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What I learned getting acquired by Google

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Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#591

Post by ngneer »

bredren wrote: post #387
peddling-brink wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Intel used to do this. I was a high school and college intern in the late 90s and it was this blue badge / green badge thing. The funny thing is, there was another level which was how worn out your blue badge was. The longer you had been there, the closer the badge was to white.

If by "this" you meant a caste-like system, then my experience at Intel in 2010s was very different. Different people (contingent workers with green badges and others with blue badges) worked well enough together, and got well enough along (with one or two instances being the exception, not the rule). That's funny about the white badge. I am sure they could have gotten new ones, engineers have the funniest status symbols...

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#592

Post by eitally »

BurningFrog wrote: post #385
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…

When I was at Google 2006-2009, that was how all acquisitions except YouTube were handled. I've heard that's become better, but maybe not. Google's search & ads billions keep raining from the sky, so killing acquired product isn't a big problem.

I was at Google from 2015-2023 and not really. Even large acquisitions like Apigee, Looker and Fitbit were multi-year "integrations" fraught with all sorts of pain & suffering. Smaller acquisitions like Stratozone, Orbitera, AppSheet, etc all follow the Socratic path: acquire, rewrite, halfassedly integrate, create confusion and anxiety.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#593

Post by jampekka »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #550
peyton wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the taxes pay to enforce property rights. It sort of becomes your problem if others don’t have a place to live and you won’t pay men with guns to keep them from taking your place to live.

I don't think we are on the brink of societal collapse :) And it is just like now, I use a gun to shoot people that try to enter my house. What you're saying is that I should have people with guns in the house for the times that I'm not at home. How is this different than today when your house gets robbed during the day?

Some do think so, and have data to back it up.

https://archive.is/XrYck

Anecdotally to me USA even looks like it's collapsing every time I visit it. In the larger cities there are homeless everywere, and often literally next to luxury yachts and limousines. A lot of the infrastructure seems like it's literally gonna collapse, and lots of it really does. It's quite a cyberpunk vibe when compared to e.g. the nordic countries.

Of course there are similar problems in many european countries too. Especially England is quite bad w.r.t homelesness and infrastructure. But England is in many ways culturally closer to USA than most europe.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#594

Post by eitally »

zigman1 wrote: post #579
paddez wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few of the offices even have a pool (Google Dublin, and soon Google London) Because the buildings are usually located in very central city locations - I've often used the offices as a way to kill time til' check-in opens for hotels after a long-haul flight (grab food, caffeinate, have a shower, etc) Recently I took a night train between Stockholm and Copenhagen. Showered in the Stockholm office, walked 5 minutes to…

That's interesting to hear that it is so relaxed in Europe. I work in EU at a multinational with offices all around the world, and within Europe, we are not legally allowed to enter the offices in other countries. The reason is simply that if there is a labor/work inspection (sorry, don't know the exact English expression) they can get a fine if I do not have a work order for a project abroad.

This is true in the US, too, but selectively and only really enforced in a meaningful way by a few states (including California). If you spend 30+ days in California for work reasons (visiting a employer's office would count, even if you're not on the clock when you do it) it triggers state income tax requirements. No fine, but equivalently unpleasant.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#595

Post by cmrdporcupine »

the46a wrote: post #480
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,…

The company I worked for was acquired with no interviews for approx 100 people. Lots of people were surprised about that when we tell them.

The company I worked for was the same, But it's a curse though. Always got the feeling of being looked down on for not running that gauntlet. If you're being assimilated into the Mountain View Googleplex -- fine, it's so massive nobody will care or notice. But being borged into a small site everyone will know and there were snotty people who openly grumbled about it.

Soooo much of the Ego of Google engineering -- at least in the past -- is built around their sense of superiority of having made it through that interview and being selected as one of the "best engineers in the world."

Gave me heightened impostor syndrome for 10 years.

I think one is better off getting the interview.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#596

Post by cmrdporcupine »

tester756 wrote: post #234
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,…

>Imagine walking into a technical interview 20+ years out of grad school. So just like when changing jobs?

Well, except that they just exterminated your former employer and all your stock options and compensation bonuses are tied to passing that gauntlet?

It's more like getting a layoff and then offered an interview for a new job.

For me, we didn't have to do the interview. But there were a lot of other strings attached, most drastic being having to move cities (or have a 2-hour-each-way commute).

The money makes it worthwhile, but it's not a happy happy joy joy moment.

I also got a peavish Google recruiter all pissed at me about the fact that we were sharing notes with each other about the offers they were sending us, which I thought was pretty funny.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#597

Post by ponector »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #539
rightbyte wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is because it is extremely rude, like meanest of meanest, to not share food with each other. Like, of all mean but not illegal things you can do to contractors, not sharing food is probably what people consider the worst. Small every day things are way more provocative than abstract things like retirement funds or whatever. Been there. Done that. The FTEs got strawberries. I didn't. I don't think I have been th…

I don't get it. Why would you be pissed if those were the rules of the company you were contracting to? As a contractor you get paid more than the regular employees because you take on a greater risk (such as being fired at any moment without any explanation) and you do whatever you're told. If you don't like it you can always look for another client. My point being you can't have your cake and eat it too. Does it su…

I doubt there are true contractors. Giants would not bother to do contractor paperwork with individuals. Most common is when "contractors" are employees of other bodyshop company and are paid as their regular employees, just leased to the client. And if the we are talking about US - then their salary is much lower, simply because they cannot go anywhere else due to visa constraints.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#598

Post by starcraft2wol »

lmm wrote: post #376
esafak wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if they want to trim costs and not do that it would be better if they hired no-one? It is the same with undocumented workers. Would it better if they were deported than to be denied benefits afforded to citizens?

By that logic it's always fine for companies to get around labour protections. Yes, it would be better if they hired no-one. When your job conditions are beneath human dignity, you don't get to hire people for that job, even if that means your stock price doesn't grow quite as much and GDP is lower this year.

It's not "fine" but it's extremely hard to get them to do things they are disincentivized to do. And most government attempts do not result in the desired behavior.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#599

Post by intended »

dchftcs wrote: post #558
intended wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 correc…

Note I mention profit before distributing to equity holders. The highest prestige and therefore most profitable consulting companies are all partnerships. Some highly profitable consulting companies that are partnerships have very high margins, if you don't include the profit sharing component of the pay of equity partners (but do include bonus and fixed salary). The primary public source I can point to is that many…

Primarily, you want an apples to apples comparison. A law firm is a service provider, however not a consultancy. The service the two types of firms provide are not directly comparable.

Furthermore, a law firm is a place where your assertion - “ discrepancy goes to equity partners (who aren't those doing the execution work)…” Senior partners are pretty critical in bringing and keeping clients.

See https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-law-firm-isn-apos-0514053... . Valuing law firms is not that straightforward, and profit margin numbers are not defensible.

I would appreciate the source you are basing your arguments on.

Re: What I learned getting acquired by Google

#600

Post by Nevermark »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #540
ponector wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different treatment is a thing. But I couldn't imagine someone is ESA will say fruits and pizza are for employees only. Please leave the room while your coworkers eat.

I don't think it is illegal. And they can fire on the spot the contractors who have silly objections about this. It feels like contractors forget they are contractors...

You are missing the point that legal vs. socially acceptable are two different but very real factors that people care about.

You can’t legal away basic courtesy and explain away people’s anger at being treated like a lower social class.

Imagine if first class seats on a commercial flight were interspersed among regular class seats. First class passengers get more room, better food, more respect from attendants … right in front of people who don’t get those.

If the first class passengers get faster access to something basic like water, some people will go ballistic.

Sure people paid more for the nicer seats, but do you think that legal fact dispenses with the unhealthy social situation and bad feelings that would create?

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