Slashdot Mirror
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...
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.
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.
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....
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.
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
So, you're one of those people who reads Dilbert and sympathizes with the boss?
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
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.
No, you hire people who will enjoy the work, the kind who appreciate the money, but don't care too much about it.
If all you hire is people wanting to move up to $70K a year, instead of people looking for new cool things to do, then, yes, you create the lack of motivation that money seekers get.
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.
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!
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!
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.
Not anymore. They used to, but Yahoo has sinced bought a Search Engine company and have used that as the basis of their searches.
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...???
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
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.