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Living the Good Life, Leaving Google Behind

Posted by kdawson on from the calling-in-rich dept.

inetsee writes with an article in the San Francisco Chronicle profiling seven early Googlers who have left the company, part of a cohort the article claims amounts to 100 out of the first 300 workers hired by Google. For these former employees, all the acclaimed perks of life at the Googleplex can't compete with calling the shots in their own lives. Google's chef is opening his own restaurant, Olana Khan has started a non-profit that makes micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, and Aydin Senkut has become an angel investor. Others are simply enjoying retirement, making things in the garage shop or skydiving in South Africa.

19 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Unemployment? by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 1, Funny

    How do you live the good life while unemployed? How are they going to make a living? What, all 100 of them are millionaires and set for life? I doubt that.

    1. Re:Unemployment? by lucabrasi999 · · Score: 2, Funny
      What, all 100 of them are millionaires and set for life? I doubt that.

      I hope you are being sarcastic. If you aren't, you obviously have no understanding of the financial markets. In that case, I have a friend in Nigeria that I'd like for you to meet.

    2. Re:Unemployment? by belrick · · Score: 2, Funny

      How does Google stay in business by offering so much of their stuff for free?


      They are in the business of selling eyeballs, not search results or email services or... The latter are simply the costs of acquiring eyeballs.
    3. Re:Unemployment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
      They are in the business of selling eyeballs

      Google is an Eye Bank?

    4. Re:Unemployment? by jafac · · Score: 2, Funny

      At the peak of the dotcom boom, I was a millionaire. (at least on paper).

      Yet I was a backline support technician, making a base salary of about $65k/yr.

      Due to mistakes in judgment, bad investments (I invested in a construction company, and the guy ran it into the ground), and tax laws, I am no longer a millionaire (though I am in a nice house right now).

      Let me tell you this: being a millionaire is nothing. You can lose it all overnight. And even when you have it, there's a great temptation to spend it, at least some of it - to "reward" yourself. (otherwise it's just numbers in a bank account somewhere). In any case - if you're a millionaire, just that alone doesn't make you "set for life". Your best assets are your marketable job skills, and your brain, and your connections.

      I'd say that when you get up around TEN million in assets, then you can shield yourself from bad decisions or risky investments, and you can maybe quit your day-job, live off the revenue-producing investments.

      One is not truly financially independent until one has probably fifty million dollars in assets.

      I say again. A million dollars is NOTHING.
      Most "middle-class" Americans think they're rich because they have a Ford Explorer and a DVD player, and a 45" plasma screen tv. They have no idea how poor they are.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
  2. Quick Poll... by SnapShot · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you made multi-million dollars in a start up tech company would you:
    1. Leave to pursue your interests.
    2. Continue to work at the company until retiremennt.
    3. Burn the money in a huge trash barrel and join a Buddist monestary.
    4. Hire private detectives to stalk CowboyNeal?

    --
    Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
    1. Re:Quick Poll... by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Funny

      That blur you would see would be me leaving the building. There are few jobs worth actually staying at if you have the wealth to pursue your own course.

      Hell, I could just sit around all day and post on slashdot. Oh, right.

      --
      Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    2. Re:Quick Poll... by lucabrasi999 · · Score: 5, Funny
      If you made multi-million dollars in a start up tech company

      I would sleep with two women at the same time.

    3. Re:Quick Poll... by clickclickdrone · · Score: 2, Funny

      >I would sleep with two women at the same time.
      Each to their own. I'd be wide awake and loving it ;-)

      --
      I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
    4. Re:Quick Poll... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Multi-million? I can arrange that for less than a mac mini, I'll even acccept paypal.

    5. Re:Quick Poll... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny


      I'd buy you a green dress. (But not a real green dress, that's cruel.)

    6. Re:Quick Poll... by CodeBuster · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nothing? Hell...you don't need a million dollars to do nothing! Look at my cousin man he's broke and doesn't do shit.

  3. Good Luck by Eradicator2k3 · · Score: 1, Funny

    FTA: "Aydin Senkut has become an angel investor"

    Angels have lots of grace, so I guess Aydin is trying to get some of that. Unless he's interested in snow angels, which are ridiculously cheap to manufacture and require only snowfall, a few seconds and a cold/wet backside. Problem is that the ROI is about zero.

    --
    Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
  4. Re:People getting tired and moving on by Bastard+of+Subhumani · · Score: 2, Funny
    No, no no. You must be new here.


    Valid responses are along the lines of "oh noes!! Google is dying, eleventyone!!! They are so kewl!!!" or "Har har! Serve them right for being evil! What goes around comes around."

    --
    Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
  5. Google would make a good hitman by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 2, Funny

    Leave Google behind? I don't think so. Google will always find you. Google knows everything. Does this make Google God. Maybe the ancients screwed up the spelling?

  6. Re:People getting tired and moving on by Speare · · Score: 1, Funny

    Ask Slashdot: Does Google Make You Drool?
    An anonymous fanboy writes, "Why does POP mail still exist? Why do people still talk about Flickr and GARMIN maps? Should the Linux kernel be rewritten on a micro-google architecture? Nintendo was just copying Google when they came up with the idea of the Wiiiiiiimote. Elvis isn't dead, he's just not attending shareholder meetings anymore. The SEC and DOJ are investigating all the back-dating scandals using a secret new Google API."

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
  7. Re:In the meantime... by SquareVoid · · Score: 2, Funny
    I won't mention what is its name because I don't want to be hated by the Slashdot community.
    You accepted a job at SCO?
  8. Re:Do you want to work for Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    sure, but i don't think he was talking about the cleaning staff.

  9. two words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    daisy chain