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What I learned getting acquired by Google

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Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#491

Post by gherkinnn »

autokad wrote: post #272
moritonal wrote: post #8

Is 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.

It is snark behind a thin veil of praise. The only way I can read it. It might by my confirmation bias talking.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#492

Post by unixhero »

gnfargbl wrote: post #92
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…

That's how it works with contractors in most large organisations. The other side of the coin is that they're usually rewarded better than employees are, on the basis that they can be fired at any time with no notice. In practice that rarely happens, as higher-pay => better-retention => becomes-most-knowledgeable-person-over-time.

I will take my 66% better salary any day, than becoming an FTE.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#493

Post by intended »

dchftcs wrote: post #464
intended wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m assuming Profit margins are about 14-25%, so a 4x multiplier would be what it takes. 3 would mean your firm had sources of revenue other than services/consulting.

The most profitable consulting-type businesses have profit margins >=50%, before distributing profits to equity holders. But either way I'm not sure about your implicit assumption here that the profits should be comparable to the pay of the employees.

Hey, you began your comparison with the most profitable consulting firms…

2 things -

1) Accenture has an EBIT of 20%.

2) The tippy top of the consulting pyramid plays on branding in a way that the average firm does not.

The VAST majority of service driven firms will not become McKinsey etc. making this a poor comparison

Finally - I doubt that the top firms have those margins, I would most definitely like to be corrected though. If you could clarify or share your source, I’d appreciate it.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#494

Post by Roark66 »

peddling-brink wrote: post #103
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…

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.

Wow, somehow I missed all that despite being a contractor for about half of 20+ years of working in this industry... Perhaps it is a USA thing? Although I worked for a couple of US companies remotely and I never noticed it.

I'm currently doing contracting for a Polish branch of a US company you would recognise a name of and the only difference between being a contractor (other than tax stuff of course) is that I can't fill security exception requests, and I get asked if I want to work during certain national holidays or not (employees get a day off per default, I have a choice).

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#495

Post by astrange »

lazide wrote: post #446
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or do you want Google or whoever to start hiring cooks themselves? Yes? Whats wrong with hiring a cook if you need to cook?

Because Google has no idea how to manage or hire cooks?

It's just as easy to hire a chef as it is to hire a catering service.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#496

Post by pfannkuchen »

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…

> that might be like compensation and they'd be like an employee

Blame government regulations in this case, probably? It seems implausibly evil that they would be that anal about things just to preserve the in-group club status. But, if it's about employee vs contractor distinction for regulations, it makes total sense (well, not at a global/system level, but the behavior in isolation).

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#497

Post by cdchn »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #144
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…

Ah yes, the TVCs. Nothing said "We're evil" more than the subclass of contractors. It is almost a trope in Sci-Fi literature that our characters in this Utopia world discover there are people who are essential to the utopia and yet aren't "part" of the utopia. Of course in the stories our heroes rally the rest of the Utopians to the plight of this 'untouchable' class, the evil overlords are over thrown, and a more eq…

Serious Morloch/Eloi vibes.

Kind of the reason I prefer mid-market tech companies. More likely to treat "contractors" as equals. The place I'm at now they're indistinguishable internally from regular employees, they're just paid by another company.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#498

Post by meheleventyone »

ssharp wrote: post #278
kelnos wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the GP's point was that's how it should be. If a company is going to -- for "legal reasons" -- not treat contractors the same way they treat employees, then they should be doing so not only in bad, exclusionary ways, but also in good ways, with the expected perks of being a contractor that FTEs don't get: freedom to set their own hours, work where they want, and subcontract out their work. But no, companies l…

>> Google pays the staffing agency, the staffing agency pays the "contractor" a salary (significantly less than what Google pays the staffing agency), and all is fine... legally, anyway. The staffing agency vig is so high it is practically the same as an FTE.

Contractors should cost more than a FTE you’re buying expertise and the contractor is shouldering the risk and burdens of not being a FTE.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#499

Post by matheusmoreira »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #477
matheusmoreira wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The extra pay of Google doesn't matter to me. > I never want to work at a big organization again and would rather die poor and accomplished than rich and depressed. > I came to Silicon Valley to learn as much as possible. > If I work on a high-scale system I need to have earned that by building, launching, and supporting that system from step 0. Big respect for you. I quit programming as a whole because I felt I wo…

Where did you work?

Never actually worked. When I was a teenager I went to a trade school to try it out and see what it was like to work professionally as a programmer. Ended up choosing something else and keeping software development as a hobby. It's been nice, perhaps not as profitable but nice.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#500

Post by cdchn »

sgerenser wrote: post #423
foota wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was Microsoft, wasn't it? :)

Microsoft never had forced participation in hackathons. It was generally encouraged but at most maybe 25% of FT engineers participated.

Your lack of participation at extracurricular activities will be recordlessly considered in your next compensation refresh.
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