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Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

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Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#21

Post by pfedor »

nostrademons wrote: post #11
codemac wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tenures are not 2-3 years when you're financially independent. When you have an epic trump card in all conversations about what you should spend your time on, do you think you'd spend more than a minute doing something you didn't want to? I believe the term is "fuck-you money". """ This is an allusion to a Randy/Avi conversation of two years ago wherein Avi actually calculated a specific numerical value for "fuck-you…

Do engineers in SV actually spend time doing things they don't want to do? You don't need a lifetime supply of cash to have "fuck you money", you only need enough to be reasonably certain that you can find some other way to get more money. In Silicon Valley, that's about 2 days for a skilled engineer. None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do.

None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do.

That would be remarkable. That would mean that the solution to an optimization problem without constraints ("Of all the things I could be doing, which will make me the happiest?") is the same as to a corresponding problem with an extra constraint ("Of all the things I could be doing that also bring enough money to pay the mortgage, which will make me the happiest?")

It doesn't often happen in life that adding an extra constraint, especially one that limits the space of possible solutions so drastically, doesn't change the solution. No doubt there exist people like that, but it seems unlikely that it would be true for all of your friends. They probably just put on an act which is expected in this kind of environment, and you naively take it at face value.

Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#22

Post by magicalist »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #16
nostrademons wrote: post #5

Many of these are very recent departures, eg. Craig Silverstein left in Feb 2012, Amit Patel was within the last year or two, Marissa was last week. I'm kinda amazed that half of the first 20 employees had 10+ year careers there, despite being financially independent since the IPO. I read somewhere that median Silicon Valley job tenure is about 2-3 years.

The departures come at a time when Google is in transition, its becoming "old." Having worked there between the time it exited its giddily irresponsible teen years to the start of its midlife crisis, I recognized the symptoms. What was humorous to me was that I lived through that the first time at Sun (at Sun 10 years) from Sun just going public to the point where they were struggling with their identity. And for muc…

I always find this kind of speculation through determinism a little silly (under the covers all it's really saying is "x is the new y").

Yes, many companies fall into similar patterns as they get older, but many don't. Most of the giant corporations we talk about on HN are fairly unique, don't have exact analogues, and, complex systems being what they are... Meanwhile, people also leave jobs because they took them when they were 25 and now they want to try their hand at Khan Academy (or Yahoo for some reason).

Basically I'm suspicious of any pat narrative :)

Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#23

Post by ssx »

Compare this to Facebook: 3/20

Entirely different loyalty, maybe even belief in the long term. I would say that the difference between the two companies is that Facebook hired young, while Google hired older, highly educated employees.

(In the list below, I wouldn't even count Steve Chen, he was from Paypal and spent no time at Facebook).

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebooks-first-20-employees-...

I think the

Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#24

Post by nostrademons »

pfedor wrote: post #21
nostrademons wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do engineers in SV actually spend time doing things they don't want to do? You don't need a lifetime supply of cash to have "fuck you money", you only need enough to be reasonably certain that you can find some other way to get more money. In Silicon Valley, that's about 2 days for a skilled engineer. None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do.

None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do. That would be remarkable. That would mean that the solution to an optimization problem without constraints ("Of all the things I could be doing, which will make me the happiest?") is the same as to a corresponding problem with an extra constraint ("Of all the things I could be doing that also bring enough money to pay the mortgage, which wil…

It's a different way of thinking about the problem. Most of my friends are not trying to optimize their life. Instead, life happens. The way to be happy is...to be happy, to change the things that you can change that make you unhappy, and accept everything else and not worry about it.

It's not an act any more than you choosing to view the world through the lens of an optimization problem is an act. You can't really judge what someone's desires are - just because they don't desire what you desire doesn't make it wrong.

Reminds me of something a girl I once dated once told me. We were talking about a mutual friend of ours, someone who (like me) tends to view everything through a hyper-logical lens and treat it as an optimization problem, and she said something along the lines of, "I can't read anything he writes. It's like everything has to follow logically from some past premise, but he doesn't realize that not everyone starts from the same assumptions as him. How can you relate to someone like that?"

FWIW, I've thought like that for much of my life (which is perhaps why said girl and I are not together), so I do understand what you're saying. I'm trying to point out that it's possible for people to genuinely be happy doing whatever they're doing, at least until something better comes along. And I'll go out on a limb and say that most people think like that, and the type of achievement-driven, believes-they'll-be-fulfilled-if-they-had-$10M mindset is overrepresented on HN. (BTW, people generally tend to associate with others of similar worldviews - remember my date's comment of "How can you relate to someone like that?" - which is why the bulk of my friends are perfectly happy doing whatever they do, and perhaps the bulk of your friends are always striving for something better.)

(It probably also helps that there're lots of jobs available for Xooglers in Silicon Valley, and that category is already fairly self-selecting for people who enjoy programming, so the universe of "things I enjoy doing that will pay the mortgage" is quite large.)

Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#25

Post by ChuckMcM »

magicalist wrote: post #22
ChuckMcM wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The departures come at a time when Google is in transition, its becoming "old." Having worked there between the time it exited its giddily irresponsible teen years to the start of its midlife crisis, I recognized the symptoms. What was humorous to me was that I lived through that the first time at Sun (at Sun 10 years) from Sun just going public to the point where they were struggling with their identity. And for muc…

I always find this kind of speculation through determinism a little silly (under the covers all it's really saying is "x is the new y"). Yes, many companies fall into similar patterns as they get older, but many don't. Most of the giant corporations we talk about on HN are fairly unique, don't have exact analogues, and, complex systems being what they are... Meanwhile, people also leave jobs because they took them wh…

I think you are absolutely right to suspicious of such narratives. They are always a product of both the observer's bias and the systemic bias of the environment in which they operate. I didn't immigrate here, which changes how I experience the place, and as someone who tends to work for 5 to 10 years at a place the half dozen places I have direct experience at are a small fraction of the total number of companies.

The effect I've observed is that Silicon Valley has such mobility (which is to say between jobs) and such commonality between business structure, that the larger companies get, the less pronounced their differences become. I attribute that to the challenge of assimilating folks into the company culture that is too far off the valley 'mainstream.' It also provides a tremendous amount of cross fertilization where people say "Oh at my old company we used to do X" and if its a better thing than what the locals do it has a good chance of being adopted. So management techniques, office layouts, and programming methodologies have a sort of viral nature to them as well. This seems to homogenize the way companies evolve than you might expect.

Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#26

Post by ChuckMcM »

ebun wrote: post #17
ChuckMcM wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The departures come at a time when Google is in transition, its becoming "old." Having worked there between the time it exited its giddily irresponsible teen years to the start of its midlife crisis, I recognized the symptoms. What was humorous to me was that I lived through that the first time at Sun (at Sun 10 years) from Sun just going public to the point where they were struggling with their identity. And for muc…

Great response. For the "retired" who stayed on, what sort of impact did their newfound attitudes have on things? Did they play a part in any of the major new products or improvements that came later?

Generally the impact I've observed was folks getting more stuff done. I attributed that to them not worrying about pissing someone off if they stepped on their toes, but it may have been that they just had only one thing to focus on.

To be balanced I've also seen them leave, basically to put to the powers that be a set of facts or demands that need to be true, only to have those same powers tell them it wasn't going to happen. Then they left. I try to pay a lot of attention to those sorts of events because depending on whose reasoning I find more credible it can inform my own thoughts about staying or leaving.

Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#27

Post by kirubakaran »

jmillikin wrote: post #12
nostrademons wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do engineers in SV actually spend time doing things they don't want to do? You don't need a lifetime supply of cash to have "fuck you money", you only need enough to be reasonably certain that you can find some other way to get more money. In Silicon Valley, that's about 2 days for a skilled engineer. None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do.

Almost all SV developers, even those at the "perfect job", still have to do things they don't want to. This is a factor in salaries; the more unpleasant a company is to work at, the more they have to spend to hire skilled developers. And "fuck you money" isn't only enough money to tide you over to your next job, it's enough money to quit working forever, to live completely as you want for as long as you want.

"to live completely as you want for as long as you want"

Money doesn't make you immortal yet :)

Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#28

Post by akg_67 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #16
nostrademons wrote: post #5

Many of these are very recent departures, eg. Craig Silverstein left in Feb 2012, Amit Patel was within the last year or two, Marissa was last week. I'm kinda amazed that half of the first 20 employees had 10+ year careers there, despite being financially independent since the IPO. I read somewhere that median Silicon Valley job tenure is about 2-3 years.

The departures come at a time when Google is in transition, its becoming "old." Having worked there between the time it exited its giddily irresponsible teen years to the start of its midlife crisis, I recognized the symptoms. What was humorous to me was that I lived through that the first time at Sun (at Sun 10 years) from Sun just going public to the point where they were struggling with their identity. And for muc…

"People stand up for things they value rather than things they think they should support."

This is an awesome reply. Not because the views on Google but how reaching financial independence changes the outlook on work. It something I can closely relate. As I have gotten closer to FI, I am more likely to do things that I value even if they ruffle the feathers than just go along with things that I dont value personally but still need to do as part of doing the job.

This reply was so timely for me as just yesterday I told my boss that I quit go find somebody else because I was being asked something that diverged from my value system. Being customer-centric, I value customer satisfaction very high and I am not fond of the hurdles being erected to achieve that goal.

Re: Of Google's First 20 Employees, How Many Are Still There?

#29

Post by pfedor »

nostrademons wrote: post #24
pfedor wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of my software-engineer friends are doing things they don't want to do. That would be remarkable. That would mean that the solution to an optimization problem without constraints ("Of all the things I could be doing, which will make me the happiest?") is the same as to a corresponding problem with an extra constraint ("Of all the things I could be doing that also bring enough money to pay the mortgage, which wil…

It's a different way of thinking about the problem. Most of my friends are not trying to optimize their life. Instead, life happens. The way to be happy is...to be happy, to change the things that you can change that make you unhappy, and accept everything else and not worry about it. It's not an act any more than you choosing to view the world through the lens of an optimization problem is an act. You can't really j…

I phrased the thought that way, but that doesn't mean that only hyper-logical people feel like that and everyone else agrees with you. Quite the opposite: most people would think you're crazy if you suggested that they want to go to the office in the morning rather than say spend the day chilling out by the pool. It's precisely the software engineers from Silicon Valley who more often embrace the flavor of denial you are advocating.

What you said about being happy is no doubt true, but so what. No doubt there were happy slaves and unhappy kings. Did the happy slaves not do things they didn't want to?

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