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What I learned getting acquired by Google

shreyans.org

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Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#281

Post by suprfsat »

andrewparker wrote: post #208
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…

Socratic by Google still exists today and is a widely beloved app based on reviews. They had to rewrite the code and infrastructure, but "killing off the app" implies that they just shut things down. That never happened. As for "happy story", I think the founders of Socratic learned a lot. Shreyans is just trying to share his learnings here. Not celebrate or mourn.

> This app isn't available for your device because it was made for an older version of Android.

Not "killed off" exactly, no.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#282

Post by shadowgovt »

ponector wrote: post #204
peddling-brink wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

The difference is unions.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#283

Post by Keyframe »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #189
gizmo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 10 person startup without a business model? And all the tech got thrown out. Clearly an acquihire.

How can you tell them difference between that and early removal of a competitor?

Well google did buy photomath recently as well, which is basically the same thing so who knows.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#284

Post by tgma »

slater- wrote: post #96
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #79

The "red badge" thing was very real. It was really weird having TVCs on your team. You'd all work hard together to launch a thing, and then everybody except the red badge would get a celebratory team tchotchke or a team lunch or something. If you asked about it, the manager would say "we can't give Jim things directly because that might be like compensation and they'd be like an employee." There'd be all-hands meetin…

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…

You were an adult when you took the job, weren't you?

Many people are unhappy and/or quit Google's FTE employment too, and feel undervalued at Google as FTE. The employment agreement is consensual.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#285

Post by shadowgovt »

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.

Not unlike how the GDPR resulted in banners everywhere, because the law stops short of banning contracting, companies have, of course, sought the optimal just-up-to-the-edge balance.

The biggest two reasons it matters (i.e. two biggest disincentives from just hiring contractors) are healthcare and quarterly reports. Healthcare provision is very expensive, even amortized across the employees in a company, and TVCs get no healthcare from the client company. And the client company can grow and shrink TVC contracts all day long without having to tell shareholders they went through a mass hiring cycle or a layoff cycle.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#286

Post by Consultant32452 »

jasode wrote: post #210
edgyquant wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not legally a contractor then. As someone who has done contracting, both for software and in construction plus has hired them and had to be advised by lawyers around the legality of what makes or breaks a contractor… If you are setting their hours, bossing them around and/or providing equipment they are not a contractor they are an employee. This is the law in 100% of the United States.

>That’s not legally a contractor then. [...] If you are setting their hours, bossing them around and/or providing equipment they are not a contractor they are an employee. There are 2 different uses of "contractor" : (1) contractor : official IRS tax classification of 1099 independent contractor (2) "contractor" : a W-2 employee of a "temp agency" or "staffing agency" or "bodyshop" that is sent to a client company (s…

I'm a mostly fake contractor. I miss the good old days when I could fake contractor directly to companies. Now I have to go through a middle-man that takes a cut. I still make triple what I was making before, but it bothers me that the middle man is likely taking 30-50% off the top.

These laws do not protect workers, they protect entrenched wealthy body shops.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#287

Post by ponector »

zopa wrote: post #271
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.

This is in Europe: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/contractors-accuse-eur... A very similar-sounding caste-system. Europe’s great and all but it isn’t Utopia.

Different treatment is a thing. But I couldn't imagine someone is ESA will say fruits and pizza are for employees only. Please leave the room while your coworkers eat.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#288

Post by whydoyoucare »

zopa wrote: post #271
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.

This is in Europe: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/contractors-accuse-eur... A very similar-sounding caste-system. Europe’s great and all but it isn’t Utopia.

I'd like to as in what ways is Europe great? From my narrow point of view, most if not all successful startups were founded outside Europe, most countries in Western Europe tend to be monolithic cultures where outsiders are made to feel like outsiders, and many European nations are socialist utopias (which means they take away a HUGE chunk of salary as tax).

(And I am asking this in a friendly tone, as a genuinely curious question, and not a combative one. These nuances get lost, so putting them down in words). Thanks.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#289

Post by bozhark »

no_wizard wrote: post #155
JSavageOne wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok but then contractors have the freedom to work whatever hours they want, not show up to the office, and subcontract out their work - right? If so that might be more appealing than being an employee

Not in practice, because they use a hiring entity to dictate the terms. You're expected to show up on a schedule, do the work etc. much like a FTE, but you're not an FTE. I think some folks have this illusion of software contractors that this is somehow common, it really isn't. The norm is you-are-almost-but-not-quite an employee type work environment, and thats at the better places. I've worked at a place where cont…

You cannot dictate those terms of a contractor.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#290

Post by ajross »

arrosenberg wrote: post #263
ajross wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, to repeat: the desire in the suit (to prevent employers from inappropriately using temporary labor) was valid. The EFFECT of the suit is exactly the opposite: it's forced employers to performatively discriminate against temps in every way they can find as a way to prevent the kind of finding that hurt MSFT. Thus, it's a bad ruling. I'm all for reform of contractor labor laws, but this decision broke things.

No one is forcing employers into performative hysterics, it's a reactionary choice by the corporate legal community. MSFT was guilty of what they were accused of. If they don't misclassify workers, they won't lose such a suit.

> No one is forcing employers into performative hysterics, it's a reactionary choice by the corporate legal community.

"The rest of the world is wrong, only I know the truth in this thread on a random web forum" is an unpersuasive frame to be arguing from. Corporate legal departments may be inflexible and hidebound, but they surely know this stuff better than you do.

No, this is the way it works. If you do what MS did and offer unrestricted perks to your temps, they'll sue you and you'll lose. Period.

What you're arguing amounts to "no one should hire temporary labor to work alongside salaried employees". And, OK, that's a position. But if that's what you want then you should make that case and not argue that somehow Viscaino doesn't exist, because it does.

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