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Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

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Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#381

Post by screye »

mattkrause wrote: post #268
bilbo0s wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know man? You'd be surprised how attached people are to their spouses or partners. Doesn't matter how badly you want to work at Google, if your spouse is an IP attorney or VP at an academic hospital, as a family you just can't go moving to the middle of nowhere. It's not ALL about being able to work at Google. There's a lot more going on in making these decisions. (At least there is for the type of people tha…

This! I’m sure Google (etc) could lure a lot of young, single folks out to the hinterlands for a year or two, but retention and recruiting further up the ladder would be awful. Universities in the US, which—for historical reasons-are often located in rural areas, have similar problems. They solve this through “spousal hires.” This can range from merely coordinating interviews and offers across departments [0] to crea…

> spousal hires

Happened to a prof in my university just this year. Had offers from top universities & labs for tenure in CS, but stayed in our rural college town because of his SO.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#382

Post by iainmerrick »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #152
iainmerrick wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as someone who does a fair amount of remote working, yes, videoconferencing is awful. I’ve worked at several different companies of different sizes and it’s always awful. The video quality is bad, audio is terrible, getting a meeting started takes forever. These aren’t insurmountable problems, you just have to get used to a different way of working. It’s not remotely the same as working in the same office. B…

> Google is one of the few companies with the resources to try to drastically improve the technology and fix this problem, but they instead decided just to double down on consolidating their staff in big offices. Obviously works for them but it’s a shame. I'm a googler, and this is completely wrong. Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue. Nearly every meeting room in the company is equipped with videoco…

Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue.

But not to the extent of encouraging fully remote work, or even of opening offices in many locations (as they formerly did).

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#383

Post by zjaffee »

sinker wrote: post #365
wholien wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are a lot of outdoors stuff 1-3 hours outside of NYC. NYC itself does have a lot of parks too, of which Central Park is the largest example.

Central Park is more like a big outdoor garden not in anyway comparable to a large trail system or public lands area. There are trails a little north and in nearby Jersey 1-2 hours by car on the way to (if you head out in the early morning). But on the way back... God have mercy. Expect at least two hours and closer to three and a half in crawling traffic as soon as you get somewhere close to the city. You can see qu…

There are absolutely massive parks in staten island and to some extent the bronx too. People forget simply how big NYC actually is, where should you look beyond just the city there's a tons of different types of nature than what Denver has (beaches and water for one, a more significant fall, ect).

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#384

Post by [deleted] »

microcolonel wrote: post #163
TulliusCicero wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider Portland to be a cheaper or more conservative US city, and it's still one of the better US cities at urbanism, sad as that is, but okay. * The MAX has decent reach, but it's severely handicapped in capacity and speed by running at-grade. The Portland metro cheaped out there, and the result is a train system that's only good by American standards. * Many of the MAX stops, you can go a block or thre…

> Most of what I wrote here, you could apply in some form to nearly every US city. Also every Canadian city, with some very rare exception to the bus lanes bit (there are like... two in Toronto). > Those very low density areas also generally have no commercial/retail activity allowed, which particularly hurts walkability: part of walkability is being able to, y'know, walk to things. The other things are more a matter…

[deleted]

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#385

Post by TulliusCicero »

iainmerrick wrote: post #382
TulliusCicero wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is one of the few companies with the resources to try to drastically improve the technology and fix this problem, but they instead decided just to double down on consolidating their staff in big offices. Obviously works for them but it’s a shame. I'm a googler, and this is completely wrong. Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue. Nearly every meeting room in the company is equipped with videoco…

Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue. But not to the extent of encouraging fully remote work, or even of opening offices in many locations (as they formerly did).

You're confusing "wants to fix" with "believes can be completely solved (in the short or medium term)".

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#386

Post by iainmerrick »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #385
iainmerrick wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google absolutely wants to fix the remote work issue. But not to the extent of encouraging fully remote work, or even of opening offices in many locations (as they formerly did).

You're confusing "wants to fix" with "believes can be completely solved (in the short or medium term)".

Yes, you may be right. I guess what I’m trying to say is that some companies and organizations (Basecamp, Mozilla) embrace remote working and some discourage it, and Google is currently in the latter camp.

I know they use videoconferencing a lot and they even sell it, but they still co-locate teams and they still expect people to come into the office most days, right?

It’s surprising to me that Google in particular is anti-remote given that all their products are so internet-focused. Yes, it’s probably unfair to expect more from them than from others.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#387

Post by wil421 »

esotericn wrote: post #240
wil421 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re comparing the UK to the whole US when you should compare it to California or the Northeast. A better comparison would be Europe but I think London and SF would still be the best paying.

Not a fair comparison. The UK doesn't have labour mobility with the rest of Europe. Even within the EU it's not as simple as 'move from Poland to France and get a job'. Most of the countries have different languages. "Europe" isn't a country.

I have a lot of friends and old co workers I Europe. My Serbian coworker had no problem moving to Spain and learning Spanish. My Greek friend had no problem living in the Netherlands. Another Slovakian friend has no problem living in Scotland, same goes for a couple Germans I know in Scotland.

The Poles have no problem moving everywhere in Europe working construction jobs.

Hell the Russians have no problem spending summers working in the part of Florida I vacation at.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#388

Post by esotericn »

wil421 wrote: post #387
esotericn wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a fair comparison. The UK doesn't have labour mobility with the rest of Europe. Even within the EU it's not as simple as 'move from Poland to France and get a job'. Most of the countries have different languages. "Europe" isn't a country.

I have a lot of friends and old co workers I Europe. My Serbian coworker had no problem moving to Spain and learning Spanish. My Greek friend had no problem living in the Netherlands. Another Slovakian friend has no problem living in Scotland, same goes for a couple Germans I know in Scotland. The Poles have no problem moving everywhere in Europe working construction jobs. Hell the Russians have no problem spending s…

Moving from Serbia to Spain is obviously not equivalent to moving between US states. Come on. It's more like Scotland to England with a bit more distance involved.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#389

Post by dunpeal »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #347
rustybelt wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds awesome. If I was single and 25 I'd be all for it. Being 38, married with 3 kids means my lifestyle preferences are a little different.

Married people with 3 kids and suburban preferences mostly do not want to move to begin with. That's why targeting this demographic is usually going to be less effective if you're trying to concentrate a large number of workers in one area.

Yeah, not sure how Google can recruit folks in this category unless they allow full-time remotes.

Re: Google Plans Large New York City Expansion

#390

Post by jasonlotito »

Itaxpica wrote: post #246
jasonlotito wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, gotta admit here, Philly has done a good job. The public transit is good. I live an hour outside Philly, and taking the train in is a real option here because the trains are good and getting around once in city has never been an issue. Couple that with easy access to NYC itself, and it's even nicer. It's not perfect, but then neither is NYC.

I dunno, I love Philly, but “good” isn’t exactly the word I’d pick to describe SEPTA.

So why do you think great is the exact word you use to describe SEPTA?
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