Google and Yahoo Creating Brain Drain?

Searchbistro writes "Software-engineering talent is flocking to Google and Yahoo. Business Week explores the possibility that the big two search companies are creating a brain drain on the rest of the industry. Google snapped up about 230 engineers last quarter. Some stolen superstars are Louis Monier, director of eBay, advanced technology research, and Kai-Fu Lee, a top-flight researcher at Microsoft. Yahoo hired dozens of top engineers, including Larry Tesler, former vice-president at Amazon.com. 'While the Internet leaders snatch up top tech talent, that creates headaches elsewhere. Some startups, for instance, say the talent drain has made their own hiring more difficult.'"

Comments

It's totally a friday night...

[Anonymous Coward]

... and even the geeks are out at play. Longest I've seen an article with just an FP and nothing else in a long time.

Yahoo! is an "Idea Factory"

[BorgGates]

Where employees are rewarded for thinking up something new. Like this

Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles

[Temporal]

Most Google engineers do not have PhD's, as far as I've seen. All I had was a BS from the U of MN and some open source projects, and they took me quite seriously.

Don't be afraid to submit your resume. If you have talent, Google knows how to recognize it.

(Oblig: These are my words and opinions, not Google's.)

Re:Layoffs

[BlueYoshi]

not at all: HP Fires Father of OOP

Just a natural cycle

[Samir Gupta]

Before Google and Yahoo, there was Microsoft Research or maybe PARC, DEC, SGI as the "hot place" to work in industry for Ph.Ds who didn't want to go into academia. Before THAT there was Bellcore, IBM Research, etc getting all the brains and publishing all the papers.

Empires rise and fall... I don't see anything usual about the hiring practices of Google or Yahoo snatching up the best talent.

Another player will come along in due time...

Re:Layoffs

[robbyjo]

HP? How about Alan Kay?

Larry Tesler

[green pizza]

Since when is a vice-president an engineer? Hiring away someone else's pointy-haired-boss does not create a "brain drain".
Larry Tesler is about as far from a PHB as they get. He worked on the Xerox GUI machines back in the glory days of PARC. Then he worked as Cheif Scientist at Apple for almost two decades. The dude ported most of the Newton code to DYLAN during his 6 week sabatical. More recently he was involved with some Smalltalk based early childhood GUI "programming language". Stagecast software I think it was called. I didn't realize he ended up at Amazon for awhile.

More evil?

[Really Wannabe Geek]

From CNET 2 days ago:

Google tries to patent Web syndication ads

Google is claiming that it has invented a unique way to distribute online advertising via syndicated news feeds--and it wants a patent for the technology.

If granted, the patent would presumably give Google the exclusive rights for "incorporating targeted ads into information in a syndicated, e.g., RSS, presentation format in an automated manner," according to its patent application titled, "Embedding advertisements in syndicated content." ...

Google, Yahoo and a number of start-ups are eyeing syndication as a new outlet for delivering online ads. If Google is granted the patent, it could be a big blow to its rivals in the field, said Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.

"It would really stifle competition," Li said. "It would be a pretty powerful patent to have."

(read more on CNET)

Re:Great news for those not in the top percentiles

[Erich]

This article presupposes that there is a large gap between the elite engineers and the plebes.

There is. Have you ever worked in a medium or large technical company? 20% of the people (or less) do 80% of the work (or more).