More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision • Hacker News Board

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#51

Post by ehsankia » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

goldenchrome wrote: post #40

Don't discount the massive increase in the number of employees. The more people you add, the more the culture dilutes. It becomes impossible for employees to feel like they're part of single a tribe with a clear goal. Factions develop, tensions mount, and you get angry employees leaking confidential information constantly. Most of the negative press the public has heard about Google in the past year is a direct resul…

Going back to the previous comment, I don't really see how it's possible to grow your employee count by an order of magnitude without introducing 1-2 more levels of management. As much as flat structures are cool, I'm not sure how much they scale. The other option would be to just not grow, but I'm not sure how realistic that is.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#52

Post by tamizhar » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

plicense wrote: post #42

wtmt wrote: post #15

For the sake of the employees and for the sake of the rest of us, I believe that Sundar Pichai is not CEO material at all. He should go or be pushed out, and Larry Page and Sergei Brin (or one of them) should take a stronger role and have a deeper engagement on many matters. Google has been doing well financially, but it has lost its soul (the one it had in its very initial years) and seems to be going around aimless…

Someone's salty. Do you work at Google?

I looked at the user's profile. It says: " I live in India. I'm anti-government control and against mass surveillance. "

Took a cursory look at his/her's other comments and spotted "Google, which doesn't respect users' choices in Android not to collect location data and yet the company wants others not to deal in that data from its other services"

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#53

Post by sidibe » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:37 AM UTC

ajmbbs wrote: post #17

Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

Even if they were paid better than everyone, seems like on an anonymous survey there is no downside in saying you are underpaid.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#54

Post by m0zg » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

est31 wrote: post #38

hcnews wrote: post #8

Sundar is neither a founder nor has been a practicing Engineer. That's gotta hurt a company like Google which is mostly Engineering driven. I guess Google at this point just keep churning through systems because Engineers are incentivized to show impact and rarely end up creating new good products. Adding tons of new engineers is also probably hurting their overall quality and velocity.

> Sundar is neither a founder nor has been a practicing Engineer. That's gotta hurt a company like Google which is mostly Engineering driven. He might have not fought in the trenches of engineering. But I've seen his congress testimony. He is such a humble and kind guy while still being a nerd, one of us. If I worked at Google, I definitely would be glad about him being CEO.

As a former Googler I'd like Urs Holzle as a CEO. I might even consider coming back if he's at the helm. Dude is both a solid engineer, and an outstanding leader. I respect him a lot and so do most other current and ex-Googlers. Problem is, Urs probably doesn't want the job. :-)

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#55

Post by ModernMech » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

Mr_P wrote: post #41

Someone1234 wrote: post #11

Google's seemingly endless new array of products with just as many being discontinued at any one time is an internet meme at this point. Often in threads when Google announced their latest hotness, potential customers are sarcastically guessing at how long until it is killed (some of those guesses ultimately turning out correct). I've never worked at Google, but it looks like shambles from the outside. Kind of remind…

If you take a step back, Google's launch & deprecate cycle for new products actually kind-of makes sense. Internally, Google is not so different from an ecosystem of VC-funded startups. They try a lot of things. Some ideas work and others don't. The alternative is to never ship new products out of fear of failure. Or, to indefinitely support everything, regardless of how tiny. Or, to wait so long to derisk a new prod…

> Internally, Google is not so different from an ecosystem of VC-funded startups. They try a lot of things. Some ideas work and others don't.

For some definition of work. They're still mostly (~80-90%) an ad-driven company, after all these years.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#56

Post by jpm_sd » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:39 AM UTC

vl wrote: post #7

Wait, our CEO has a vision? Google company culture strongly erodes for two reasons: De-facto retirement of Larry and Sergey and significant deepening of the reporting structure in the last few years (ie endless layers of middle management). Both of these make consistent vision and values much harder to achieve. Recent Googlegeist just reflects that.

Also, Larry and Sergey got obsessed with useless and irrelevant things. (Flying cars? Robot butlers? Airship yachts? Glass?)

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#57

Post by whatshisface » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:39 AM UTC

est31 wrote: post #38

hcnews wrote: post #8

Sundar is neither a founder nor has been a practicing Engineer. That's gotta hurt a company like Google which is mostly Engineering driven. I guess Google at this point just keep churning through systems because Engineers are incentivized to show impact and rarely end up creating new good products. Adding tons of new engineers is also probably hurting their overall quality and velocity.

> Sundar is neither a founder nor has been a practicing Engineer. That's gotta hurt a company like Google which is mostly Engineering driven. He might have not fought in the trenches of engineering. But I've seen his congress testimony. He is such a humble and kind guy while still being a nerd, one of us. If I worked at Google, I definitely would be glad about him being CEO.

>He is such a humble and kind guy while still being a nerd, one of us.

Yes, but I'm only half joking when I say that that's how all the pod people make you feel. In fact the people who I would consider the most through and through "one of us" are often off-putting and completely antisocial by nature, not even by choice. I think that's the difference between being naturally reality-focused or people-focused.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#58

Post by ehsankia » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:40 AM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #11

Google's seemingly endless new array of products with just as many being discontinued at any one time is an internet meme at this point. Often in threads when Google announced their latest hotness, potential customers are sarcastically guessing at how long until it is killed (some of those guesses ultimately turning out correct). I've never worked at Google, but it looks like shambles from the outside. Kind of remind…

Except for every one deprecated product you can name, there's probably more like 10-20 new product. The issue is that Google has gotten so big and has so many different projects, that the number of deprecation is just bigger, even if percentage wise they're probably lower than most other companies.

Try looking at https://gcemetery.co/ and naming how many of those you even recognize and can describe without looking it up. Everyone just loves mentioning Reader, but except the new batch of G+ and Inbox, there hasn't been any significant product killed in a while.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#59

Post by akhilcacharya » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:42 AM UTC

ajmbbs wrote: post #17

Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

Trading companies do.

Amazon does if you get upleveled and negotiate.

Re: More Google Employees Are Losing Faith in Their CEO's Vision

#60

Post by Deimorz » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 4:42 AM UTC

ajmbbs wrote: post #17

Having read the article, only 54% of Googlers view their compensation is better than what they could get from another company. I find it surprising. Who else pays more than Google does? Can only think of Facebook, but even then not sure.

I think it's more a reflection of thinking that if a lot of employees complain that they're not paid well, maybe the company will increase their salaries in response. But there's no potential benefit at all to claiming that the pay is good (regardless of whether it is or not).