Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Imagine walking into a technical interview 20+ years out of grad school. So just like when changing jobs?
Yeah plus a few millions in the bank because of the acquisition.
Maybe for the c-suite
What I learned getting acquired by Google
431–440 of 645 posts
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is in Europe: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/contractors-accuse-eur... A very similar-sounding caste-system. Europe’s great and all but it isn’t Utopia.
When people here say "Europe is great", which part are they referring to?
Someone should read the fine article:
ESA is one of the world’s leading space exploration organizations and one of the few that is international in scope, representing 22 member states. Contrary to a common misconception, ESA is not part of the European Union and not bound by European law. In fact, ESA is not bound by any real-world law, either local or national—it’s governed only by its 130-page Convention and a set of internal regulations.
This international status grants the ESA and its staff privileges that are far superior to those afforded to its bigger sister and role model, NASA, notably the ability to maintain any internal documents as confidential.
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean classic example are contracting out food service in the corporate cafeteria. You contract the work to some random other company who hire people to do food service or do you want Google or whoever to start hiring cooks themselves? Janitorial staff is also a classic role for this style of employment.
That's quite different - Google contracts for a service to be provided and takes no interest in managing janitors and cooks individually. The red badgers sound like they're being given individual instructions but denied employee protection.
but looking at it from a top down perspective, it does seem like google treats these contractors no better than the janitors and cooks. So i dont think you can say it's different merely because the nature of the work is not the same.
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#434Earlier quoted context omitted.
Every US company. European companies somehow have contractors without caste system. Obviously there are different policies for internals and contractors, but fruits and pizza are for everyone in the office.
This is in Europe: https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/contractors-accuse-eur... A very similar-sounding caste-system. Europe’s great and all but it isn’t Utopia.
Legally speaking, ESA is not in Europe and is not obliged to follow any nation's law.
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't just google, it's every company with contractors and employees. Microsoft learned the hard way to not treat contractors like employees. https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-... Nobody else wants to learn that same lesson.
It's not the same. The Microsoft problem was * independent* contractors. I.E. treating people as self-employed. Normal contractors are employees of a temp firm. None of these issues apply there. Footnote: I started my career as an IC, before I had family or kids. It was great. 32 hour work weeks and time (and the legal right) to do startups on the side. Ton of flexibility relative to a real job.
The microsoft lawsuit applied to the contractor staffing agencies, too. I'd google it for you, bute they had so many orange v-badges back in the day, that it has to be pretty easy to google.
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#436> you might still wake up to find that while you were working on your project, two distant teams were also working on the same idea, and the time has come to fight it out because only one can proceed
Or you might not, in the case of Waze and Maps. I don't want to know what sort of politics were involved in the decision to keep both products rolling in parallel for 10 years.
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#437Is this a happy story? Having read it my takeaways are that they were immediately asked to rewrite their app in Google's way, then a separate research team went off and wrote them a new API for their core functionality. And now given Socratic by Google on the Play Store was last updated on Oct 21, 2020, and is not available for my Android 13 device, so seems to have just died? Kind of seems like Google bought the com…
its a PR piece IMO. The google way is terrible for producing products people want, which is why they always have to purchase their way into new products.
After reading this, I was left with the impression Google is full of under-utilized talent, has poor product vision and has systems in place that discourage innovation and risk taking.
So if this is a PR piece, then it is not a great one.
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#438Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would they train you? It’s the responsibility of your parent company and for all they know you’ve already been thoroughly trained for active shootings in numerous other companies you’ve worked at. You are not their problem.
For something like active-shooter training, location specific details could matter. A generic training isn't the same thing.
Generic is good enough. Overtraining is bad.
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#439Just to toss this out: I really wish huge companies like Google were completely prohibited from any sort of M&A activity. Buy up startups that might, someday, be competition. Absorb them and destroy their product. Sure, it's great for the people who sell their startup, but it's bad for the rest of the world, which might have benefited from the product that was assimilated into the Borg.
Getting acquired is the end goal of a huge portion of startups and the vcs funding them. If that option goes away there will probably be a lot fewer startups, which may or may not be a good thing.
Maybe we'll have fewer it's Uber-but-for-washing-your-underwear companies then. And maybe only really good ideas will actually get to the level of obtaining VC funding for development. That's not a bad thing. VCs for the last 15 years were throwing ideas at a wall, when one stuck, 10 other VC componies copied the idea....
Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google
#440Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. Another perk is that Google always seems to lease the best/coolest office real estate anywhere. Most of my time here I feel vaguely gross about how nice everything is.
> Most of my time here I feel vaguely gross about how nice everything is. Tell me more about this.
My girlfriend works for Google. I just moved to the Bay Area and I can definitely relate. She gives me tours of the Mountain View headquarters (and the campus) quite often and I just feel... it's too tranquil... it's too nice... it's too serene and it's just such a privilege to be here. The atmosphere is calm, the location is on beautiful rolling hills of California, the food is fantastic, there is a strong focus on biking/walking/community. Just lovely.