Leaving Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaving Google

#111

Post by srvmshr » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #23

freyir wrote: post #17

“Quite a few activists and researchers were fired for asking Google to be a bit more ethical” In the examples the author cited, those activists and researchers were fired for reasons going beyond “asking Google to be a bit more ethical. And frankly it doesn’t seem ethical for activists, researchers, and the author to deliberately misconstrue facts whenever they believe they’re on the right side of an ethical (and som…

I'm not sure this is true. Normally I'd be inclined to agree with you, but the Timnit situation was handled badly. Objectively, there was nothing wrong with her paper. You may have a point about the other researchers. I'm not familiar enough with their situations. But I dug into Timnit's pretty thoroughly. Their recent behavior isn't too encouraging either: https://archive.md/7jCQY (Related Twitter thread: https://tw…

I have mentioned this long time ago and would do so again: No matter how righteous be the cause, threatening your employers and instigating a mutinous conduct with fellow employees doesn't go down too well. Both sides could have done better. Both sides includes Timnit's subsequent conduct as well.

Re: Leaving Google

#112

Post by googthrow234 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #96

icelancer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also due to wanting to keep your employees. You can't make the same amount of money year over year and retain employees who never get raises above CPI or promotions into management/ownership. That's just not going to work.

I don't know about that. There are plenty of examples of "boutique" companies who pay well and have insanely good retention over the long term— 37signals/basecamp as one example, at least until that dustup earlier this year. Valve is probably another. It's not hard to imagine a Google that had taken this path, just focused indefinitely on search & search ads, run itself with <1000 highly skilled, highly paid employee…

I think they could have even done most of those things and remained small and lean. Most of the bloat isn't that they've entered these spaces, but that there are a million little sub-projects within each one chasing marginal (at best) improvements.

Re: Leaving Google

#113

Post by me_me_mu_mu » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:59 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #27

echelon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're no longer about breadth, limitless innovation, and moonshots, but rather extraction of platform economic control. They're the new Oracles, except they own mobile, social, and web instead of databases. Start new companies and push them over. Fight their ability to land grab more.

I really like this optimistic sentiment. And I think it’s true. I work for a company that’s a unicorn this year. About five years ago it didn’t exist until Amazon decided to drop customer support for their warehouse robots, forcing a warehouse company to build its own replacements. There is still plenty of room for new players to emerge.

This is the best time to be alive, because we can leverage their platforms (ex. google search, YT) to learn anything and everything to ultimately destroy them by building something different.

Just excited to live in a time where we (anyone with basic internet access pretty much) can execute runtime hacks on capitalism by changing the inputs a bit while still creating value where it matters to us.

Re: Leaving Google

#114

Post by freyir » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 4:59 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #94

freyir wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She submitted her paper late for internal review when it was too late for revisions. It might be the case that most papers are submitted late for internal review, but most papers don’t expressly criticize the employer’s work. That’s an important distinction, and it was naive to not anticipate that the paper might get extra scrutiny. Regardless, being upset because you didn’t get your way doesn’t give you carte blanch…

But her paper passed the internal review. It failed some additional internal review that wasn't policy at the time .

No, there was only one internal review. It didn’t pass, and it was too late for her to make revisions because it was past the conference deadline.

Re: Leaving Google

#115

Post by Jensson » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 5:00 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #108

Jensson wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because plenty of other researchers working at Google regularly publish papers critical of Google and are just fine? Even Timnit had already done that many times, she just got into trouble this time but all the other papers she published was fine. If Google really cared about these researchers publishing critical pieces then Google would have shut down that entire group rather than just firing her.

Right but the claim is that Google instituted a new policy, and applied it inconsistently without telling people, until it blew up in their faces when she was fired. Only after that did they formalize the policy, and saying that she was fired for circumventing and then questioning a policy that ostensibly didn't exist when she was fired doesn't have the same ring to it.

But you claim she was fired for being critical of Google. Maybe what you are saying here is right and she was just the first person fired since nobody followed the new guidelines and at some point they will face consequences, it could just as well have been anyone else. But I don't see how that would make Google look bad, it is normal to fire one of the offenders as an example when a group refuses to follow new guidelines, either you do that or you fire everyone.

And hers case was especially easy, since she said she will leave the company if the policy isn't changed. Google didn't want to change the policy. What Google might have been wrong about here is if they reported this as her voluntarily leaving, even if you could argue it is Google firing her. But nobody really cares about that that detail, it isn't important and the story wouldn't blow up if that was the only thing they claimed Google did wrong.

Re: Leaving Google

#116

Post by DannyBee » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

titzer wrote: post #53

cletus wrote: post #19

Why did he leave? The tl'dr is the L6 glass ceiling and the remote pay cut. I can speak to both of those: First, for those that don't know, new grads get hired at L3, PhDs at L4 (which IMHO is actually a mistake but that's another issue) and there is an expectation of getting promoted to L5 (Senior Software Engineer). There's no set time frame for this. I've known people who stayed L4 for many years and were quite ha…

> I'll clue you in on a dirty little secret: it's hard to get promoted to L6 for anything. It's hard if you're on the wrong project (read: low impact and/or low visibility). There are different routes to L6 at Google, but by far the most successful was to become TLM or just M of a medium impact project. It's hard to make the case as an IC for L6, but colleagues did it multiple times. Large enough, long-running projec…

"Having been through the process, seeing the process from an IC, TL, TLM, and promotion committee member, if you think that L6 is unachievable, there is either a problem with your project or your expectations."

Lots of managers are also not good at talent management (and not just at Google). Which is sad. So they tell people it's a promo committee's fault, or .. Realistically, it's also the manager's fault. If they don't have scope/work that can help someone grow to L6, the right move is to help the person find a place that does, rather than string them along. Stringing them along ends up with them leaving or unhappy or ... Helping them grow elsewhere ends up with people who will likely want to come back to your org at some point when you have the need/scope/role for them.

Re: Leaving Google

#117

Post by joshuamorton » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

cletus wrote: post #19

Why did he leave? The tl'dr is the L6 glass ceiling and the remote pay cut. I can speak to both of those: First, for those that don't know, new grads get hired at L3, PhDs at L4 (which IMHO is actually a mistake but that's another issue) and there is an expectation of getting promoted to L5 (Senior Software Engineer). There's no set time frame for this. I've known people who stayed L4 for many years and were quite ha…

There's a few things here that are subtly wrong.

> How promotions work is a committee of higher-level engineers (eg L7s consider promotions to L6) and will have 10-15 packets to assess. These will get stack ranked by the committee. If you're above the line you'll get promoted. If you're not, you won't. Ruth's change just made that line a little higher.

FWIW this is no longer true for a lot of orgs, and will likely soon be untrue for all orgs. Also fairly sure that stack ranking within a single promo committee was never how it worked.

> That only applies to the salary plus bonus (since bonus is derived from salary)

Currently, however management is on record stating that this will change in the future, since I don't know exactly how, I'm not going to speculate, but the intent is for equity to reflect the compensation regions in the US eventually.

Re: Leaving Google

#118

Post by freyir » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

choppaface wrote: post #97

freyir wrote: post #17

“Quite a few activists and researchers were fired for asking Google to be a bit more ethical” In the examples the author cited, those activists and researchers were fired for reasons going beyond “asking Google to be a bit more ethical. And frankly it doesn’t seem ethical for activists, researchers, and the author to deliberately misconstrue facts whenever they believe they’re on the right side of an ethical (and som…

Dr. Gebru was fired for having approached a lawyer about workplace issues. (She told Jeff Dean and others that she was doing so in an email made public). That triggers Legal to retaliate and look for a reason to fire the employee, immediately. Jeff Dean let the conflict drag out 6+ months because he thought he had control of the situation (and he was wrong). Without Jeff Dean’s persistence, Dr. Gebru would probably h…

Did she threaten litigation before or after she posted an angry rant telling her coworkers to stop working?

Before or after she demanded that the company release the name of an anonymous reviewer?

Before or after she told them to schedule her last day if they didn’t meet her demands?

Re: Leaving Google

#119

Post by joshuamorton » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 5:04 AM UTC

freyir wrote: post #114

joshuamorton wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But her paper passed the internal review. It failed some additional internal review that wasn't policy at the time .

No, there was only one internal review. It didn’t pass, and it was too late for her to make revisions because it was past the conference deadline.

You're factually wrong. I was literally able to view her paper, and it's approved status, in the internal tool where papers are approved for publication.

Re: Leaving Google

#120

Post by icelancer » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 5:05 AM UTC

mikepurvis wrote: post #96

icelancer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also due to wanting to keep your employees. You can't make the same amount of money year over year and retain employees who never get raises above CPI or promotions into management/ownership. That's just not going to work.

I don't know about that. There are plenty of examples of "boutique" companies who pay well and have insanely good retention over the long term— 37signals/basecamp as one example, at least until that dustup earlier this year. Valve is probably another. It's not hard to imagine a Google that had taken this path, just focused indefinitely on search & search ads, run itself with <1000 highly skilled, highly paid employee…

It's not just engineers this applies to. Sure, if everyone makes $400k + benefits and profit share with good work-life balance and such, I guess that might fly. But most companies have customer support, IT, and other cost centers where you have entry-level employees who need to progress, and that necessarily means increasing wages over time to retain and advance good employees.

Besides, junior developers / interns are supposed to do what exactly if there is no increasing revenue at a company and no one leaves above them? Just hang out until someone quits even though they're not going to?

Retraining a junior developer is costly. Advancing them is as well, but less costly than constantly cycling in new junior developers and interns to do the HTML/CSS + ETL script jobs no one likes doing.

Growth is natural and important towards keeping your staff happy and moving up.

Both Basecamp and Valve were growing massively, so I don't think those are good examples.