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Google's Turn To Be The Villain
caesar79 writes "The New York Times has an article titled "Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain" (also evil but at least free registration required) According to the article, the "go-getting" attitude of Google is coming across as arrogance to many people in the Valley. More importantly, it draws attention to the fact that Google has drained the market of talent, caused a 25% to 50% hike in salaries and made it difficult for startups to get funding."
Paul Graham has an essay about this: The Submarine.
"Suits make a corporate comeback," says the New York Times. Why does this sound familiar? Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002.
Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to. One of the most surprising things I discovered during my brief business career was the existence of the PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms.
We have seen this before with anti-Linux campaigns. Nothing new.
The irony is that Google pays below what other companies do! (Ask anyone who has been made an offer). The working conditions are what is so different, with many people willing to be paid lower in return for such good conditions.
The startups are offering worse working conditions and so they have to pay more to tempt people away.
I remember when Yahoo! was The Cool Company. They offered arseloads of free applications, the applications were nifty, cool, hip and where-it's-at.
Then somewhere along the line, the free email accounts and home pages got so choked with ads and bloat that I couldn't stand using them anymore.
I like Google's stuff. Lots. I've just got this nagging feeling that I've been here before, and I hope I'm wrong.
http://downwithpants.org Overthrow the tyranny of your pants
I think people are actually scared of Google because they don't know what to think of it. At first, everyone wanted to know how to achieve the golden orgasmic PageRank 10 from that little upstart search engine with such a simple friendly page. Now you have companies paying large sums of money to have 'experts' optimize their site for a seemingly great and monolithic Google, sometimes at the cost of ignoring all other search engines. So with this gigantic company, they have a Think Big kind of attitude, as the article points out. Where have we heard that before?...
Here's where everyone gets confused, though. Google isn't forcing its software onto nearly every computer manufactured. They aren't trying to force any sort of vendor lock-in or commit evil business practices so they can continue to give you "good enough" software either.
Forgive me for quoting people's gripes with Microsoft, but that's the difference between the services provided. To the end user, Google isn't costing us much of anything. People wanted a company to kill Microsoft, and now they might get it...and it scares them because the company they're tired of wanted to 'Think Big' and have big ambitions a long time ago too. People are trying to attribute the track history of MS to Google simply because of how quickly Google has taken off, and the fact that both companies were open about having great ambitions early-on.
Who hasn't? Can a company honestly succede without big goals to reach for? No.
On the other side of things, I was waiting for the day that Google would start getting bad press for anything and nothing. So far, every search engine that soared after it's IPO sunk not too long after and was quickly tossed to the wayside. Yahoo! actually survived surprisingly enough, but Google seems to be going another route: They're still worth money (and lots of it) but now some are turning from curious to suspicious about their former favorite. The little child with lots secrets can be seen as cute, the rich and powerful social elite with lots secrets must be hiding something malignant.
The only part about the negative press that annoys me is that nobody is giving Google the flexability to be a new company. They have to know how to behave like a giant from the start, and giants obviously must behave like monsters as far as the press is concerned.
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
Some of the benefits might be difficult to reproduce for smaller companies (such as the cafeteria), but there is no shortage of very nice office space in the valley nor is there any great difficulty in allowing engineers a certain amount of time and resources for their personal projects.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Makes you wonder why those startups can't improve working conditions. Is it more expensive to improve working conditions than to increase salaries, or just too difficult for these entrepreneurs to do?
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i think it's just stupidity. joel from joel on software has a good article about paying people in things "cheaper than money." and that in the end it's cheaper for the company, for example, to give away free drinks because employees value it more than it cost you. here's the article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
With reference to your reply here to the post about him not giving a shit about group outings, and pizza parties...I do agree with you to a point. An outing on company expense can be fun, and team building. A happy employee does work harder and better. I worked at a place once, that had team outtings for us programmers in the business unit. I ranged from lunch and a day of bowling or laser tag....to a day at the lake where they rented wet bikes and a couple of ski boats for us. Was a blast...we even went 'tubing' down a river once...and got full days pay. It was a fun place to work. But, they started getting cheap and more corporate...and these things disappeared, especially when they didn't give raises enough to cover the loss of the perks.
Since I've gotten older...well, I tell ya, I can put up with a lot less perks...and would rather have cold hard cash. I generally can spend my time and money a lot more effectively to attain pleasure. But, a little group stuff is fun. You need a good balance...but, I lean more towards the cash thing as years go by.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........