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'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

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Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#821

Post by YZF »

pojzon wrote: post #641
fefe23 wrote: post #245

As a consultant, I come around a bit. I have seen many companies with very poor productivity, and in zero of those cases was it laziness of the employees. In fact they usually would have loved to be more productive. Nobody wants to spend their life being dead weight. But as companies grow they install more and more rules and regulations that end up making sure nothing ever gets done. It is not unusual to meet "develo…

I really have trouble understanding why ppl should dream about labor / fulfilment at work. There are so many ways to find a real meaning. Be a great person, help others, read a book, do yoga, help kids with homework, plant a tree, build something with own hands, grow food, clean-up trash. So many things to keep you busy. Work is just a necessity to do something that actually matters in the longer run (for majority at…

You sound like my wife ;)

I don't know how to not care. I've been writing software since I was a teenager and it's always been a central part of my life. I've always cared and that care is partly what made me successful (or so I believe). But it definitely is also what's stressing me out... I've always seen work as basically being able to be paid to practice my hobby though as well all know(?) your fun hobby becomes less fun when it's work.

I remember having lunch with a co-worker who was saying something along the lines that he's never really wanted to code and the only reason he's doing it (got a degree and a career) is for the money and I didn't understand how that was even possible ;)

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#822

Post by doliveira »

llaolleh wrote: post #224
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember the engineers on my team from HQ explaining to me that my proposed stand-up meeting schedule wouldn't work beacuse their intramural basketball league scheduled their games for that time. Meanwhile, in our low-perqs atmosphere in NY, distractions were limited and productivity was high. We also all made money. Your standup meeting could've been an email. Their immovable basketball game (quality of life) is…

I would go to the office to play basketball with my team. I'd think that it'd build team chemistry and cross team collaboration.

Those are such buzzwords. I for one would hate to be forced to play basketball just for that.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#823

Post by deepsquirrelnet »

danschuller wrote: post #284
alexk307 wrote: post #231

This is such an embarrassment for these two... Aren't YOU the CEO of your company? Didn't YOU approve hiring plans and corporate goals? If there's not enough work, why don't you find something for them to work on, or replace your managers with folks that will. Instead, it's the employee's fault for being so unproductive.

It just seems like setting a frame for upcoming layoffs nothing more or less than that.

Sounds like a public truce to me. These companies hire defensively and pay well to take talent from each other.

When other FAANG isn’t hiring, they can all afford to dump part of their workforce, knowing that the rest of the industry won’t soak them up. There’s no where else for them to go without taking pay cuts.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#825

Post by fritztastic »

mikhael28 wrote: post #113
neves wrote: post #73

> Zuckerberg noticed that it was getting harder to get all the employees to attend a meeting as they were sometimes taking time out in a day for personal work. > “There are real concerns that our productivity as a whole is not where it needs to be for the head count we have. [We need to] create a culture that is more mission-focused, more focused on our products, more customer-focused, Ohhh! Two declarations based in…

Honestly, I'd be pissed too if I was Zuck. I'm a goddamn billionaire - if I invite you to the meeting, idgaf what you are doing unless someone died - get on this goddamn Zoom call. And even then, they better have been important! Dogs, cats, idgaf, get on this goddamn Zoom call! Then, because I'm a genius who singlehandedly started Facebook by myself, I extrapolate this thought to its logical extreme and start intimid…

Those claims aren't accurate, but this does sound spot on as to what his internal narrative would be were it put to words. Zuckerberg is known for steamrolling over anyone to get what he wants, and orchestrating a narrative that paints him as the sympathetic talented protagonist he absolutely is not and has never been.

If I worked for a someone with this sort of attitude, and I was in a position that I could walk away from this sort of megalomania, I would run for the hills.

Dignity is important to me, idgaf how many zeroes are in someone's net worth, if they started intimidating people over a zoom call I would intentionally miss the meeting even if I was initially going to attend.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#826

Post by ruraljuror »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #635
goodpoint wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MSFT is hardly a FAANG

Why? Their stock performs just as well, and they pay better than Amazon, better benefits, all with a reputation for legendary good WLB. Amazon is hardly a FAANG

Better pay? Not for new hires. Most recent reports I have seen (blind, levels.fyi) and my own experiences have shown Amazon skyrocket to the top paying FAANG, with the first two years heavily skewed toward cash and backloading RSUs. I am surprised out of all the FAANGs you picked the generally lowest paying one as the counter example.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#827

Post by WatchDog »

titzer wrote: post #299

Quoth Zuck: > “And part of my hope by raising expectations and having more aggressive goals, and just kind of turning up the heat a little bit, is that I think some of you might just say that this place isn’t for you. And that self-selection is okay with me.” Wow. Just. Wow. Why not inject some more dysfunction into an already strained relationship with employees and callously but passively aggressively deal with a s…

Setting measurable performance expectations for software roles is notoriously difficult.

Setting quantitative targets often leads to developers optimizing for whatever metric you set, while compromising on the details that aren't quantifiable.

For all of the problems and biases that qualitative performance review has, I think it makes for a more enjoyable and engaging environment.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#828

Post by vecter »

carom wrote: post #529
vecter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds good in theory but most leaders are so removed from engineering that it would take them a week ramp up to produce even the most basic tiny change/feature to push to production. A VP should not be spending one week of his or her time doing that. They should rely on engineers to identify and fix whatever is broken at that level. That's why we have staff+ engineers. But that's also pretty divorced from the t…

They absolutely should be spending their time doing that. They are in the position to say "I have to do X, Y, and Z to push 2 lines of code??" and actually get it fixed. That week could save the company years of developer hours lost to overhead.

Relying on VPs to do every front-line job in order to identify and fix problems would indicate that something is fundamentally broken at the company. That should never be the primary method by which a company identifies and fixes such problems.

As a former engineering manager, if someone on my team walked me through why getting PRs out to prod was an insane nightmare, I'd take note, work with them to gather evidence, and present it to my director and try to escalate it to the point where we could take action to improve it. If the VP is any good at their job, they'll listen and work with us to fix it.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#829

Post by com2kid »

icedchai wrote: post #714
com2kid wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An IRL meeting with 100 participants, you can't tell who is there or not. You can audit online meeting attendees. > as they were sometimes taking time out in a day for personal work. People have been going to the dentist during work hours since forever. I used to have a dentist down the street from my office for just this reason. Now I have a dentist just down the street from my house, for the exact same reason. Heck…

Many people in large online meetings are checked out. Sure, they are "attending." Then they turn their cameras off and do something else.

So are people in IRL meetings once the meetings get large enough. PMs are only focusing when it is their time to talk or take notes for stuff about their team, otherwise they are answering emails or responding to other messages.

Re: 'Too many employees, but few work': Pichai, Zuckerberg sound the alarm

#830

Post by yao420 »

rr888 wrote: post #589
015a wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know; there are two sides to view this coin from: either "those tech people are insane with all their beautiful buildings, great perks, and fantastic work-life balance" or "those tech people are forward-looking with how we could just make work less shitty for everyone, if only other industries would catch on". I'm sad that even many on here seem to be opting for the "insane" line of thinking, and not recognizing…

I agree, but FAANG developers also get paid huge amounts at the same time. A relaxed job with great perks should pay 50-100k. If you earn half a mil in RSUs you really should be grinding, or someone else will take your place.

Why is grinding necessary? Ive worked with real estate developers who made millions a year and worked max 20 hours, and an easy 20 hours at that.
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