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Google Faces Employee Retention Challenge
prakslash writes "60% of Google's 1900 employees now hold stock options worth at least one million dollars. According to experts in this Reuters article, it is now imperative for Google to maintain its sense of mission. If it fails to do so, a whole slew of employees facing post-IPO burnout and boredom will leave the company to go back to school, start a new company, or join the ranks of high-tech early retirees. Such a mass cashing-out could lead to a decline in Google stock price and intellectual brain-drain. Oh how I wish I worked for Google."
Well send in your CV! It sounds like they might have a few job openings shortly...
60% of employees who've been there for fourteen years now -- what fraction is that of the total work force at Google? I'd guess relatively small.
I guess Google is finally realizing that there's no such thing as a free lunch (even if they provide their employees with one).
Google seems to already be a step ahead of this problem, creating a billboard puzzle in the Boston area and publishing a test for potential applicats to fill out.
Not only do they have the problem of suddenly having a few hundred jobs to fill, but they also have the problem that nearly everybody in the world would like to work for them. By setting up such qualifying quizes before even asking for a resume, Google's trying to filter out the best applicants early in the process so that they don't waste their time on pursuing people they'll not end up hiring.
So, yes, Google's going to lose some key talent because they've just created a bunch of modern-era dot-com millionaires. However, they'll just hire somebody else to replace anybody they lose and will move on.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Google technology is so far advanced beyond what we mortals need in a search engine that most of those engineers working in the labs are not necessary. For all intents and purposes, they are done.
Now they probably need to keep the servers up and running, and that can probably be done with a few colos located in various countries with cheap labor and moved around as necessary.
So cut the workforce, move all essential server capacity to India, China, and Eastern Europe, and let those millionaires go off and start other companies. God knows they've probably got some good ideas for other products, better to see them deliver those ideas from their own small company than to see it bastardized by a large Google (product placement and marketing and all that).
Braindrain at Google could be just what our ailing tech sector needs.
You can. On a volunteer basis, of course.
As long as they have interesting things for people to work on, I don't think they should have too much trouble keeping people. Who really cares about money? It is hard to find interesting problems to work on Google lets their employees do that AND pays them for it. What more in life could a person ask for?
So maybe some people who don't need jobs anymore can retire and some people who do need jobs will get them. Sounds like a free market to me....
Not to mention telling their boss to fuck off and die when he demands that you work late.
Wouldn't that boss be in violation of Google's "Don't Be Evil" policy in the first place?
Even if it is only subject to capital gains taxes, that takes a bite too. The article only says at least one million... doesn't say what the average is or anything. Also, it doesn't mention any selling restrictions.
The way the market goes with these things, I don't expect the valuation to stay at 180 P/E for all that long... I could be wrong, but I suspect this will be a self correcting "problem".
I sure wish I had the problem. [4 time stock option looser]
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
That billboard thing was a piece of piss. I wouldn't consider myself qualified to work for Google and yet their little puzzle was so trivial that I couldn't actually be bothered to solve it. Added to which, of course, is the fact that you could Google the answer within a day or two of the buzz commencing.
If they really wanted to use that sort of approach to resumé filtering they'd have used a hard puzzle and put a time limit on it. In reality, it was a marketing tool - albeit quite a good one, in my opinion.
Look, I know you dont want to hear this... but...
;) Yes Google will retain maybe 5% of the millionares, yes they move on to other things, and yes they knew this would happen.
When you're hiring someone, it's absolutely CRITICAL not to pay someone enough to be "comfortable". It removes all motivation, and makes for unmotivated and uninterested employees.
Management 101, and a quick lession any hiring manager would learn if they didn't already know.
Giving people piles of cash in options, is one of the mistakes startups make over and over and over. And this is normal to the process.
But, that's the fun isnt it
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Google has the challenge of building a whole new mission. With billions in the bank and way more employees than are needed to operate a search engine, there is no way they can keep going if they just maintain their current mission. They need to get a whole new mission.
Another challenge they need to get a grip on is a release culture. Up to now, most of their products and services have been in perpetual beta. If they want to expand, they need to get a mentality that sets targets, and makes releases. Right now they look like Netscape did. Their most visible product, the Google search engine, has way more features, many of which are useful, than any competitor. In terms of search quality, though, I think they already fall behind the new MSN search. If all they do is tack more features on and add new beta products they will fall behind. Granted, they have a long time to make it work, with that mountain of cash, but that won't sustain them forever.
Google needs to decide on a new vision that is grand, but reachable with the money they have now. Then they need to execute their new plan successfully. Neither staying where they are, or growing at their current rate, is a viable option. They need big changes. They may well be up to it, but we won't know for certain for a few more years.
I think there was a time limit. The moment the Slashdot effect hit that e-mail address, they most likely stopped using it and only responded to those who answered the puzzles quickly before the solutions were widely published.
I like their Google Labs idea. It's a great way to show the employees that they're supporting them, and at the same time allows them to stimulate the engineers creativity, probably helping to reduce burn-out rates as well.
To quit your job at google go to: {last 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e}.com
from the department-of-rendundancy-dept.
If folks leave, one wonders how hard a time they will have recruiting new Googlers...
Salaries were not competitive with the market as recently as 4 months ago. Of course, back then they were still "Pre-IPO." IMHO, You'd have to be foolish or a huge gambler to take a meager salary in lieu of options at the current strike price.
So once the brain-drain starts... there may be no way for Google to staunch it... unless they start hiring very competitively (and presumably, retro-compensating current employees).
They interviewed some ex Microsoft employees. All of them are millionaires due to stock options. Now they are mostly in their late twens wondering what to do with their existence for the rest of their time (one of them - living in his huge mansion alone said that he pretends to be into IT consulting on dinner parties, because saying that you basically do nothing is kind of embarrassing).
It makes me wonder if stock options are really a sustainable way for both sides to grow. Wouldn't it be better to have more employees at a lower wage like 500 grands a year? Every ex MS worker being part of the documentary suffered some kind of burn out syndrome, so it might make sense to reduce their workload at the same time.
I don't read replies by ACs.
This whole article is based on interviewing people at other companies and asking what happens after an IPO. There's nothing specific about Google at all. Is there any actual evidence of people at Google selling out? Is there one actual instance of somebody leaving Google because they got rich on the IPO?
Recently I was interviewing with Google in Mountain View (and I'm posting AC for that reason) and I didn't meet a single person there who seemed like the IPO had affected them at all. Some engineer made the comment to me "Yeah, I ended up with a lot of money after the IPO, and the thought crossed my mind to leave, but what would I do? I can't think of any place I'd rather work."
Everyone loves to hate on Google now that they're no longer the scrappy underdogs. But after walking around the "Googleplex" I can't say I've ever seen a company where the engineers were happier.
Such a mass cashing-out could lead to a decline in Google stock price and intellectual brain-drain
Google's main revenue stream is a cash-cow (google-ads/froogle(?)) so there's little danger that present employees leaving will significantly damage the stock price in the near future.
In the end though, after all the hype and rather trite-sounding platitudes about "thinking outside the box", google is just a search company. And there are others who are already doing that better
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
sure, I would like to be working at Google and be in the envious position of actually having some net worth worth speaking about.
:( Canadian companies never have worthwhile IPOs or stock prices.
I've worked in numerous companies and had lots of stock options in them but none of them ever panned out. Being Canadian and working in IT in Canada just sucks this way
Stock price for .coms is based upon lack of supply and high demand. If there suddenly is a demand the stock will drop preciptiously. This includes google.
.coms more because they are relatively new stocks that haven't seen the effects of this before.
Massive increase in supply will hurt any company. It hurts
CFO: It looks like we have quite a problem, Eric. We are losing employees because their stock options are worth so much, they don't wan't to work anymore.
CEO: The deuce you say, George. There's only one thing to do.
CFO: What's that?
CEO: George, we have to tank the company. When the stock bottoms out, we'll buy back those options and correct the retention problem. We must destroy Google to save it.
CFO: OMFG, you're brillant. But how will we devalue the company? Google is doing great.
CEO: We're going to need help. We need someone with experience in this sort of thing. Get Carly at HP on the phone, quick!
Yahoo uses google under the hood now.
I work at a certain EVIL company, and there have been some rumors that Google has been sniffing around, looking for good employees (yes, yes, obligatory MS joke here...) to bring over.
It looks like they are agressively trying to make sure that they keep on top of the talent curve. MS has always made an effort to grab up all the most talented engineers coming out of school. Google might try to give them a run for the money.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Intelligent people with enough money to convert their ideas into a business isn't something to be sad about. The slight hardship Google might suffer is more than offset by the chance for a lot of smart people to pursue their own interests.
The thing to understand is that like other cutting edge Internet companies, Google is no longer what it was. It is now a publicly held company with ONE SPACIFIC THING in mind for its mission: Produce cashflow for its stockholders. This is now Google's "mission". One day, it will be the mission of many of today's successful Open Source brainiacs. This is the way things tend to flow in a free society, people for the most part are driven by the need to survive and live in comfort.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
A million dollars? With that they might be able to buy a tiny house near Google. But then they'd be broke and have to keep working. And somehow, in the mindset of Silicon Valley, that seems normal and rational.
Of course, they could always retire and move someplace sane.
Who cares?
Options usually vest over a number of years, so while they may be worth a paper-$1m, they're only going to see real-$1m if (a) they keep working hard/smart enough to keep the paper-value high, (b) they keep working long enough to cash in the paper-value to get real-value.
This is exactly what options are designed to do!
With regard to "brain drain", for a company like Google, it would have people champing at the bit to work there: so any lost talent is easily replacable with new hires, if they keep standards up in the hiring process. And, it's good to have fresh talent come in over time to keep revitalising the place.
Finally, as others have mentioned, many of these types of people actually like what they are doing. I can tell you that if I were a millionaire, I'd live a nice lifestyle, but I'd still be pottering around on code or doing something creatively interesting -- (a) because that's what I like to do, (b) I'm just not the type of person to laze around doing nothing.
There are _many_ examples of serial millionaries and creative types who do what they do because they love the creative elements.
I, for one, welcome our millionaire overlords. I wish more tech companies had folks who had enough money to retire, so that those who don't have enough money yet would be able to make a bit more and advance their careers a bit faster. Where I work, it's like a freakin' concrete wall up there. Folks who have been with the company are well put in their trenches and it's nearly impossible to get anywhere, because the "old boys club" is everywhere. I wish the stock price doubled and they took off. I'd be a happy camper then.
FOAD LostCluster you fucking faggot
Ha, they would be wise to cash out now. Google is just another company, and they can't ride a much higher wave. I worked at (unnamed major software company) pre and post IPO. The smart ones exercised their options as soon as legally possible. Guess what, the stock never went up to those IPO year numbers again. I saw lots of programmers that came in during year one for low salaries and big options get that cream. Even the shipping clerks had 20k or so of options. Besides, there are geniuses graduating from universities every year. It is foolish to think that google can't attract or afford new top level talent.
Thank you Google for showing us that one in a million company where stock options actually pay off ! Google and it's employees have achieved the American dream and should be proud. America is still the greatest country in the world. You can roll the dice, start a company, and sometimes even be successful. On the flip side, if you fail, America is still the land of opportunity. You can always start over.
America is still the land of hope and promise, even though our leaders are trying to crush the hopes and dreams of the American spirit with FEAR, UNCERTAINTY, and DOUBT! Thanks again GOOGLE, you are a bright ray of light peeking through the gloom.
The fact that it takes a period of time for the employees to be able to cash out, and the stock may not be where it is now when they do so, is extremely important.
which already include an in-house masseuse and free lunches prepared by the former chef to the Grateful Dead.
... by the former chef to the Grateful Dead".
For a moment I thought that read "an in-house massage
"And zeez is how weee tenderize zee meat before we apply zee hot sauce... bork! bork! bork!"
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
A "Citizen's VOIP" transmitter? A cock vibrator? English, muthafucker, do you SPEAK IT?
Now wonder so many jobs are being outsourced overseas. Instead of making rich employees richer you can make poor employees comfortable and still save money.
They can just start adding crack to the food. Solved.
What if they all decide to stay and continue building this company and its stock value?
What better place to increase your own wealth but where you have had and can continue to have influence on its growth.... as opposed to some disconnected, abstracted stock market game of chance...
Imagine what those who got out early with MS would regret now!
On teh more intelligent side of this, don't ya think the google guys would have considered this... especially given all the apparent presidence...???
Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
Don't fall for too high pricey google stock, their price is based in pure hype, if you have made money just sell before the bubble burst on you.
Just think for a minute and ask yourself what is google worth? just ad selling doesn't justificate that price, they haven't created any mayor technology (they based their work and products on others ideas).
Somebody told me their real proce should be around $50 and I'm starting beleiving him.
Don't say you weren't warned.
No doubt all those Google options have a beginning date and an end date and a strike price that's far out of reach today and will remain so as Google stock slowly slides backt to rational levels.
On paper is one thing, real value is quite another. Millions of dotbombers know the reality of stock option accounting and if they were worth 'millions' from the get go they'd be warrants or gifts not options.
Stop spawn camping and pick up and move around a bit! :-)
On the contrary... Oh, how I wish I used to work for Google!
This is why Google should have never IPO'ed. Google is safe for the next few years as there is no real competition and the brandname is legendary now, but when ax falls, Google may find themselves in the closet with other great search engines like HotBot. Why would I want to work at google for $50,000 a year, when I could make the same at another search engine company and get stock options and try to make the company another google and then make my own million.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Ha!
Ignoramus....
infinite sequence not withstanding.
..is what I would be suffering were I one of those holding over a mil in stock. My ass would be on the first flight to Aruba, right after that call to my broker screaming "Sell!"
ardustry
No kidding. Being a millionaire doesn't mean shit anymore. After taxes, you have $600k. With $600k, you can by an average ho-hum home within a couple hour commute from Google. Big fucking yawn.
Have you tried googling for physical science or penetration mechanics lately? (Quotes not even required, and there's no reason why you shouldn't have expected to need them).
A lot easier to make baseless comments than verify your allegations, isn't it?
And who modded that insightful?
Brilliant! Combine crazy non-sequitur arguments with an incredibly arrogant tone, and finish with moderator reverse psychology! A wonderfully crafted troll, sir. At another time of day, you would have suckered a dozen inflammatory replies.
I haven't seen a slashdot post yet that mentioned the solution to the second puzzle. I no, I haven't solved it (did play with it for a couple of hours though). Did you beat the second one? If so, how? I have this terrible feeling I'm missing something obvious.
That one's also been posted all over the internet, y'know.
Google (heh) for it!
"penetration mechanics" actually gives really decent results.
People applying for jobs in the private sector, at least in English Canada, would be wise to use the shorter resume format. I've seen many outstanding CVs overlooked just because no one can be bothered to look past the first page or so. I have one friend from South Africa who has been in a (Canadian) job she hates for 4 years because she doesn't believe me when I say her CV will not get the attention of Canadian employers in a down-market. (She moved here during the boom, when HR managers would spend time reading a CV, if necessary.)
-- SYS 64738 --
Another problem are the 40% of people who AREN'T going to be millionares. When your co-workers who don't get to quit start driving into work in expensive cars, etc, its going to be hell on morale.
Google's search was never driven off math, rather it used the free effort of millions of people to decide what to return with searches. Kind of ironic that the latest, greatest high tech company really just found a better way to utilize the labor of millions of people. Hopefully, this will spark an epiphany in the mind of some kid who will eventually change the world in their own way.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Am I the only one who misread the topic of this item as:
Google Faces Employee Retrenchment Challenge
Wonder if any of their janitorial staff is going to cash out, or if they can?
Nobody ever mentions them, or thinks of them, until their absence impacts them.
Sad, but true.
It 2 months to complete the interview process, they pay you less than you could get elsewhere and they've already gone IPO so stock options are worthless. You have to work so much that the only way to have a girlfriend is to date a coworker. Great! Tell me how to join!
Honestly, I don't think Google really *needs* to get any better than it is now. I use it because (a) it has a vast index of websites, (b) it works extremely quickly, (c) the interface is minimalist and easy to read, (d) the cache rocks, and (e) if I google for a topic, ninety-nine times out of a hundred it brings me to exactly the site I'm looking for within the first ten entries, with no technical errors.
I don't get where their critics are coming from. All you need to use are quotation marks and there's your result. For example, your friend could search for: "penetration mechanics" hull armor. You just have to think for a second before mindlessly typing in searches and saying "olo penatration brought me to a porn site y didnt it correct my spelling 4 me haha".
On a slightly less flaimbaitish note ...
Yesterday, I worked 19 hours.
The days before, I worked something on the order of 13-14 hours.
I'm working on a project that's pretty damn important to my company, and I've got to put lots of late hours in. My boss makes me do this.
She does this by working harder, and often longer, than I do. This morning, when I left at 4am, it was only about 45 minutes after she left.
She does this by telling me how much she appreciates what I do, and the impact I make.
She does this by providing me with all the snacks and soft-drinks I can drink, and by making sure that when I work late I'm well starbucked and fed.
She does this by paying me a pretty darn decent wage, and letting me know that when this company can afford to pay me more, they will.
She does this by looking at the fact I worked while on vacation and letting me determine how many days of vacation I really officially took, if any.
And so in return, I spend 70-80 hours at work during crunch times and make sure that what needs to get done gets done.
Everyone I know at Google is like this in this regard. I suspect their managers are like my manager in these regards. I suspect "FOAD" is not normally something a Googler ever considers wanting to tell their boss.
Want to keep your million?
You just need timing.
Sell your stock when the fiscal year starts, transfer it to a country that taxes you based in residency, live there less time than the requireed to become taxable (normally six months) then live somewhere else during the fiscal year.
Once you are done move back home.
This should not cost you too much, perhaps one year in current wages, and if organized correctly even less (you could work while abroad).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Only a mostly USian audience could rate this tripe as cureently is (Insightful).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
When posting from a (supposed) superior intellectual position, it helps to avoid spelling errors. After all, calling someone "cinompetent" might mean just about anything, including a compliment. In whatever language it was written anyway...
As for calling Google's performance dismal, I'd try and be fair and limit myself to the particular domain in which I found Google's results dismal. Calling the whole of Google's performance dismal is, well, stupid. If you truly want dismal performance all-around, try Altavista circa 1997...
And a final note - human brains are very good at solving natural-language problems. And they use math of some kind underneath it all. Or at the very least their internal processes can be symbolically modeled at some level, AKA shown using some kind of math. Sooner or later, this model will be understood well enough to use it in search engines.
So (allowing myself to drop to your level): nyah, nyah, nyah!
Actually, I'm just wishing there was a mod for "-1, Full of Crap".
Frankly, if you can't figure out how to search for a discrete phrase by the astounding technique of putting quotes around it, you don't deserve to get any useful results.
Shoo, troll, shoo.
-m
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
They are the very temporary step stones towards better paid jobs.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As an American patriot you may wish to not use the Freedom word resume and defer to the Latin CV.
?
3.243F6A8885A308D313
. . . .
BAHAHAHAHahhahahahahahah *snicker* *chortle* hahahahahah
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Because of the financial implications. This is why there is this movement to expense options. Right now a company can basically transfer money to you without it showing up as a loss on their balance sheet by using options.
Honestly, it's a scam. It allows companies to hide expenses.
And they worked on the same campus too!
Happiness lets you get a lot of work out of your engineers. The problem is ensuring this is useful work that you can turn into profit. SGI was terrible at this, and Google is too.
Google hires people, then finds work for them to do. They encourage them to screw around on stuff they don't know how to monetize.
This all works like Apple Computer's old ATG, or Xerox PARC. and you know how well those two went? Massive money sinks. To think an entire company works like either of those is abhorrent to me. Sell while you still can.
MSN, Google, Altavista, A9 and Yahoo searches.
All find Perimeter Institute (www.perimeterinstitute.com) first if you spell it correctly. This isn't even a tough test anyway.
I think you greatly over estimate the value of Google.
With resumes, not CVs. An additional person (the only one with an advanced degree) turned down a job at Google that he was offered. He used a resume too.
Honestly, your distinction between CV and Resume makes me not want to hire you. I have a position open right now, and am reviewing candidates. I like short resumes, not long ones (or long CVs either).
Substance over style. Prepare yourself better and stop goofing around with terms.
I have a friend working at google, and all she got was a lousy tee-shirt....
I'm just not the type of person to laze around doing nothing.
I wish I was more like you. See, I'm more the kind of guy who wastes his time reading and posting on slashdot. hum, wait...
They solved the problem of having answers come out on google by simply making more puzzles and printing those.
...on their own, individualized somehow by their information.
For instance, for the past few weeks, the MIT student paper has been running a different puzzle each week in ads placed by Google Labs - I'm willing to guess they just make/find a new puzzle each week for their recruitment.
Besides, if someone gets the answer by googling, Google has an equally easy/cheap way of flushing them - just ask them to do a "second-round" puzzle
In Silicon Valley, after taxes, that will buy me a condo. Then I can sing that Weird Al Yankovic song.
Who moved my sig?
I also held stock options worth around a million dollars but by the time the waiting period was over, The stock was worth less than the price that the options were granted.
Oh well...
While Google's employees may be a clever lot, most of them are just not financially astute enough or are too intrigued by their jobs to realize that they have decaying gold in their hands. Yes, they know they have gold, but no, they cannot imagine that it's a special kind of gold that decays.
As such they will clamp on to their options and shares, linger on and eventually see their value erode, like so many engineers have seen past the bubble. To add insult to injury they will have paid taxes on the options.
So here's a sound advice to anyone in a similar position: grab while the grabbing's good. If you linger, the grabbing times might pass you by.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
For someone who's "working" 80 hours a week, you sure seem to have a lot of free to be reading & posting on slashdot...
Google is currently at its peak, and for the next few years will be THE search engine in terms of Global search but more Local searchers will be established and make it harder for google to gain into those markets. Look at WWW.Renjo.com to see what i mean. Its a fairly new search engine that uses lots of complex algorithms that offer something else to google and its proved popular compared to google but then again arent they all. For one of the Newly minted Google people, id say take the money and go for it yourself and start
That's nice of you, but it just means your manager does not do her job properly. It means fuckup in planning and it means you are seriously understaffed. And if you work a lot more then you suppose to - you do make errors.
You are or maybe your manager going to be burned out..
I understand a challenge in hiring right people, but it's still possible ;)
Thank you Lotto for showing us that a one in a gazillion chance can pay off. You can buy a lotto ticket, watch the draw, and sometimes even win. On the flip side, if you lose, the quickiemarts are still open. You can always buy another ticket.
Do not underestimate the power of human greed. Think about how many of them will consider this to be just their _first_ million. They are not going anywhere any time soon.
Plus, $1M - ~40% tax = $600,000.
Plus, $1M is really not all that much nowadays - if you have 2 kids in the U.S. and send them to a private college that will set you back at least 2 x 4 x $35,000.
Simpy
Eric: We depress the stock --
George: -- to the point where we can buy fifty-percent.
PHD: Fifty-one.
dev. manager: Not counting the mezzanine.
Marketroid: It could work.
BA: It should work.
MBA: It would work.
Eric: It's working already. GOOGLE logo is abstract art on the Internet. All we need now is a new president who will inspire real panic in our stockholders.
Marketroid: Yeah, a puppet!
BA: A proxy!
MBA: A pawn!
George: Sure, sure. Some jerk we can really push around.
You can't handle the truth.
I have read an attributed Ayn Rand quote about this, but I can't find it now. Something like:
"The surest sign of a lesser man is his contempt for the success of others."
I read a Russian's comment that in America people see a rich man's house and say, "Let us do what it takes for us to also have houses like that" while in Russia people see a rich man's house and say "Let us burn down his house so he is like us" and that until that cultural diference changes Russia can not progress.
I can't argue with your personal observations. In fact, I'd tend to agree with you. When I said "great/notable", I'm talking about your Nobel prize winners, and inventors of concepts that changed history.... Not just your researcher who gets some interesting/important work done in his/her field.
For what it's worth though, I'd also say that folks gainfully employed in a research facility or "top university" are also earning a paycheck that provides them a fairly comfortable living. When you compare them to the "average person on the outside with a family", you have to figure that many of those "outsiders" are fighting a big financial battle too - and it puts a strain on their marriage/relationships.
Not only does time = money, but money = time too. If you can afford, for example, a live-in nanny, then you've exchanged some of your income for some more free time. (Not saying your colleagues have done this, necessarily, but I do see it often with folks juggling both a marriage/kids and a demanding career that would otherwise almost require a single person.)
I wouldn't consider myself qualified to work for Google and yet their little puzzle was so trivial that I couldn't actually be bothered to solve it.
I tried that on a test once. They didn't buy it then, either.
Of course, you COULD go to the other extreme and move to an "Amish Paradise", though I'd think that most Google employees would identify more with the sentiment that "It's All About the Pentiums" and instead go off on their own and try to found the next "Ebay" or something.
Not that you have to be in the heart of the valley to start something big. After all, Bill Gate$ started out in "Albuquerque" (in order to be close to MITS calculator, makers of the Altair 8800.)
Unless "Everything You Know Is Wrong" about Google as an employer, however, I'd have trouble believeing that any of their employees couldn't stand to spend "One More Minute" there.
"When I Was Your Age", people didn't expect to receive enough money from their company's IPO to retire, be a "Couch Potato" and sit around getting "Fat" for the rest of their lives. I guess that it beats being stuck in a "Traffic Jam" every day trying to get to work.
All right, I guess that that's enough: "I Was Only Kidding": I knew that you meant the song "This Is the Life."
Speaking of "Weird Al" Yankovic, I just picked up his "Ultimate Video Collection" on DVD for $16.99 retail. I highly recommend it! 24 tracks, plus extras. (Especially "Bob." It's a Bob Dylan parody done completely in palindrome. I love it!)
What is the difference between a small revolutionary change and a large evolutionary change?
I wasn't comparing them with the "average person on the outside..." but the average person that I know, which is a very different set. Among people with whom I went to school, there are many lawyers, doctors, business types, consultants, as well as plenty of code monkeys and cubicle fillers of various sorts. (Compared to that bunch, researchers are at the low end of the income scale, and junior professors are bringing up the rear.) I have no idea what the numbers are for the populace at large.
Disclaimer: I work for a company, but I don't speak for them.
There is typically a 4-year vesting schedule. What is the vesting schedule for Google? Surely they are worth $1 million on paper, but how much will they actually be worth at year 1, 2, 3, and 4 on the customary 4-year vesting schedule?
Kris
Kriston
I understand that a "crunch time" can happen. But you are making it sound like crunches are expected and frequent. And that makes your management look like fools. Workers have lives, if they are to be First World workers and not re-Industrial-Revolutionized workers. Real workers go home at night and see their kids.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Crunches will always happen, IMO. The question is how often and how you're expected to deal with them. This particular situation is acknowledged to be fucked up -- they should have hired me about three months earlier.
Sounds just like what happenned earlier at Microsoft, when employees could, after a few years, tell their superiors FYIFV.
Really, as much as I think brilliant people should herd together once in a while to exchange ideas, they ought to circulate among the mortals to give us some inspiration and ideas, too.
A little brilliance can do a lot at one company.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Google effect, not Slashdot...
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
Yup, one Googler I know made 50 mil, but 5 of that is going to a new house, and the upkeep on that alone will be a drain. Plus, saving to send the kids to Stanford, blah, blah, blah, and the Palo Alto lifestyle. He loves his job and has no intention of leaving.