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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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