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What I learned getting acquired by Google

shreyans.org

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Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#51

Post by JohnClark1337 »

jiveturkey wrote: post #44
dekhn wrote: post #29

I remember a startup that had a great product that would match you, a person with a questiojn about a topic, with an expert on that topic, over gChat. Google acquired them, and they immediately were told they had to port their infra into google3 and borg. This was a short window where the new hotness was help-over-chat. They rewrote their whole system and then Google told them they didn't actually need the product (a…

competition isn’t a waste. for a google kind of company it’s fine. is it a waste when 20 companies compete in the open market for note taking apps, and 15 of them die completely? google happens to be big enough to have an internal market, that’s all. your team isn't guaranteed to win. but your work output isn't considered a waste, unlike the open market. some of the ideas might survive in another shape. remember wave…

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Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#52

Post by varelse »

tsunamifury wrote: post #38
kbknapp wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in large companies (thousands of employees) and startups ( I was literally just a means to an end to churn out code on a product. I could have been (and eventually was) replaced at any moment with another generic cog willing to churn out the same code without much of a thought.

After working at Google and Startups, I totally agree. You are much more of a cog at a startup due to the desperate need to grind out the next A/B test or customer requirement. People WAY over glamorize startups.

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Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#53

Post by mattigames »

nonameiguess wrote: post #18
olivierduval wrote: post #2

> "At Google's scale, the external world ceases to exist and is only rarely and carefully allowed to enter their walls" OK Google... now I get why you behave that way with your users (no support, product graveyard...) ! ;-)

I used to think about this when I was a kid. If 5 billion people pray to God at the same time and ask for mutually exclusive things, how can he possibly answer or even listen to them all? And it's now up to 8 billion and the problem isn't getting any easier. I guess the answer is God's perfect omniscience is massively concurrent on a scale unfathomable to human computational models and, by existing outside of time, h…

Im pretty sure that if there were only one single human in the world the success ratio of the communication with God would be just as bleak, and the situation there is more like a company that after digging a tiny bit you discover only exists on paper.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#55

Post by parthdesai »

asdfman123 wrote: post #40
leidenfrost wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the office near the port, right? Beautiful neighborhood and the commercial part is very tourist friendly.

Yep. Another perk is that Google always seems to lease the best/coolest office real estate anywhere. Most of my time here I feel vaguely gross about how nice everything is.

Not a googler, but their office in Toronto is in pretty meh area tbh

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#56

Post by [deleted] »

dekhn wrote: post #29

I remember a startup that had a great product that would match you, a person with a questiojn about a topic, with an expert on that topic, over gChat. Google acquired them, and they immediately were told they had to port their infra into google3 and borg. This was a short window where the new hotness was help-over-chat. They rewrote their whole system and then Google told them they didn't actually need the product (a…

[deleted]

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#57

Post by johannes1234321 »

JohnFen wrote: post #9
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…

Was it an aquihire?

Aquire a company not for the product, but to hire specific people working there. Like experts in a field. For instance if you have a competing product and want to build something using expertise or if you think the technology can be applied elsewhere.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#59

Post by raybb »

I had the pleasure of working with Shreyans as a SE at Maven last year and it's funny to see how this blog post explains some of the experience working together. There was a strong aversion to meetings and process and big emphasis on empowering the employees to make judgement calls and just reach out for comment if they're unsure. Those things just made sense to me so I didn't question it but coming so recently from Google might have made those aversions stronger. At the end of the day, I enjoyed that way of working (which is probably much harder to do with bigger teams) and I hope to bring it to the next place I go.

I left for a funded opportunity to travel Europe while doing an urban studies masters (https://www.4cities.eu/) but it wasn't an easy decision. I hope we work together again in the future. If anyone is looking to work at an education startup check out maven.com for sure.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#60

Post by jeffbee »

asdfman123 wrote: post #33

The second passport thing is definitely true. When I'm abroad--even, recently, Buenos Aires--I have access to office space, free food, a gym, and even a music room where I can practice guitar and piano.

It's almost literally a sidekick passport. If you fly into a city with a major Google office and you say you are there for work and you work at Google, the customs agent might ask to see your badge.
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