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Leaving Google

jayconrod.com

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Re: Leaving Google

#401

Post by gerash »

Sebb767 wrote: post #325
gerash wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, perhaps people read too many comic book with these one dimensional villains to think that an employee asked Google to be more ethical and then they fired them right there and you could hear an evil laugh in the background. I've looked at some of the correspondence between Timnit and others and it's fairly unprofessional on her part if you ask me and it has this self righteousness tone to it too. Another very…

> Another very funny thing people believe is that Google wanted to do "evil" things but their perfectly crafted plan fell apart at the last second when they realized that they have "do no evil" in their code of conduct. Of course the CoC is not binding, but having that in there was a statement, which meant, roughly interpreted, "the impact of our work should not be net negative". The removal of the line itself did no…

First of all it's still there if you haven't checked for yourself: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/

Second, if you were wearing "I'm a good guy" badge on your shirt and later on decided to go rogue and work for the enemy, would you then remove that badge right away? Of course not unless you're truly incompetent at being bad.

I'd understand it if they got rid of the wording because of how much headache it creates for them.

Btw, that's basically why government and business officials often resort to saying the least informative statements. Because every word and sound bite will be used against them.

Re: Leaving Google

#402

Post by borroka »

lolpython wrote: post #380
borroka wrote: post #366

A few days ago I got the usual call from the Google recruiter, after being rejected a year ago with feedback of 2 sure hire, one lean, two no hire. A strange collection, isn't it? Well, I would have “fired" two of them plus the recruiter, one who wasn't paying attention to my interview and one who turned off the video and whose accent and questions were basically incomprehensible (I am non-US myself, btw). Maybe the…

> salty-fish generalization What does this mean?

Salty-ish (autocorrection got it wrong). I am a bit salty because I was rejected and my tone may reflect that, although it is true that people at Google are in my experience (that is, the one I met professionally or outside work, or saw at events, giving lectures etc.) not very interesting (on average!), in part because that's what the interview process, maybe inadvertently, screens for.

Re: Leaving Google

#403

Post by joshuamorton »

jollybean wrote: post #256
sillysaurusx wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether the paper was rejected by a regular process or an irregular process, it doesn’t condone her actions that followed This is where we'll have to agree to disagree. As you can see in this thread, she was treated unfairly. Someone confirmed to you that this is the case, and you're still arguing that her subsequent behavior was unjustifiable. I think her subsequent behavior was a result of the unfair treatment. I…

"As you can see in this thread, she was treated unfairly. S" This is not true. The fact that she may or may not have had extra scrutiny than others, within regular policy or not is completely besides the point . If a company, for whatever reason, wants to have 'another review' of the paper, it's completely within their purview. "Her paper was anodyne. No one would've blinked if it was published." Our view of whether…

A company being legally allowed to do something doesn't implicitly make that thing fair or ethical.

You can simultaneously believe that Google has the right to quash any paper, and believe that doing so arbitrarily is unfair. So yes, she was treated unfairly. And that's absolutely relevant to people's decision making. Like, what do you think it's irrelevant in relation to?

Its not clear what you mean by publicly, nothing was done outside of Google until after she was fired.

Re: Leaving Google

#404

Post by beambot »

prox wrote: post #398
mbesto wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This seems like a popular and reflective comment, but this is a very cultural idea in my amateur opinion. It seems like this -needs- to be so, and many do so because of that belief. But in reality it is a self perpetuating hamster wheel of burn out bliss a company is setting itself up for.

It's not cultural at all -- it's economics.

Businesses are valued based on discounted cash flows (DCF). If you're profitable and not growing, your cash flows are very stable & easy to evaluate -- you get a low P/E or P/E/G ratio. But if you're growing quickly with sane unit economics, most of the DCF value is in future years... which then results in much higher multiples relative to today's revenues & earnings.

Re: Leaving Google

#405

Post by srvmshr »

freyir wrote: post #42
sillysaurusx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is true. Normally I'd be inclined to agree with you, but the Timnit situation was handled badly. Objectively, there was nothing wrong with her paper. You may have a point about the other researchers. I'm not familiar enough with their situations. But I dug into Timnit's pretty thoroughly. Their recent behavior isn't too encouraging either: https://archive.md/7jCQY (Related Twitter thread: https://tw…

From what I read at the time, she wasn’t fired for the content of the paper (though she initially made it sound like this before more details became public). She gave the company an ultimatum to reveal the name of an anonymous reviewer or she would quit, and they took her threat seriously.

I have a feeling her continuous rants on Twitter is because her overall demands and feeling of entitlement were stood down. She demanded things which would have been just another kind of shit show and targeted harassment.

A social-justice themed charade is being made out of just being salty at getting fired.

Re: Leaving Google

#406

Post by da39a3ee »

burntoutfire wrote: post #339
discordance wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how employee motivation, loss of talent, erosion of customer services are related to the need for unyielding year on year growth. There are companies out there, private ones, where their customers are happy, their employees are happy (most of the time) and their retention is high.

Without growth, the only way to get promoted is to get a spot of some higher-up who left the company (or retired/died). Whereas, in growing companies, there are new senior/management positions created all the time, to account for the growth - so, getting promoted is easier. Ambitious, hard working people like promotions, so they gravitate towards growing companies and not stale companies.

So is there anything to be done about it? How to avoid companies being compelled to seek growth always, to the detriment of their internal functioning/culture?

Re: Leaving Google

#407

Post by apohn »

bla3 wrote: post #337

> Why I left [...] Burnout [...] I wish I'd done more to fight those things, beyond signing petitions and walkouts. I'm not much of an activist though, especially with burnout. It's interesting that the author mentions this, but doesn't make a connection between feeling burned out and feeling that they have to be personally responsible for everything the company does. I don't even disagree with many of the demands of…

I just wanted to let you know I found this comment very insightful. I've never really thought about all tiny ways feeling responsible for stuff in a company can creep into your mind and fester there without you realizing it. It's easier to attribute burn-out directly to a bad manager, unrealistic deadlines, not getting a promotion, etc - it's harder realize there there are so many other tangential things you think you should engage in and feel guilty about not having the time or mental space to engage with. All of which adds up into a overwhelming mental load.

Re: Leaving Google

#408

Post by da39a3ee »

beambot wrote: post #404
prox wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a popular and reflective comment, but this is a very cultural idea in my amateur opinion. It seems like this -needs- to be so, and many do so because of that belief. But in reality it is a self perpetuating hamster wheel of burn out bliss a company is setting itself up for.

It's not cultural at all -- it's economics. Businesses are valued based on discounted cash flows (DCF). If you're profitable and not growing, your cash flows are very stable & easy to evaluate -- you get a low P/E or P/E/G ratio. But if you're growing quickly with sane unit economics, most of the DCF value is in future years... which then results in much higher multiples relative to today's revenues & earnings.

So is there anything to be done about this? It seems from this thread that the conclusion is that companies cannot avoid constantly seeking growth, and yet that growth ultimately destroys internal social mechanics / culture.

Re: Leaving Google

#409

Post by MrPatan »

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.

Netflix is in FAANG only to make the acronym nicer

Re: Leaving Google

#410

Post by Terretta »

beambot wrote: post #404
prox wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a popular and reflective comment, but this is a very cultural idea in my amateur opinion. It seems like this -needs- to be so, and many do so because of that belief. But in reality it is a self perpetuating hamster wheel of burn out bliss a company is setting itself up for.

It's not cultural at all -- it's economics. Businesses are valued based on discounted cash flows (DCF). If you're profitable and not growing, your cash flows are very stable & easy to evaluate -- you get a low P/E or P/E/G ratio. But if you're growing quickly with sane unit economics, most of the DCF value is in future years... which then results in much higher multiples relative to today's revenues & earnings.

So? Who needs that?

Not the company, unless selling stock to raise cash.

Not the employees, if paid in cash instead of funny money.

Nobody needs that.

It's cultural.

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