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Leaving Google

jayconrod.com

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Re: Leaving Google

#311

Post by lotsofpulp »

abdabab wrote: post #225
mehrdada wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the stock price would tank (note that the current multiple assumes growth), employees would leave due to poor compensation, and starts a downward spiral. I am not sure if that is called survival. And no, most businesses in the world do not survive that long. Lifetime of businesses are often much shorter than lifetime of humans. Even many of them that look like have survived may share the name only and are e…

> employees would leave due to poor compensation With a gross profit of 100 billion dollars a year [1] they can easily outbid the market compensation if they want to and stay with current revenue. But again how many Jeff Deans can one company need before it calls itself The Man? [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/gros...

Why would gross profit be the relevant metric here and not net profit?

Re: Leaving Google

#312

Post by saagarjha »

ashtonkem wrote: post #38

> Second, management was spread way too thin. My last manager had around 25 reports It would be rude to describe my anatomical response to having 25 reports, but suffice to say it wasn’t good. I generally consider 6-7 the ideal max, and 8-9 the “I’m dropping all the unimportant balls in order to keep juggling” line. 25 is so far beyond the pale I can’t imagine how any manager of managers’s worth their salary would le…

Due to various internal reorgs my manager currently has a number of reports approaching that number. It's mostly gone fine for now, because there are multiple teams under her that are mostly self-sufficient in deciding their product direction. We have a team lead who isn't a "manager" but is providing input on what we do and we go to her when we have problems or need administrative work done. It's not horrible.

Re: Leaving Google

#313

Post by Sebb767 »

saagarjha wrote: post #273
jw_mc wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix is known for having all-cash offers.

Netflix is pretty much the only FAANG that does that. Every other large tech company has generous stock grants, and as you pass a couple years of experience your stock will generally be larger than your cash compensation.

> Netflix is pretty much the only FAANG that does that.

Netflix is also 20% of FAANG companies, so that's not as lonely as it sounds.

Re: Leaving Google

#314

Post by saagarjha »

Sebb767 wrote: post #313
saagarjha wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix is pretty much the only FAANG that does that. Every other large tech company has generous stock grants, and as you pass a couple years of experience your stock will generally be larger than your cash compensation.

> Netflix is pretty much the only FAANG that does that. Netflix is also 20% of FAANG companies, so that's not as lonely as it sounds.

Right, but they're a strange company that just happens to be in FAANG. Pretty much every other large company, in the FAANG acronym or not, will give you equity.

Re: Leaving Google

#315

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

superdude12 wrote: post #280
hadlock wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the stock price went down, they would just pay employees in cash, which is a slightly less tax-advantaged solution.

How are RSUs tax advantaged?

The award is taxed at the same rate, but theoretically (in the States, at least) you can hold them for a year after they vest and only pay the much lower long term tax on the appreciation of their value. In order to easily compare apples to apples this assumes that in the alternative to getting RSU's that you would actually get compensated more income instead in proportion to the value increase of the company. An equivalent would probably be to compare a cash bonus that is directly tied to the value of the stock vs the equivalent gain in RSU. All else being equal, the RSU gain is more tax advantageous if you have held the RSU for a year or longer before liquidating the position.

Re: Leaving Google

#316

Post by ren_engineer »

brap wrote: post #250

I’ve been at Google for a little less than OP, and while I’m also considering leaving, my main reason is sort of the opposite: I’m bored. The whole team is bored. It feels like we’re doing nothing, and have been doing nothing for years. I work under 25 hours a week, and the vast majority of time is spent in useless meetings or reading useless docs. My actual work is maybe 5 hours a week. What are we even getting paid…

plenty of people have suggested that it's better for Google and other big tech companies to pay talented engineers to do nothing rather than risk them founding a company that could disrupt them

Re: Leaving Google

#317

Post by tpush »

capableweb wrote: post #208
shoto_io wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. Why are they still able to continuously pushed out great products and keep innovating? What’s your hypothesis?

> Why are they still able to continuously pushed out great products and keep innovating? What’s your hypothesis? Big assumption that Apple is indeed innovating right now. Yeah, M1 was a great innovation, but before that, the iPhone was the previous innovation. Everything between has just been iterations basically, so I disagree with your assumption that Apple is in-fact highly innovative.

> Yeah, M1 was a great innovation, but before that, the iPhone was the previous innovation.

Watch and AirPods are literally the most popular and profitable products in their market. The iPad dominates, too.

Re: Leaving Google

#318

Post by Sebb767 »

capableweb wrote: post #230
poisonborz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any tech company would toss a limb for those "iterations". Aluminium unibody, stacked battery tech, MagSafe, ECG for watch, and much more.

Not sure I'd call taking existing technologies and putting them in laptops/watches innovation rather than iteration on existing stuff, but we're all different so it's all good.

By that logic, the M1 was just packaging an ARM CPU in a laptop and the iPhone was just stuffing a SIM card in a PDA.

Re: Leaving Google

#319

Post by carlivar »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #261
TheRealNGenius wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, Timbit sent a public letter of resignation, and Google accepted. Nothing more nothing less.

Can a private company not accept a letter of resignation? Would that be a violation of the 13th amendment?

If the terms of the resignation contradict terms in the employment agreement, I would think so. As long as the employment agreement is legal itself.

Re: Leaving Google

#320

Post by mbesto »

mehrdada wrote: post #219
capableweb wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Google would easily survive if they focused on maintaing existing services and making the headcount stable instead of increasing. Most businesses in the world survive with their piece of the pie and remaining having the same profits or slightly lower/higher than previous years. You don't disappear over night, and no market is really a "winner takes it all", it's just what management wants you to believe so you fi…

Sure, but the stock price would tank (note that the current multiple assumes growth), employees would leave due to poor compensation, and starts a downward spiral. I am not sure if that is called survival. And no, most businesses in the world do not survive that long. Lifetime of businesses are often much shorter than lifetime of humans. Even many of them that look like have survived may share the name only and are e…

This is what people seem to forget. A company that doesn't grow for all intents and purposes is a dead company. Or in the M&A world we call it "distressed". It doesn't matter how profitable you are if you don't get grow there are serious implications - employee motivation, loss of talent, erosion of customer services, etc.
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