[HN Gopher] Architect behind Googleplex now says it's 'dangerous... ___________________________________________________________________ Architect behind Googleplex now says it's 'dangerous' to work at posh offices Author : boulos Score : 21 points Date : 2022-01-22 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.npr.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org) | MiddleEndian wrote: | Having worked at Microsoft in their headquarters in Redmond, I | have to agree with the unhealthiness of being stuck in a work | community all the time. I was dazzled by MS for the first several | months, it was my first job out of college, there were tons of | shiny things and fringe benefits, they rented out entire sports | stadiums for company meetings, they had clubs for salsa and | ballroom dance just like at school, etc. But it was very | disconnected from Seattle or even the rest of the world. | Microsoft practically ran Redmond and Bellevue, to the point | where it programmed their stop-lights. I was there for a couple | years and everyone I knew was a Microsoft employee or a spouse or | family member of a Microsoft employee (many of whom were also | Microsoft employees). I was also dating a Microsoft contractor I | met through one of those work-related clubs. It started to drive | me nuts, and it was my major reason for leaving MS. I don't think | I could ever do that again, barring otherwise dire circumstances. | | I later worked at a Google satellite office in Cambridge, and | while I left for other reasons, it did not have the all- | encompassing life capture that the MS HQ did, not because of any | company policy (since Google has a similar HQ) but because I was | not physically trapped in a company town. I imagine I would have | had a better time at MS had I worked in their Cambridge satellite | instead. | YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo wrote: | I am with you visiting Google HQ felt like going to a really | strange amusement park. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-22 23:01 UTC)