Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What I learned getting acquired by Google

shreyans.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 645 posts

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#481

Post by skellington »

slater- wrote: post #96
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #79

The "red badge" thing was very real. It was really weird having TVCs on your team. You'd all work hard together to launch a thing, and then everybody except the red badge would get a celebratory team tchotchke or a team lunch or something. If you asked about it, the manager would say "we can't give Jim things directly because that might be like compensation and they'd be like an employee." There'd be all-hands meetin…

thank you for mentioning this. i was a red badge. it was fucking demeaning. i have a lot of stories, but my favorite was when everyone on my floor got an earthquake safety kit except me. literally google didn't care if i lived or died. the expectation was that if i sucked up enough ("demonstrated my value") they MIGHT make me a real boy, like some bizarre Velveteen Rabbit fetish game. i loved watching how Google woul…

LAWYERS and insane politicians are the reason why it is this way. Google is just working around all the BS which unfortunately leads to these bizarre behaviors.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#482

Post by kweelaxhaderach »

tate_thurston wrote: post #460
tynorf wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At Amazon you can't even open the building next door without approval. This is not true.

This is absolutely true and has been for years. You’re granted access to the minimum number of buildings required for your job function, and can file a ticket for temporary access grants to other buildings based on need.

It’s absolutely not true and hasn’t been for at least the last 5 years, in my experience.

I have access to every building in my city despite only requiring access to one of them, and I didn’t have to request it.

When I visited Seattle, I had to request access (which required clicking a grand total of 5 buttons in an internal portal and was instantly auto approved) to “the Seattle campus” and was granted access to every building, and still have that access years later. It wasn’t temporary.

Ditto for the other offices I’ve visited, both domestic and abroad. One office internationally I literally showed up and walked to reception and said “hi I work here but I’m visiting from out of town” and they immediately gave me access. I don’t see how this is different from the “second passport” described in the article.*

There are a couple of limited-access offices such as for subsidiary companies, but those are not the majority.

* - the one big difference definitely is the amenities and food, though. Amazon offices don’t have great, or even good, food. And the amenities are lame, most offices don’t even have a gym. There isn’t much of a reason to stop by an office unless you’re specifically there to work.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#483

Post by tety »

drewg123 wrote: post #203

What I learned getting acquired by Google is that if your company is below a certain size, everyone will need to do a technical interview to be hired and leveled. They tell your management to lie to you, and tell you its just a meet and greet, with questions about projects you worked on, general background stuff etc. But its actually a full on surprise technical interview. (NOTE: This was true in the early-ish 2010s,…

it doesn’t depend on the size of the company, but the kind of acquisition and the terms of the acquisition

on acquihires you can have a full interview

I went on this meet and greet and it was more of a googlyness type thing just to check you have a pulse, others didn’t at all, all the team was hired, my only guess it could affected leveling and price

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#484

Post by raincole »

hitekker wrote: post #372
rand846633 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This made me laugh so hard! I really want to know what lead up to this comment and was some llm involved?

In my experience, LLM's are bad at generating concise & witty jokes. They can randomly generate but that requires the the prompter to be a funny person to begin with.

He was being sarcastic because the article isn't similar to comparable to "a machine crushed my hand" at all.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#485

Post by henry2023 »

hmcq6 wrote: post #431
henry2023 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah plus a few millions in the bank because of the acquisition.

Maybe for the c-suite

c-suite would be +20 million each, any early employee should have enough options to get a two to five million after a nice acquisition

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#486

Post by Stratoscope »

resolutebat wrote: post #131
slater- wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you for mentioning this. i was a red badge. it was fucking demeaning. i have a lot of stories, but my favorite was when everyone on my floor got an earthquake safety kit except me. literally google didn't care if i lived or died. the expectation was that if i sucked up enough ("demonstrated my value") they MIGHT make me a real boy, like some bizarre Velveteen Rabbit fetish game. i loved watching how Google woul…

> the expectation was that if i sucked up enough ("demonstrated my value") they MIGHT make me a real boy, like some bizarre Velveteen Rabbit fetish game. Google goes out of its way to emphasize that TVC "conversion" does not exist. You can interview, but you'll go through the same process as anybody else, they'll make sure you don't interview with anybody you know, and your achievements as TVC are discounted complete…

Conversion of Temps (but not Vendors or Contractors) did exist when I started working at Wing (the Alphabet drone delivery company) in 2018. We talked about it when I interviewed there.

Well, "interview" is overstating it. They needed some airspace data importers urgently and knew I could do it based on my past work for Google and my experience as a pilot. So we met for lunch, talked about the project, and that was that.

I actually thought the "temp" thing was a brilliant hack: we agreed on a decent rate (paid through Adecco), and if they liked my work and I liked working with them, I could convert to FTE at some point (and this was true at the time).

Then in August 2019 a memo came out that Temps were no longer eligible for FTE conversion. Even those who were hired with promises of that possibility.

And yes, the memo was exactly as you said. The people you'd worked with closely for the last year, who hired you because you were just the person they needed and you already were doing a great job for them? They couldn't vouch for you or communicate with the hiring panel at all.

It would be a grind through the standard Google interview process, as if you had no history with the team you are already working with and delivering for.

What kind of a fucked-up system is that?

The thing that stung the most was that the memo also explained in detail that Interns were and remained eligible for FTE conversion, without any kind of full interview round like a Temp would have to endure. The rationale: Interns were already employees.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#487

Post by unixhero »

sharadov wrote: post #349
ponector wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is great for living, for raising kids. For life. Taxes in Europe are huge, but comparable with taxes in California. Just sum all federal, state, local taxes on the salary, property taxes, sales taxes, health insurance fee, college tuition fee. Don't forget to add 25% tips to that. Count also small vacation, maternity leave and sick leave. And then compare for example with France. And not to mention you wouldn't fi…

If you work in tech - earning's wise you'll still come out far ahead of Europe. Ask the Europeans working in SV.

300k eur per year

Government taxes 50% of that

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#488

Post by unixhero »

peddling-brink wrote: post #113
coldtrait wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I've experienced this in capital one. Some smaller non tech companies are chill, where there is really no difference in how they treat contractors and employees.

I worked at a big insurance company for a while. Contractors could have their birthday celebrated, but cake was not permitted.

Cake is terrible for you any ways.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#489

Post by unixhero »

bentt wrote: post #274
gumby wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But remember that is because these companies were exploiting the use of contractors to deny them employee protections. True contractors won’t care: they work for themselves and have multiple clients anyway. But these "red" people are employees in all but name, so that the companies can save money and other protections. A small slip up by Google (Apple/FB/MS/tons of others) and these folks get the protection they dese…

Yeah being an actual contractor/consultant should feel GOOD. You should not be married to a single company for too long. You should have a sense of freedom. There should be a simple test that if a person is working at only one client for too long (3 mo?) then they are to be converted to an employee. There's no reason for these middleman employers to exist except to make people disposable to companies. If that's the c…

Yes the reason is high risk high reward for the contractor - much higher salary.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#490

Post by unixhero »

fredsmith219 wrote: post #104
slater- wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you for mentioning this. i was a red badge. it was fucking demeaning. i have a lot of stories, but my favorite was when everyone on my floor got an earthquake safety kit except me. literally google didn't care if i lived or died. the expectation was that if i sucked up enough ("demonstrated my value") they MIGHT make me a real boy, like some bizarre Velveteen Rabbit fetish game. i loved watching how Google woul…

Not at Google but I was a contractor at a hospital. All the employees got active shooter training. I guess the contractors were meant to be fodder.

This is why I don't even transit in the US any more. No holidays, no layovers, no work aspirations any more.
Post reply on HN