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What I learned getting acquired by Google

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Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#351

Post by orochimaaru »

pseg134 wrote: post #311
orochimaaru wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. A staffing co like randstadt won’t give you perf reviews etc. You just work through them for tax reason. You hardly even interact with your account manager.

That’s incredibly disingenuous, randstadt is not a body shop. You are basically lying.

That’s a strange accusation. I never said they were a body shop. They are a staffing company. I’ve known people who have worked through them. Have had good experiences.

I just said you could freelance through them. A lot of people do.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#352

Post by leoh »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #342
nitwit005 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying something, rewriting it, and abandoning it, is just squandering money. You can't change that reality by praising Google's way of doing things.

It's worse than squandering money, it's squandering people's time, effort, their lives.

The counterpoint to this is that individuals can decide if they want their firm to be acquired or not or to stay around after it has been acquired. I don’t mean to put blame or shame on said folks, it requires a lot of careful thinking and self-inquiry and attention to one’s emotions and body to weigh said decisions well; which is hard for many reasons.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#353

Post by danans »

nitwit005 wrote: post #334
danans wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code and infrastructure must evolve, and Google excels at building secure, scalable, performant, maintainable systems that squeeze every last bit of signal from noise. Startups don't have the resources to do that, and Google can't launch a product built in the startup way. For an example, anything/anyone that wants to access user data at Google faces an extremely high bar for access, with layers of access control, au…

Buying something, rewriting it, and abandoning it, is just squandering money. You can't change that reality by praising Google's way of doing things.

The abandoning part is the problem, not the buying and rewriting.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#354

Post by leoh »

didip wrote: post #259

I don't understand authors who criticized the acquirer post acquisition. There is only one reason why you would sell: lots of money. You understand this going into the transaction. Once the company is acquired, it's no longer yours. And you understand very well why you sold to Google: Because they are so big that they can give you a lot of money. Unfortunately, a large company always has a lot of bureaucracy. Surely…

It’s because unless you’re pretty savvy and skeptical (albeit in a sophisticated way), your counterparts at Google are going to feed you all kinds of incredible, fanciful ideas about how things are going to be that don’t typically come to fruition.

It’s hard to develop savviness and a sophisticated sort of skepticism (ie a kind that doesn’t merely border on cynicism). So it’s disappointing when one’s optimism is exploited.

Which, Google, having gone through this sort of thing so many times — “knows” they are exploiting.

I say “knows” because Google M&A know this stuff in spades. Whether it’s reported up is another matter; as to say “the company we acquired is unhappy” is to bring blame upon M&A folks who are just doing their jobs.

Also see Judas Goat — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_goat

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#355

Post by julienb_sea »

ponector wrote: post #320
whydoyoucare wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cu…

It is great for living, for raising kids. For life. Taxes in Europe are huge, but comparable with taxes in California. Just sum all federal, state, local taxes on the salary, property taxes, sales taxes, health insurance fee, college tuition fee. Don't forget to add 25% tips to that. Count also small vacation, maternity leave and sick leave. And then compare for example with France. And not to mention you wouldn't fi…

I'm sorry, I don't think you have sufficient perspective on what middle class life is like in France to make this comment with any justification. French taxation is incredibly complex and heavy on the middle class. It is financially unfeasible for most middle class households to pass down their homes to their children due to the estate tax kicking on assets over 100,000 eur. There are many unhoused people spread across rural city centers and the outer banlieues of Paris. College is vastly more restricted in France and unavailable to the majority of the population. Social mobility is significantly constrained. Life grinds to a halt with some regularity due to general strikes. I am immensely grateful to have American citizenship and not have to raise my family in France.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#356

Post by choppaface »

modeless wrote: post #215
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,…

Nobody lied when we were acquired in 2016. Everyone was told ahead of time that they would be interviewed and not everyone would be hired.

For those they don’t hire, do they give a severance or other package for comp?

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#357

Post by sumeno »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #342
nitwit005 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying something, rewriting it, and abandoning it, is just squandering money. You can't change that reality by praising Google's way of doing things.

It's worse than squandering money, it's squandering people's time, effort, their lives.

Presumably they got well compensated for their time and effort. That's about the best you can expect at a large company. You're working on the company's products and priorities and getting paid to do so. What they choose to do with it is up to them.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#358

Post by [deleted] »

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,…

[deleted]

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#359

Post by leoh »

dwroberts wrote: post #6

> On the other, both Chris and I left Google to found startups, and neither the Socratic team nor Google as a whole have yet produced an AI powered tutor worthy of Google's capabilities. But a few Socratic Googlers might yet make it happen, unless they've been re-org'd Feels a bit like the post is upbeat padding to share the real experience/criticism which is this part (ie exactly what you expect for a small focused…

Right. If Google had taken SWE/SREs, say, and had them rewrite Socratic to fit Google infra while it had allowed Socratic engineers to think about incremental product enhancements that leveraged Google’s capabilities (as opposed to putting them full time on the rewrite), a far more optimal outcome that probably wouldn’t have led to them leaving.

One takeaway is that if you get acquired by Google, you should try to advocate for such an arrangement. Having worked for a firm that was acquired, it was incredible and devastating imo how much talent was squandered by these endless rewrites. Each IC’s decision to do that, to be fair — the money or something else wins for them. But just a bummer to see.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#360

Post by 1123581321 »

decaffjoe wrote: post #68
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 common for Google offices to have gyms and pianos?!

In school, I did a research project on grand pianos in the lobbies of tech companies. Google was one of the few whose public relations refused to comment, but a helpful engineer I pulled out of the phone tree did ask around the MV office with my set of questions.
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