Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors • Hacker News Board

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#351

Post by kevstev » Wed, May 01, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

nnq wrote: post #301

ok-repl wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those poor underpaid Googlers

...higher salaries in one place tend to pull up salaries elsewhere too. And conversely, if you push down the top, you also push down the middle (under the optimistic assumption that the bottom can't go any further down...). Also, it's easy for other industries to then justify with: "hey, even Google is doing it, and they were they guys supposed to 'do not evil', amirite?". That's the problem with unethical behavior,…

Indeed- I thank the FANGs everyday for pulling up my salary. In 2013 I was making about 1/3 what I am now in the financial industry in NYC doing algo trading/HFT. I was reluctant, but after years of seeming to miss out on the big money that everyone talked about finance people making, I finally just decided to look outside the industry. I got a remote job with a company in the valley, and got a 60% increase in comp, that after 3 years grew to just a hair shy of 100%. I was pretty much the first defector to leave finance for tech in my circles, but more followed. I jumped around one more time, with a financial company who truly pays top tier salaries (to match tech companies), and am now making a full 3x what I was just a bit over 5.5 years ago, with a much better work life balance and general work environment.

I can't imagine this would have happened without Goog/FB/Apple/Netfix, etc. Every day I reap the benefits of their competition for talent without having worked at any of them.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#352

Post by ehsankia » Wed, May 01, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

vertline3 wrote: post #185

ehsankia wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's meant to be alpha-bet, where alpha is investment return above benchmark.

Ahh that makes sense, like seeking alpha. I was thinking it was due to indexing things from A to Z.

There is definitely double entendre going on, which is why they picked that name. At the surface it means one thing, but it has a second more relevant meaning hidden in there. They make bets which make great returns on investments, and these bets cover everything from A to Z.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#353

Post by acct1771 » Wed, May 01, 2019, 8:25 PM UTC

lallysingh wrote: post #342

acct1771 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo... https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

The argument structure there 'a related to b related to c, therefore c works for a', isn't far from what they use on Ancient Aliens. So, where's the actual profit? Or is this all mind control, friend-of-a-friend illuminati stuff that's assumed to make Google want to do this stuff?

You have a short attention span for a finance guy...

Argue the points, or don't bother addressing the writeup. Good grief.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#354

Post by vkou » Wed, May 01, 2019, 8:56 PM UTC

minwcnt5 wrote: post #164

throwawaytoday5 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it hard to fire employees? Workers have extremely weak protections in the United States. I never buy this argument. If google wanted to clean shop they can, other tech companies do it regularly (IBM, Oracle, etc).

In addition to what vkou said, firing individuals for low performance in the US, as opposed to mass layoffs, typically requires putting them through the PIP process (performance improvement plan), which is onerous and stressful for the manager. My limited understanding is it involves the manager, HR, and employee agreeing on a project and timeline that would constitute satisfactory performance, then constantly checki…

Also, doing so demonstrates a failure on the manager's part (How did they let a formerly good report get so bad that they need a PIP? Were they paying any attention to what they were doing for the past year?)

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#355

Post by lallysingh » Wed, May 01, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

acct1771 wrote: post #353

lallysingh wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument structure there 'a related to b related to c, therefore c works for a', isn't far from what they use on Ancient Aliens. So, where's the actual profit? Or is this all mind control, friend-of-a-friend illuminati stuff that's assumed to make Google want to do this stuff?

You have a short attention span for a finance guy... Argue the points, or don't bother addressing the writeup. Good grief.

Going ad-hominem now? What points? You posted URLs. Neither of the URLs showed a revenue stream to Google.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#356

Post by MichaelMoser123 » Thu, May 02, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

_khau wrote: post #305

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eric Schmidt was the anti-privacy leader who dismissed privacy concerns. Well, he did understand how to turn the customers data into a product. He is one of the key persons who formed the whole data economy thing; that's quite a big deal - he formulated the way of making money for the 21st century. Once upon a time money was in producing stuff, now stuff and people are so much varied so that the main problem is tha…

> Well, he did understand how to turn the customers data into a product. He is one of the key persons who formed the whole data economy thing; that's quite a big deal - he formulated the way of making money for the 21st century. You keep repeating this as if it is somehow axiomatically good. The surveillance capitalism business model is not one we should be proud of in any way.

I don't like it either (don't work for them) I was just trying to gain an understanding on what is going on.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

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Post by frutiger » Thu, May 02, 2019, 3:05 AM UTC

tremon wrote: post #346

frutiger wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best way, of course, is to carefully curate different identities online Doesn’t this only work if all your interactions are online? Otherwise your family might meet your colleagues at your birthday party (or whatever you might celebrate).

No this works offline too. For example, I would think that my friends have the decency not to talk to my grandmother about my sexual preferences, even if the two happen to meet at my birthday.

But if you hold your boyfriend’s hand during your birthday your grandmother would probably wise up to your sexual preferences.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

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Post by dredmorbius » Thu, May 02, 2019, 5:05 AM UTC

mostlysimilar wrote: post #341

nothrabannosir wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy is also about solidarity with those who do have something to hide. We want to create a society with herd immunity for dissidents, free thinkers, and even the less controversial yet somehow still controversial; fetishists, (closet) non-traditional-sexuals, or simply those who engage in behaviour that we have only learned to condone, not yet accept. Even if you are not any of those, it is our duty to provide a…

Several months ago I came across a website dedicated to sharing this mindset--that privacy, even if you have nothing to hide, is good for society and lets people break out of restrictive norms. I haven't been able to find it again despite a pretty long search. Do you happen to know the site I'm talking about?

That's a key principe behind Tor.

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

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Post by lsc » Thu, May 02, 2019, 7:11 AM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #319

lsc wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sillicon valley is more then google and apple It is... but the top tier companies pay dramatically more than the next tier down. Like, we're talking 30-50% difference once you count total comp. (it's interesting, base salary is somewhat comparable... but stock and bonus are a big part of comp if you work at a FAANG company, and those... largely don't exist at third-tier companies.) The top-tier employers also do a l…

Very few companies include bonus as a part of a software engineer's compensation (large SV companies are more or less alone in this). Bonuses are generally reserved for executives (excluding sales staff, of course) in most industries, including mine (defense). Though, salary for software engineers has been ticking up lately. I suppose I can thank the demand for engineers created by these tech companies for that.

>Very few companies include bonus as a part of a software engineer's compensation (large SV companies are more or less alone in this). Bonuses are generally reserved for executives (excluding sales staff, of course) in most industries, including mine (defense).

Yup, that's what I'm saying. I'm just a sysadmin; I'd never gotten a bonus in my 20 years working as a programmer or sysadmin, mostly at tier 3 tech companies... not until I started working at a FAANG company these last few years, but the bonus + equity is a really significant portion of my compensation now, and brings the whole package from "nicely comfortable for someone who didn't go to college" to "wow"

Re: Eric Schmidt Steps Down from Alphabet’s Board of Directors

#360

Post by jcadam » Thu, May 02, 2019, 11:29 AM UTC

lsc wrote: post #359

jcadam wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few companies include bonus as a part of a software engineer's compensation (large SV companies are more or less alone in this). Bonuses are generally reserved for executives (excluding sales staff, of course) in most industries, including mine (defense). Though, salary for software engineers has been ticking up lately. I suppose I can thank the demand for engineers created by these tech companies for that.

>Very few companies include bonus as a part of a software engineer's compensation (large SV companies are more or less alone in this). Bonuses are generally reserved for executives (excluding sales staff, of course) in most industries, including mine (defense). Yup, that's what I'm saying. I'm just a sysadmin; I'd never gotten a bonus in my 20 years working as a programmer or sysadmin, mostly at tier 3 tech companies…

I'm much too old to work at a FAANG :), I do make a pretty good salary for the area of the county I live in, though.

In any case, moving to SV would only be worth it if salary+bonus were close to half a Megabuck, and I doubt there are more than a dozen engineers in the world making that kind of money as a FTE.