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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?

#461

Post by ZephyrBlu »

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…

He seems like the kind of CEO I would love to work for.

It seems like he tries to care about his users a lot, and wants his team to as well.

Also, the "offensive things" in his talks were only offensive to a small vocal minority by his own account.

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

#462

Post by Aeolun »

gonehome wrote: post #426
lhorie wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft became almost irrelevant under Ballmer or was at least trending that way. Nadella’s turn around is almost miraculous and is itself probably an interesting story. I wouldn’t bet on that as the norm. I’d expect the norm to be more like IBM, RIM, or Nokia. I agree with most of the article, but one line stuck out to me as particularly wrong: >”After the acquisition, we have an extremely long project that consum…

It’s always seemed like more of a hassle to expense lunch/dinner etc. given what we’re getting paid.

Who the hell wants to deal with concur for every lunch?!

Then again, if your only goal is to extract as much money as possible from the corporate machine, it might work.

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

#463

Post by izacus »

toyg wrote: post #235

On some level, I feel for people like him, I really do. They have this massive drive and just cannot understand why others (like me) don't share it. It drives them fundamentally insane, and pushes them towards sociopathic tendencies. Sometimes they "wake up" after decades and have well-documented breakdowns, if they realize their passion was fundamentally pointless. Sometimes they do move the needle. On other levels,…

No idea why your post is downvoted because it really mirrors my thoughts. I can see that he doesn't understand why he's percieved as overbearing and disliked. We also have way too many people like that floating around making people miserable.

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

#464

Post by kyawzazaw »

dd36 wrote: post #162
iandanforth wrote: post #108

I think his derision of entitled ladder-climbing employees is valid from the perspective of someone who sees "building something valuable" as the point of employment. There is a whole community however that sees wealth acquisition as the point of employment. Even if it's "merely" joining the ranks of the top 5% this is lauded as success by many. Lawyers, doctors, consultants, stock traders, all the high paying profes…

Same. I can live in a hut in Guatemala if I feel challenged and am enjoying my work. Wealth is fun but so long as my family and I are good, it’s not a motivating factor. Solving problems is.

The problems that I am passionate about are large at scale and really require large amounts of capital and not within my expertise.

So I need wealth (money).

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

#465

Post by rapsey »

gonehome wrote: post #426
lhorie wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft became almost irrelevant under Ballmer or was at least trending that way. Nadella’s turn around is almost miraculous and is itself probably an interesting story. I wouldn’t bet on that as the norm. I’d expect the norm to be more like IBM, RIM, or Nokia. I agree with most of the article, but one line stuck out to me as particularly wrong: >”After the acquisition, we have an extremely long project that consum…

I don't know about that. Was MS ever not filthy profitable? They are very successful with azure, was that started by balmer or nadella?

People here give MS too little credit. Their reach is MASSIVE. No american company has the world wide reach that MS has. Practically every enterprise in the world is their customer.

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

#466

Post by Aeolun »

titanomachy wrote: post #452
627467 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there a place for this kind of fetish? It doesn't need to be in today's Google (but maybe in 5 year old Google). > Google can on the whole accomplish its revenue goals without being a meat grinder. So why be one? I too hope Google can prove that this state can be maintained after certain quasi-monopolies it holds start to vanish...

I agree that there's a place (probably not Google) for this attitude, and my impression is that this is the realization that the author eventually arrived at: he wouldn't change Google, or change his nature, so he had to leave. Even though his frustration was clear, the message that came through for me was not simply "Google is bad" but more "Google and I are too different to work together". A lot of what he dislikes…

> A lot of what he dislikes about Google is true of any large company.

Lol, yeah. A lot of what he said made me nod along :)

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

#467

Post by lhorie »

gonehome wrote: post #426
lhorie wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft became almost irrelevant under Ballmer or was at least trending that way. Nadella’s turn around is almost miraculous and is itself probably an interesting story. I wouldn’t bet on that as the norm. I’d expect the norm to be more like IBM, RIM, or Nokia. I agree with most of the article, but one line stuck out to me as particularly wrong: >”After the acquisition, we have an extremely long project that consum…

> why cant employees expense food since they are not in the office

This is surprisingly not specific to Google. I've heard of other instances of this in other bay area companies, including mine. For us, it had to be put to rest at a company-wide all-hands meeting, along with other overly entitled complaints like "comp is not competitive", when in reality levels.fyi ranks it higher than even FAANG.

Greed sometimes defies logic.

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

#468

Post by dmayle »

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.…

*This

I came here to say something similar. I'm a founder, I've been a manager and a software engineer, I did 5 years @ Google.

When I hear someone in "upper management / founder / in a position of power over employee's lives" say that what they really needed for their own success was a way to threaten/risk the livelihood of their employees so that they would work harder, it just makes me sad for anyone affected by them.

Yes, sometimes employees need to be fired... but sometimes management also needs restructuring. The truth of the matter is that at a company the size of Google, it gets harder and harder for an individual employee to directly influence success. I think that's mostly because of the policies in place to make sure that employees don't directly *damage* success either.

This means that you have to work within the system you have. An employment contract is two-sided, you're offering something that the employee wants, and they're offering something that you want. If your first reaction when there's a problem is to cut their pay or fire them, then you're the one with the problem, not them.

Yes, there are times you need to fire someone (and I have), but that should be reserved for one of two cases: 1) they are actively damaging the business (e.g. destroying company property, morale, hurting business prospects), or 2) despite your best efforts, they are unable/unwilling to fulfill their side of the contract. Just realize that firing someone has a cost for your company and team as well as for the employee.

I'd rather part ways amicably, finding them something that works for them if possible, and I think what Noam said about managers recommending great employees is unfair both to the managers and the employees. I've had employees who were hard-working and passionate, just not passionate about the project they were working on. When that happens, the best thing you can do for both of you is to find them the fit that works.

Can you build a large company that doesn't get mired down in things like management and governance and legal and policy? I hope to someday get large enough to find out, because I've got some ideas... (Like separating those functions out in the same way there are engineering teams dedicated to software tooling.)

But it requires a will and effort from the top down, and the people who get excited about building billion dollar businesses don't seem to get excited about maintaining them once they get that size.

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

#469

Post by kyawzazaw »

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.

> I don't believe long hours are a badge of honor but I also believe that we have to do whatever it takes to win, even if its on a weekend.

That's a no for me when the incentives are different in magnitude.

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

#470

Post by kamilszybalski »

lhorie wrote: post #420
gonehome wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Microsoft has, imo, a monopoly of sorts on two critical pieces. 1. Its ability to permeate Enterprise, 2. Its channel strategy/network.

What comes to mind most recently? See Slack.

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