team works, but my rule of thumb after working at some very large companies is: don't attribute to malice what can be explained by bureaucracy. It's not unusual for different teams not to know what the other is doing, even when they should. I don't see anything that justifies speculating about nonexistent employees named Maxine, and that kind of bizarre speculation likely poisoned the discussion.

Whoops.

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#105

Post by warcher »

raverbashing wrote: post #64
MCRed wrote: post #41

For a period I was heavily recruited by google. Their recruiters tried a great many variations of attempts to trick me into interviewing for a job. It seems weird that they would do this, because pretty soon, it would become obvious that it was a job interview and nothing more. Maybe there are a lot of talented engineers out there who are doing startups but aren't really committed to them and google manages via the f…

I think Google alienated too much people (see the whatsapp case) now they're trying to get founders of startups onboard rather than people that go through their dog and pony show.

What happened with WhatsApp? I hadn't heard anything about this.

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#106

Post by at-fates-hands »

abalone wrote: post #32

This is actually a good example of how to fumble a decent exit for a struggling app. This was written in April 2014 so we have the benefit of hindsight for evaluating this claim: "I’ve already built an £X million company in this area that was limited to the UK & Ireland; this time it’s global and I can easily get to twice £X million" Based on the number of reviews for roomscan I'm going to guess that getting to "twic…

>>> This is actually a good example of how to fumble a decent exit for a struggling app.

Actually its a pretty good way to steer clear of a scam. If once I determined the people I was talking to were not interested in acquiring my company and only trying to lure me in for an interview, what's to say the rest of their story isn't all BS as well?

What are the odds he even gets the 2M to exit anyways? If you smell a scam, then everything is rotten, from the head down. No way I'd trust Google to pay up after sniffing out their scam.

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#107

Post by ahelwer »

cromwellian wrote: post #74

I think there's an either-or fallacy here, it could have been an attempt at an acqui-hire, but when the people talking to him tried to push it through, other people reviewed the situation and decided just to offer a generous employment package. Consider, a single-engineer company with an interesting app and talented engineer, just how much do you expect to be acquired for? Recognize that a $1M-2M offer is about what…

All right I'll bite. How, exactly, does an engineer make $250-500k a year at Google as an engineer? What examples are there of this happening?

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#108

Post by ay »

graycat wrote: post #73
api wrote: post #44

"It’s a ridiculous idea — touch your phone against each wall and get a floor plan." Uhh... no it's not. Make that actually work and show it to some architects, interior designers, and real estate people. Be sure to have a mop on hand for drool.

Do something with audio: The iPhone has speakers, right? And software can send a signal to the speakers? Or if not speakers, then a female plug can use to drive speakers? And the thing has a microphone, right? And might add on some tubes or some such to make the speaker and microphone directional? For the signal to make the signal to noise ratio better and to make the sound more directional, use high frequency. Or ju…

https://iqtainment.wordpress.com/acoustic-ruler/

I've played with it - with some calibration, it seems to work. But YMMV, and I got it mostly just in an appreciation of the author's clever idea.

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#109

Post by kelukelugames »

presootto wrote: post #101
MCRed wrote: post #41

For a period I was heavily recruited by google. Their recruiters tried a great many variations of attempts to trick me into interviewing for a job. It seems weird that they would do this, because pretty soon, it would become obvious that it was a job interview and nothing more. Maybe there are a lot of talented engineers out there who are doing startups but aren't really committed to them and google manages via the f…

A lot of recruiters at Google are temps and will lie through they're teeth in order to get candidates interested. Google still has a reputation of being an amazing workplace. This, however, is becoming less and less true. Just last week Victoria Lease resigned after months of sexual harassment without any consequence for the perpetrators. There are much better places to work for then Google these days. Disclaimer: I…

> Just last week Victoria Lease resigned after months of sexual harassment without any consequence for the perpetrators.

I find this hard to believe because if you are smart enough to work at Google then you should be smart enough to know your rights. If the harassment is persistent and comes from multiple perpetrators then she can build a timeline to show HR, a lawyer, or the EEOC.

Re: Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

#110

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #44

"It’s a ridiculous idea — touch your phone against each wall and get a floor plan." Uhh... no it's not. Make that actually work and show it to some architects, interior designers, and real estate people. Be sure to have a mop on hand for drool.

[deleted]
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