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Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

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Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#411

Post by stonemetal12 »

navbaker wrote: post #354

This mention of "yoga at 11am" seems to be rubbing some folks the wrong way, but what if it was "lunch for an hour at 11am"? In all the jobs I've held (including now) where working hours are not dictated by external forces, such as customer service expectations, our teams make sure we get in our hours and are more or less available during a reasonable window, say 8am-5/6pm. It is pretty much understood that there wil…

Yeah, I don't get the unhealthy interest in other people's private life. As long as your job is to get work done, and not cover duty station at time xyz, complaining about when people choose to take a break is really weird and invasive.

In my experience people who are permitted flexible work schedules and take advantage of them tend to be the better employees.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#413

Post by justapassenger »

tinyhouse wrote: post #347
justapassenger wrote: post #309

While he has valid points of how corp life is different from startup, he seems like a horrible, entitled person to work for. General attitude that comes out of it to me, is that your employees growth doesn’t matter, only his vision of product matters. He complains about people being entitled, and at the same time he complains that as CEO of subsidiary of one of the biggest company in the world, he cannot say offensiv…

I think you misinterpreting what he's saying. I didn't get the impression that he claims that employees growth doesn't matter. He's saying that most people optimize for promotion rather than building a better product. That's indeed the wrong thing to optimize for, esp for the company. Not being able to fire people is indeed a big disadvantage. Bad employees are much worse than just not contributing. They make the peo…

> He's saying that most people optimize for promotion rather than building a better product. That's indeed the wrong thing to optimize for, esp for the company.

It’s literally his job, as a CEO, to make sure promos and career progression align with increased product quality.

Sure, it’s harder as a part big company, where there’s more bureaucracy to deal with (both for good reasons of consistency and equality, and bad reasons of just because) but no one said growing is easy. As an engineer I’d be fired if I wouldn’t solve technical challenges of scaling.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#414

Post by aerosmile »

asidiali wrote: post #393
aerosmile wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With two comments quoting the same example, you seem really hell-bent on driving this point home. Ok, I'll bite. How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year? Context matters, because believe it or not, most professionals occasionally go the extra mile no matter what industry they are in. I recentl…

> How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year? Multiple times per month. 3/4 weekends per month. How’s that? Not uncommon in many small startups I’ve been a part of as an employee, founder, or advisor. Your point is fine, except for the fact that it totally overlooks if an employee is actually alr…

> many small startups I’ve been a part of as an employee, founder, or advisor

As a significant equity holder in an early stage company, you cannot compare yourself to regular employees. We're no longer comparing professions, and instead are comparing approaches to wealth creation: salary vs equity. Again, if you're not a fan of risk, get a job at a bank.

To bring it back to your original post - you called someone ignorant for stating that leaving work at work is a choice. It is indeed a choice, as we both concluded by stating that this career gives you plenty of opportunity for career mobility.

EDIT: your post changed a couple of times and most recently added some bizarre criticism of capitalism ("setting aside the fact that the money is relative to the value created for these companies"). This is totally off-topic, and frankly I am having a hard time following your reasoning so I'll disengage and just hope you'll find peace and appreciation for the good things in life.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#415

Post by good_sir_ant »

I always enjoy posts like this. When the comments flow in, you can identify the steadfast obliviousness the urbanites have around how the other 99% of the world approaches work. Just the reactions to a different opinion (which more aligns to one formed outside of silicon valley) illustrate a built-in intolerance to anything resembling reality, difficult as it may be.

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#416

Post by hctaw »

izacus wrote: post #99

This is an amazing post - it describes exactly how bad manager looks like and what kind of expectations does he have from his employees. No emergency PTO (despite being a benefit), ability to just get rid of people who don't suit him, cursing at people, not having a proper work/life balance. It just keeps on giving. And all for what? A mapping application having features which really don't save lives 99% of the time.

> A mapping application having features which really don't save lives 99% of the time.

And ruins thoroughfares not designed for heavy traffic, while degrading quality of life for people who don't use it!

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#417

Post by phonebucket »

> ...in a start-up there is complete alignment between the product, the company and the brand. The employees, management and investors are aligned as well - product does well, company does well, investors do well, employees do well.

Perhaps this can be true for founders/founding employees with significant stock.

Do employees 15 onwards (i.e. the majority of employees working in successful startups) really have so much stock so as to pour their hearts into the company?

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#418

Post by cafard »

izacus wrote: post #99

This is an amazing post - it describes exactly how bad manager looks like and what kind of expectations does he have from his employees. No emergency PTO (despite being a benefit), ability to just get rid of people who don't suit him, cursing at people, not having a proper work/life balance. It just keeps on giving. And all for what? A mapping application having features which really don't save lives 99% of the time.

How would children on otherwise quiet streets get to hone their reflexes if Waze didn't divert traffic down them?

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#419

Post by nfRfqX5n »

dijit wrote: post #33
macintux wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “I’m a passionate guy so I can’t communicate without cursing” part was entertaining.

Ugh, I'm this guy and I hate myself for it. I've found that I really have to detach from the situation to use less curse words, such as counting to 5 mentally before saying _anything_. Any other tips for similarly terrible people such as myself?

I never cursed around my parents, even as I got older, so it's easy for me to switch into that mode

Re: Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?

#420

Post by lhorie »

gonehome wrote: post #409
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #363

9 years @ Google, and I too came from a company acquired by Google. (In my case, Google did not keep our product or tech stack around, so.) And yes, I can say many Googlers are entitled. It's a fair descriptor. And the pace of work is slower than a startup. In general. And I too have many criticisms of Google. But. Google has entirely different revenue constraints. It can afford an entirely different way of working.…

My take would be Google can afford it for now because they have a web ad monopoly and don’t have to compete. If they ever lose that, the culture they’ve built will cause them to be destroyed and irrelevant in not that much time. For now, it’s summer.

I recall watching a news report as a teen about how things used to be pretty chill at Microsoft at its heyday. These days it doesn't seem to have a monopoly on much of anything, but it can still crank out interesting projects.

It doesn't have to be a black-and-white do-or-die.

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