[HN Gopher] What I learned getting acquired by Google ___________________________________________________________________ What I learned getting acquired by Google Author : shreyans Score : 548 points Date : 2023-11-09 16:20 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (shreyans.org) (TXT) w3m dump (shreyans.org) | olivierduval wrote: | > "At Google's scale, the external world ceases to exist and is | only rarely and carefully allowed to enter their walls" | | OK Google... now I get why you behave that way with your users | (no support, product graveyard...) ! ;-) | avidiax wrote: | The insularity isn't behind that, in my opinion. | | It's more that almost all of Google's features are ad-funded, | and the company has chosen to make lots of (apparently) free, | but poorly supported and uncertain products, rather than a | smaller set of well supported products. It's a tradeoff, and | Google has made a good tradeoff for both themselves (who | collect more data and have more ad supply) and the majority of | their users (who get a wide variety of "free" services), but it | has downsides, of course. | esafak wrote: | But other big companies are the same. Engineers just don't | communicate with users; that's reserved for product managers. | The most you will get is a bug report. | ska wrote: | I walked away from an otherwise pretty great offer over | this once. At some point I decided I won't do NPD efforts | unless I can get engineers/developers and end users | together in some meaningful way, and not all organizations | can even conceive of how that might work once they are big | enough. | | Unlike some I think PM roles can be very useful, but they | build in failure if they are used as a firewall between dev | and customers. | laidoffamazon wrote: | I think the insularity is caused by that, they literally | don't build for normal humans. They think the rest of us that | don't work at Google aren't smart enough to understand what | they do. | | This is something I've noticed among dozens and dozens of | Google engineers. The smug self superiority has leaked into | the water supply. | freefaler wrote: | They're just the user, not the customer. For the real | customers (big ad spenders) they do provide support, account | managers and SLA agreements. In their world a couple of | dollars for your cloud storage isn't enough to pay for | support and reading your email, browsing history and your | site usage is a way to earn back the money they've put into | creating and sustaining the "free" service. | hbn wrote: | Maybe it /was/ a good tradeoff for users but the past few | years I think people have become very disillusioned with | Google. If anyone still gets excited about a new Google | service being announced it's either because they're new to | the Google ecosystem and haven't yet experienced year-after- | year of having products and services you rely on repeatedly | cancelled out from under you and replaced with something | noticeably worse, or they're a masochist. | nonameiguess wrote: | I used to think about this when I was a kid. If 5 billion | people pray to God at the same time and ask for mutually | exclusive things, how can he possibly answer or even listen to | them all? And it's now up to 8 billion and the problem isn't | getting any easier. | | I guess the answer is God's perfect omniscience is massively | concurrent on a scale unfathomable to human computational | models and, by existing outside of time, he also avoids the | possibility of race conditions. But Google can't do that, so | they need to face this problem like the rest of us. I think | they have really, by admitting it's impossible at that scale to | provide service to all customers, so they simply don't, but | their users have not yet accepted that. | mattigames wrote: | Im pretty sure that if there were only one single human in | the world the success ratio of the communication with God | would be just as bleak, and the situation there is more like | a company that after digging a tiny bit you discover only | exists on paper. | svieira wrote: | > after digging a tiny bit | | What makes you so sure that "the company" doesn't exist? | Sounds like you've discovered something almost axiomatic to | have that level of certainty since there isn't a state-of- | Deleware for the perfect being. | rand846633 wrote: | Or maybe god just is really good at making use of caching and | has cloudflare tuned in properly? | TremendousJudge wrote: | Or maybe there just shouldn't exist a company so large if | it's clear that it won't be able to listen to its users? | goalonetwo wrote: | "When I was working at Google, we ..." | | Seems like every Googler cannot wait to tell us their stories | about Google! | | Hopefully over the last year the general public has started to | see those bigTech more as a dystopian place than a source of | pride. I still cannot believe that we have hyped becoming a cog | at Google to the almost top level of professional achievement. | marcinzm wrote: | 99.999999% of software engineering is being a cog in a machine. | Startups included. Even your own startup if you have VC money | and clients. Google is a nicer cleaner machine than most other | machines. | greatpostman wrote: | As a founder, you have to live it to realize you are in some | sense still an employee of the VC firm | JanSt wrote: | As a bootstrapper, you have to live it to realize you are | in some sense still an employee of the client | gomox wrote: | Next up: | | As a human in a capitalist system | | As a mammal on Earth | | As a cell-based organism on this arm of the galaxy | sebastiennight wrote: | As a conscious mind needing carbohydrates to sustain | compute | kbknapp wrote: | I've worked in large companies (thousands of employees) and | startups (<20) and I actually felt more like a cog in the | machine at the startup size companies. | | I was literally just a means to an end to churn out code on a | product. I could have been (and eventually was) replaced at | any moment with another generic cog willing to churn out the | same code without much of a thought. | tsunamifury wrote: | After working at Google and Startups, I totally agree. You | are much more of a cog at a startup due to the desperate | need to grind out the next A/B test or customer | requirement. | | People WAY over glamorize startups. | teaearlgraycold wrote: | Don't agree at all. Have you worked at a startup with <10 | employees? It's more like 25% cog at that level. Even at 50 | employees you're at worst 50% cog. | avgcorrection wrote: | That there is a denyonym for it--and an ex-denonym even--tells | you enough. | lostlogin wrote: | Do you mean demonym? Sorry I'm pre coffee and don't know the | word/words. | avgcorrection wrote: | Yes. | karaterobot wrote: | There was a time when it was true that being a Googler meant | you were pretty hot shit, but that was decades ago at this | point. Not insulting any of the talented people who work there, | it's just a much bigger company with 1000x more people on | staff, so obviously it's not just the top, _creme de la creme_ | nerds in the world, even if many of them are there. | | On the other hand, I'm not sure that this article is an example | of pride or bragging. It seems like an inventory of what's | unusual about Google. It also includes some somewhat cutting | remarks about its dysfunctions, e.g.: | | > Most 10-50 million user problems aren't worth Google's time, | and don't fit their strategy. But they'll take on significant | effort on problems that do fit their nature, strategy, and | someone's promotion goals. | bobthepanda wrote: | Ah, the classic Promotion Oriented Architecture. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | I think it's useful for people who are founders or employees in | a startup that Google (or similar BigCo) might acquire to read | things like this. | | Also, I think there's things to be proud about working at | Google. In general working there _does_ teach a diligence of | quality that is often missing in SWE in other orgs, though many | companies are picking up on the same practices anyways. | | Personally, I found my time at Google to be useful from the POV | of that, but also, yeah, just having it on my resume. | dilyevsky wrote: | People usually don't hand the keys to their company when | things are going amazing. Very first sentence: | | > As we started to raise Socratic's Series B in 2017, we | quickly learned that our focus on getting usage at the | expense of revenue was going to bite us | | As folks here seem be eager to read between the lines how | terrible it was maybe they should read between this one too | Domenic_S wrote: | You may have missed the point of the article, which was | explaining just how dystopian a place it is to try and get | things done | yunohn wrote: | You always effectively a cog in the wheel. You're never | actually making a meaningful difference. There's only a handful | of universally "impactful" causes, the rest are just things | that are part of the intricate world we've created. A job is | almost always just a job, whatever the industry. | | Source: I've been in IT for over a decade, across all sizes of | companies. | izacus wrote: | Maybe you should read the article before bloviating about | things (seriously, what's with this ranting and raving that | doesn't even have the article it's supposedly answering in | context?). | | It's not really a positive one. | JCharante wrote: | To the average person working at NASA feels the same. Most | professional achievements are being a part of a cog and society | functions by people working together as cogs to make a system | function. | laidoffamazon wrote: | This sounds so old school - people today don't think NASA is | an impressive or prestigious job. | wbl wrote: | Where else does your stuff go to space and make headlines | regularly? | laidoffamazon wrote: | SpaceX, BlueOrigin fits the bill | JCharante wrote: | I think you're very disconnected from the average american | if you believe that. | okdood64 wrote: | > general public has started to see those bigTech more as a | dystopian place than a source of pride | | It really has not. Unless you consider commenters on HN and | r/technology the general public. | paganel wrote: | Things are slowly but surely changing, and this goes for the | tech world/culture as a whole, i.e. how we're seen by the | "outside" world. | | I'd say that the high-point of the nerd/tech stuff was around | 2017-2018, i.e. just before the pandemic, but ever since then | techies have started being seen as a nuisance (and worst) by | more and more people. | zhivota wrote: | Very nice and sneaky article. It seems like a cheerleading | article at first but if you read to the end you can see the | cutting criticism, delivered in a way that makes perfect sense if | you've lived it, but you might even miss much of if you haven't. | | I was part of a similar acquisition story and feel many of the | same things, but the company was eBay so all the talk about great | things wasn't as applicable. Just mostly the bad things. | ilrwbwrkhv wrote: | I agree. It really shows that at a large scale it is no longer | possible to deliver new value. Google has reached that level. | It can only go downhill from here. Albeit very slowly. | butlike wrote: | Large animals require large amount of food. It's why there's | countless fish but only one humpback whale. | | The question for Google is: how much are they willing to bet | they're the whale and not just a fish that's too big? | dwroberts wrote: | > On the other, both Chris and I left Google to found startups, | and neither the Socratic team nor Google as a whole have yet | produced an AI powered tutor worthy of Google's capabilities. But | a few Socratic Googlers might yet make it happen, unless they've | been re-org'd | | Feels a bit like the post is upbeat padding to share the real | experience/criticism which is this part (ie exactly what you | expect for a small focused app getting acquired by a giant | directionless company) | moritonal wrote: | Is this a happy story? Having read it my takeaways are that they | were immediately asked to rewrite their app in Google's way, then | a separate research team went off and wrote them a new API for | their core functionality. And now given Socratic by Google on the | Play Store was last updated on Oct 21, 2020, and is not available | for my Android 13 device, so seems to have just died? | | Kind of seems like Google bought the company, mushed the team | into the rest of Google and killed the app off. | JohnFen wrote: | Was it an aquihire? | johannes1234321 wrote: | Aquire a company not for the product, but to hire specific | people working there. Like experts in a field. For instance | if you have a competing product and want to build something | using expertise or if you think the technology can be applied | elsewhere. | bennyg wrote: | I think the parent you're replying to knows that, they were | asking if this was an example of that. | freedomben wrote: | I know almost nothing (I read the article but that's all) but | my gut tells me it could have been a "scoop this potential | competitor up early" as there was so much overlap between | Socratic and what Google research is doing. Could also have | been a "we need a product to justify this research work, and | Socratic is a good one." Or it could just straight be an | acquihire -\\_(tsu)_/- | gizmo wrote: | A 10 person startup without a business model? And all the | tech got thrown out. Clearly an acquihire. | pbhjpbhj wrote: | How can you tell them difference between that and early | removal of a competitor? | TremendousJudge wrote: | You often can't, which is why they can get away with | these anti-competitive practices | Keyframe wrote: | Well google did buy photomath recently as well, which is | basically the same thing so who knows. | screamingninja wrote: | What is the difference? If your competitor is competent, | acqui-hire them. If they are not, there is no real | competition. | xeckr wrote: | That's an interesting word. I assume it's when a large | company buys your startup just to have access to the talent, | without much regard for the startup's product? What sorts of | offers do they make to the founders? | beambot wrote: | Varies heavily depending on background labor market. In | 2021: $1M+ per solid engineer. These days it's closer to $0 | as they're not aggressively hiring and plenty of talent | floating around. | cj wrote: | An acquisition of a failed startup where the purchasing | company is "buying" the team of people rather than the | product they built. | e_y_ wrote: | Normally I'd consider it an acquihire when a company acquires | a startup / smaller company and immediately announces the | discontinuation of the product. Less so if there's an attempt | to continue developing the product, even if it eventually | gets shut down. | mistrial9 wrote: | > they were immediately asked to rewrite their app in Google's | way, then a separate research team went off and wrote them a | new API for their core functionality | | waves to Matt Hancher | izacus wrote: | I mean... it's both? It reads like real life - good things and | bad. Which is why the insight is interesting. | SilverBirch wrote: | To me it reads more like someone with a positive disposition | (or someone who has founded a start up and doesn't want to | burn bridges) laying out the problems without saying they are | problems. I mean come on - the upsides: we "merged cultures", | "our app lives on", "careers have bloomed" versus downsides | "we quit", and "we don't think we actually delivered what we | wanted to". But it's ok because after everyone who cared | about the product quit, maybe someone else will might make it | happen -\\_(tsu)_/- | | You could change none of the facts of this blog and write it | as an aggressive rant about how Google murdered their | startup, forced them to re-write the entire thing, stopped | them shipping by being a bureaucratic nightmare, and the big | take away is you can succeed at google if you "play the right | game" if you know what I mean. It's ... not positive. | sanderjd wrote: | Maybe it's ok for writing to not be so editorialized as | what you're used to? To me this read like a trip report | from which the reader can draw their own conclusions | without the author telling them what to think. | | I wish more things I read on the internet were written in | that style. I don't need to be told what conclusions to | draw, I can figure it out myself. | ccb92 wrote: | Agreed, very earnest style. | ido wrote: | > I mean come on - the upsides: we "merged cultures", "our | app lives on", "careers have bloomed" versus downsides "we | quit", and "we don't think we actually delivered what we | wanted to". But it's ok because after everyone who cared | about the product quit, maybe someone else will might make | it happen -\\_(tsu)_/- | | Do we ignore the most obvious upside, that this guy (and | possibly/probably everyone in that startup) got paid a shit | ton of money as a result of Google buying the company? | bornfreddy wrote: | And can now watch his dream of so many years languish in | the app store. Money is only a part of the equation. | zymhan wrote: | Nuance is an underappreciated form. | danans wrote: | Code and infrastructure must evolve, and Google excels at | building secure, scalable, performant, maintainable systems | that squeeze every last bit of signal from noise. Startups | don't have the resources to do that, and Google can't launch a | product built in the startup way. | | For an example, _anything /anyone_ that wants to access user | data at Google faces an extremely high bar for access, with | layers of access control, auditing, approvals, and enforcement, | starting at the design phase through to implementation. | | At Google that's a good thing. However it would be pretty silly | at a 10 person startup. | | What Google isn't great at is taking risks on new product ideas | (for many good and bad reasons), and that's why they often | acquire companies that do that sort of thing. | nitwit005 wrote: | Buying something, rewriting it, and abandoning it, is just | squandering money. You can't change that reality by praising | Google's way of doing things. | underdeserver wrote: | The founders got money, a line in their resume (sold a startup | to Google), and the experience of working at Google. They | didn't stay very long. | | I'd be pretty happy. | andrewparker wrote: | Socratic by Google still exists today and is a widely beloved | app based on reviews. They had to rewrite the code and | infrastructure, but "killing off the app" implies that they | just shut things down. That never happened. | | As for "happy story", I think the founders of Socratic learned | a lot. Shreyans is just trying to share his learnings here. Not | celebrate or mourn. | suprfsat wrote: | > This app isn't available for your device because it was | made for an older version of Android. | | Not "killed off" exactly, no. | autokad wrote: | its a PR piece IMO. The google way is terrible for producing | products people want, which is why they always have to purchase | their way into new products. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | Having been through this myself -- but as an individual- | contributor rather than some kind of Thought Leader... and seen | others go through it.. Sounds about typical for Google acquires. | | Google will tie fairly lengthy golden handcuffs onto their | acquired employees precisely because of what you see here. As | soon as they run out, most -- especially the founders and senior | folks -- leave. | | I stuck around (for another 6 years) after my 3-4 years of golden | handcuffs expired because there was nothing else that paid as | well in my area. But most of my NYC colleagues from the same | acquisition bailed as soon as they got something else compelling. | | Going from a fast moving startup where you get to make decisions | on your own rather small codebase, to a giant beast like Google | is... hard. Much of what was in this article is saying is | familiar. But when we joined Google it was "only" around 25k | engineers. Now it's wayyyy more than that. | | In our case they basically seemed to buy us out to eliminate us | (or so the DOJ is saying now | https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB10956 ... | though they didn't at the time). For the first year they kind of | just let us flap in the wind without integrating us, while they | just rewrote features from our stuff into their stack... mostly | without us. | | 2 years in I felt a bit like the "Rest and Vest" scene from | Silicon Valley. Though I got myself out of that trough for a | while. | | It was a weird feeling of simultaneously being happy for the | opportunity and the Really Good Money, but also a tinge of | bitterness about the circumstances of the whole thing. | jrockway wrote: | This sounds approximately like acquisitions I've been through, | except working at Google you get paid 3x as much. There are | many, many huge enterprises buying startups; few have the pay | scales of Google. (The general inability to act annoys me more | than comp, though, which is why I left Google to go to a | startup in the first place! I really miss the days of "rollout | new code on green"; you could have an idea in production in | less than 5 minutes. Not so in the enterprise world.) | s1gnp0st wrote: | I left early and left a lot of money on the table. If they | carved out a space for people to get weird and creative, I'd | come back, but otherwise I'll spend the rest of my life in the | chaotic fun of startups. | | Some people are built for the pirate ship, not the armada. | gniv wrote: | Well-written article with some interesting insights. In | particular the part about process debt. | xnorswap wrote: | This picture from the post is worth a thousand words: | https://shreyans.org/images/posts/google/nooglers-no-more.jp... | dekhn wrote: | I remember a startup that had a great product that would match | you, a person with a questiojn about a topic, with an expert on | that topic, over gChat. Google acquired them, and they | immediately were told they had to port their infra into google3 | and borg. This was a short window where the new hotness was help- | over-chat. | | They rewrote their whole system and then Google told them they | didn't actually need the product (and from what I can tell, the | help-over-gchat idea isn't really a product space any more). So | they pivoted and made user profiles- that is, for every user at | google, they inspected all the history of that user, and made a | simple model that represented them. at the same time, several | other groups were competing to the same thing- and a more | powerful team licked the cookie and took ownership of user models | at google (often, the leadership would set up various teams in | competition and then "pick a winner"). | | After a few years, all the acquihires left google in disgust, | because google had basically taken their product, killed it, | forced them to pivot, and then killed their pivot. | | What a shame and waste of resources. | s3r3nity wrote: | This tracks with what I've heard from other friends & | colleagues; one data point could be an anecdote but | seeing/hearing similar stories multiple times over the past | decade+ creates a trend. | | Google Product Management is almost meme-level bad, and is | carried + boosted by such great talent in virtually 95% of | other departments at the company. | | As an easy litmus test, think about whether or not you could | quickly name 5 Google products still around that the company | released in the past 20 years that _weren't_ seeded from | acquisitions. | caturopath wrote: | What are a couple somewhat-comparable companies with really | good product management? | jiveturkey wrote: | competition isn't a waste. for a google kind of company it's | fine. | | is it a waste when 20 companies compete in the open market for | note taking apps, and 15 of them die completely? | | google happens to be big enough to have an internal market, | that's all. your team isn't guaranteed to win. but your work | output isn't considered a waste, unlike the open market. some | of the ideas might survive in another shape. remember wave? and | you move on to the next project. (promo considerations aside) | | different people will of course internalize it differently. | some bitterly. | | I'm not referring to the plethora of chat apps. Those are | wasteful and demonstrative of google's failings. | Retric wrote: | It is actually wasteful to build 15 note taking apps that | die. Free markets limit inefficiency as individual actors can | only run out of money individually unlike governments who can | bankrupt everyone. | | Google gets the worst of both worlds by having multiple | internal projects and having management pick winners. It's | exactly the kind of waste you get from monopolies where | efficiency takes a back seat to politics. | eep_social wrote: | > help-over-gchat idea isn't really a product space any more | | Couldn't disagree more, most web presences in B2C have a chat | box where you can talk to someone or something on the other | end. Usually they're horrible but when they're good they're | fucking great. | | I think the other problems you outline, plus the fact that | google went through this process with gchat itself (anyone | remember Allo?) are probably the main contributors. As a | sibling comment notes: google's product org is meme-level | terrible from top to bottom. | dekhn wrote: | help-over-gchat and B2C chat are two different things. | | help-over-gchat was a matching system that allowed you to | either ask a question about a topic, or declare that you know | about a topic, and the system would match question-askers | with question-answerers, all through gChat. | eep_social wrote: | Good point. | | In my eyes it's a PMF problem and an issue with their | product team that Google couldn't pivot. I know in 2023 a | major CRM vendor has been rolling out the same idea as part | of their SaaS. They're trying to match individual customer | service reps with depth of expertise across a broad product | range. Not sure how much success they're having but the | idea is solid and requires an interesting combinatorial | solver to figure out "good" matches within various | constraints beyond expertise like individual workload, time | zones, etc. with the goal to drive down case resolution | time. Google is terrible at product and terrible at taking | the long view, despite having known for decades that | they're going to struggle with innovators dilemma. | fidotron wrote: | I think the outside world massively underestimates the | viciousness of politics in the upper echelons of Google, and | how it has been that way for a very long time. (It predates | Sundar ascending to CEO). I have never worked for Google, but | closely enough with teams and execs in those upper regions to | know how the sausage is made and it forever soured me on | possibly working there (and I believe that is entirely mutual). | The post acquisitions which are not quite merged into the | mothership teams tend to be on the receiving end of much of the | worst, and it leads to the result where the survivors are the | most obnoxious. | | "Licking the cookie" has to be the single most common phrase | that came up, but my general sense was that both Google and FB | are full of weasels, only the latter is much more honest about | it. Neither is particularly desirable. | | EDIT: Feel the need to qualify, there is a lot of superb | technical work there on many many teams, but it is the co- | ordination of that (especially fights over gatekeeping that | which goes forward) which is a total mess. The resulting | strategic blunders and failure to execute create huge friction | with the outside world. | asdfman123 wrote: | The second passport thing is definitely true. When I'm abroad-- | even, recently, Buenos Aires--I have access to office space, free | food, a gym, and even a music room where I can practice guitar | and piano. | leidenfrost wrote: | That's the office near the port, right? Beautiful neighborhood | and the commercial part is very tourist friendly. | asdfman123 wrote: | Yep. Another perk is that Google always seems to lease the | best/coolest office real estate anywhere. | | Most of my time here I feel vaguely gross about how nice | everything is. | parthdesai wrote: | Not a googler, but their office in Toronto is in pretty meh | area tbh | otalp wrote: | Do they have a dev office in Toronto? Thought it was in | waterloo | cmrdporcupine wrote: | In the past it was sales&marketing only with smattering | of a few "guest desks" for visiting engineers. And the | site leads at Waterloo (at least) lobbied hard to prevent | Toronto from ever really having engineering for real. | Probably out of worry about centre of gravity being | sucked away, etc. | | IMHO it limited Google's hiring ability in Ontario. And | it made me (and others) have to sell my house in Toronto | and move when my employer was acquired. I tried the | van/bus commute for 6 months and it was too hard. | | Then the Geoffrey Hinton folks moved in there I believe. | And I think some AI R&D was happening there? | | And then COVID happened, and everyone was WFH but when | you _did_ go into the office and book a desk, it became | possible to go into the Toronto office instead. | | I left after that so can't say how it is now. Google goes | through waves of "defrags" where small groups and teams | in peripheral offices are... purged and merged because | there's a feeling that "strength in numbers" for a | particular project pays off. I wouldn't be surprised to | see what happen post-layoffs. | | The Toronto office, when I visited it, was small. Food | was good though. | dboreham wrote: | > best/coolest office real estate anywhere | | Hence the focus on RTO. | monksy wrote: | Sigh | cmrdporcupine wrote: | In reality they were out of room at many of their offices | pre-COVID, and they hired like crazy during COVID, and | had no room for everyone to RTO. | | Before I quit you had to book a desk if you wanted to | come into the office, hybrid. I pushed to get myself my | own assigned desk because I despised the stock monitors, | etc. | | At that point (fall 2021) hardly anybody was coming in, | so it was a ghost town. But they would not have been able | to fit everyone in if they'd demanded people come back. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | My friend/coworker made the observation: Elysium. (the | movie) | | Always felt kind of gross to me. | GreedClarifies wrote: | Meta also has exceptional offices. | | Both are amazing. | elwell wrote: | > Most of my time here I feel vaguely gross about how nice | everything is. | | Tell me more about this. | jeffbee wrote: | It's almost literally a sidekick passport. If you fly into a | city with a major Google office and you say you are there for | work and you work at Google, the customs agent might ask to see | your badge. | eloisant wrote: | It has nothing to do with it being a passport, when you tell | a custom agent you come for work and you work for company X | they can ask for some proof. Nothing more to it. | goalonetwo wrote: | I know you guys are being told you are special but this has | nothing to do with Google. I Had the same thing happen to me | for different companies. | decaffjoe wrote: | It's common for Google offices to have gyms and pianos?! | dilyevsky wrote: | Gyms yes, pianos - only really big/fancy ones like MV, | Zurich, London, etc | bigmanwalter wrote: | Even some smaller ones too. The Google Montreal office has | an excellent music room! | asdfman123 wrote: | In my experience nearly every Google campus has a music | room, and nearly all of them have at least a weighted | keyboard. | | In the Bay Area there are a lot of acoustic pianos | available. There's even a special building that has like 12 | practice rooms, each with an acoustic piano. | dilyevsky wrote: | Yeah i was thinking of full size acoustic ones since | electronic keyboards are pretty common everywhere | milesward wrote: | While an employee, I stashed 6 colored "p-bone" plastic | trombones in google colors in various Google Cloud | offices... (tokyo has blue, green in UK, etc) | cbarrick wrote: | Google Pittsburgh has a music room. We're definitely a | smaller office. | paddez wrote: | A few of the offices even have a pool (Google Dublin, and | soon Google London) | | Because the buildings are usually located in very central | city locations - I've often used the offices as a way to kill | time til' check-in opens for hotels after a long-haul flight | (grab food, caffeinate, have a shower, etc) | | Recently I took a night train between Stockholm and | Copenhagen. | | Showered in the Stockholm office, walked 5 minutes to the | train station, slept, woke up in Copenhagen, grabbed a hearty | breakfast in the CPH office. | | It's a little perk that is honestly vastly underestimated | itronitron wrote: | I assume the data centers get to have heated pools | quietpain wrote: | Even the toilet water is heated | | https://www.wired.com/2012/03/google-sewer-water/ | milesward wrote: | eheheh solid | dgacmu wrote: | Google Pittsburgh has (or, had, I haven't been there for four | years) a Theremin. Not sure if that counts. :-) | Nicholas_C wrote: | The HQ has a halfpipe (https://ocramps.com/blogs/builds- | installations/google-headqu...) | Rebelgecko wrote: | Often just an electric keyboard but yeah | latenightcoding wrote: | TIL google has an office in Buenos Aires, wonder how that works | with the current inflation, do engineers get paid in pesos? do | they have to re-adjust their salaries every few weeks? | cmrdporcupine wrote: | About 50% of my comp as a Canadian was in the form of RSUs | which were in USD, so there's that. But of course, the amount | you're given is indexed (in the past quite generously, but | less so over time) against local compensation rates. | jedberg wrote: | It's funny because later in the article he mentions the | difference between Google and Amazon, and this is a huge one. | At Amazon you can't even open the building next door without | approval. | rescbr wrote: | When I went to other sites I just had to file a ticket and | that was it. If something were to be approved, it was | automatic, unless it was a restricted office/building. Maybe | it depends on the job role. | | Not too unusual, other companies I've worked were very | similar. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Doesn't work in China (I've heard). | GreedClarifies wrote: | Worked for me. Maybe someone filled a ticket to make it | happen, I sure didn't have to do anything. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | I've heard blockages in the Beijing Wudaokou office, but | that was before I started working at Google (I left China | in 2016 and started at google in 2020, so maybe a big gap). | Maybe it changed? (or my info was wrong) | kccqzy wrote: | Definitely did work. At least the Shanghai office before the | pandemic. | Rebelgecko wrote: | Should be fine (although your ability to access work | materials might be limited). Visiting the Shanghai office is | a decent alternative to the tower's paid observation deck | (similar situation at the Taipei 101 office) | oh_sigh wrote: | Another great thing is you can usually find someone who is up | to have fun, even if you have no social connections in a place | you're travelling to. I was visiting Barcelona a few years ago | and emailed the misc- alias seeing if anyone wanted to visit | Montserrat with me, and 5 of us went up there and had a great | day together. Best part is, it is usually cool people who say | "yes" - the abject nerds aren't going to respond to that kind | of email. | sumuyuda wrote: | I found the mention of most of Google's code stored in a mono | repo to be pretty crazy. | | https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2854146 | jiveturkey wrote: | it's not a monorepo in the git sense of monorepo. git won't | scale that way. | dboreham wrote: | This is not the monorepo you are thinking of. And yes I've seen | $M in developer time burned by people who didn't understand | that. | vkou wrote: | There's no other way to run a firm this size without half of it | being mired in dependency hell. | CobrastanJorji wrote: | It worked far better than you'd think. The ability to | atomically change massive chunks of Google's code across | projects was amazing. At some companies I worked at, if you | wanted to make a breaking change in a common library, like say | rename a method, it'd be a serious issue. You'd need to release | a new version of your library, then you'd start migrating teams | using that library one by one or cajoling them into it, and | then, years later, you might be able to delete the old version. | And you'd have to maintain it the whole time. At Google, you | could just rename the method in the library and in every client | of that library in the same single commit. It was magical! | Almost all development at Google was done at HEAD in a single | branch, and it was a beautiful thing. It's probably also why | Bazel and Google's open source stuff are not great at | versioning and backwards compatibility; it's not something they | worry about internally. | doublerabbit wrote: | > Google does things the Google way. Just about every piece of | software and infrastructure used at Google was built at Google | | And now we have most using everything built by Google. Sad times | when compared to times when everything was once individually | created. | b20000 wrote: | i've tried reaching out to various corp dev teams at FAANGS | without any results. i guess it pays to know people. | DiggyJohnson wrote: | I think your success with this entirely depends on what and why | you're reaching out to them, no? | b20000 wrote: | no, it depends on whether you know people on the inside | teaearlgraycold wrote: | > Googlers wanted to ship great work, but often couldn't. While | there were undoubtedly people who came in for the food, worked 3 | hours a day, and enjoyed their early retirements, all the people | I met were earnest, hard-working, and wanted to do great work. | | > What beat them down were the gauntlet of reviews, the frequent | re-orgs, the institutional scar tissue from past failures, and | the complexity of doing even simple things on the world stage. | Startups can afford to ignore many concerns, Googlers rarely can. | | I started as someone excited to learn, make things happen, and | work hard. Within a few months I realized that the team I joined | was the "wrong" version and the "right" version of that team was | in another department I couldn't transfer to. My manager was in | denial, my team-mates were quitting rapidly, and my skip manager | was incredibly toxic. | | But the worst part was that doing even a simple thing was a | monumental task. Something that for a startup could take an hour | to pick up, turn into a PR, get review, launch and get analytics | on would take 2 months at Google. You could do other stuff in | parallel of course but the iteration cycles were horribly slow | and the ability to get feedback almost non-existent. The team I | joined had worked on their product for 6 years and only just got | the most primitive feedback metrics a few months into my joining. | | 3 months in and I knew I had to quit. I was out of there 15 | months after joining. I'm going back to the startup world on | Monday and I'm actually really excited! | | The extra pay of Google doesn't matter to me. The extra scale of | Google doesn't matter to me. I never want to work at a big | organization again and would rather die poor and accomplished | than rich and depressed. I came to Silicon Valley to learn as | much as possible. If I work on a high-scale system I need to have | earned that by building, launching, and supporting that system | from step 0. If I get big pay I need to have earned that from | excellent product development. | sarora27 wrote: | > I came to Silicon Valley to learn as much as possible. | | This is so refreshing to read. Feels like 80%+ of ppl i came | across in SV over the last 10 years do not have this mindset. | | Hold this philosophy close and guard it fiercely. It is your | secret weapon in a world of rising mediocrity | pkilgore wrote: | The tone of this is so different from the factual content it was | really hard to read. Like a story about a machine that crushed | your hand, and you wrote note to yourself that next time it would | have crushed it faster had you sharpened the gears first. | rand846633 wrote: | This made me laugh so hard! I really want to know what lead up | to this comment and was some llm involved? | kccqzy wrote: | Where did all your negativity come from? "A machine that | crushed your hand?" The author clearly learned a lot, had fun, | and also recognized the issues at Google and quit on their own | accord. Sounds like any other job to me. | user_7832 wrote: | Not who you replied to but often even if significant parts of | your job is shitty, if the fundamentals (incl having a good | boss who bats for you) are in place, you'd speak | favorably/with fond nostalgia. This didn't sound anything | like that. | dekhn wrote: | when building industrial tools, one builds them to do their job | as painlessly as possible, so I could totally see writing a | note to self that the gears should be sharpened. | | Do not look into laser with remaining eye. | zerr wrote: | They do anthropomorphize - Flutter and Golang mascots. | pram wrote: | The Gopher is solely because of Rob Pike and his wife I assume. | cdibona wrote: | Yup, we wanted Renee to make the mascot for Go.I personally | really loved Glenda (the plan 9 bunny) and was enthusiastic. | It turned out pretty cute! We even ended up ordering a few | containers full from squishables in that first year of go | being released outside google. | raybb wrote: | I had the pleasure of working with Shreyans as a SE at Maven last | year and it's funny to see how this blog post explains some of | the experience working together. There was a strong aversion to | meetings and process and big emphasis on empowering the employees | to make judgement calls and just reach out for comment if they're | unsure. Those things just made sense to me so I didn't question | it but coming so recently from Google might have made those | aversions stronger. At the end of the day, I enjoyed that way of | working (which is probably much harder to do with bigger teams) | and I hope to bring it to the next place I go. | | I left for a funded opportunity to travel Europe while doing an | urban studies masters (https://www.4cities.eu/) but it wasn't an | easy decision. I hope we work together again in the future. If | anyone is looking to work at an education startup check out | maven.com for sure. | xnacly wrote: | How would one go about working at google as a junior fullstack | developer? I wanted to work remote or onsite in germany but there | seem to be no open positions | okdood64 wrote: | Brand yourself as a software engineer instead of fullstack | developer, network to find a referral, LeetCode hard. | hbn wrote: | This is maybe getting offtopic but I still have no idea why | the term "full stack developer" exists or why it's so | widespread. Sure, if you specialize in JavaScript and you | mainly work writing web UI libraries, you might mainly | consider yourself a "frontend developer." Same thing for | working on server frameworks that would, I guess, make you a | "backend developer"? (I'd think in that case you'd probably | just be into general programming, and not call yourself that) | | Does a person that wires up a backend to do some business | logic, hit some APIs, etc. and then send it to a frontend to | be displayed really need a name like "full stack"? It almost | implies your doing both of the jobs of a frontend and backend | developer, but if you go by the example work I mentioned | previously, you're not doing that. That's what I do for my | job and it feels like I'm doing the Sesame Street of | programming jobs compared to other areas of the industry. | | I don't like how the term "software engineer" is overused | either. Maybe just cause most of what comes out of the | software industry really shouldn't be compared to what comes | out of industries that build bridges and large machinery. I | don't feel like people who regularly joke about copy-pasting | code snippets from Stack Overflow are really implementing | proper engineering practices. | okdood64 wrote: | > I don't feel like people who regularly joke about copy- | pasting code snippets from Stack Overflow are really | implementing proper engineering practices. | | I think most people say this in jest; regardless, writing | low-effort code that would be "helped" by this practice is | just a small part of the job anyways. | erik_seaberg wrote: | As a backend dev, I probably know which teams are calling | me but not necessarily why, and I rarely have occasion to | try to read their code. I can't call myself full stack | because I haven't seriously touched frontend for a while | and it changes rapidly. | max_hammer wrote: | Does google hire Data Engineers ? What is the title for data | engineer | compiler-guy wrote: | Google isn't hiring much right now, so the options are pretty | limited. I expect it will loosen, but have no inside info. | guessmyname wrote: | Definitely DO NOT work remotely as a junior developer. | Achieving the appropriate career progression requires | meaningful interactions with your more experienced colleagues, | which may be limited in a remote work environment. | | That said, here is a small list of things you'll need to get a | job at Google or any of the other Big Tech companies: | | * Educational Background: it seems that you're a student at | https://www.dhbw.de/startseite, so you're good. | | * Develop Technical Skills: you're already familiar with Go | (https://github.com/xNaCly?tab=repositories&language=go). | Consider getting some knowledge of C++ or Python as they are | common at Google. Python will help you a lot during the | interviews. | | * Build a Strong Portfolio: junior developers usually have much | more free time to work on personal projects. I see you already | have a GitHub account with a good amount of Go code, so I think | you're on the right track -- | https://github.com/xNaCly?tab=repositories | | * Gain Practical Experience: consider internships, co-op | programs, or contribute to open-source projects, participate in | hackathons or coding competitions to demonstrate your problem- | solving skills. | | * Networking: attend industry events, meetups, and conferences | to connect with professionals in the field. Google often looks | for candidates through referrals. Join relevant online | communities, forums, and social media groups to stay informed | about job opportunities and industry trends. | | * Prepare for Interviews: LeetCode like a madman! -- | https://leetcode.com/problem-list/top-google-questions/ | | * Apply for Positions: obviously, apply for a job; connect with | a recruiter. | | I could go on and on with this list, but you'll discover the | other things you'll need once you have done most of the ones | above. | | Good luck! | dmitrygr wrote: | > which may be limited in a remote work environment. | | That "may" is carrying a lot of weight there. Almost makes it | sound like a fact, while in fact being merely an unsupported | opinion. | EspressoGPT wrote: | First and foremost, remove that red "Google is actively hurting | the open web with its browser chromium" banner from your | personal website[1]. | | [1] https://xnacly.me/ | CobrastanJorji wrote: | The "red badge" thing was very real. It was really weird having | TVCs on your team. You'd all work hard together to launch a | thing, and then everybody except the red badge would get a | celebratory team tchotchke or a team lunch or something. If you | asked about it, the manager would say "we can't give Jim things | directly because that might be like compensation and they'd be | like an employee." There'd be all-hands meetings they couldn't go | to, or seemingly arbitrary doors they couldn't open or internal | sites they couldn't see. If you worked with a TVC, you'd get | training that felt like you were learning how to own a House Elf: | "Remember, never give them clothing or they'll be free! And | report them if they ever claim to work for Google." | gnfargbl wrote: | That's how it works with contractors in most large | organisations. The other side of the coin is that they're | usually rewarded better than employees are, on the basis that | they can be fired at any time with no notice. | | In practice that rarely happens, as higher-pay => better- | retention => becomes-most-knowledgeable-person-over-time. | quux wrote: | I think this is why Google had (has?) a 2 year limit on TVC | tenure. | scarface_74 wrote: | Not necessarily. I was a tech lead where I could only hire | contractors. The run of the mill CRUD staff augmentation | contractors were making about $65 and the contracting company | was billing $100 a hour for them with no health care | benefits, no PTO, no 401K match. | | On the other hand, the "cloud consultants", who were just old | school operations folks who only knew how to do lift and | shifts and make everything more expensive were billing $200 | an hour. It was a small shop owned by the partners. | | Long story short, I left there went to a startup for two | years to get real world AWS experience, got hired at AWS in | the ProServe department (full time job) and when I got | Amazoned three years later (two months ago), I was able to | negotiate a side contract with my former CTO for $135/hour | and even that was low. I did it because I found the project | interesting and I consider my former CTO a friend. | | FWIW: I did get a full time job within three weeks. | carabiner wrote: | Most large orgs don't have the perks of Goog, Meta. Amazon | and Cisco don't have free food, massages, etc. so it doesn't | matter contractor vs. fulltime. | bastardoperator wrote: | I've never seen a contractor have better salary/pay unless | they're a fully independent subject matter expert and have no | interest in being employed. I've hired a quite a few | contractors and there is usually two cases, I need workers, | or expertise that is highly limited. | | Most contractors, not SME, are sourced from staffing | agencies/partners. Sure, the resource cost is on par with a | salaried worker, but typically the staffing company sourcing | these people are going to take a huge chunk on that contract, | at least 1/3. So yes, the resource/person is 280K on paper, | but it's extremely rare they actually get paid that. The | staffing agencies will provide benefits, but they're not even | close to what in house staff are getting. | | It also becomes nearly impossible to hire a contractor from | partners in cases like this because you have to buy out the | resource on the contract which is almost a non-starter | because these fees can easily be 6 figures per head. | fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: | I'm don't think it's true at companies like Google that | contractors get paid better. My impression was they get a | similar salary but no equity and worse benefits. I'm assuming | we're talking about the TVCs who basically act like ordinary | contributors on a team. Not some specialist consultant, I | don't know about them. | woadwarrior01 wrote: | While FB had the same badge color for TVCs and FTEs, everything | else was exactly the same. I later saw the red/white badge | dichotomy at Google and thought that the explicitness of it was | a bit better. | slater- wrote: | thank you for mentioning this. | | i was a red badge. it was fucking demeaning. i have a lot of | stories, but my favorite was when everyone on my floor got an | earthquake safety kit except me. literally google didn't care | if i lived or died. | | the expectation was that if i sucked up enough ("demonstrated | my value") they MIGHT make me a real boy, like some bizarre | Velveteen Rabbit fetish game. | | i loved watching how Google would continuously pat themselves | on the back about how good they are to "their employees," and | then openly shit on the people who worked full time at the | company but technically weren't FTEs. | | it's a caste system. a company that behaves this way should be | run out of town with extreme prejudice. but instead they | somehow took over San Francisco. | peddling-brink wrote: | This isn't just google, it's every company with contractors | and employees. | | Microsoft learned the hard way to not treat contractors like | employees. https://www.reuters.com/article/businesspropicks- | us-findlaw-... | | Nobody else wants to learn that same lesson. | coldtrait wrote: | Yea I've experienced this in capital one. Some smaller non | tech companies are chill, where there is really no | difference in how they treat contractors and employees. | peddling-brink wrote: | I worked at a big insurance company for a while. | Contractors could have their birthday celebrated, but | cake was not permitted. | ethbr1 wrote: | That's brutal. | spacedcowboy wrote: | The cake was a lie ? | allenu wrote: | Yup, when I read the blog post, my immediate thought was, | "Hey, this sounds just like Microsoft when I was there." | There it was blue badge vs. non-blue badge. | | All the other stuff, too -- wanting to innovate but finding | everything so slow, lots of process, feeling very pampered, | etc. | JSavageOne wrote: | Ok but then contractors have the freedom to work whatever | hours they want, not show up to the office, and subcontract | out their work - right? If so that might be more appealing | than being an employee | no_wizard wrote: | Not in practice, because they use a hiring entity to | dictate the terms. You're expected to show up on a | schedule, do the work etc. much like a FTE, but you're | _not_ an FTE. | | I think some folks have this illusion of software | contractors that this is somehow common, it really isn't. | The norm is you-are-almost-but-not-quite an employee type | work environment, and thats at the _better_ places. | | I've worked at a place where contractors were treated | like they weren't human, basically. Worst equipment, | forced to work in an old warehouse that barely passed | code to be considered retrofitted for an office, people | routine got sick out there because they were exposed to | the elements. Not to mention, during fire season (this | was California) they were in a building that didn't have | a good enough air filtration system, so they were forced | to sit in smoke all day, more or less | | I quit that place pretty quickly, but it was nothing | short of terrible | ethbr1 wrote: | As a contractor, you are an FTE... just for a different | (almost always much worse) company. | | And that arrangement exists solely so that the company | whose work you're actually doing can fire you more easily | or avoid legal liability. | GreedClarifies wrote: | I wish we could somehow get this comment more visibility. | Especially the 1st sentence. | | People that complain about the plights of contractors | need to understand the above. | JSavageOne wrote: | I'm surprised this even legally flies. Seems like the | legal equivalent of creating a shell company. | lmm wrote: | The US loves its purely procedural legal distinctions. | Shell companies are often not only legal but encouraged. | rewmie wrote: | What surprises me the most is how a corporation like | Google is incapable of meeting temporary staffing needs | internally, by shifting people already on their payroll | around projects. It's as if they are just admitting that | they are shit at managing projects and workloads and | scoping work to the point that they need external help to | plug these gaping holes in their load management. | | How many people do they need to pay to manage this | contractor circus? How much effort do they waste sourcing | contractors, tracking work assigned to them, treat | contractors differently even interns of security | processes, and dealing with higher attrition levels? So | much waste. | edgyquant wrote: | That's not legally a contractor then. As someone who has | done contracting, both for software and in construction | plus has hired them and had to be advised by lawyers | around the legality of what makes or breaks a | contractor... | | If you are setting their hours, bossing them around | and/or providing equipment they are not a contractor they | are an employee. This is the law in 100% of the United | States. | ponector wrote: | How would you call people who are hired by bodyshop(IT | service providers like Infosys, Cognizant, Epam) and then | leased to Google? | jasode wrote: | _> That's not legally a contractor then. [...] If you are | setting their hours, bossing them around and/or providing | equipment they are not a contractor they are an | employee._ | | There are 2 different uses of _" contractor"_: | | (1) contractor : official IRS tax classification of _1099 | independent contractor_ | | (2) "contractor" : a _W-2 employee_ of a "temp agency" | or "staffing agency" or "bodyshop" that is sent to a | client company (such as Google) needing _contingent | workers_. Adecco[1] is an example of a staffing company | that sends people to Google. These temp agencies with | workers classified as W-2 employees act as legal cover to | "avoid repeating Microsoft lawsuits". From Google's | perspective, these Adecco employees are "contractors". | | If the above working arrangement looks convoluted with | the economic inefficiencies of paying for an extra | middleman (the temp agencies), it is. But it cleverly | avoids the IRS claiming, _" Hey Google, your so-called | contractors are misclassified and should be employees!"_ | ... and Google can say, _" They already are employees! | They're Adecco employees!"_ | | The "1099 real contractor" is not as common as "fake- | contractor-but-really-somebody-elses-W2-employee" ... | because the "1099 contractors" won their lawsuit against | Microsoft. | | [1] https://www.adeccousa.com/ | Consultant32452 wrote: | I'm a mostly fake contractor. I miss the good old days | when I could fake contractor directly to companies. Now I | have to go through a middle-man that takes a cut. I still | make triple what I was making before, but it bothers me | that the middle man is likely taking 30-50% off the top. | | These laws do not protect workers, they protect | entrenched wealthy body shops. | kelnos wrote: | I think the GP's point was that's how it _should_ be. If | a company is going to -- for "legal reasons" -- not | treat contractors the same way they treat employees, then | they should be doing so not only in bad, exclusionary | ways, but also in good ways, with the expected perks of | being a contractor that FTEs don't get: freedom to set | their own hours, work where they want, and subcontract | out their work. | | But no, companies like Google want to have their cake and | eat it too: they want a class of workers where they can | _require_ of them more or less the exact same things that | they require of their employees (and much more easily | fire them), but can _give_ them a lot less, and treat | them like a second class. | | That's entirely Google's choice. It does not have to be | that way. But they've decided to create this two-class | system for their own benefit, not for anyone else's. | | Also consider that these people are probably often not | contractors in the legal sense. They're likely W-2 | employees of some sort of staffing agency, who are then | placed at Google. Google pays the staffing agency, the | staffing agency pays the "contractor" a salary | (significantly less than what Google pays the staffing | agency), and all is fine... legally, anyway. | ssharp wrote: | >> Google pays the staffing agency, the staffing agency | pays the "contractor" a salary (significantly less than | what Google pays the staffing agency), and all is fine... | legally, anyway. | | The staffing agency vig is so high it is practically the | same as an FTE. | Galacta7 wrote: | I used to work for a temp agency (clerical, not in tech) | and I remember once seeing what my agency was getting | paid for me on an hourly basis. Iirc, it was something | like 3-4x what I was getting paid hourly. It was kind of | sickening tbh. Plus many agencies forbid temps from being | hired away without paying an outrageously hire fee to do | so. | | It felt like being an indentured servant in many ways. | The only upside was that if you hated the place you | worked, you could always ask to be reassigned someplace | else. But that's the only major plus I can think of. | bozhark wrote: | You cannot dictate those terms of a contractor. | BeetleB wrote: | > Ok but then contractors have the freedom to work | whatever hours they want, not show up to the office, and | subcontract out their work - right? If so that might be | more appealing than being an employee | | Depends on the agreement. First off, probably 99% of | these contractors work for a contracting company, so as a | contractor you have no say: You are an employee of | (another) company and they'll set the rules. | | If you're truly independent, then sure - try to make | whatever agreement you want with Google. | secondcoming wrote: | No, not really. | ponector wrote: | Every US company. European companies somehow have | contractors without caste system. | | Obviously there are different policies for internals and | contractors, but fruits and pizza are for everyone in the | office. | rightbyte wrote: | Which is because it is extremely rude, like meanest of | meanest, to not share food with each other. Like, of all | mean but not illegal things you can do to contractors, | not sharing food is probably what people consider the | worst. Small every day things are way more provocative | than abstract things like retirement funds or whatever. | | Been there. Done that. The FTEs got strawberries. I | didn't. I don't think I have been that pissed off in my | life. If someone had wrecked my car on purpose I'd be | less pissed. | sjburt wrote: | At least with regard to 1099 vs W-2, a huge amount of | this is due to IRS rules. | rightbyte wrote: | No, that's a rationalization. It is because psychopaths | are running the place. I have never heard of an employer | paying benefit tax on pizzas, and if they did, surely | they can bill the consulting firm in some circle if that | is the case. | ponector wrote: | I had the same two-caste system enforced in European | office of US company. Legally it was a local company with | parent in US. But anyway, "food is only for employees". | Funny enough, even student who was there for 20 hours per | week and did anything but work was allowed to eat. | | This is a cultural thing. | zopa wrote: | This is in Europe: | https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/contractors-accuse- | eur... | | A very similar-sounding caste-system. Europe's great and | all but it isn't Utopia. | ponector wrote: | Different treatment is a thing. But I couldn't imagine | someone is ESA will say fruits and pizza are for | employees only. Please leave the room while your | coworkers eat. | whydoyoucare wrote: | I'd like to as in what ways is Europe great? From my | narrow point of view, most if not all successful startups | were founded outside Europe, most countries in Western | Europe tend to be monolithic cultures where outsiders are | made to feel like outsiders, and many European nations | are socialist utopias (which means they take away a HUGE | chunk of salary as tax). | | (And I am asking this in a friendly tone, as a genuinely | curious question, and not a combative one. These nuances | get lost, so putting them down in words). Thanks. | ponector wrote: | It is great for living, for raising kids. For life. | | Taxes in Europe are huge, but comparable with taxes in | California. Just sum all federal, state, local taxes on | the salary, property taxes, sales taxes, health insurance | fee, college tuition fee. Don't forget to add 25% tips to | that. Count also small vacation, maternity leave and sick | leave. | | And then compare for example with France. | | And not to mention you wouldn't find anywhere in EU | thousands of homeless junkies shitting on the streets. | shadowgovt wrote: | The difference is unions. | collaborative wrote: | Spain and UK also run on castes. I don't know about | others | blagie wrote: | It's not the same. | | The Microsoft problem was * _independent*_ contractors. | I.E. treating people as self-employed. | | Normal contractors are employees of a temp firm. None of | these issues apply there. | | Footnote: I started my career as an IC, before I had family | or kids. It was great. 32 hour work weeks and time (and the | legal right) to do startups on the side. Ton of flexibility | relative to a real job. | szundi wrote: | In my company I almost fired someone from HR for constantly | forgetting how these contractor people are part of the | team, invited to every event etc | MattPalmer1086 wrote: | In the UK at least, if you are a contractor you are | legally not an employee. | | If you took any employee benefits, the tax man could | retroactively classify you as an employee and demand a | huge tax bill from you. | | So many contractors would refuse any such benefits even | if they were offered. Some didn't care of course and took | them anyway, but they were potentially setting themselves | up for a huge legal and tax problem. | dudus wrote: | I had the same experience as a contractor for IBM. | | Real IBMers got all kinds of stuff. We had to pay full | price for the GR meal. | omoikane wrote: | I remember Google had something like contractors need to | pay $1 to use the gym, meaning it wasn't free so it doesn't | count as a benefit, but the amount was clearly not | something that was material. | RajT88 wrote: | Microsoft contractors while not getting the benefits | package of an FTE, may actually make more money than the | same role as an FTE. | | I have known some folks getting insurance through their | partner's work who passed on going FTE because it would be | a pay cut. | | Yes, they are not allowed access to a lot of stuff (source, | telemetry, etc.). | fredsmith219 wrote: | Not at Google but I was a contractor at a hospital. All the | employees got active shooter training. I guess the | contractors were meant to be fodder. | itronitron wrote: | No doubt there are some HR/legal folks wanting to avoid the | liability of 'training' someone on something that goes | badly. The workaround to that is to have the training in an | auditorium and not keep attendance on who is in the room. | no_wizard wrote: | or mandate the contracting entity do the training. I've | seen that in places that tried to be equitable about the | relationship with their contractors. | | Typically the business gets billed for the privilege | though | xwdv wrote: | Why would they train you? It's the responsibility of your | parent company and for all they know you've already been | thoroughly trained for active shootings in numerous other | companies you've worked at. | | You are not their problem. | criddell wrote: | As a hospital contractor, are you different than, say, the | HVAC contractor that comes in to work on mechanical | equipment? | orangecat wrote: | _a company that behaves this way should be run out of town_ | | It's literally illegal to treat contractors too well. | gumby wrote: | But remember that is because these companies were | exploiting the use of contractors to deny them employee | protections. | | True contractors won't care: they work for themselves and | have multiple clients anyway. But these "red" people are | employees in all but name, so that the companies can save | money and other protections. A small slip up by Google | (Apple/FB/MS/tons of others) and these folks get the | protection they deserve. | ethbr1 wrote: | Exactly. The mistake was thinking that the responsibility | stemmed from the employeeing entity. | | It shouldn't. | | It's clearly more linked to the type and structure of | work performed. | bentt wrote: | Yeah being an actual contractor/consultant should feel | GOOD. You should not be married to a single company for | too long. You should have a sense of freedom. | | There should be a simple test that if a person is working | at only one client for too long (3 mo?) then they are to | be converted to an employee. There's no reason for these | middleman employers to exist except to make people | disposable to companies. If that's the case, then they | should be cycled in and out with a higher frequency. | Nobody should remain a "red badge" at Google for any | significant length of time. | mikeyouse wrote: | It's not illegal - they'd just have to provide them | employee-like benefits which would be expensive. So it's | just _costly_ to treat contractors too well. | eloisant wrote: | I think the way it works is that if they provide some | benefits, then they would have to make them into FTE and | give them all the benefits. | thomasahle wrote: | Exactly. And that's perfectly legal to do. | resolutebat wrote: | > _the expectation was that if i sucked up enough ( | "demonstrated my value") they MIGHT make me a real boy, like | some bizarre Velveteen Rabbit fetish game._ | | Google goes out of its way to emphasize that TVC "conversion" | does not exist. You can interview, but you'll go through the | same process as anybody else, they'll make sure you don't | interview with anybody you know, and your achievements as TVC | are discounted completely. | actionfromafar wrote: | If what OP said is true, Google goes at least both ways, | then. | castlecrasher2 wrote: | >it's a caste system | | One required by federal policy. Companies are legally bound, | or at least incentivized to not risk lawsuits, to degrading | temporary staff so as to distinguish between regular | employees and contractors. | thomasahle wrote: | > One required by federal policy. | | Federal policy just says that if you don't distinguish | between regular employees and contractors, the contractors | are considered regular employees. | | It doesn't say you are not allowed to hire those people as | regular employees and treat them like regular employees. | oconnor663 wrote: | If the feds said you had to insult someone every time you | bought printer ink, and then lots of people started | getting insulted, I would lean towards blaming the feds | for that outcome rather than blaming the people who buy | printer ink. | | Of course, it could separately be the case that people | buy too much printer ink, and that we have good reasons | for asking them to buy less. In which case our feelings | about these new insults might be complicated. But if the | goal of a regulation is "do less X", and the chosen | mechanism is "you must insult other people when you do | X", I'd call that questionable policy design. | | Coming back from the metaphor, it seems more accurate to | say that this regulatory situation with contractors | wasn't explicitly designed at all, but rather "emerged" | out of previous policies and court decisions. So maybe | asking whether it was designed well or poorly is beside | the point. | pessimizer wrote: | This isn't printer ink, this is somebody working for you | full time who you don't want to call an employee because | it's cheaper not to. | | The idea is that if you treat somebody like an employee, | they're an employee, and that idea was allowed to be | hollowed out. If companies participate in certain | shunning rituals they're allowed to keep those same cheap | employees. | | The purpose of the ruling wasn't to allow companies to | operate in an identical way with identical costs, just | _meaner._ It 's not even a perverse incentive resulting | from the ruling. It's that we've decided that only | superficial, administrative features define an employment | relationship, and so long as those rituals are adhered | to, the fact that you work full time completely under the | control of someone for years on end is not sufficient. | There's no limit to the indirection, you may not have | ever met your "actual" employer. | | This is not an accidental outcome, this is an efficient | outcome. It could be ended by government, but for the | people who pay the people who work in government, it's | ideal. | shadowgovt wrote: | > The idea is that if you treat somebody like an | employee, they're an employee, and that idea was allowed | to be hollowed out. | | Other way around. The status quo was that you could treat | a contractor like an employee in everything but pay and | benefits (like healthcare), and they were still a | contractor. | | A court ruling decreed that was no longer the case, so | now for companies to have contractors at all they must | draw a bright-line demarcation in perks between FTEs and | TVCs. A line that is frequently dehumanizing, because | dehumanizing is visible and easy to argue in a court of | law. | | Anyone who predicted any other outcome was naive, and | those of us who want this silly pageant to end should be | agitating for a law that functionally bans contracting. | shadowgovt wrote: | Not unlike how the GDPR resulted in banners everywhere, | because the law stops short of banning contracting, | companies have, of course, sought the optimal just-up-to- | the-edge balance. | | The biggest two reasons it matters (i.e. two biggest | disincentives from just hiring contractors) are | healthcare and quarterly reports. Healthcare provision is | very expensive, even amortized across the employees in a | company, and TVCs get no healthcare from the client | company. And the client company can grow and shrink TVC | contracts all day long without having to tell | shareholders they went through a mass hiring cycle or a | layoff cycle. | einpoklum wrote: | What they should be bound to is making "temporary-but-not- | really" staff, just staff. But for that, strong unions are | necessary, and US unions have been very week for decades | (especially w.r.t. rate of unionization and centralization | of power away from rank-and-file workers). | quantified wrote: | Because chintzing your full-time employees by calling them | "contractor" and denying benefits is against the law. | dragonwriter wrote: | "Full-time" is misleading noise here; the | employee/contractor classification distinction doesn't | hinge on term (temp/permanent) or time base (full/part | time). Its true that some shops only bring contractors in | for one side of one of those divides, but that's not what | defines the status (or what defines who can be assigned | each status.) | depereo wrote: | IBM basically invented this particular kind of caste shaming | in a business organization. Hardly their worst crime, and | they're still allowed to operate. | actionfromafar wrote: | Can we please just starting using the term House Elf for this | sort of thing? It would be awesome shorthand. | orochimaaru wrote: | This is a case with contractors in all big companies. You are | not a company employee. The expectation is that your employer | will compensate you and take you out to lunch, etc, etc. | | But otoh you don't need to deal with performance appraisals, | office politics and all the other bullshit. Do your work, | take the money. | ponector wrote: | In such companies you are not truly a contractor, but | employee of the bodyshop company which lease you to the | client. As the result you deal with politics in both | companies: your employer and their client. And bodyshop has | performance reviews as well. | orochimaaru wrote: | Not really. A staffing co like randstadt won't give you | perf reviews etc. You just work through them for tax | reason. You hardly even interact with your account | manager. | pseg134 wrote: | That's incredibly disingenuous, randstadt is not a body | shop. You are basically lying. | teaearlgraycold wrote: | I'm sorry to hear about that. I always went out of my way to | make the contractors feel seen and important. I'd find their | manager from the contracting company and write glowing | reviews. I'd talk with them, treat them as equals, give them | extra swag I got as an employee. | | To "stick it to the man" directly by being kind and generous | is perhaps the best possible task I can assign to myself. | _a_a_a_ wrote: | I worked at a small company in London and got treated the | same way: feeling left out, excluded. | | It took me a bit of thinking before I realised it was | actually being done _for my own benefit_ , as I was a | contractor there. Had they invited me to the office party | etc. it would have contributed to me being seen as an | employee, and losing the status of a contractor. They could | not do this, I didn't want it. Once I realised that, I was | fine with it, but it did hurt initially. | | I must say it would have been a whole lot easier if the boss | had simply bother to explain, but it doesn't really matter, | he did actually have my best interests at heart (as well as | his own of course!) | BMorearty wrote: | I've worked as an employee and as a contractor in Silicon | Valley (never at Google). While it was nice to be treated | like an employee by some companies, my attitude was that it's | just understood that as a contractor I'm not as much a member | of the team as the employees are, and I'm the first to be let | go if the money gets tight. Those were the tradeoffs of the | flexibility I got. If contractors are the same as employees, | why even have a distinction? | tgma wrote: | You were an adult when you took the job, weren't you? | | Many people are unhappy and/or quit Google's FTE employment | too, and feel undervalued at Google as FTE. The employment | agreement is consensual. | firecall wrote: | It sounds truly awful. | | In Australia we have laws protecting de facto FTEs. | | We even have laws mandating that co tractors must add extra | to invoices to cover their Pension fund contributions! They | have to charge this by law! | raincom wrote: | I worked as a contractor for a decade before, I didn't find | it demeaning when employees didn't invite me to team lunches | or special meetings. Just charge more for your services. Do | you care when you get paid $200 per hr, if you are invited to | employee only meetings/lunches? Definitely not. The issue is | about the right pay, not so much about demeaning/or that | 'caste system' everyone invokes whenever someone sees | unfairness. | pcl wrote: | In my time at Cisco, I was impressed with how well they | integrated contractors. Wasn't like this at all. | sangnoir wrote: | Cisco has/had an outrageously large contractor contingent | (this may be different between Business Units). That's a huge | cultural difference between Cisco the tech giant sets | ponector wrote: | According to some reports, only half of the people in | Google are full time employee. Isn't it a large contingent | of second-class workers? | sangnoir wrote: | Whatever fraction it is at Google, I'm willing to bet | Cisco's is significantly larger, especially on "core- | business" teams whose work is mentioned in analyst calls | ajross wrote: | For those unaware, these rules are pervasive in the US | corporate world, and stem directly from Vizcaino v. Microsoft | in 1996. See: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp | | Effectively the fact that an employer treats a temporary | employee "the same" as a regular one (i.e. by granting them the | same perks) _is construed by courts as evidence that they are | not temporary_. | | So, if a company wants to hire temp/contractor employees, they | just can't do this. It's not a "caste" thing, it's not about | deliberate discrimination, it's not about keeping wages low or | reducing overhead, and it's absolutely not unique to Google. | | Blame the courts, basically. It was a terrible decision, for | exactly this reason. Its effect is directly contra to its | intent. | | > If you worked with a TVC, you'd get training that felt like | you were learning how to own a House Elf: "Remember, never give | them clothing or they'll be free! And report them if they ever | claim to work for Google." | | Yes! That's exactly what happens. And it did, to Microsoft, and | it was extremely expensive. So no one wants to see the same | thing happen to them. | gumby wrote: | > Blame the courts, basically. | | No, blame these companies for trying hard to avoid workplace | protection. | ajross wrote: | No, it's got nothing to do with workplace protection or | wages. The original suit was actually about participation | in the stock purchase program (which in the mid-90's was | extremely lucrative at MSFT!), something that no contractor | would normally expect to get. But because the contractors | got free food at the cafe (or whatever), they did. Or | rather they got a settlement making up for the stock the | courts said they should have been able to get. | | Basically, the rule per Vizcaino is "Any benefit offered to | salaried employees must be offered to temporary ones too | unless you deliberately discriminate against them in all | your other benefits not related to their job." | | And yes, that's a stupid rule. But it's the rule, and it's | universally enforced at every US employer large enough to | have a legal department. | svachalek wrote: | The game is that the contractors are supposedly not | working for the company that they're actually working | for. Anything that might break that illusion puts the | company at risk of needing to treat them as the actual | employees that they are. | mistrial9 wrote: | yes, it has everything to do with workplace protection | and wages | hughesjj wrote: | Yup, these companies could always just hire outright | esafak wrote: | So if they want to trim costs and not do that it would be | better if they hired no-one? | | It is the same with undocumented workers. Would it better | if they were deported than to be denied benefits afforded | to citizens? | arrosenberg wrote: | > Blame the courts, basically. It was a terrible decision, | for exactly this reason. Its effect is directly contra to its | intent. | | Blame them for enforcing labor law? Why not blame the | companies for exploiting labor by misclassifying them to deny | benefits? | ajross wrote: | Again, to repeat: the desire in the suit (to prevent | employers from inappropriately using temporary labor) was | valid. The _EFFECT_ of the suit is exactly the opposite: it | 's forced employers to performatively discriminate against | temps in every way they can find as a way to prevent the | kind of finding that hurt MSFT. | | Thus, it's a bad ruling. I'm all for reform of contractor | labor laws, but this decision broke things. | arrosenberg wrote: | No one is forcing employers into performative hysterics, | it's a reactionary choice by the corporate legal | community. MSFT was guilty of what they were accused of. | If they don't misclassify workers, they won't lose such a | suit. | ajross wrote: | > No one is forcing employers into performative | hysterics, it's a reactionary choice by the corporate | legal community. | | "The rest of the world is wrong, only I know the truth in | this thread on a random web forum" is an unpersuasive | frame to be arguing from. Corporate legal departments may | be inflexible and hidebound, but they surely know this | stuff better than you do. | | No, this is the way it works. If you do what MS did and | offer unrestricted perks to your temps, they'll sue you | and you'll lose. Period. | | What you're arguing amounts to "no one should hire | temporary labor to work alongside salaried employees". | And, OK, that's a position. But if that's what you want | then you should make that case and not argue that somehow | Viscaino doesn't exist, because it does. | pseg134 wrote: | They will only win if you are violating labor law. Why is | that so hard for you to understand. If they hadn't | violated labor law they would have appealed and won. And | here you are 26 years later trying the case again on a | "silly web forum". | arrosenberg wrote: | They weren't temps, read the case - average tenure, 11 | years. And the entire thing started because the IRS said | they were dodging payroll taxes, so the common law | employees sued for what they were rightfully owed. MSFT | acknowledged wrongdoing and settled the case. | hudsonjr wrote: | I do think the net result of this wad bad. | | I remember before this decision, I worked somewhere where | people could take longer to be promoted as a temp, maybe even | 2 years. I don't know that this was exploitive, it was | usually a mix of developing competency and department having | budget. If someone left the company, usually someone got | immediately promoted out of being a temp. If not that, it was | dependent on department budget increase in the next fiscal | year. | | The legal change meant some roles like QA were put on a | company switching treadmill. | mistrial9 wrote: | no - the reason the issue went to court in the first place, | was MSFT and Apple and others, not hiring (stock, health | insurance) and then making contractors "prove themselves" | a.k.a. extra overtime, demeaning social situations, lower | perks etc | ponector wrote: | Do you really think that Google should not be blamed that in | cutting costs they don't want to provide same benefits for | people they lease? | | If they had a will, they could easily force their vendors to | provide same level of benefits. | | This is happening exactly to cut costs, to keep reported | headcount low. There will be no news if Google cut 50000 of | such contractors, simply because they are not counted, not | treated like a people. Just a resource, leased from another | company. | AndrewKemendo wrote: | Corporate feudalism | ChuckMcM wrote: | Ah yes, the TVCs. Nothing said "We're evil" more than the | subclass of contractors. It is almost a trope in Sci-Fi | literature that our characters in this Utopia world discover | there are people who are essential to the utopia and yet aren't | "part" of the utopia. | | Of course in the stories our heroes rally the rest of the | Utopians to the plight of this 'untouchable' class, the evil | overlords are over thrown, and a more equal society for all is | established. But that's why they call it fiction right? | | Given that this article is written by a team that was acquired | 8 years after I left, and yet experienced the same systemic | problems that I explained in my exit interview would eventually | kill Google as a company, I feel sad. | Nekhrimah wrote: | >TVC | | Apologies, could someone de-acronym this one please. | kyteland wrote: | Temps, Vendors, and Contractors | dgacmu wrote: | Temps, Vendors, Contractors | no_wizard wrote: | Temporary Vendor Contractor | nlewycky wrote: | Temps, Vendors and Contractors. | tomjakubowski wrote: | Textured vegetable contractor | senderista wrote: | Same at MSFT (I know because I was on both sides). | nineplay wrote: | I went from full time employee to contractor at the same | company once and it was honestly a huge relief. | | No awkward team lunches | | No useless tchotchkes | | No boring all hands | | No forced participation events like 'hackathons'. | | I just worked. It was great | foota wrote: | It was Microsoft, wasn't it? :) | paganel wrote: | > And report them if they ever claim to work for Google. | | Google is already too big at this point, I'm talking about | producing anything that would have a real impact in the medium | to long term. | | In a way, that's good, the last thing we really want is for | really talented people to be able to do meaningful work at | Google's scale and given Google's current incentives, on the | other hand you have to feel for those talented people and for | their wasted intellectual potential. | tgma wrote: | I don't understand the concern. If a company has a choice of | hiring more people with more elasticity, or not hire as much or | at all, is that somehow a terrible thing to do? | | Half of the things that feel like Google wanted to eject them | was to satisfy IRS (e.g. paid rides on GBus), not because | Google voluntarily wanted to treat them as such. | | FWIW, most red badgers I knew were of non-engineering job | functions and for them working at Google offices was a huge | plus compared to their best alternative, not by a little | margin, but a lot. | | If I were to speak from the woke mentality, the author of the | blog, who got sweet money through acquihire of a product no one | ever heard of and probably never passed Google interview bar | would be the bourgeois class at Google and every regular-E- | badger with a PhD who works on ads for next to nothing, | comparatively, to pay him is a third-class nobody. Gimmie. A. | Break. | mark_l_watson wrote: | My experience as a red badge person was very good. While it is | true that I was unable to bring my wife to lunch and I didn't | get free massages, everything else was great. | | I was hired by someone with some clout who enjoyed reading two | books I had written. He would occasionally call me to talk, and | then one time he invited me to work on his pet project at | Google. | | Some of the perks were amazing. I took an 8 hour class 'end to | end' that I would have paid a lot of money to take and in one | day I got to learn how to use all of the internal systems I | would need for my project, plus lots of other interesting | stuff. Pure joy, that one! | | I totally enjoyed the food (this was in 2013) and I went to | invited speaker talks (I made sure that I wasn't counting this | against my 8 hours a day). Getting to meet Molly Katzen (author | or Moose Wood Cookbook, etc.) and having a long conversation | with her was great. Ditto for Alexis Ohanian. | | I also have a work eccentricity, that apparently was not a | problem: I always like to start work around 6am, and then leave | early. As far as I know, this was not a problem. I need at | least two hours a day with no interruptions. | | Anyway, if you get a chance to work at Google for a while as a | contractor, go for it! | FpUser wrote: | >" Google used to have a set of internal values they called "The | Three Respects": respect the user...." | | I see, this why whenever anybody has problems with Google they | just dial a number and get immediately connected to a caring live | person ready to solve whatever issues user might have. | tech234a wrote: | "careers across the Socratic team have bloomed" nice reference to | Bloom, which is what I assume to be the codename for the Socratic | rewrite :) | | The most valuable part of Socratic to me as a user was not as | much the fancy technology, but rather the explainers, which | provided useful information on a variety of topics in an nice, | brief manner that made them easy to understand. However, I never | understood why more weren't written and they were never made | available outside the app, such as inside Search. However, the | explainers might be available under a Creative Commons license | [1]. | | [1]: https://socratic.org/principles | next_xibalba wrote: | > What beat them down were the gauntlet of reviews, the frequent | re-orgs, the institutional scar tissue from past failures, and | the complexity of doing even simple things on the world stage. | Startups can afford to ignore many concerns, Googlers rarely can. | | I wonder if this helps explain why Google is getting smoked in | the LLM space right now. | hipadev23 wrote: | Google hasn't innovated on anything in over a decade. Just | continuing to ride that search monopoly. Entire company of rest | and vesters. | moomin wrote: | Except, as pointed out, a lot of the tech was literally | developed at Google. It's like Xerox Labs all over again. | next_xibalba wrote: | They literally invented transformers, one of the key | innovations that enabled this LLM boom. | hipadev23 wrote: | Google didn't invent shit, the following people did. None | are still with Google. | | * Ashish Vaswani - Founder, Stealth Startup | | * Noam Shazeer - Founder, Character.AI | | * Niki Parmar - Founder, Stealth Startup | | * Jakob Uszkoreit - Founder, Inceptive | | * Llion Jones - Founder, Sakana AI | | * Aidan Gomez - Founder, cohere | | * Lukasz Kaiser - OpenAI | | * Illia Polosukhin - Founder, NEAR | crazygringo wrote: | Then by your logic no company ever invents anything. | hipadev23 wrote: | You're inferring things I didn't say. Google's inaction | on the invention and letting that entire team leave the | company is proof they're inept. | basiccalendar74 wrote: | if the same invention happened at a university, no one | would say MIT/Stanford invented transformer. We credit | the people involved. Somehow, if it happens at a company, | company gets most of the credit. Even when the papers and | authors are publicly available. this is different from | say iPhone which probably would not be developed at a | university. | goalonetwo wrote: | "researched" it, yes. But they are completely unable to | operationalize it. | crazygringo wrote: | I used Google Bard today. | | Is that somehow not operationalized? | pseg134 wrote: | Ahh so you were our user today. How was the experience? | gen220 wrote: | Eh, as outsiders we're all quick to judge. | | OpenAI and friends are able to move quickly, but (so far) | they're not able to translate their LLM innovations into high- | margin revenue with any significant moat. | | Give it a couple years to see where all the cards settle and | who's actually making money "with" LLMs. | munk-a wrote: | I'm still not convinced that the best strategy isn't just to take | the acquisition money and bail. Any sort of large corporate | acquisition is going to lead directly into a few years of | spending an outsized amount of time just converting code, tools, | security rules, and processes into the parent company's | preferences. | ekanes wrote: | Fair, but often there's a retention package that can be a large | part of the acquisition offer total that could be hard to | resist. | jedberg wrote: | Usually you don't get the acquisition money right away, you get | it over a few years. They know you would just bolt if they gave | it up front. | croisillon wrote: | a new post for https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ ;) | jccalhoun wrote: | Wow. I just realized for years that I had been mistaking Socratic | with Socrative. When Socratic got acquired I thought it was | Socrative they bought. This explains why google never integrated | Socrative stuff into Slides. Reading is hard. | joecool1029 wrote: | Crew 'we're building a ship to go somewhere but we need money | lol' | | Google 'we'll buy your ship and crew' | | Crew 'cool what do we have to do' | | Google 'Well we need you up to code for sailing on our ocean, so | you need to rebuild a lot of your ship to look like our other | ships' | | Crew 'ok we're done, now what' | | Google 'drift between our many beautiful ports' | | Crew 'whats the end goal' | | Google 'we'll forget about you, stop maintaining your ship, and | you'll drift aimlessly on our ocean for some years until one of | the directors scuttles your ship on a whim' | inamberclad wrote: | Ah, and this app isn't available on my up to date Pixel 7 Pro. | Google software not being released for Google software, running | on Google hardware, is no shortage of ironic to me. | somethoughts wrote: | From the Google side I wonder if the underlying logic of these | types of acquisitions is actually more originating on the Google | M&A department side. | | There's probably some infrastructure needed to maintain a | corporate Google M&A team which is probably is essential at the | size of Google, but I can imagine there is a bit of downtime in | between large deals that are actually exponentially value | accretive (i.e. Youtube, Nest, etc.). | | If the downtime between rational M&A is too long, you probably | start having staff attrition, in fighting/restlessness, lack of | practice - not to mention a need to justify the existence of the | department via OKRs to the rest of the company. Hence the need | for some smaller, slightly less rational M&A deals to get done in | order to keep the team in a ready state. | bradstewart wrote: | No knowledge of Google specifically, but that M&A team is often | part of strategy unit that's constantly looking at potential | acquisitions to fill gaps in product offerings, valuing | internal business units for possible sale, etc. | | So it's not _just_ actually executing M &A. Once the target is | identified, the actual deal execution often falls to | lawyers/bankers. | somethoughts wrote: | I'm curious about how compensation works for such internal | M&A teams. | | Definitely I don't have any real insight into IBanking but as | I understand there's usually IBanking M&A division whose | activity (and corresponding compensation) generally revolves | around two activities - generating pitch books to generate | transactions and then generating transactions. I imagine for | IBankers there's only incentives to generate transactions | regardless of whether they are good or bad for the two | parties actually involved in the M&A transaction. I'm not | aware there's any activity/compensation tied to the long term | (i.e. 10 year ROI) success of deals. | | It'd be smart if internal M&A divisions were held to higher | standards - not only being measured on number of pitch books | generated and transactions closed but also additional | OKRs/compensation regarding the long term success of previous | transactions for the company. | EspressoGPT wrote: | > Look at Google's collection of app icons and you'll see four | colors and simple shapes. | | https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/jlcw0w | 0xbadcafebee wrote: | If you have enough money, you can do everything that doesn't | scale; manually review every change, rewrite entire codebases, | require 12 conversations to try one new idea, kill icons that | don't look bland enough. Terrible ideas normally, but who cares | if you're making money? These are the signs of a rent-seeking | incumbent. It's not a monopoly, because other companies are doing | the same thing, but the customers don't have much choice but to | use them. A wonderful place to be business-wise, terrible to | actually work for them or be their customer. | orsenthil wrote: | > But they'll take on significant effort on problems that do fit | their nature, strategy, and someone's promotion goals. | | I had to briefly stop reading this. I realize how _someone_'s | promotion goal plays a part in a huge team making significant | effort on solving a problem or building one of their chat apps. | jjwiseman wrote: | I find this part inspiring, regarding how to "respect the | opportunity": Practically, what this means is to | first do the work that is given to you. But once that's | under control, to reach out into the vast Google network, | to learn what's being planned and invented, to coalesce a | clear image of the future, to give it shape through docs and | demos, to find the leaders whose goals align with this | image, and to sell the idea as persistently as you can. | drewg123 wrote: | What I learned getting acquired by Google is that if your company | is below a certain size, everyone will need to do a technical | interview to be hired and leveled. They tell your management to | lie to you, and tell you its just a meet and greet, with | questions about projects you worked on, general background stuff | etc. But its actually a full on surprise technical interview. | (NOTE: This was true in the early-ish 2010s, not sure if it is | still the case). | | Imagine walking into a technical interview 20+ years out of grad | school. Then again, I'm honestly not sure if being relaxed and | able to sleep the night before helped more than spending a few | weeks doing interview prep would have helped. | modeless wrote: | Nobody lied when we were acquired in 2016. Everyone was told | ahead of time that they would be interviewed and not everyone | would be hired. | drewg123 wrote: | I hope things have changed, but then again, it could have | been your management's decision. A friend from grad school | came in on another acquisition as CTO of the company being | acquired. He told me that he ignored M&A's suggestion to lie | about the interview process to his team. | tester756 wrote: | >Imagine walking into a technical interview 20+ years out of | grad school. | | So just like when changing jobs? | drewg123 wrote: | I could have worded it better.. I should probably have said: | "Imagine walking into a _surprise_ technical interview 20+ | years out of grad school. " | henry2023 wrote: | Yeah plus a few millions in the bank because of the | acquisition. | ren_engineer wrote: | >Amazing things are possible at Google, if the right people care | about them. A VP that gets it, a research team with a related | charter, or compatibility with an org's goals. Navigating this | mess of interests is half of a PM's job. And then you need the | blessing of approvers like privacy, trust and safety, and infra | capacity. It takes dozens of conversations to know if an idea is | viable, and hundreds more to make it a reality. | | This article summarizes clearly why Google is getting their ass | kicked by OpenAI, they had all the tech but way too much | bureaucracy, red tape, and lack of bold leadership to get | anything out the door. If you look at the GPT4 paper credits half | of the team worked at Google Brain and apparently felt they had | to leave to get their work into production | didip wrote: | I don't understand authors who criticized the acquirer post | acquisition. | | There is only one reason why you would sell: lots of money. You | understand this going into the transaction. Once the company is | acquired, it's no longer yours. | | And you understand very well why you sold to Google: Because they | are so big that they can give you a lot of money. Unfortunately, | a large company always has a lot of bureaucracy. Surely the | author knows this. | | That's it. No need to criticize, you got the money, you got to | the finished line. | bradley13 wrote: | Just to toss this out: I really wish huge companies like Google | were completely prohibited from any sort of M&A activity. Buy up | startups that might, someday, be competition. Absorb them and | destroy their product. | | Sure, it's great for the people who sell their startup, but it's | bad for the rest of the world, which might have benefited from | the product that was assimilated into the Borg. | user_7832 wrote: | > which might have benefited from the product that was | assimilated into the Borg. | | I think a partial solution to this is to ensure a minimum level | of support for say 10 years. A planned and community-agreed | roadmap, bug and security fixes. Google could afford it without | any practical cost. Founders get the money. Consumers get a | product for a decade. | leros wrote: | It's really sad seeing startups get purchased just for a core | piece of tech or for one of their teams. And 90% of the time, | it never goes anywhere anyway so it just ends up destroying the | startup for no reason. | | On the other hand, as a big company, it's really nice letting | the plethora of startups try various approaches and then buying | one that is working, rather than making an attempt or two in | house. You usually end up with better solutions for cheaper | that way. | esafak wrote: | This is a bad idea if applied too broadly. Founders often build | companies with the intention of selling them to bigger | companies. Products that are intended to replace or complement | one of their products. | einpoklum wrote: | Please don't get acquired by Google. We need to bring people | _out_ of their ecosystem, not into it. | fuzztester wrote: | >And counter-intuitively, adding more people to an early-stage | project doesn't make it go faster. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%27s_law | ctvo wrote: | It's a mixed bag of Google's internal infrastructure is amazing, | but the company has culture and operational challenges. Just from | the bottom half, mostly headings: | | > _Most problems aren't worth Google's time, but surprising ones | are. Most 10-50 million user problems aren't worth Google 's | time, and don't fit their strategy. But they'll take on | significant effort on problems that do fit their nature, | strategy, and someone's promotion goals._ | | A quiet acknowledgement of the promotion based culture driving | product. | | > _Google is an ever shifting web of goals and efforts._ | | > _Googlers wanted to ship great work, but often couldn't._ | | > _Top heavy orgs are hard to steer._ | | > _Technical debt is real. So is process debt._ | | > _Amazing things are possible at Google, if you play the right | game._ | wantsanagent wrote: | Socratic isn't available on Android? I can't install it because | it was 'made for an older version of Android?' | | GJ! | aprdm wrote: | > What also got in the way were the people themselves - all the | smart people who could argue against anything but not for | something, all the leaders who lacked the courage to speak the | uncomfortable truth, and all the people that were hired without a | clear project to work on, but must still be retained through | promotion-worthy made-up work. | | This is golden. I've seen this pattern in a couple of places I've | worked unfortunately. Mainly people who love to argue against, | but not for something. | jhallenworld wrote: | A startup company I worked for was bought by IBM. Some of things | that I noticed: | | Right after the acquisition you feel like superstars: this is | because the number of steps between you and the CEO is pretty | low, because the people who did the acquisition are pretty high | up, and you probably now work directly for them. But over time, | this distance grows as you fall in the hierarchy.. | | On the other hand, it was way better for your career to be an | acquihire than a hire- you would start at higher band for sure. | | IBM was different from Google in that there was no mono-culture | (like a giant repo for all code). Instead other groups tried to | get you to use their products. For example, we used perforce but | boy did they try to get us to use ClearCase and then Rational | Team Concert. Of course our group would have to pay "blue | dollars" to use those tools (vs. green dollars for Perforce | licenses). | | At least some parts of IBM are driven by trade shows. There is a | need to show the latest new product at these shows, which drives | internal invention and development. My experience was that few of | these succeeded in the marketplace. | | IBM, being such an old company had a much more normal | distribution of people at it. There was much more age, race and | sex diversity than at startup companies. There were many more | mid-career people who were in the middle of raising their | families, not just trying to change the world. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-09 23:00 UTC)