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Google Tries Not To Be a Black Hole of Brilliance
theodp writes "Google says it's declined to pursue awesome job prospects to avoid an over-concentration of brilliance at the search giant. Speaking at the Supernova conference, Google VP Bradley Horowitz said the company intentionally leaves some brainpower outside its walls: 'I recently had a discussion with an engineer at Google and I pointed out a handful of people that I thought were fruitful in the industry and I proposed that we should hire these people,' said Horowitz. 'But [the engineer] stopped me and said: "These people are actually important to have outside of Google. They're very Google people that have the right philosophies around these things, and it's important that we not hire these guys. It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry, as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google."'"
Google won't even talk to me. Have an ordinary day you undermensch!
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Obligatory Google is awesome thread of the week....
That's the same reason Walmart gave me for turning me away.
Sounds like someone's upset that they didn't get hired by Google... made up a story about being "too Google for Google". Now they can feel like a secret agent for Google while they work tech support for Dell.
It sounds like by "not pursuing" top talent, Google is actively letting the top talent go wherever they want. I think if these guys applied for jobs at Google, they'd get hired.
It comes down to economics. If you say "We've got to hire John Doe" then the price you're willing to pay for John Doe to join your staff goes way up. Whereas if John Doe applies and gets hired to traditional way... he's more inclined to expect a normal market driven salary.
For reinforcing how confident he is in his company and its talent that they don't have to horde every last engineer? Yeah, sucks to have that in a VP. It would be so much better to have a VP afraid to say anything, who has no confidence in his own workforce, and who thinks that if he doesn't have every last talented engineer it means ZOMG DOOM!
The reason so many people have issues with Google isn't because they do things differently, it's because they do things differently and are more successful than those doing it the old way.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Programmers rejected by Google can now tell their friends: "I didn't get the job. I must be too good for them."
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
..but he's got a point. It really is better if a lot of these brilliant people go to work for other companies or, better yet, form their own.
Think of it this way: Would you want EA/Microsoft/Nintendo/whatever to have all of the best gaming talent?
Obligatory Google is awesome thread of the week....
Google has become so awesome that even the best and brightest aren't good enough to work there. The Google campus is vacant and empty, everyone gone home after being let go for failing to be awesome enough. And yet, money magically keeps rolling in ... to whom though? Nobody.
... burning in binary these words, "I scanned everyone's DNA in this room and decided it was not worth my time as only 0.1483 of you are worthy of working for Google."
This was apparent in the latest recruitment meeting at my alma mater where a Google server was given 30 minutes to recruit an auditorium full of computer science majors. Well, the Microsoft, HP, Oracle, etc reps gave long speeches and only gave the Google server five minutes to give its speech. It rolled down one end of the stage and leaned over the crowd, silent. It rolled down the other end of the stage and leaned over the crowd, silent. It spent the next few minutes in a monolithic standstill while the whole room waited on bated breath, edge of their seats, dying to know what awesome numbers were being computed and crunched inside the career giver.
The server turned around and shot a laser out at the curtain behind it
Let me tell you, I have never seen a recruitment booth so full of applicants.
My work here is dung.
Maybe the uber-geek just didn't want the competition within his own group. Even geeks can be territorial.
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
I am so impressed with Google's approach on this that I am immediately adopting it. From now on, anything personally advantageous that I don't do, well obviously, that was for the good of the geecosystem.
Pardon me now, I have to go read some Ayn Rand.
People have accused Microsoft of stifling innovation by snapping up so many freshly minted PhD's for Microsoft Research. They get a lot of hate, some of which can be found on this Slashdot article.
Google is wary of the these issues, as they are in the same position.
So we have evidence of them recognizing this, and choosing to do the "not evil" thing, and yet, for all their consideration for the health of the industry, a bunch of envious whiners use it to accuse them of arrogance.
Can only imagine the job interview you hoped for so long at Google:
... we won't. You are simply too brilliant, and hiring you would mean hundreds of small companies could not reap the benefits of having you as an employee ! That's why we want you to go out there and help those other companies with your genius ! Yes, this is the best decision we ever made at Google: not hiring brilliant people because they would do so much better at other companies!
So erm, what do you think of me. I scored all the tests perfectly, I really would like to know if I am hired (so I can end my 2 year period of unemployment)
(Google interviewer)Well, erm.., see we think Google needs the best of the best. And you are certainly just that. We want to hire you, because of your pure brilliance. We think you really fit the company and would offer you a contract right away. Except,
So erm... this is a good thing - you not hiring me ? Wow thanks !...goes home...
Hi honey, how did the job interview go ? Hope you were finally hired, we are shit out of cash !
Oh, I got some really good news!
(Yes ! He got the job, finally I can buy shit again !)
I wasn't hired ! Isn't that great ? I can go on and be unemployed so other companies can hire my brilliant mind ! That's what the Google interviewers said to me, isn't that great ?
Err... honey... why are you packing your suitcase and leaving me ? Don't you love this great news ? Honey.... ?
Suffice to say, brilliant minds can also flourish at the basements of their parents...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Seriously, Google SHOULD consider the idea of funding a number of these folks in small start-ups to force competition. Basically, HONEST competition is GREAT for the industry and for Google. The problem comes in when you have a monopoly that uses their weight and money to buy out established competitors and try hard to create a small oligolopoly, or an illegal monopoly (typically tied to a set of closed products like an OS and a office suite).
In fact, if GM REALLY wanted to excel, they would break themselves up, and have the divisions compete. The problem with the situation for GM, Chrysler and Ford was that it was too few CEO's and worse, they were incestuous (had to come up through the industry). Heck, rather than sell volvo, saturn, and hummer to China, they would be better off rolling them into one company, giving them a CEO from outside of the industry, and then allowing them to compete against others, esp GM itself. It will mean that the company would have to shrink, but, within 4 years they would be ready for IPO, or would be bankrupt.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Google doesn't need that many more smart technical people. What they could use some people who could figure out something other than ads that people would actually pay for. Their track record in actual products is awful. The overpriced "Google Search Appliance" isn't doing well. They do corporate hosted mailboxes, but that's Postini, which they bought.
Google is really an ad agency. That's where the money comes from.
That is the public version...
The real reason. Such people are too expensive and we don't want to pay his salary. Better off with people with less skills who can be trained then get the best at a high cost who will only have a disproportional benefit vs cost to the company.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
So you'd fire someone for expressing an opinion with which you disagree? You use -1, Overrated a lot, don't you?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Stately, plump eldavojohn came down from the stairhead to his mom's basement, bearing a bowl of frito lays on which a slim jim and a twizzler lay crossed. A yellowed mooninites shirt, unwashed, was sustained gently behind him on the mild air duct gust. He sat down at his computer monitor and read the Slashdot response to his post:
...
—Good post.
Halted, he peered down the glowing LCD monitor and read further:
—Is this a parody of some text that I don't recognize?
Solemnly he leaned forward and set his fingers to the keyboard
My work here is dung.
Reminds of the experiement in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where they put a whole bunch of Alphas together and it was a disaster. I guess every organization needs some betas and epsilons.
At first I thought this sounded like the very definition of hubris on Google's part, but then I read TFA. Nobody really said anything about leaving the rest of the industry starved for talent. All they said is that a particular group of engineers were more useful to Google where they were than they would be if brought in. It's actually not an uncommon situation, as having talented and like-minded people at other companies can be great for forming partnerships and communities. If everybody working on XYZ was at Google, two problems could occur: groupthink inside, and antipathy outside. A more Machiavellian engineer might even have suggested sending current Google employees to evangelize and facilitate partnerships elsewhere. Recognizing that a like-minded person elsewhere can be more valuable than a hire seems rather insightful to me.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
I pointed out a handful of people that.. we should hire,' said Horowitz. 'The engineer stopped me and said: "These people are important to have outside of Google. They're very Google people that have the right philosophies around these things, and it's important that we not hire these guys. It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry, as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google."'"
The last time I read dialog this moralistic and improbable was in a Watchtower tract from the Seventh Day Adventists.
One thing to consider is that by leaving talent at software companies, the software where their products are used is improved, thus still allowing them to improve their users' experiences with Google. This philosophy of leaving talent at other technology companies is essentially a recognition by Google that they're in a symbiotic relationship with other tech companies (namely, OS creators, browser creators, programming language creators and maintainers, hardware creators....), and they're reacting accordingly by not leeching from the companies that allow them to succeed. It really doesn't matter whether Microsoft likes the fact that Google beats them at the internet advertising game, Google enhances Microsoft users' experiences too.
Another angle to look at this whole thing from is that Google doesn't want to take all the talent from other web advertising companies (Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.) because they don't want to kill off every one of their competitors. In the case of these companies, it's a defense mechanism against being caught in antitrust lawsuits and monopoly status
It's actually remarkably smart for Google to point this out, because if their supporters (the non-web companies) realize the nature of the relationship between themselves and Google, things will just become sweeter between them, and make it much easier for them both to succeed since they won't be fighting each other over resources that they help each other acquire.
I've had low, very low, traffic websites were I never got up to the $100 threshold for Google to send me money for ads that were clicked on - so I was never paid, the merchants, of course were charged for the ads, so that means Google had a 100% gross profit on those ads that were on my site. Now, I wonder how many sites were like mine?
Rejected by Google.
.... ... }
int main (void) {
There are lots of smart people who aren't interested in what Google is currently doing. The pay, benefits etc might be great, but for most people it's not necessarily how they want to spend their days. It can be a lot more fun being on the ground floor of a dynamic startup doing stuff you believe in with a small group of smart people than being a cog in a giant wheel. Even if it is a pretty special wheel with a much larger degree of autonomy.
I do believe overall google to date has been a driving force for useful, usually practical innovation - especially in the datacenter sphere. So while I'm not a fan boy, I think it's the best search engine to date, and google maps is quite useful. Their real struggle is to stay ahead of said startup (or hope they can buy them, which has its own difficulties).
Google cannot make money from within itself. They rely on having an outside world that people will search for and purchase products from, and if there were no brilliant people working for the world outside of Google, then Google would not have its current market, and certainly not its dominance in the search market. Google is not going to win by doing all the innovation on the web; Google wins when someone is looking for an innovative website, searches Google for it, and clicks on a sponsored research (which is hopefully what they were really looking for).
Palm trees and 8
These people are actually important to have outside of Google. They're very Google people that have the right philosophies around these things, and it's important that we not hire these guys. It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry, as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google.
"We are finding them too difficult to control" is how I read this. I suspect they are basically saying Google doesn't want too many ultra smart individuals that care way too much about Google, because they reach a critical mass that becomes difficult for upper managment (with it's lesser prerequisite of brilliance) to control. Lets face it, stupid staff are obedient, and if not easy to fire. Simple but in this case having far more brains-on-a-stick at far too higher density is a liability. I've often said managers are uncomfortable hiring people significantly smarter than they are, but a whole seething hive of the industries top brains probably makes them wake up in the night and scream.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Hey! Who gave the English major a Slashdot account? We already have grammar nazis. We already have people making car analogies. We already have legions of frist psots, in soviet russias, and overlord welcoming posters willing to fix that for ya. We don't need literati here, filling the threads with... entertaining prose.
Hmmm...
Welcome to Slashdot, Friend!
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
There's another company that has consistently been "nice" to the industry, refusing to do evil and in general being a stand-up, wonderful bunch of guys: Red Hat. I honestly think that there isn't a more decent company around than Red Hat. They fund a significant percentage of the kernel, driver, and UI development for the entire Linux world. Some of the very best and most productive developers behind the Linux kernel, GCC, and too many other projects to mention are employed at Red Hat!
And to this day, they have yet to throw a single shenanigan around releasing source RPMs. Google's shine is bright, but has a few smudges. Red Hat, on the other hand, is squeaky clean.
PS: No, I don't work for them, I'm just a very satisfied customer!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
So, by way of implication, they are hiring less than brilliant people now? Awesome! Where do I send a resume?
I don't really see that as arrogant. Let's say there's a few engineers in high places that are taking IE in the direction Google prefers (for example: implementing HTML 5 standards). If Google hires those engineers away then it could hurt Google's future. It needs those developers pushing the 500lb gorilla in the room in the direction it wants them to go.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
... I mean, just look at these comments! Genius! Many of them (like this one) are far too brilliant to be sullied with naughty karma points!
[signature]
...who have actually turned down Google's offer for a second interview. After they offered to fly me to Mountain View, I sat down and took a deep look at who I was, what I stood for, and whether my personal philosophies were compatible with Google's worldview. I decided that I could offer more to society through education than I could working for Google.
I don't regret the decision I made. As the years go by (this was about 2000 or so), I grow stronger in my conviction that it was the right choice as I watch Google's tendrils sneak into every aspect of society.
I remember RedHat kind of slipping from their "glory days" as the highest profile Linux distributor out there. Many people were woo'ed away by the "latest and greatest" or "more user-friendly" features in distros like Mandrake or Ubuntu, and certainly, there was a philosophical difference where some people simply supported the Debian package manager format and were anti-RPM, too.
But that doesn't change the fact that RedHat kept plugging right along, employing deserving software developers and turning out a solid, respectable product.
You don't have to amaze people with "incredible new ideas!" all the time to be a "good company". You just need to treat your employees fairly, offer products that do what they advertise, price your products reasonably, and keep up a tradition of supporting them well.
My whole job is cleaning up the disasters of guys who had a whole 24 months of experience and thought that meant they knew what they were doing. Vista was coded by guys who had 24 months of experience.
Paying for experience is cheap when you compare it to paying for a disaster.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
This is just an obfuscated way of saying "We don't want to pay them as much as they're making now, let alone enough to entice them to switch."
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
It could have something to do with the allegations that Google and Apple had an informal, probably illegal agreement not to recruit from each other.
"See, we avoided recruiting from Apple for vague altruistic reasons, not some secret anti-competitive deal."
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.