Slashdot Mirror
Has Google Lost Its Mojo?
CWmike writes "Google looks as if it's on top of the world right now, holding an ever-increasing lion's share of the search market. So why do I think it's lost its mojo? Let's start with the way it treats its employees, writes Preston Gralla. Another example: Google employees, such as Sergey Solyanik, have started deserting the company. And its share price is down double that of the Dow or Nasdaq since November 2007. Even if Google has lost its mojo, why should you care? It won't make your searches any less effective, will it? Nope. But Google has its eyes on bigger things than search, notably your IT department. It's looking to displace Microsoft with hosted services like Google Apps, Gmail and Google Docs. Solyanik warns that Google's engineers care more about the 'coolness' of a service than about the service's effectiveness." Of course Google employees version of being mistreated is often laughable, and quite a shock when they look for their massage therapist at wherever they end up next.
This actually reminds me of a story of the wandering engineer. They'd work for google, then move to MS because they lack quality control. The engineer would then transfer to Yahoo because MS isn't doing anything interesting. They'd then move to Google and start the cycle anew because Yahoo wasn't on the cutting edge. Maybe the novelty of working at Google, or any other place for that matter, wears off once you've been there for quite a few months and you have the qualifications to change things up. Engineers can be a fickle lot where the interesting aspects of a project outweigh how much it pays.
...is one guy who returned to Microsoft, the price of an employee service was raised, and the stock price is lower than it was at a point in the past.
I don't think that's enough to declare that Google has lost its mojo. Think of how many times Apple was "dying" according to the press. I think this author is just bored with Google and wants to cause a stir.
"Sufferin' succotash."
That was a great write up man. BTW, you will find that this is the norm. You, as a software engineer, have to learn to manage your manager. You need to correct their expectations by giving them constant feedback. You need to say to them that you're having trouble and won't be achieving the timeline they have proscribed.. and if they casually don't proscribe a timeline, you have to make one up yourself.
Good luck in the future.
How we know is more important than what we know.
such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them
Because, as we all know it is impossible to raise children if one of the parents doesn't stay at home.
Other than that, I'd say your argument is pretty solid. Employers aren't responsible for an employee's children.
it seems like it's becoming a benefit that only older employees (ipo-millionaires) and executives (high salary, stock options) can enjoy. Sure, it's offered to everyone, but they're intentionally choosing a very expensive day-care program when a less expensive one was more than adequate. So people who would otherwise use it now go elsewhere (paying full price) while still subsidizing wealthier people who can afford it.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Quoting: "Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500"... WTF? How much do people in the US earn? This amount of money per month, is what is almost the total monthly salary in Europe is for many people! How could you give that for just infant care?? Renting an apartment is like 400 euros per month, much cheaper than this infant care (even the so called cheap $1425 one)! How do you pay for rent, survival costs, and saving, if you have a baby and use that infant care?
such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them
Because, as we all know it is impossible to raise children if one of the parents doesn't stay at home.
Other than that, I'd say your argument is pretty solid. Employers aren't responsible for an employee's children.
Yeah, technically all of you are right. What has been found is that having childcare greatly reduces the stress of workers: they don't have to worry about working late, they can visit their kid on lunch breaks if the daycare is on site, company care is just one trip, it's usually cheaper, etc...
Having company sponsored childcare doesn't mean other employees are getting paid less, is just means the stockholders are not seeing as big of a profit as they could have. If Google really had to pay less because of childcare then they wouldn't be able to get anyone good, especially the childless - they'd all go to higher paying companies, wouldn't they?
As for me, I like in house childcare because you don't get the BS (most of the time) of folks with kids having to run home every time their kid is sick; which makes my life less stressful because then I don't have to make up for them.
What about their laundry service? Why should they provide that? What about the people who have their own washers at home?
What about the car servicing thing? What about the people that don't have cars?
What about the bus service with Wifi? What about people who live close and don't need the bus?
By your logic all these are discrimination against people who don't need these services.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Well as Google matures so do its employees. As they get older they find the Google culture no longer fits their needs. The projects get boring, working long hours on projects that may or may not give any fruit gets redundant and unappealing. Having to prove to the new Whippersnappers that that crazy way of doing things will not work just as they didn't work when you started working a decade ago. Things like code purity, open source, trying a new windows manager every week... start to see more trivial and has lost its spark or interest, you are happy to use a Mac, even if you are running windows your cool with that to. You focus on your job and doing a good job, but at the end of the day you want to go home with your family.
Over the years you got a lot better at your job you are 3 times more productive then those whippersnappers and when you were a whippersnapper, but the company culture reprimands you for leaving work on time. Younger managers come in straight out of business school trying to prove themselves by trying to change everything even what currently works, just because it worked for FedEx, or SAS.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
"What went wrong? ..."
Share holders are penny wise and pound foolish. It isn't about the longterm investment but the quarterly or annual review. Eventually, when the stock starts to lose value, you simply have to make changes (drop operating costs) to make revenues reflect a larger profit.
The good news is most companies just fire a bunch of people. Google just happens to be taking away free dinner.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
If they're quiet and polite, then yes, I have no problem with them being in the office. If they're running around and yelling and, ya know, being children then that is not appropriate to an office setting.. people are trying to work.
As for spending time in the office.. no.. I'm not a big fan. I don't expect people to stay late just because everyone else is. But, in modern software engineering, its a team effort. If someone goes home because they need to pick up their kids or whatever, then either someone else is going to have to do their work - and that means it won't get done to the same level of quality - or it means that everyone will be stalled until that person is available again to work. I believe it is a failure of management to require people to work late but, frankly, it does happen and if people are not available to work when it does, then it happens more and more.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them), have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?
Because life isn't fair.
Because our society has determined that providing child care to working mothers benefits society as a whole and Google is simply conforming to social pressure.
Because Google wishes to attract working mothers as employees and are offering child care as an incentive. Young single workers are attracted by Google's "coolness" and don't need additional incentives.
BTW, Using child care provided by your employer is "make[ing] arrangements for [children] to be cared for".
For what it's worth, Microsoft makes more in a good quarter than Google makes in a year. I can't tell if that affects your point because I couldn't actually figure out what that was.
[...] or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them)
Because having Mom stay at home is the "responsible" thing to do? So the choice for women is motherhood XOR employment? I won't deny that having someone at home fulltime is the optimal situation (definitely not always possible), but maybe *Dad* could stay home...?
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun
Seriously? "Women should abandon their careers to beome housewives" gets modded +5? WTF is wrong with this website?
If you really need an answer to your stupid rhetorical question:
1. The vast majority of women in the US have little interest in permanently abandoning their careers.
2. Even if they wanted to, a lot of households NEED two incomes to make ends meet.
3. On-site daycare is a good way to attract employees, because it provides a benefit (having your kids in the same building) that is worth a lot more to the employees than it costs to the company.
4. If you lure those employees in with this benefit, thus potentially drawing them away from another job with a better salary, and then ditch the benefit, you're screwing them. I dunno if it's "age discrimination," but it's at least somewhat a dick move.
Pardon me, but I would be very surprised if Google, unlike the vast majority of all daycare centers (daycare, mind, not pre-k or kindergarten) allowed sick and potentially contagious children. The better daycares I've had experience with will insist that you come and get your child if they have made it in with such an illness. Any illness, no matter how minor it might seem, spreads so quickly amongst kids of that age, especially in close proximity. Plus, though I really don't know if it's a stated or valid reason, I imagine that allowing visibly ill children to remain at the daycare presents some degree of liability that would rather be avoided. But I do think you are right about in-house daycare being a great deal more efficient, especially for a company of sufficient size, especially in terms of worker-parent efficiency.
All correct blahplusplus. The term is corporate responsibility.
It's a cliche, but children are the future. Call them tax-sucking, or whatever you like. They'll be paying for you ass to get wiped in 50 years time.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for... have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?
You think you don't benefit from civilization? From law, order, a structured society? From the strong caring for the weak? Compassion, sympathy, friendship, co-operation? An educational system? Hospitals, doctors, nurses? The elimination of smallpox? The defeat of people who were gassing Jews? Protection from discrimination against your idiosyncrasies? The remission of the Law of the Jungle? The spare time to do something other than digging dirt for mere subsistence? The technology and luxury for you to post to Slashdot instead of being out hunting and gathering tonight's meal?
Society is a complex web of interdependent relationships and compromises from which you too benefit.
That's why.
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
I pay way more into the system than I get back.
...for now.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
"Seriously? "Women should abandon their careers to beome housewives" gets modded +5? WTF is wrong with this website?"
Well, obviously we'll have to do something about that "differing opinions" stuff here. Can't have any of that. Thanks for pointing it out; the management will take care of it.
And now a question for you; what do you think about the legions of women that have decided that, well, yes they'd prefer to give up their careers because they consider raising their children job Numero Uno? Since we've been 3 decades into the sexual revolution now, many women have decided that they can't have it all, at least not in any meaningful sense. Is there something wrong with them?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
2. Even if they wanted to, a lot of households NEED two incomes to make ends meet.
Ahh, we are in "America", land of needless consumption.
The VAST majority of my coworkers who think/thought they NEEDED a second income, really did not. They CHOOSE the lifestyle.
I am not criticizing the choice, it is not my business, BUT, We really need to learn the difference between the words NEED and WANT.
Full disclosure, my wife has "halted" her career to raise our kids.
Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them), have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?
Because the kids that aren't raised properly are the kids that grow up to teenagers who would knife you in the chest for $5.
Why should you pay for roads? Or health care? Or emergency services? Or education? Because without these things society turns to shite. Because you indirectly use them even if you think you don't (Try living in a place without roads)
It's called living as part of a community. Any community that isn't friendly to parenthood by definition will die out.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Sorry, to all you childless bachelors out there, but my loyalty lies 110% to my son and family not to you or anybody else outside my family, I already have precious little time with him as is, I don't care if you or management or *anyone else* thinks I'm a team player or not, truly. I do my contracted work, take my pay then I'm outta there.
It does go both ways as well. People without kids bitch that people with kids leave when their child is sick (you know, to be *parents*) or whatever, but then people without kids want to work their lives away, then expect us to as well? Sorry if your to spineless to stand up to your boss that's YOUR problem, no one elses. Otherwise you enjoy doing it, and well if you expect me to work late and have my boy miss out on seeing his old man before bed because you have nothing better to do than work for an extra few hours you can fuck right off.
The worst thing here, is that the 90% of people complaining about "people with kids" statistically, in a a few years when they grow up will BE "people with kids". Then will understand, not through a selfish hypocritical flip-flop, but because when that little tacker comes along you have *no choice* as your brain changes and with it your priorities, whether you like it or not.
And we *people with kids* were all just like you once, I even used to bitch about *people with kids*, just like you.
Ironically all the people without kids bitching here will then bitch about how people don't, you know, "be a parent" to their kids in the multitude of other stories regarding kids. Well I'll tell ya it's a little hard when you all expect us to forget about them for 8-12 hours a day and see them awake for twenty minutes, because we know how much your going to cry because you choose to marry your job/company and we treat it like a means to an end and leave on time.
So much juvenile idiocy in this thread.
The intelligent and wealthy argue for welfare, medicare and social security because they know that a tolerable sinecure for the poor makes it very unlikely that they will have to deal with significant social unrest and the possibility of a revolution.
You're getting a return on your money, it's in the increased stability of the society around you that makes continued economic development possible. A part of India's current development problems are rooted in the growing disparities between the new wealthy and those in grinding poverty.
Because you live in a society, not a deserted island, so you can't always have your way.
On the other hand, by providing a basic living to the poor, you keep them from getting desperate enough to decide that they have nothing to lose since they're going to die of hunger anyway and can thus as well kill you and loot your corpse for spare change.
Social welfare keeps financial inequality from destroying the society. Humans are beasts, and starving beasts are dangerous. It's much more practical and cheaper too to simply feed them rather than trying to control them by force of arms.
Besides, all the rights you have are ultimately based on your perceived value as a human being. A society which doesn't value humans is unlikely to respect their rights either, and a society which lets its members starve to death obviously doesn't value them much. So, to answer your question: you have to pay taxes that support the weak because you live in a nice, touchy-feely bleeding-heart near-utopia rather than the hellpits of ancient Rome or modern-day third-world nations. You poor bastard.
Oh, sorry: even the Roman emperors provided bread to the poor, so they wouldn't riot and kill them. I guess modern-day libertarians can't quite live up to Caligula's or Nero's standards of morality and statesmanship skills.
And yes, that last bit was pure flamebait, triggered after reading one too many "My taxes support the poor ! Waaah !" post.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Even if they wanted to, a lot of households NEED two incomes to make ends meet. Even though, in the vast majority of cases, each parent by themselves earns a lot more in real terms than households with a single earner typically did, say, fifty years ago? It would be more accurate to say they need to incomes to keep up with the lifestyle of other people with two incomes.
Ok, I live in england, and I'm pretty sure our house prices are way higher than the states, but here's my two cents...
I'm 22, and I work full time in banking in london. Its a long commute, a long day and often means working late and at weekends. I have a girlfriend and an 18mo boy. She stays at home because a) she hated her job and didn't want to go back after maternity, and b) we decided that having a parent around all day was better than daycare.
These are our lifestyle choices, and I accept that. HOWEVER, because of the number of two income families, if you want to buy a house you need two incomes. I have a pretty well paid job and live in a pretty cheap area, and I'm still forced to rent the scummy flat I live in now. If we were to say... double my salary, we could afford to BUY a small nice house. The Problem is that because the MAJORITY of families are dual income, people can afford to buy nicer houses, until it gets to a point where you NEED two incomes to buy ANY house.
The "sexual revolution" has been the best thing for the economy and "growth" since the industrial revolution. I'm happy with the choices our family have made, but we are very poor, financially because of it. The trade off is a happy healthy son and home life. I'd rather my son had a parent all day than we had a nicer house that none of us ever saw because of work/daycare.
Having company sponsored childcare doesn't mean other employees are getting paid less, is just means the stockholders are not seeing as big of a profit as they could have. If Google really had to pay less because of childcare then they wouldn't be able to get anyone good, especially the childless - they'd all go to higher paying companies, wouldn't they?
For employees without children it certainly does mean they get paid less unless the company puts that added compensation/benefit it costs them for providing that care for people with children directly onto their salary in cold hard cash.
so, if I don't wear glasses, no one should have eye care?
If I don't have any health problems, no one should get a medical plan?
If my parents are rich, no one should get social security?
Christ, do you people have any concept of what "society" actually is? Maybe we should all go back to living in caves, and the person with the best spear aim gets all the meat, and everyone else starves. And yes, in most companies I've worked in, you get a certain amount of benefit dollars, to use as you see fit, and if you don't use them all, you get a credit on your pay. But it still doesn't subsidize the entire cost.
The whole point of shared benefits, or car insurance for that matter, is that you average out the cost for some peoples care amongst the whole pool, resulting in lower average costs for everyone. The "value added" is that these people don't go bankrupt, default on their mortgages, clog up emergency rooms for minor illnesses, become criminals and rob others to support themselves, or otherwise become a burden on society. (and by "burden" I mean "cost". You're either going to pay up front to help them, or pay at the end to deal with them.)
That's a concept you either believe in, or you don't. If you don't, then go ahead and opt out. If you ever find yourself or your children with cancer or a serious illness, well you can just take a couple aspirin and go to bed until you feel better.
What's that? You don't have any paid sick days? Aww, that's too bad. Maybe we should have forced euthanasia for people who can't take care of themselves? Fuck 'em if they can't make it on their own.