Fridge is Joining Google+ Team • Hacker News Board

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#51

Post by cookiecaper » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:01 PM UTC

It's funny that places like Google even perform talent acquisitions. I guess when you're controlling billions of dollars a few million here or there is a comparative "drop in the bucket" but it really has to be about covetousness or something, because there is a large supply of talented engineers that would be willing to work at Google as normal employees, and certainly many of these would have the same capabilities as the Frid.ge team. Does it really cost anything close $5M-$10M to find a handful of employees with that skillset? I'd say Google is definitely doing it wrong if so -- I can understand a premium for demonstrating competency with something like Frid.ge, but it just seems quite inflated when all Google ends up with in the end is a few employees for a few years (if that). I have to say I'm pretty skeptical that talent acquisitions are a decent deal from the acquirer's side of things.

No offense or displeasure to the Frid.ge team of course, if they're happy with it that's fine. I just don't see it as an economically effective investment from Google's end. Perhaps part of it is the extra headlines that are inevitable when a YC company gets acquired? Just doesn't seem like a good value to me.

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#52

Post by bconway » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:04 PM UTC

Congrats to the Fridge team on being hired by Google!

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#53

Post by jsavimbi » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:12 PM UTC

jsavimbi wrote: post #49

onewland wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$250k easily? I think that's a level of skill that is not at all common. I'm not saying nobody gets paid that all, but developer compensation needs to be more realistically looked at on this forum. I'd say the majority make less than $100k, and $150k or more puts you in the top 5 percentile.

Well, if you're making that magical $100K and you vest after three years for, oh let's say $300K, that'll bring you up to $600K not including benefits and other compensation that could, in theory, make you $250K if you're willing to swallow the opportunity cost of working at $100/yr.

Was I downvoted for math errors?

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#54

Post by diolpah » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:21 PM UTC

brandnewlow wrote: post #37

nostrademons wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what the average founder's take is in a talent acquisition. http://ycombinator.com/nums.html indicates that 80% of YC's acquisitions have been for Not chump change by any means, but skilled engineers in Silicon Valley can easily make $250K/year in total compensation. If a startup takes about 3 years of ramen wages to come to fruition and then the founders are locked up for another year while they vest, th…

Startup founder will also have no shortage of people willing to back her next company and a network of interesting people she can draw on for advice for life. Might that be even more valuable than the money?

This is not always true. Plenty of founders who spend time working instead of networking end up with a sparse network and very few people even aware of their success.

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#55

Post by roc » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:22 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #51

It's funny that places like Google even perform talent acquisitions. I guess when you're controlling billions of dollars a few million here or there is a comparative "drop in the bucket" but it really has to be about covetousness or something, because there is a large supply of talented engineers that would be willing to work at Google as normal employees, and certainly many of these would have the same capabilities…

How much would Google have to spend to hire a complete team to add and expand fridge-like features for Google+? It's got to be in that same ballpark.

Surely it's worth the premium to hire a cohesive, motivated team that's already learned the domain and has a proven ability to execute.

Particularly considering the benefit Google can realize from getting a better solution to market faster.

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#56

Post by rdl » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:34 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #35

rdl wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd draw a distinction between talent acquisitions to go join the general pool of people at a big company, and talent acquisitions to work on the big new focus of a "sleeping giant", in something similar to what you were doing before.

Wasn't Etherpad the latter, and then they found out that big new focus had been canceled and quit? Same with Dodgeball, Aardvark, Jaiku, Jotspot, and any number of other acquisitions. You shouldn't assume anything about what your job duties will be in a big company, even if it's written into your contract. Big companies have an internal logic that often makes no sense to the outside world, and usually depends upon wh…

Other than YouTube and Android, nothing Google has set out to do approaches how seriously they are taking Google+. Bigger than gmail, definitely (which, for acq, is tied to o Grand Central I think)

Wave had its own issues, mainly due to being political and inviolate, from what has been written outside google. It was really sad to see etherpad get caught up in that.

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#57

Post by rdl » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:37 PM UTC

diolpah wrote: post #54

brandnewlow wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startup founder will also have no shortage of people willing to back her next company and a network of interesting people she can draw on for advice for life. Might that be even more valuable than the money?

This is not always true. Plenty of founders who spend time working instead of networking end up with a sparse network and very few people even aware of their success.

Less true if you are the kind of startup which could get talent acquired in the first place.

In the bay area at least, it would be really hard to be working on something worthwhile and remain totally sequestered from a network. The bigger problem is not getting caught up in it to the exclusion of spending time working.

I'm sure it is different outside the bay area, and is absolutely different outside the USA.

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#58

Post by jasonwilk » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:40 PM UTC

Congrats Austin!

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#59

Post by jasonwilk » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:44 PM UTC

ColinWright wrote: post #33

18pfsmt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it makes any difference, I appreciated your efforts. I hope veterans of HN don't become discouraged because they were the most influential in causing me to finally create an HN acct (oddly enough, I don't take that action lightly), and try to contribute to a group I've learned so much from.

Thank you. I appreciate that, but it doesn't make much difference. For me, HN is now more of a sink than a source. On balance as many people hate the dup detection as like it, and the comment threads no longer seem to shed the light they once did. I guess I've changed, and my interests no longer really align with HN. So I'm moving on. I still have the bookmarklet, so I may still remember to submit things, but I doubt…

Coli, at least you are learning on this site. I can't say the same for Reddit.

Re: Fridge is Joining Google+ Team

#60

Post by cookiecaper » Thu, Jul 21, 2011, 7:57 PM UTC

roc wrote: post #55

cookiecaper wrote: post #51

It's funny that places like Google even perform talent acquisitions. I guess when you're controlling billions of dollars a few million here or there is a comparative "drop in the bucket" but it really has to be about covetousness or something, because there is a large supply of talented engineers that would be willing to work at Google as normal employees, and certainly many of these would have the same capabilities…

How much would Google have to spend to hire a complete team to add and expand fridge-like features for Google+? It's got to be in that same ballpark. Surely it's worth the premium to hire a cohesive, motivated team that's already learned the domain and has a proven ability to execute. Particularly considering the benefit Google can realize from getting a better solution to market faster.

Why would it be in that same ballpark? Google has a notoriously silly hiring process so its costs are probably higher than the costs of some other companies, but really 5-10MM to hire 3-4 people? I guess if they're willing to spend that on a "talent acquisition" it may not be that far out of line with normal hiring costs but I'd say there's certainly a problem there.

As I stated in my post I understand that demonstrating ability via Frid.ge can certainly be valuable and worth a premium. It just seems to be much higher than one might expect Google to spend on normal hiring processes.