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Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

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Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#171

Post by midoridensha »

erehweb wrote: post #22
thesuitonym wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? Google went public is what happened. You literally cannot make good decisions when you have to base everything around what will make the most profit for the shareholders this quarter.

They don't have to do that, though - founders still retain control so could ignore shareholders.

It's sad: Google has (had?) all the ingredients needed to make an absolutely amazing tech company, but instead they've been consistently shooting themselves in the foot for at least a half-decade. They've had oodles of money, brilliant developers, majority stock ownership by the founders (to avoid being completely beholden to shareholders and their short-term interests), lots of goodwill and a great image at the beginning, and they're just squandering it all with terrible leadership.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#173

Post by m463 »

oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

> Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket".

Wouldn't some sort of LRU scheme work better as some sort of PAGE-ing algorithm? Maybe RANK the employees to group by locality.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#174

Post by cauliflower99 »

oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

I agree with your first statement. When in-person, it isn't good to have a hot desk. You need to reset your space each morning. You can't have anything personalised at the desk. You have new neighbours who you probably couldn't be bothered talking to because they'll be moved tomorrow.

But I disagree that in-person is the worst way of working. I think some people are more productive in areas that are well-defined. But if teamwork, group problem solving or large amounts of communication is required (such as onboarding a junior), then there is no comparison: In-person has far more communication points than remote. Working in a team remotely requires you to schedule every communication point. This is frustrating when most information that gets passed between people is by osmosis / overhearing.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#175

Post by quickthrower2 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #4
photonbucket wrote: post #2

"Return to office, what's left of it"

You thought it was bad before, now we're going to cram you into an even smaller open floor plan.

I am bullish on apple’s vr headsets. That is all you’ll have room for. No desks!

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#176

Post by sharts »

Osiris wrote: post #68
space_invaders wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has turned into the "new IBM" for years now. I've worked with Google engineers and managers from different "generations". It's shocking how the newer engineers are just your average consultancy engineer with leet code practice. They have little abstracting capabilities and would be pissed-off if you use some tool/workflow that's not "The Google Way™" (and that includes things like Github for code reviews (inst…

I worked at a startup with just 2 other engineers. They hired a guy from Google with a decade less experience than me. When I arrived I was taking my time to understand the culture, company, needs, etc. before making any suggestions. One example, they did Agile with sprints and I think KANBAN works better. But, I didn’t see it as an important issue to spend time on. So the Google guy comes in and from day 1 began mak…

That's why they say having "Google" on your resume sets you up forever (˃̣̣̥‿˂̣̣̥)

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#177

Post by bananapub »

thesuitonym wrote: post #14
oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

>What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? Google went public is what happened. You literally cannot make good decisions when you have to base everything around what will make the most profit for the shareholders this quarter.

I'm sort of amazed how often I see this dumb take on HN.

just because it's a US tech-world cultural norm for companies to mostly be run in fucking stupid short term ways, it doesn't mean it's actually required. especially in the case of Google, where 1) Eric, Larry and Sergey have stiched up the entire board's voting power, 2) doesn't need to raise cash via bonds or stock at all and 3) it's a magic money tree, so investors will accept being told to fuck off and let the CEO run the company however they think it'll work best.

Google also IPOed in 2004...are you seriously suggesting that it hasn't been a

> forward thinking and innovative company

for ... 19 years? that's a pretty bold take.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#178

Post by danielrpa »

HWR_14 wrote: post #58
chubot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From 2012, to 2016, to 2020, google bled an incredible amount of key talent I think that was kinda known in the valley, but not sure any media really covered it Honestly a lot of the blame goes to Larry Page for turning the company toward G+, pushing top people toward Gundotra, the product failing quite badly, and Larry stepping back as CEO My view of Eric Schmidt is pretty neutral, but it was a little weird how Larr…

G+ wasn't a bad product, but it's hard for me to conceive of a worse rollout plan.

There was no reason for the average user to switch from Facebook. Arguably, it was worse than Facebook due to poor UI: I could never make my wife understand the value of circles, it was simply not the way she thinks about her contacts.

Re: Google cuts office space in Bay Area by more than a million square feet

#179

Post by RickJWagner »

oofta-boofta wrote: post #13

Google looked at how sailors share space on a sub and were like "yeah, that's the ticket". Hot-desking is the worst way to be in-office, on top of the worst way of working which is in-office. What happened to being a forward thinking and innovative company? These "geniuses" can't use their superior big brains just barely hiding under those infantilizing propeller hats to figure out a way to make remote work effective…

Google must become the new IBM. As business gets bigger, they have to relentlessly control costs, else they'll end up out-flanked by nimble upstarts.

It's the circle of business life.

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