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Google's "free food" is not free

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Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#71

Post by nostrademons »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #28

Pretty much spot on of course, anyone who was at Google 'before' can trace the dots to today. One of the benefits of a generous set of perks is that management can adjust the expense once they get close to the end of the quarter so that the 'numbers come out right.' Google is losing that ability. It makes things like their Q4 'miss' [1] more likely. It is of course entirely Google's prerogative on how they spend thei…

Google's Q4 miss had nothing to do with perks. They could eliminate all the perks and it wouldn't have made a dent in stock performance.

The earnings miss was by about $1/share, or $323M. That's about $10K per employee over the quarter. You really think Google spends $10K/employee/quarter on perks? I've heard numbers for the food costs, and you're overestimating by more than an order of magnitude.

I actually think perks today are significantly better than they were when I joined in Jan 2009. Cafes are open on weekends. There's more than one option for Friday dinner. They booked the whole Oracle Arena and took us all to see Cirque du Soleil. Cake played at Googleween. Random speakers like Sandra Day O'Connor, Lady Gaga, Carlos Santana, George R.R. Martin, and Bear McCreary show up for talks. We get random schwag more often.

Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#72

Post by notaddicted »

linuxhansl wrote: post #15

The most important rule of salary negotiation: Always let them make an offer first. If you're lucky it's higher than what you would have proposed, so you'll just accept it. If it's lower you just continue to negotiate.

I think psychologically, it is better to be the one to blurt out the first number in order to take advantage of Anchoring Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring). BUT, I think that this only applies when you have good knowledge about their salary range, or at least the market range, because you can start the conversation at the top of the range instead of the bottom. Discreetly trading salary data with a few friends can be quite beneficial I think.

Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#73

Post by defen »

MattLaroche wrote: post #56

One thing this article doesn't point out: it wasn't Google who argued that the supposedly lower salary was offset by food - it was a person (sure, an employee or contractor of Google). Perhaps this person was reading from a recruiting script sanctioned by management. But it wasn't the big overarching company that made this argument to the author - it was a person. Recruiters often have the wrong incentive structure.…

The point is that the slow removal of the food perks, according to the Google logic (or the Google employee/contractor, doesn't matter) is literally decreasing employees' pay by 15-20 thousand dollars per year. But it's done in a way that is not really noticeable; or if it is, Google has selected for the type of person who won't complain too much. It's very much a boiling frog situation. Ultimately it's not "wrong" or "against the law" - as you said, if a person finds her present economic situation unviable, she can go elsewhere. But that's a really big step down from their supposed "Do No Evil" policy. Google built up a huge amount of brand equity amongst tech employees; now they appear to be spending it, so it's important that we properly debit their account.

Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#74

Post by jwegan »

linuxhansl wrote: post #15

The most important rule of salary negotiation: Always let them make an offer first. If you're lucky it's higher than what you would have proposed, so you'll just accept it. If it's lower you just continue to negotiate.

This is the exact opposite of how to successfully negotiate. Maybe if your not confident in your worth, some company might offer you more than you would have suggested. However, the art to successful negotiation is to make a first offer on the high end of what is realistic so you can set an anchor point which limits how far the company can reasonably negotiate you down.

Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#76

Post by nostrademons »

bigiain wrote: post #66
MattLaroche wrote: post #56

One thing this article doesn't point out: it wasn't Google who argued that the supposedly lower salary was offset by food - it was a person (sure, an employee or contractor of Google). Perhaps this person was reading from a recruiting script sanctioned by management. But it wasn't the big overarching company that made this argument to the author - it was a person. Recruiters often have the wrong incentive structure.…

"One thing this article doesn't point out: it wasn't Google who argued that the supposedly lower salary was offset by food - it was a person (sure, an employee or contractor of Google)." I'm really intrigued at how often this "excuse" is trotted out, almost word-for-word, whenever "a person who works at Google" gets caught doing something sleazy. It's almost as predictable as the first-line call center staff asking y…

Well, in some way, the corollary of "Google isn't evil, it's just some people who work for Google that do evil shit" is "Google isn't good either, it's just some people who work at Google who do awesome shit."

Which actually, I think, is true. My boss once told me "everybody knows who the subset of people who get shit done is", and in some ways, my loyalty is to them rather than the company as an entity (it just so happens that most of them still work at Google). I mourn whenever we lose another coworker who does awesome stuff. If I were to join Parse, it'd be so I could work with Kevin again, and if I were to join Asana, it'd be so I could work with Jackie again, and if I were to join YCombinator, it'd be so I could learn from PB & company.

I'm guessing that this isn't how most outsiders see Google, since in general people don't claim credit for the work they've done at Google unless they're associated with really big-name projects. But I think there's definitely some truth to the view of a corporation as composed of individuals, some of whom are good and some of whom are bad.

Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#77

Post by notaddicted »

Employment isn't a transaction, it is a relationship. If one is not being paid enough nothing prevents revisiting the discussion.

Having said that, I don't see a lot of advice on the topic online. Obviously after spending some time at a company you have a better idea of what the talent level is like and where the money goes, so you should be able to negotiate better with the extra information, and the history of what you've done.

Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#78

Post by wisty »

overgard wrote: post #30

I find myself in a weird situation, in that I find this writer's writing intriguing exactly because of how much I vehemently disagree with almost all of it. It's like somehow it manages to push all the wrong buttons, in a very precise way. Usually when I read things that I disagree with it doesn't really prod at me, but for some reason almost this entire blog does. The controversy this blog always digs up on really m…

Everyone knows Google cut perks to save money. If they'd told people to accept a lower salary, on the basis of the perks being worth 20k, that employee is bound to be pissed when they were taken away. They were part of the salary negotiation - to the author, that's like cutting her wage because the stock numbers were down.

Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#79

Post by nostrademons »

webdev42 wrote: post #60
georgieporgie wrote: post #48

Sure, go ahead and screw the employees while the economy is bad. They'll stay on and grumble about it, because they can't go anywhere. People got laid off and were unable to find work, possibly ending their careers, and you're complaining about bagels being cut? Seriously?

I've worked at Google for almost four years and found this hilarious. "The Friday morning bagel or donut supplies also were curtailed. Sure, they still existed, but you now had to go hunt for them. They were no longer set up in a microkitchen near your office. They would now appear only in certain cafes." – The same donuts and bagels are still at Google. You have to walk an extra 30 feet to the cafe to get them. Oh,…

Sometimes I feel like the vast majority of annoyances I face at work should have a #firstworldproblems hashtag on them.

I remember, I joined in Jan 2009 at the bottom of the recession, which was basically around the same time that all these perks were being cut. And people at work would gripe all about how the microkitchens weren't as good and they discontinued tea time and the cafes were closed on weekends. And then I'd go home to my two roommates, one of whom worked at EMC, and she would be like "We laid off 15% of the company today. I still have a job. I have to do the work of two additional people, but I still have a job."

Re: Google's "free food" is not free

#80

Post by aurelianito »

patio11 wrote: post #9

I'm writing a post on salary negotiation today, so I zeroed in on two supporting details here that you should remember for later: when pressed on price, savvy negotiators said: 1) Give us some time to think about it. 2) We are going to re-focus the discussion on a different compensation lever where we can present something you're already going to get as if it were a new incentive justifying your concession on a lever…

Link? I am interested in salary negotiation techniques.

Thank you.

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