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

Post by unicornmama » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 7:21 AM UTC

hot_gril wrote: post #779

unicornmama wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing a messaging app is a fool's errand. You either build a chat app with someone elses money, invest in all chat apps (1/n) and hope you score a big one - e.g. like textbook publisher, or you wait and M&A the successful ones. The barrier to entry to write a chat app is zero. Even if you are brilliant you will compete against hundreds other chat apps one of which will beat out with pure luck. Never compete against…

Google has Android, which is a lot better than luck. Apple made iMessage popular just by putting it on every phone. Google did that too, but they did it wrong.

Post by smeagull » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 7:39 AM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #478

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…

>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 "developers" whose company calendar is 80% filled with meetings. Well no wonder they don't get anything done! As long as you're not mean, you can hang out at most companies for at least 6 months just doing nothing. I've been reprimanded before , when I took the initiative t…

Post by dzikimarian » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 7:50 AM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #443

aliasxneo wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling this extends to several areas in Google. I come from the GDC side of things and have the exact same experience. To keep my job requires very minimal effort on my part. In fact, nowadays I'm punishing myself by trying to do anything "above and beyond." This is mostly due to the rapid growth of committees and the struggle for power that has come out of it (i.e., I'm more likely to be denied by a change…

Why do you look to your job for challenges. Why not simply look at it as a way to put food on the table and use the rest of your time and resources to seek out other challenges?

Post by imtringued » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 7:55 AM UTC

baka367 wrote: post #682

fefe23 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have met a few of those people, but every single one of them needed a justification. Some told me they felt wronged by the company somehow. For example they had experienced bullying, or didn't get promoted when they felt they should have been, or they had contributed something and then it got cut from the product, something like that in most cases. Now didn't feel they owed the company anything. Yet others said the…

Another concern that is very prevailing is rewards. I could work 2 times harder in my current position, however what is that going to bring me? Promotion or bigger bonus - it’s the same as playing stock options with your time, you are better off playing office politics for a much better RoI. Self value? Senior engineer in FAANG is almost never going to have REAL impact, so I can only enjoy thinking that someone cares…

Post by swift532 » Thu, Aug 11, 2022, 8:02 AM UTC

esoterica wrote: post #169

jjslocum3 wrote: post #91

Glad these guys seem to finally be noticing. I was a software engineering manager at a lean, high-margin, profitable start-up based in the NYC area starting in the late 2000s. We were acquired in 2014 by a very typical (for the time) SV-based competitor that had raised hundreds of millions in an IPO a few years earlier. Our acquirers had yet to see a single quarter of profit, of course. I and my team had so many good…

Unless you got paid more money than your lazy peers it seems like they got a much better deal than you did. Why are you bragging about working harder and getting treated worse than your coworkers?