Seeing the "top 50 brands picture" - is it bad or is it good that, as freelancer, I have horror stories (and some of them are multiple stories for same brand) for each and every one of them?
Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
141–150 of 840 posts
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's also this lovely comment in the "focus" session where he plainly asserted that "privacy has no value to his users".
I think it's important for all the Google bashers out there to note this example of a high profile employee leaving because Google cared too much about privacy (or "noise" as he terms it).
I read that as "legal got involved and we had a ton of meetings that achieved nothing for our users" rather than "privacy did nothing for our users".
I don't think Google "cares about" user privacy. I think they care about minimising any legal risk. These are two very different attitudes.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#143A lot of interesting things here, but also the usual "billionaire complaining about all these entitled employees" vibes.
I'm no billionaire, but I am an Xoogler and his descriptions of employee entitlement and misaligned incentives are spot on.
Why don't these employees take their high skills, work for $30k/year for 100/hours per week, take no days off and like it?
This guy is hopelessly out of touch. You work to live, not the other way around.
As for misaligned incentives, this is how it is throughout the corporate world - it's not exclusive to Google or other big tech companies. As one of the guys who puts the team on his back and works hard for the users, the reality is that doing a good job does not benefit me in the slightest. My executives care about the number of tickets and new features we churn through. I don't get paid for retention; I don't get paid more for writing good code; I don't get paid more if we get new customers. The only way I get paid more is if I get promoted. What's my motivation to work as hard as I do? My only motivations should be getting promoted or getting a new job.
The only reason any of us work for these companies is for money and benefits. We don't care about your mission statement; and neither do these executives, or they would change the incentives. It's a purely business arrangement: we agree to work X hours per week for Y dollars in total compensation under Z conditions. It's in our interest to reduce X, improve Y and Z. It's the employer's interest to do the opposite - but the employer also cares about other variables, such as retention, total revenue, total profit and costs.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#144I feel like I need a follow up article from Google along the lines of "Why did we let this guy stay so long?"
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#145Another "leader" who complains about employees wanting work life balance and they are extremely entitled. These are the type of managers you want to avoid. I'm sure many Googlers are happy you left.
Yes, that made me want to run a mile from ever working for him. He is right that we are entitled though. As software engineers we are extremely lucky to be in a profession that is in demand by companies that make (a lot of) money. Companies compete for us with salaries, quality of work and other benefits. This puts us in a lucky minority compared to the rest of the population (even if we limit to talking about developed nations).
We have expectations based on that. Some things are the norm for us. We should absolutely try to be aware of that and not take it for granted, and we should absolutely understand that for others it is the norm. Everyone feels entitled to what they get all the time. You need to accept reality, even if you don't like it.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
A different way of putting it would be whether an employee takes personal responsibility towards their work. It's not incongruent with a balanced life. To me It just means occasdinally you might stay late at work, once in awhile an interesting problem gets you working on the company laptop all Saturday, and if something breaks you're not able to log off until you fix it. Doesn't mean you cant take Friday's off of or…
I think this is slightly different from what the OP was saying, because in this scenario, you choose to do that. IMO personal responsibility and pride in one's work like this is amazing and totally compatible with a balanced life. But when a manager asks you to have some personal responsibility and balance your weekend life towards the overtime work side, that's a whole other story.
The line I draw is that the manager never knows or cares when you work. They only see the output and the occassional indication that you take your work seriously. If someone ever says you should work more or I've never seen you work in a weekend, of course I would also run away.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#147> This counted on the fact that Google had promised us autonomy to continue to act as Waze and we more or less believed them. Read: The promise wasn't spelled out in the contract. And whoever has experience in organizational politics knows that if it's not put in writing, it effectively wasn't said. > Distribution - we quickly learned, the hard way, that we could get no distribution from Google. Any idea we had was q…
> So, the guy basically wanted to totally lord over people and be able to fire them essentially at will, or worse. Can't say that I'm very sympathetic here.
That seems like an unfair interpretation to me.
The guy wants to be able to do what's best for the team. We've all worked with that one guy who shouldn't be there, but is.
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I don't believe long hours are a badge of honor but I also believe that we have to do whatever it takes to win, even if its on a weekend." lmao what a terrible, horrible manager. I would hate working for them, and I would not miss them leaving. Maybe I'm just playing into their "young people don't want to work" stereotype, but if that's what working means, I don't want to do it with them.
A different way of putting it would be whether an employee takes personal responsibility towards their work. It's not incongruent with a balanced life. To me It just means occasdinally you might stay late at work, once in awhile an interesting problem gets you working on the company laptop all Saturday, and if something breaks you're not able to log off until you fix it. Doesn't mean you cant take Friday's off of or…
> whether an employee takes personal responsibility towards their work.
This is a good take. Something that's perhaps overlooked: those rare occasions where you need to stay late to deliver are very memorable. Isn't it true that strong bonds are often built from intense experiences? I think those few times that you stay late earn you massive respect from those who stuck around, and builds a relationship beyond your career. Especially if it isn't even your responsibility specifically, maybe it's the team lead's ass on the line or a colleague's. It's like indirectly saying "hey I got your back on this, you can trust me I'm a team player -- we ride together we die together bad boys for life"
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#149Another "leader" who complains about employees wanting work life balance and they are extremely entitled. These are the type of managers you want to avoid. I'm sure many Googlers are happy you left.
If they really complained about not getting compensated for buying their own food during lockdown I think "entitled" is a fair descriptor. This is the first time I've read one of these blogs where the author complains about it being "practically impossible to fire someone". To me, that adds an air of authenticity to the complaining. In my experience too, the inability to fire people for reasons other than "this perso…
If google provides food for employees then that's essentially indirect compensation. Employees can now use the money they would have spent on food to buy other things.
So now that they're remote and have to buy their own food they have effectively received a pay decrease.
How is it entitled to complain about a decrease in compensation for the same work?
Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?
#150Another "leader" who complains about employees wanting work life balance and they are extremely entitled. These are the type of managers you want to avoid. I'm sure many Googlers are happy you left.
I think the author is correct that some big tech companies create a culture where going to 11am yoga is more important that crunching out a few more lines of code. He's correct that if your focus is on building and scaling product, this culture reduces the velocity of change. However, I see a couple of things the author is missing: 1) Work life balance is about employee long term retention and places like Google spen…
I am self-employed and 11am (or, in my case, anywhere within the 11am-3pm window) exercise is actually a great refreshment for my mind.