[HN Gopher] Google was incorporated 25 years ago on September 4 ... ___________________________________________________________________ Google was incorporated 25 years ago on September 4 1998 Author : cpymchn Score : 54 points Date : 2023-09-05 21:46 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (about.google) (TXT) w3m dump (about.google) | paxys wrote: | Without commenting on the direction of the company in recent | years and where it is today, I'll be forever grateful to Google | for setting the standard for how tech companies need to treat | their engineers. | | People who have entered the industry in the last decade or two | may not realize it, but the sky high salaries, stock grants, | benefits, flexible work hours, free gourmet meals, stocked | pantries, gym memberships and lots more that you enjoy every day | are all thanks to Sergey and Larry in the early 00s wanting to | build a Disneyland for nerds. They were so successful at it that | the rest of the industry had no option but to emulate them. Being | a software engineer was nowhere near as enticing a job pre- | Google. | russ wrote: | 100%. My dad was an electrical engineer in the 70s and 80s and | ended up transitioning to sales, given that it paid much more. | paulddraper wrote: | I seem to recall that at one point Microsoft guaranteed to | match Google's offers, because Google had clearly figured out | how to hire the best engineers. | [deleted] | VirusNewbie wrote: | It certainly doesn't seem that way now, unless there is a | massive skew in titles (maybe an L4 at Google is given Senior | Engineer 2 at MSFT or something?) | ghaff wrote: | I'm not sure how much of it is Google and how much is just a | broader collection of SV companies, but engineering salaries, | including software, in general were much more conventional | professional salaries until at least the dot-com era. I started | with a computer company for about $40K in the mid-80s so a bit | over $100K today with nothing special with repect to other | benefits. | drewg123 wrote: | Yes, no. They are also a major proponent of open office space, | and (at least the group that I worked for was) very intolerant | of remote work pre-pandemic. It was very grating to see all | these showy spaces (cafes, gyms, theaters, climbing walls, ball | pits etc) that were featured in the REWS (Google Real Estate | and Workplace Services) newsletters, with absolutely no focus | on the overcrowded open office spaces that engineers were | forced to work in. | | I left Google for Netflix mostly because of my inability to | work remotely for Google, and the group I work for in Netflix | being remote friendly. | shortrounddev2 wrote: | Google has lost lawsuits for colluding with Apple to suppress | the wages of its employees | psychoslave wrote: | Hmm, I still fail to realize that, as except flexible work | hours, none of this is matching my experience as a software | engineer. I live in Europe though. | | It's not that I complain of my situation: I'm healthy, have a | loving family, and work with a great team which is full of | kindness and which is part of an international group, something | that let me exchange with people from all around the world as | part of my job in a full remote position. | | So this is just to say that not all SE live in this ultra- | privileged bubble. :) | jhp123 wrote: | thank you oh benevolent Google, for allowing supply and demand | to set labor prices after the DOJ shut down your wage fixing | scheme | frank_bb wrote: | [dead] | mooreds wrote: | Interesting podcast which touches on this too: | https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report... | paulpauper wrote: | Tivo became a verb too but it only a tiny tiny as fraction as | big of a company. I think found it convenient to say | jjoonathan wrote: | > The goals of the advertising business model do not always | correspond to providing quality search to users. | | - Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, The Anatomy of a Large-Scale | Hypertextual Web Search Engine | crazygringo wrote: | But fortunately market competition ensures that a higher- | quality search engine is only ever a click away. | | So the bar for quality search is always going to remain pretty | high, in order not to simply go out of business. | throw_awy_1 wrote: | And here's 20 Billion dollars that disagrees with you. If | switching was just a "click away" why would Google pay Apple | $20B per year to be the default search for iOS etc. | | https://macdailynews.com/2023/02/21/google-pays- | apple-20-bil... | ChatGTP wrote: | Thanks for all the rubbish... | dnw wrote: | And their first data center contract on 28/09/1998 | https://x.com/uhoelzle/status/1442040678167375877 | blamazon wrote: | How do I see the rest of this thread? I can only see one tweet. | therealmarv wrote: | https://nitter.net/uhoelzle/status/1442040678167375877 | blamazon wrote: | TY! That was interesting and I learned that their first | servers can be viewed in various museums. While web | searching that, I found this interesting tangent, a Lego | cased storage array from 1996: | | http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display | /... | ctoth wrote: | This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded | as a bad move. | paulddraper wrote: | (The creation of the universe, as described by the Hitchhiker's | Guide to the Galaxy) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-09-05 23:00 UTC)