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What I learned getting acquired by Google

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Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#231

Post by zymhan »

izacus wrote: post #34
moritonal wrote: post #8

Is this a happy story? Having read it my takeaways are that they were immediately asked to rewrite their app in Google's way, then a separate research team went off and wrote them a new API for their core functionality. And now given Socratic by Google on the Play Store was last updated on Oct 21, 2020, and is not available for my Android 13 device, so seems to have just died? Kind of seems like Google bought the com…

I mean... it's both? It reads like real life - good things and bad. Which is why the insight is interesting.

Nuance is an underappreciated form.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#232

Post by GreedClarifies »

asdfman123 wrote: post #40
leidenfrost wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the office near the port, right? Beautiful neighborhood and the commercial part is very tourist friendly.

Yep. Another perk is that Google always seems to lease the best/coolest office real estate anywhere. Most of my time here I feel vaguely gross about how nice everything is.

Meta also has exceptional offices.

Both are amazing.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#233

Post by oconnor663 »

thomasahle wrote: post #195
castlecrasher2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's a caste system One required by federal policy. Companies are legally bound, or at least incentivized to not risk lawsuits, to degrading temporary staff so as to distinguish between regular employees and contractors.

> One required by federal policy. Federal policy just says that if you don't distinguish between regular employees and contractors, the contractors are considered regular employees. It doesn't say you are not allowed to hire those people as regular employees and treat them like regular employees.

If the feds said you had to insult someone every time you bought printer ink, and then lots of people started getting insulted, I would lean towards blaming the feds for that outcome rather than blaming the people who buy printer ink.

Of course, it could separately be the case that people buy too much printer ink, and that we have good reasons for asking them to buy less. In which case our feelings about these new insults might be complicated. But if the goal of a regulation is "do less X", and the chosen mechanism is "you must insult other people when you do X", I'd call that questionable policy design.

Coming back from the metaphor, it seems more accurate to say that this regulatory situation with contractors wasn't explicitly designed at all, but rather "emerged" out of previous policies and court decisions. So maybe asking whether it was designed well or poorly is beside the point.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#234

Post by tester756 »

drewg123 wrote: post #203

What I learned getting acquired by Google is that if your company is below a certain size, everyone will need to do a technical interview to be hired and leveled. They tell your management to lie to you, and tell you its just a meet and greet, with questions about projects you worked on, general background stuff etc. But its actually a full on surprise technical interview. (NOTE: This was true in the early-ish 2010s,…

>Imagine walking into a technical interview 20+ years out of grad school.

So just like when changing jobs?

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#235

Post by GreedClarifies »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #139
asdfman123 wrote: post #33

The second passport thing is definitely true. When I'm abroad--even, recently, Buenos Aires--I have access to office space, free food, a gym, and even a music room where I can practice guitar and piano.

Doesn't work in China (I've heard).

Worked for me. Maybe someone filled a ticket to make it happen, I sure didn't have to do anything.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#236

Post by blagie »

peddling-brink wrote: post #103
slater- wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you for mentioning this. i was a red badge. it was fucking demeaning. i have a lot of stories, but my favorite was when everyone on my floor got an earthquake safety kit except me. literally google didn't care if i lived or died. the expectation was that if i sucked up enough ("demonstrated my value") they MIGHT make me a real boy, like some bizarre Velveteen Rabbit fetish game. i loved watching how Google woul…

This isn't just google, it's every company with contractors and employees. Microsoft learned the hard way to not treat contractors like employees. https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-... Nobody else wants to learn that same lesson.

It's not the same.

The Microsoft problem was *independent* contractors. I.E. treating people as self-employed.

Normal contractors are employees of a temp firm. None of these issues apply there.

Footnote: I started my career as an IC, before I had family or kids. It was great. 32 hour work weeks and time (and the legal right) to do startups on the side. Ton of flexibility relative to a real job.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#237

Post by ponector »

sjburt wrote: post #222
ponector wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every US company. European companies somehow have contractors without caste system. Obviously there are different policies for internals and contractors, but fruits and pizza are for everyone in the office.

At least with regard to 1099 vs W-2, a huge amount of this is due to IRS rules.

I had the same two-caste system enforced in European office of US company. Legally it was a local company with parent in US. But anyway, "food is only for employees". Funny enough, even student who was there for 20 hours per week and did anything but work was allowed to eat.

This is a cultural thing.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#238

Post by paganel »

goalonetwo wrote: post #3

"When I was working at Google, we ..." Seems like every Googler cannot wait to tell us their stories about Google! Hopefully over the last year the general public has started to see those bigTech more as a dystopian place than a source of pride. I still cannot believe that we have hyped becoming a cog at Google to the almost top level of professional achievement.

Things are slowly but surely changing, and this goes for the tech world/culture as a whole, i.e. how we're seen by the "outside" world.

I'd say that the high-point of the nerd/tech stuff was around 2017-2018, i.e. just before the pandemic, but ever since then techies have started being seen as a nuisance (and worst) by more and more people.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#239

Post by szundi »

peddling-brink wrote: post #103
slater- wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you for mentioning this. i was a red badge. it was fucking demeaning. i have a lot of stories, but my favorite was when everyone on my floor got an earthquake safety kit except me. literally google didn't care if i lived or died. the expectation was that if i sucked up enough ("demonstrated my value") they MIGHT make me a real boy, like some bizarre Velveteen Rabbit fetish game. i loved watching how Google woul…

This isn't just google, it's every company with contractors and employees. Microsoft learned the hard way to not treat contractors like employees. https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-... Nobody else wants to learn that same lesson.

In my company I almost fired someone from HR for constantly forgetting how these contractor people are part of the team, invited to every event etc

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#240

Post by goalonetwo »

jeffbee wrote: post #60
asdfman123 wrote: post #33

The second passport thing is definitely true. When I'm abroad--even, recently, Buenos Aires--I have access to office space, free food, a gym, and even a music room where I can practice guitar and piano.

It's almost literally a sidekick passport. If you fly into a city with a major Google office and you say you are there for work and you work at Google, the customs agent might ask to see your badge.

I know you guys are being told you are special but this has nothing to do with Google. I Had the same thing happen to me for different companies.
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