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Microsoft Interns Still Feel the Love
theodp writes "Despite layoffs and a blip in earnings, the Chicago Trib reports that Microsoft's summer interns still enjoy the VIP treatment. Although there were 20% fewer of them this year than last, still 85% of the interns are offered full-time jobs. In addition to being paid $4,600-$6,000 a month, a housing stipend, and relocation costs for the summer, the 600 or so Microsoft apprentices enjoyed other perks — such as a police escort to speed their way to a private museum party where they screened the most recent Harry Potter movie and were given a free Xbox 360. 'You feel like royalty to be escorted by police,' said Joriz De Guzman, an intern working toward his MBA at Wharton. BTW, before he got mixed up with those MBA-types, De Guzman earned some fame as the Doogie Howser of computer science."
Before I get too angry, I should make sure I'm clear on something. Does this mean Microsoft paid money for people to get preferred treatment on the roads?
'You feel like a royal asshole to be escorted by police,' said Joriz De Guzman
There, fixed that for you.
The escort was so they couldn't escape (possibly to watch a good movie).
Perk or punishment? I have a friend with a few scratched up disks that would argue the latter...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Besides meeting with Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, Microsoft interns attend presentations by division presidents. "It's not your average make-coffee-and-copies-for-us internship," said Ederlyn Lacson, a linguistics major from the University of Maryland at College Park. "People are working on products that have or will ship.
OK, the part about meeting Ballmer - that' s just too easy - interns ... chairs ...yep.
Interns working on products that are going to ship. Yeah. Ooooookay, mmmmmmm.....mm..mm..mm..mm. Yeah, this one is too easy too, I'm gonna let that go. I do have my standards.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
I think most of the interns are CS majors; they're actually pretty common among computer science students, probably 2nd only to the giant flood of Google interns.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
In this tough economic time, with unemployment approaching 10% (in the U.S.), let me be the first to say FUCK YOU! Seriously, guys, what the hell is the matter with you? You honestly want to brag about what you're making as an intern and that you have damn good odds of getting hired? Assholes.
When I interned, I worked for free and I was working on projects myself.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
I'd still love to know the secret [of how to get an MS internship].
Big lips and a slack jaw.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
In a world where many people have never made a phone call, where children still get polio or die from malaria, where there are some people who make less than $30 USD in a year, let me be the first to say FUCK YOU! Seriously, Libertarian001, what the hell is the matter with you? You honestly think that showing off by using the luxury of an internet connection and personal computer to bitch about other people's fortune is a good idea? Asshole.
Perspective, it's what's for dinner.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Nah, you just sound like a douchebag.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Look at what they do for professional sports stadiums every weekend. Heck, look downstream from there,at how much public property tax money is used across the nation to brainwash little kids and get them addicted and operate those same pro sports farm teams in the public school system (which is all they are, subsidized farm teams).
If you got the cash and "the juice", what is public can become private *real quick*.
Butthurt much?
Hate Microsoft all you want, but they're giving people high paying jobs during a tough economy. That's more than Comrade Obama's been able to do with his trillion dollar "stimulus" plan.
If you don't like it, feel free to stop buying Microsoft and STFU.
Mod parent up.
Functional programming... for real men!
It is quite distasteful that one of the richest company on earth is using free labor.
$4500-$6000 a month is a LOT of coin for pretty much most of the country not containing coastline.
Truthfully, this is real news to me, I never heard of interns making that kind of money. In this economy - and yes, I'm talking about the US - it just seems... absurd.
Big lips and a slack jaw.
Whatever you thing of Microsoft or the effectiveness their intern program I'm certain these potential employees are not only overachievers, but are probably photogenic as well. I don't see any comfort in deluding yourself otherwise.
Your description would probably come in handy for a hooker though.
I was one of Microsoft's interns some time ago and I can tell you that it was nothing like they described in the article. I was actually very poorly treated (and my boss was a big jerk). Amongst other things (mostly Denmark related, and not directly Microsoft), my boss was one of the reasons I didn't want to stay there and why I made sure I wouldn't.
But, it was in Denmark (Microsoft Development Center Copenhagen), so it seems to be something localized.
Onda Technology Institute
I'm sure Microsoft has evidence that the money they're investing in the various internship programs nets them something tangible in the long term - otherwise they wouldn't do it. I've known a couple people who've been MS interns, and they were both pretty happy with the program. I'm not sure why people here are giving MS such grief over this (yes, I'm new here, thank you for asking) - this is pretty standard stuff for most large tech companies.
But I must admit I still smile whenever I walk into the Paul Allen Center - home of the University of Washington's CSE department - and see the disproportionate number of students using Mac laptops there in the main atrium. Looks like the Beatles were right on that score...
#DeleteChrome
This makes me curious. What does it cost to rent out the local cops to provide entertainment for your party? Do they let you play with the siren? Can the motorcade break the speed limit? How about the local ambulance corps, can they juggle plasma bags? Can I get a guarantee that they won't get called away to deal with some boring disturbance on the wrong side of the tracks before the song and dance number is complete? Do they bring their own hookers, or is prostituting themselves enough?
How is this legal? (oh, now I get it)
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
The Microsoft Way has never wavered.
You have to be able to throw yourself into the job completely and without reservation, even if that means self-destructive self-denial.
You also have to have talent.
Few people fit both prerequisites.
Those that do are heavily recruited by MS.
Whether you view MS as brilliant innovators, or as cutthroat criminals, they beat the competition every time, so their model does work.
That's $6K a month, not for the entire summer.
looks like microsoft has a high turnover rate, could be a lot of employees walk off the job later and microsoft has to keep fresh faces coming in to replace them...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
'You feel like royalty to be escorted by police,' said Joriz De Guzman, an intern working toward his MBA at Wharton
I don't know about this; when I got busted for drunk driving I had a police escort all the way to the station, but I didn't feel like royalty at all.
Did you *read* the summary? It was $4,600 to $6,000 per month.
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
How very libertarian of you. Next are you going to tell us that since they're among the privileged that the should pay a special tax?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Or if you were, that you really didn't read the article.
Olin said interns make about 80 percent of a starting full-time employee. That comes to about $4,600 to $6,000 a month, based on pay of entry-level software engineers. They also receive a housing stipend and relocation costs for the summer.
or the summary.
paid $4,600-$6,000 a month, a housing stipend, and relocation costs for the summer,
If you did read either one, rather than just pulling junk numbers out of your ass, please tell me you weren't a math major.
Short answer. Microsoft loves BS.
They have backbones to post as something other than AC and they know how to spell "please".
The game.
Can't buy me love
I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend if it makes you feel alright
I'll get you anything my friend if it makes you feel alright
'Cause I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love
I'll give you all I got to give if you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give but what I got I'll give to you
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love
Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so
Can't buy me love, no no no, no
Say you don't need no diamond ring and I'll be satisfied
Tell me that you want the kind of thing that money just can't buy
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
If this were Google, most of you'd be praising them, for being such a great employer.
How about we judge a software company by their software and business ethics, there's plenty of things to dislike Microsoft for in those departments...
+1 Funny Signature
In a world where many people have never made a phone call, where children still get polio or die from malaria, where there are some people who make less than $30 USD in a year, let me be the first to say FUCK YOU! Seriously, Libertarian001, what the hell is the matter with you? You honestly think that showing off by using the luxury of an internet connection and personal computer to bitch about other people's fortune is a good idea? Asshole.
Greetings from the Developing World. On behalf of a couple of billion of my closest confrères, allow me to say: Shut the fuck up.
Using the luxury of an Internet connection to bitch about other people's fortunes - especially the ones they get by profiting from others' misery - is what we all aspire to. In my part of the world, the knowledge that some Ritchie Rich is being inducted into the entitlement regime that is modern-day corporate capitalism with lavish salaries and police escorts to exclusive events.... Well, let's just say it has a remarkably salutary effect.
You see, we recognise this kind of behaviour instantly - about the only time you ever hear a police siren in my town is when some dignitary is getting whisked to or from the airport. So when the convoy of buses goes by on its way to see 'Aripota' (as the Junior Wizard is known here), we know exactly who's in them.
They're the very same young professionals who will be whisked into town to meet with our ministers of education and telecommunications to negotiate wonderful deals ensuring that, for decades to come, there will always be an adequate supply of malarial people without telephones, for whom 'Aripota' is nothing more than a rumour.
Perspective, it's what's for dinner.
Yeah, it sure is. Let me know when you get some.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
It's usually the bigger companies that offer these perks for their interns. That and the high pay they receive are usually the incentives for students to work kind of hard to get a spot in one of these programs...
Hence, it's no surprise that because these companies are bigger, there would be an increased risk of dealing with crappy managers and boring dead-end work. Overall, the people I know that have worked in such companies were usually happy with their expereinces...
I'll post AC
I graduated from a MBA-school that regularly sends people to MSFT. The key to getting an MBA internship at MSFT is two things
1) Go to a college that is recruiting ground for Microsoft. Else it is very difficult to get into Microsoft. Networks matter a lot. MIT, Stanford are your best bets.
2) Convince them that your entire life was spend trying to get into Microsoft and that you dedicate the rest of your working life to Microsoft. They really do care about people who want to get into a fulltime career there and not just an internship. I personally know atleast one investment banker who was tired of finance and got a marketing job at Microsoft by pestering them and taking an unpaid internship.
Looks are certainly not a factor, neither is your ethnicity, nationality etc. Being an overachiever always helps.
Then when you interned, you were a sucker.
"backbones to post as something other than AC"
You haven't noticed the astroturfers and fanbois? Seems obvious to me that one of the first requirements for a good intern at MS is knowing how to sign into dozens of sites anonymously. We should get /. to analyze their logs, to see how many AC's are posting from MS IP addies.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Why would Sam Ramji leave Microsoft just at this moment?.
His options vested?
Bill gates would probably never got a job at MS.
The interviews by Macgregor and Ballmer were strict. And one favorite was questions such the High-low number puzzle.
Bill himself failed this test when asked by a reporter one day.
. Ballmer said(of these types of questions), you could assess the "smartness" of someone. Ref: Hard Drive. Wallace & Erickson. 1992
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
*WOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!*
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Two basic things.
1) Your resume needs to get you an interview. This is easy if you're applying for an internship position at a school which MS actively recruits from. Not many secrets here. Try to engage a college recruiter in person at your school. Show an interest! Tell them about a project you've done outside of class. Tell them about that club you're an exec on (even if it is the nerdy math club or pot-smoking surfer's club!). Make yourself out to be well rounded and keen! That will get you an interview.
2) Interview skills! You need to ace the questions you're given. An interview for an internship is pretty short, less than an hour. Spend the first couple years of your CS degree doing http://topcoder.com/ competitions in your free time, ace your two or three algorithms/data-structures courses, and spend a day or two reviewing those same courses before an interview. Think of it as a programming competition. An internship question won't get into anything beyond those classes with the technical questions. If you have a friend who has ever taken any interview training, get him to run you through all the "so tell me about yourself" warmup questions half-a-dozen times. Learn to reference your past projects and experience while answering questions. Even if you know your shit (broadly speaking), if you're not prepared for the interview, you can only really blame yourself. If you've been focusing for the last year on your honor's thesis, review that 1st/2nd year material until you can teach it. You'll thank me :)
RTFA: "Olin said interns make about 80 percent of a starting full-time employee. That comes to about $4,600 to $6,000 a month, based on pay of entry-level software engineers. They also receive a housing stipend and relocation costs for the summer." That's $14-18k per summer, plus housing costs. Not for the whole shebangabang.
Wouldn't that be a gaggle of Google interns?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
How on earth do you get these internships?
For the top jobs? Nepotism or pedigree. You could be the smartest or most talented guy among your peers, but if you don't know the right person's uncle or haven't dined on the right senior manager's yacht, well... enjoy your 2nd rate job at Joe's local engineering shop.
Ever see a carnival that takes in several city streets and blocks traffic for the duration? It depends on the city, but most cities will, for the right price, allow companies, or even private citizens to purchase the rights to have exclusive control over specific public facilities or resources for a short period of time. It's usually not cost effective to do so, and you're therefore not likely to see a great deal of it. The only example I know of with real numbers would be the First Saturday sale in Dallas, TX. I don't even know if it's still there, but back in the mid 90's when I was a vendor there for a few months, I asked about it. For a few public parking lots and to block one street in Dallas on a Saturday, they paid $5000 for a 24 hour permit.
And yes, you can rent cops.. in uniforms... with cars, for pretty much anything you want.
The real question isn't how they could do such a thing, but why they would even bother. I never thought of a group of interns going to a Harry Potter movie as being an event worthy of a police escort, let alone requiring one.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
That is genius! Only, don't they have their own botnet with proprietary AI to do that for them?
The game.
There's any number of variations of this one:
A Microsoft Windows programmer died and soon after found himself in front of a committee that decides whether you go to Heaven or Hell.
The committee told the programmer he had some say in the matter and asked him if he wanted to see Heaven and Hell before stating his preference.
"Sure," he said, so an angel took him to a place with a sunny beach, volleyball, and rock and roll, where everyone was having a great time.
"Wow!" he exclaimed. "Heaven is great!"
"Wrong," said the angel. "That was Hell. Want to see Heaven?"
"Sure!" So the angel took him to another place. Here a bunch of people were sitting in a park playing bingo and feeding dead pigeons.
"This is Heaven?" asked the Windows programmer.
"Yup," said the angel.
"Then I'll take Hell." Instantly he found himself plunged up to his neck in red-hot lava, with the hosts of the damned in torment around him. "Where's the beach? The music? The volleyball?" he screamed frantically to the angel.
"That was the demo," she replied as she vanished.
Good money, plenty of perks... this is not the Apple way.
A few years ago the company was on the brink of disaster and made huge salary cuts. Now they are making sh*tloads of money, thanks to the iPod and iPhone, but the salaries are still low. Last year, Techcrunch published data pulled from Glassdoor.com, showing that Apple engineers are paid 15-20% less than their counterparts at Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
Some food for thought: who made more money at Microsoft? Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates? and who made more money at Apple? Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak? Engineers always have been a commodities for Apple.
lucm, indeed.
When I was an intern at a local dev shop, I had 2 main projects on which I was the sole developer.. Cracking and extracting data from a bizarre proprietary compression scheme, and writing a PCL5 emulator/converter... I only got $10/hour doing it, but it was a lot more interesting/educational than anything I've done since I graduated and started making 5x times that much.
Actually, Warren Buffet's $30B donation is nearly 3x that of Bill Gates.
I'm calling it again, Microsoft' press team is playing out a carefully orchestrated agenda to beat open source software.
WTF does that even MEAN? How exactly would one go about "beating" open-source software? Barring legal idiocy like making non-MS code illegal, people will always be writing open-source code. The fact that a multibillion dollar company even feels a need to "fight" a bunch of loosely organized hobbyists says more about the hazards facing the company than anything else.
Who said anything about making open-source software illegal? What the GP is referring to is called marketing, and it's everywhere. It has little to do with fighting a bunch of loosely organized hobbyists to get installed on an individual user's machine, and more to do with competing against Red Hat, Novell, or Sun for the business of large corporations who need much more than just thousands of Windows and Office licenses.
Your post seemed pretty hostile towards the GP's observation. I wonder why... Too bad you posted as an anonymous coward.
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
For those who missed the dot-com boom, read this: "In the outer lobby and decadent smoking lounge, the top sales guys from VA Linux flashed their nametags in an effort to secure some immediate female profit taking from one of the most impressive IPOs of recent weeks. Elsewhere the women of Snowball danced with wild abandon and Dexter from Scent.com tried to sell me a unit that would include smell in my daily internet experience. As I quietly exited the scene, I caught view of a woman in a long dress being pulled off of the dancing cage for the second time..."
(SF Girl wasn't making that stuff up. It was real. I went to some of those parties.)
A free trip to the latest Harry Potter movie (which isn't even very good compared to its predecessors) is lame in comparison.
Then again, Microsoft is profitable.
I have never worked for MS. I don't want to work for MS. I have never even seen you on slashdot. I hope you die in a fire.
Comparing Microsoft to Taco Bell is funny, you would not work for Taco Bell even if they were to pay you a bit more, or would you?
Wouldn't that be a gaggle of Google interns?
He he. Your Google gaggle made me giggle.
In general good advice (except for the pot club thing), but for a company like Microsoft (or Google, or to a lesser extent Amazon, and probably others of similar size) the initial interview is barely a foot in the door. It's usually under an hour long, conducted on your campus or over the phone, and pretty general - you're talking with recruiter types, not with the people who you would actually work with.
*IF* you do well in that inital interview, you get a second one on site with the business. Many of the larger companies will fly potential interns out to their location for this second interview. The second-round interview itself it pretty grueling - 4 hours (it varies by company; I've seen as short as 2 or as long as 6.5) of constantly being grilled by people who want to test not only your knowledge and experience, but also your intelligence and approach to problem-solving. The people you'll talk to are engineers, usually the ones who you may end up working with directly. The interview may take place long before the job begins (for example, interviewing during the fall for an internship that wont start until the next summer).
If you get the offer, and accept it, they'll fly you out again when the summer starts. Some companies (including Microsoft) also reserve and subsidize housing and transportation for their interns, who come not only from around the country but even from overseas.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I interned for Microsoft in 2008 and for Google last summer.
At Microsoft, we got a police escort to the zoo. But, to be honest, while the story casts it as a VIP thing, it's actually set up to minimize traffic disruption.
Microsoft has 800+ interns in the Redmond area, which means about 20 buses if they need to go anywhere at once. Attempting to push 20 buses through already congested streets is a nightmare. Better to shut down the roads for a couple of minutes than risk an accident or clog up the streets.
The housing benefit isn't exactly a steal. You can share an apartment (with another MS intern) for about $600/mo, or they will give you $3000 to find housing on your own. I chose the latter.
Relocation costs are effectively plane fare plus a couple of days of car rental, or mileage if you drive.
I was offered a full-time job, but I turned it down because I was more interested in graduate school. The full time job is contingent on working for the same group that you interned with. I must admit that the package they offer is pretty tempting.
Google paid me considerably more than Microsoft. I worked in my home city (Boulder CO), so I didn't need relocation or housing. I did get to spend a week in Mountain View (paid for by Google) for orientation and training.
Google didn't have any major events in Boulder, but I'm not sure about Mountain View.
Google's interview process was considerably easier than Microsoft's, but that's because at Microsoft interns go through the full interview process (for me, two phone interviews plus 4 interviews onsite at Microsoft). Google does not offer interns full-time jobs unless they go through a conversion process that includes the full interview track.
Both Microsoft and Google had me doing real work that went into actual products. My code was reviewed, just like a normal employee. I went to meetings, had performance evaluations, and worked an 8-9 hour day, just like a normal employee.
By the way, if anyone wants to know about the interview process:
- Neither company asks 'brain-teaser' questions anymore. It's straight-up CS fundamentals, algorithms, and data structures.
- I was interviewed by actual developers from the teams that I ended up working for. These people know their shit and will see through BS.
There's no magic trick or great mystery here. Either you know your shit and can get hired, or you don't and it will be apparent.
Why the fuck mod me down as a troll? Interns the world over tend to be treated like second-class citizens; I say again, this doesn't make any sense..
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
OK i get that this post has an incorrect assumption that is clarified by trepity, but how the fuck is this trolling? Its a genuine question, and tbh i would be pretty angry if it were true. or to put it another way, learn to mod fscking noobs!
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
This is especially true because Microsoft isn't the only company looking for people like this. In today's job market, Google, Amazon, and a few others (IBM prbably qualifies) all compete for those same individuals. When those individuals are students, the competition is a matter of their intern programs - each company tries to make a better offer in terms of salary, benefits, perks, and interesting work. I've received offers from other companies for internships with the same pay as Microsoft offers its interns, but MS really goes out of their way to make the Intern program *fun* as well. The reason is simple - they want to be absolutely sure that if they extend an offer to a former intern, that former interns takes it and comes back full-time.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
No offense, but as an MS intern from this past summer (who doesn't have a slashdot account), I disagree a bit with what you said.
MS does most of their recruiting from a few universities: Harvard, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, UT Austin, UW, etc. I attend one of these schools.
The MS interview process is fairly extensive, with several different weeding stages:
1) Resume. They'll take a quick glance at your GPA and decide if they want to interview you. There isn't much else they can look at since they get flooded with applications.
2) On campus interview. You'll spend 30 minutes talking to an engineer from MS.
3) Redmond Interview. You fly to Redmond to interview with potential teams. You'll have anywhere from 3 to 4 1-hour interviews in a single day. The questions can be varied, but expect to have to know more than data structures and be prepared to use some theory. They won't ask what the runtime of quicksort is.
Assuming you get through 1-3, accept the internship, then you'll essentially have a summer-long interview at the end of which they'll either offer you a full time job or another internship if you do a good job.
General Tips when Interviewing:
-Dress casually. I gave a presentation to several high-ups this summer wearing t-shirt and shorts. I was not underdressed.
-Think out loud. They're more interested in your thought process and approach to problems than they are in your solutions, much like showing your work on school work.
-Have fun with it. If you're at ease and relaxed, you'll do better.
Your ZiL on the way to the 'party' to watch western movie and get gifts.
The streets cleared for the bright Komsomol kids.
Then back to learning how to embrace extend and extinguish the world.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
http://www.physorg.com/news170614813.html
As for the Pacific Science Center shindig, he said, "It's actually a fairly low-budget effort because of our relationships with the studios and that kind of thing." He said the police escort "is a nice story for the students. The truth of the matter is we just try to cooperate with the police when we're trying to move a dozen buses across town at rush hour."
(A State Patrol spokesman said police escorts are contracted privately and paid for by the person or company that hires them.)
Apparently, it is perfectly legal.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If the parent douchebag would have read what the person hes aiming this at was talking to, he would have realized it was sarcasm to point out the others idiocy... talk about woosh...
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
In this tough economic time, with unemployment approaching 10% (in the U.S.), let me be the first to say FUCK YOU!
In a world where many people have never made a phone call [...] let me be the first to say FUCK YOU!
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know." -- Mark Twain
If the rest of the world wasn't so disorganized perhaps they could generate their own wealth. It is not Microsoft's fault, nor Libertarian001's fault... or either of their concerns. "Hey let's all cut back our salaries and send what's saved to idiots halfway across the world". Perfect business model. I see the university system worked very well on you, Mr. Sand Tiger.
There are over 36 million lines of COBOL code in the world, and they are all raping children.
Touch mah fro!
There are over 36 million lines of COBOL code in the world, and they are all raping children.
How on earth do you get these internships?
They have people hiding outside Google on interview days trying to grab the ones who failed their interviews :
(voice from behind lampost)
"psst, hey kid, want a free xbox ?"
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
You think jealousy and rage that others are better off than you constitutes perspective?
It doesn't.
Amnesty International
If the rest of the world wasn't so disorganized perhaps they could generate their own wealth. It is not Microsoft's fault, nor Libertarian001's fault... or either of their concerns.
Maybe I misunderstood him, but I took his post to be illustrating exactly that point. I think his last line "Perspective, it's what's for dinner" seems to indicate that.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
The best things in life are free
But you can keep them for the birds and bees
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
You're lovin' gives me a thrill
But you're lovin' don't pay my bills
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
Money don't get everything it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want, wah
Money don't get everything it's true
What it don't get, I can't use
Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah
That's what I want
Well now give me money
Ow, money
Wow, yeah, I wanna be free
Oh I want money
That's what I want
That's what I want, well
Now give me money
ow, money
Wow, yeah, you need money
now, give me money
That's what I want, yeah
that's what I want, yeah
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Don't forget the other benefits, too. We get a free bike, or subsidized long-term car rental (the rental runs something like $385/month, which when you consider that most of the interns are 20 or 21, is a damn good deal). We get subsidized housing (it's still more expensive than the average dorm, but they provide furniture, all utilities including Internet, and it's mostly walking distance to MS campus - places like that usually run well over $1000/month even for 1 person) or a debit card with $2500 (ostensibly for housing, but you can spend it or withdraw it as you please, and the card lasts a year). There's also free membership to one of two local gyms, plus all the events they set up for us (free Baseball tickets, for example).
Adding it all up, and ignoring relocation (which they provide for free), pre-tax I got about $17,500 for three months of both working hard and playing hard. After taxes (low, since my annual income is actually quite low and there are tax breaks for being a student) and living expenses for the summer, that's maybe $14,000 which is just about the right amount to get me through my last year of university, barring any major unforseen expenses. I don't deny that it sounds like a lot of money for an intern to make, but to a guy paying his own way through college, it's barely enough, maybe, to avoid taking out a loan this year.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
It's easy to giggle at a "gaggle of Google goons" with goggles provided by your packs of Pabst and Pilsner you drank while posting.
You think jealousy and rage that others are better off than you constitutes perspective? It doesn't.
Who said anything about jealousy? I'm talking about being able to see where all those license fees are going. Rage, yes, because that money could be used for other, more useful things.
And 'better off' is a highly subjective metric, by the way. In many countries in the world, it's not merely a synonym for 'rich'. I meet more happy people here in a day that I used to meet in a year in North America.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I would feel the love too. Free Xbox, I'd sell mine. But with Microsoft, the free Xbox probably comes in a blank cardboard box, even then I'd eBay sell it.
In addition to being paid $4,600-$6,000 a month, a housing stipend, and relocation costs for the summer, the 600 or so Microsoft apprentices enjoyed other perks â" such as a police escort to speed their way to a private museum party where they screened the most recent Harry Potter movie and were given a free Xbox 360. I mean really? being paid $4,600-$6,000 a month I'd be fucking happy too. Pay me that as an intern and basically treat me like a CEO/COO/VP/PRESIDENT, ridiculous shit my friends.
Sure, so they've converted 500 interns into programmers.
In the same timeframe, how many programmers have they hired in their overseas operations?
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Because Microsoft relies very heavily on finding and keeping good people. Finding a highly-qualified college kid and having him intern for the summer is expensive, why throw that all away by treating him badly and making him not want to come back?
MBA interns are likely program managers - these are the people in Microsoft who go and talk to the client, figure out requirements, and write them up for the developers. It's not really a technical job, although these people do have to at least ave a concept of what is possible within the system. I would also remind you that Microsoft has a business division.
I'm a Microsoft intern in the UK, and unfortunately we don't get any of this royalty treatment. Free coke though, which again didn't turn out to be anywhere near as exciting as we expected!
Grand Theft Wiki
I believe it would be a googol of Google interns.
$4500-$6000 a month is a LOT of coin for pretty much most of the country not containing coastline.
Truthfully, this is real news to me, I never heard of interns making that kind of money. In this economy - and yes, I'm talking about the US - it just seems... absurd.
The Google query (( CHAKALES WHITFIELD CNN SEP 12 )) gets you to the transcript of a CNN video which at this very moment is about 1/5 from the top of their scrollbar-of-videos. With her 3.0 GPA, along with many others she plans to save tons of money by accepting the full in-state-scholarship AS LONG AS she maintains the 3.0 GPA. Game-theory-wise just a little ways down the road the state would be able to save tons of money just by say reforming to cure the (predicted) grade-inflation-crisis. CNN will probably follow her pretty face into the future, we'll see....
Bill Gates holds the world record for the largest donation to charity in the history of earth.
1) That seems to be false, buffet gave more - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5115920.stm
2) So what? If I robbed a load of people and donated that money to charity it would not make me a good person in the eyes of most people.
more importantly, how many programmers have they *fired* recently, and then recruited these not-so-cheap interns to replace them?
The photogenic ones came from istockphoto, and no, they're not real employees.
The whole point is to prevent OTHERS from innovating. Microsoft Research is more or less a place where they store scientists, so those scientists won't work for someone else. Pampering MBA interns is in line with this policy, too -- it propagates a proper attitude for a company that fights for domination against good ideas and innovation.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
>It is mostly a matter of going to a school Microsoft recruits from.
Isn't this exactly what the OP said about "pedigree"?
You know what pedigree means, right? It means origin or ancestry.
$6000 a month is peanuts for top 1% of the talent. These people are much much more valuable to have as your employees and unfortunately these kids rarely know how much they are really worth.
Most of the "middle career" guys who are thinking "that's a lot of money to give to an intern", or "more than what I make" should also know they will never be as good as these elite kids are out of school. Some of these guys will go on and make new languages and next gen optimizing compilers and tools, and OSes that "middle career" guys will spend years struggling to learn and program in.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Before I get too angry, I should make sure I'm clear on something. Does this mean Microsoft paid money for people to get preferred treatment on the roads?
It means they paid for the roads, (sic) the escort service, and the local economy/society/American dream. This is what happens when people automatically respect money more than people, society or community. Social status is automatically elevated when cash or celebrity or public ceremony is conspicuously consumed. Then, all participants presume arch-typical role of importance. Those playing cops on the beat turn into motorcades on overtime pay. Browning their noses for the local royalty, and fantasizing their future lottery jackpot. Every one is a slut, deep down inside their shallow, empty wallets. Its so easy in "free" markets, since everything can be bought, including talent, or perhaps one's eternal soul.
Wouldn't that be a gaggle of Google interns?
er.....that's more like oodles of googles.
Do they also teach you to suck blood?
Sometimes the experienced gained is well worth it. Of course, that's an individual call...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
That *is* a lot of money to give to an intern, and some of us have had more fun during our careers than some of those interns will ever see.
Writing languages and compiler optimizers isn't that hard. Try writing software to US Government specs. :-)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Fuck you, asshole. If my experience in life isn't the same as somebody else's and I make a comment or ask a question based on that, it doesn't make me a troll. It might make me less informed or uninformed, but it doens't make me a troll. YOU are a troll, on the other hand. Go back to 4chan where you belong, along with all the other 8th-grade anons.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!