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Leaving Google

jayconrod.com

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Re: Leaving Google

#411

Post by da39a3ee »

brap wrote: post #250

I’ve been at Google for a little less than OP, and while I’m also considering leaving, my main reason is sort of the opposite: I’m bored. The whole team is bored. It feels like we’re doing nothing, and have been doing nothing for years. I work under 25 hours a week, and the vast majority of time is spent in useless meetings or reading useless docs. My actual work is maybe 5 hours a week. What are we even getting paid…

If I were in that position I would consider studying while on the job. Is there anything in the realm of computer science or adjacent areas that appeals to you to study? Maybe get a serious ramp-up in an area that you'd like to work in next?

Re: Leaving Google

#412

Post by spfzero »

mbesto wrote: post #320
mehrdada wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the stock price would tank (note that the current multiple assumes growth), employees would leave due to poor compensation, and starts a downward spiral. I am not sure if that is called survival. And no, most businesses in the world do not survive that long. Lifetime of businesses are often much shorter than lifetime of humans. Even many of them that look like have survived may share the name only and are e…

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.

It's about stock price and bonuses, in public companies. The only metric that a board of directors can use is stockholder welfare. That's their primary fiduciary duty, according to law these days.

So, what to bonus the CEO on? Stock price appreciation. Stock price valuation loves growth. So even though a flat business throwing off 10% profit is a very nice business to be in, the only way you can increase stock price is to grow margin, which is really hard and attracts competition. Ergo, CEO is going to try to grow the company to boost the stock price. That's one reason dubious mergers are pursued, as it at least will goose revenue and profit. Wise investors might use return on equity or capital as well, but the market in general biases towards the revenue and profit metrics. Stock goes up, CEO gets their bonus.

For a private company, slow or flat growth with a nice profit margin is great, and without having to favor growth at all costs for pesky stockholders and analysts, you can pick and choose when a good opportunity comes along, and grow a bit anyway.

Re: Leaving Google

#413

Post by lotsofpulp »

Terretta wrote: post #410
beambot wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Politician wins election by promising lower taxes by assuming greater investment returns hence requiring less money to be set aside for defined benefit pensions.

People see other people’s wealth growing quicker because their investments grew more, increasing demand for higher growth investments.

Population growth inherently leads to economic growth assuming a sufficiently stable society and access to resources.

All of these create an environment where people expect certain ROI and make plans according to those ROI.

Re: Leaving Google

#414

Post by zerocount »

ashtonkem wrote: post #104
amha wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My direct supervisor has 75 direct reports. (Not a tech company––an elite private school in the Bay––but still...)

Fuck that. Nobody is being served by that arrangement. Nobody.

I would, because I wouldn't be bothered by a useless manager running around calling meetings and doing other useless activites.

They're saving a bunch of money just having one useless person.

Re: Leaving Google

#415

Post by abdabab »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #311
abdabab wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> employees would leave due to poor compensation With a gross profit of 100 billion dollars a year [1] they can easily outbid the market compensation if they want to and stay with current revenue. But again how many Jeff Deans can one company need before it calls itself The Man? [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOG/alphabet/gros...

Why would gross profit be the relevant metric here and not net profit?

You’re right. 63 billion dollars of net profit per year is a better metric.

Re: Leaving Google

#416

Post by jleyank »

da39a3ee wrote: post #406
burntoutfire wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As far as I can tell, don’t go public or be a regulated utility.

Re: Leaving Google

#417

Post by 8note »

mehrdada wrote: post #219
capableweb wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Google would easily survive if they focused on maintaing existing services and making the headcount stable instead of increasing. Most businesses in the world survive with their piece of the pie and remaining having the same profits or slightly lower/higher than previous years. You don't disappear over night, and no market is really a "winner takes it all", it's just what management wants you to believe so you fi…

Sure, but the stock price would tank (note that the current multiple assumes growth), employees would leave due to poor compensation, and starts a downward spiral. I am not sure if that is called survival. And no, most businesses in the world do not survive that long. Lifetime of businesses are often much shorter than lifetime of humans. Even many of them that look like have survived may share the name only and are e…

You could compensate the employees with things other than stock

Re: Leaving Google

#418

Post by jleyank »

laserlight wrote: post #246
capableweb wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I'd call taking existing technologies and putting them in laptops/watches innovation rather than iteration on existing stuff, but we're all different so it's all good.

Can you please list some technologies or products that you think were innovations in the last 15 years?

My recollection of the time window is wrong, but I’d say microprocessors, then smartphones were fundamental. Chips ate both minicomputers and mainframes, and the smartphone totally altered how people interact with computers. Tablets are just big phones and watches are just smaller subsets. Software wise, the web. The net is old but it took the web to make it explode.

What am I missing?

Re: Leaving Google

#419

Post by DannyBee »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #278
DannyBee wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The argument for a pay cut" ... Another argument is that if tech paid everyone the same, everywhere, it would greatly exacerbate income equality issues in a lot of places. Tech is certainly not altruistic, as you point out, and generally wants to pay market rate rather than output rate or whatever. But it doesn't make less true that it would worsen a whole bunch of social problems by paying people the same everywher…

That is a ludicrous argument. The whole income/wealth inequality is not about working people earning more, it is about capital owners earning vastly more due to various reasons. Some businesses do earn more due to ease of access to additional capital, and hence can pay employees more, but the root of the income/wealth divide is certainly not employers paying employees more. It is certain employers (capital owners) ge…

"That is a ludicrous argument. The whole income/wealth inequality is not about working people earning more, it is about capital owners earning vastly more due to various reasons."

Uh, what? No, it's about where the money is concentrated and how that concentration changes (or doesn't) over time. It's true that other forms of earning have a bad effect on this, but i'n not sure why that's particularly relevant.

To whit - tech folks, paid in SF dollars, but living in various cheap ares of the US, are in the 0.1-1%. Easily.

The fact that they got there by being paid rather than some other form of wealth accumulation, is irrelevant. They will stay there just the same as anyone else.

Why would it be any less unequal because someone is starting in the 1% by getting paid a ridiculous salary on a regular basis rather than earning money through the stock market on a regular basis? Why would one not transform into the other? It's rhetorical of course, since that is what will happen. In fact, it's what the tech folks moving want to happen. They want more money to buy a large house and invest and retire and be richer than they can be in SF.

" But there is no point in trying to address a problem by addressing its symptoms rather than causes."

You haven't, at all, explained why putting more people in a seriously unequal position makes anything better, or why it's "pointless" to avoid doing that.

It's not pointless. It avoids more inequality. Does it avoid all of it? Of course not. But again, the other way demonstrably makes things worse.

Do you have a concrete argument as to why it makes sense to keep doing that?

Because your entire comment feels precisely like the rest of the discussions around this - "it's not my fault, i shouldn't earn less money, it's the other people who are at fault. Particularly the ones who have 10x/100x what i do".

Re: Leaving Google

#420

Post by 8note »

opinion-is-bad wrote: post #212
nl wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of small family scale business in fields like alcoholic drinks and food, and they have large, fierce competitors.

These businesses have a natural limit to their growth due to the estate tax. If the company grows too large, the taxes on death can be crippling for families that can not plan decades in advance. Public corporations do not have to pay this tax, and therefore have an unnatural advantage in holding valuable assets over long periods of time. The estate tax is well-intentioned, but because it hits only family firms it’s…

The owners of public companies dont have to pay the estate tax when they die, as their children inherit the stock?

I thought it was for the total value exchanged?

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