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Glassdoor: Airbnb dethrones Google as the best tech company to work for in U.S
- alphonse23 11y ago> The Employees’ Choice Awards is based on the input of employees who choose to provide feedback on their job, work environment, and company via an anonymous online company review survey. Glassdoor then uses a “proprietary algorithm” to determine an overall ranking “based on the quantity, quality, and consistency of reviews.” What does that mean? The "algorithm" could be anything, possibly not even an algorithm.
- DullDeveloper 11y agoYeah, sounds kind of random.
- Karunamon 11y agoReleasing it would just be nothing but incentive to game it. Unless you think they're lying?
- Karunamon 11y agoBy the way, HN is open source, save for the anti-spam/anti-voting-ring stuff for the same reason.
- xyzzy_plugh 11y agoIt's strange. There are companies I know that are highly rated and not on that list, though they should be. E.g., Uber is a 4.4 on glassdoor right now, where are they?
- a-dub 11y agoIt means their results are utter and complete bullshit and that their "rankings" shouldn't even be considered as anything close to any kind of credible research. It's so silly, it's sad.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoIt's not supposed to be research. It's like Time's Person of the Year or whatever. It's December.
- vmarsy 11y agoEven assuming a perfect, fair algorithm with perfect input (not like fake reviews you can find on Amazon/Yelp posted by your PR team or your concurrents). The fact venturebeat only shows Tech company makes it a bit better than the original ranking since it's at least comparing Apples to Apples: On the original ranking the fast food chain In-N-Out, or grocery store HEB is a better place to work at than Apple, or Microsoft (not even in the top 50 in that list) But even, a startup and a tech giant shouldn't be on the same list. The ranking can be found here: https://www.glassdoor.com/Best-Places-to-Work-LST_KQ0,19.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Best-Places-to-Work-LST_KQ0,19.htm EDIT: Also presenting best companies to work on 1 dimension is somewhat useless. Glassdoor probably weighted Salary, Flexibility of hours, career opportunities, etc. their own way. A better ranking would let you weight the different options yourself, or at least give you the option of a few presets weights: Best place for 'workaholics', best place for family people, best place for career growth, etc.
- oneJob 11y agoI like you idea for allowing tweaking the ranking to personalize results. Kinda like the equalizer on a stereo. It's obviously subjective whether one enjoys more bass or more treble.
- spaceflunky 11y agoThe problem is that Airbnb has about two thousand employees, all of whom for the most part, are on the cusp of getting a very nice payout from an IPO. So I would say company vigor and enthusiasm is at peak levels. Google on the other hand has like 60,000 employees and IPO'd over a decade ago. It almost goes without saying that, as a large, more mature company it's a lot harder to keep employees happy. So... not really a fair comparison IMO.
- mrdrozdov 11y agoProbably could have made the same argument with Google and other large companies before Google IPO'd?
- npalli 11y agoWell, Google was the No. 1 employer last year.
- rifung 11y agoI'm not sure it's true that a larger, more mature company has a harder time keeping employees happy. I get that pre IPO companies have that advantage, but a company like Google which makes absurd amounts of money also has its advantages, like being able to afford giving their employees high salaries and also better work life balance. I am not sure that Google gives its employees that though, at least not the latter. Plus, a more mature company should have its processes already ironed out and no more growing pains.
- spaceflunky 11y agoThis is a good point, I think the better point to make is that when you have a big company that's been around a while there have been a lot more opportunities for things to go wrong, which leads to unhappy current or former employees, and then bad reviews on sites like glassdoor. A company like Airbnb hasn't gone through like 1/100000 of the pains that Google has gone through. Think of all the products Google has built (some successful and some not), think of all the economic environments Google has had to go through (2000 meltdown, 2008 meltdown), think of all the employees who have worked there (there's 60k now, but google has probable cycled through 5x that amount). Airbnb has made like, one product? Through a relatively small stretch of time, while probably still using most of their original employees. It's an electric time to be at Airbnb no doubt, but I wouldn't trumpeted them as the best place to work just yet.
- kelukelugames 11y agoI worked at a company with ~200 people in HQ. We were often encouraged to vote in "Best place to work" contests.
- dudus 11y agoI don't think it's a problem to encourage people to vote on these contests, but you can't force them to vote and you can't tell how to vote.
- tomtang0514 11y agoThe problem is many startups, especially those trying to "double engineer headcount within this year", encourage new hires to write good reviews during orientations when those employees barely know the working environment at the company.
- ethanbond 11y agoPart of the problem is the encouragement, part of the problem would be people who actually do that. Seriously, this happens?
- justizin 11y agosometimes it is a mandatory part of onboarding, at least internal surveys.
- untog 11y agoAt a small enough company they'd know if you didn't do it...
- kelukelugames 11y agoThere are obviously fake reviews written by HR and managers on Glassdoor. It's comical.
- throughway 11y agoCan attest. Worked with a company that was going through some serious shit in terms of senior employee departures and had a pretty opaque culture. But Glassdoor reviews were filled with 'Silicon Valley Dream' and 'Making it Big' reviews. The handful of reviews that really told the truth were minuscule to affect the ratings.
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- JoshuaJB 11y agoI visited Airbnb's headquarters this past summer, and they are very impressive. For example, their conference rooms are themed off actual listings. So you have the African hut meeting room, the elegant Milan room, and the tiny Japanese stress relief space. On top of that, their hallways tell stories. For example, one describes the origins of their logo in beautiful, exquisite detail. Overall, I have yet to see a more creative workspace.
- randycupertino 11y agoThere was some controversy that they ripped off the designs of many of these rooms without giving the designers credit: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/designer-sues-airbnb-copying-paris-6825939 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/designer-sues-airbnb...
- enraged_camel 11y agoThey are the company's private offices. What type of credit are they expected to give the designers? If I see an interior design online and redesign my living room to match it, do I have to hang a sign that says "special thanks to the designers at myinteriordesigns.com"?
- gohrt 11y agoAirBnB hired a designer who plagiarized designs from AirBnB customers: https://customspaces.com/office/ZewNn5vLy4/airbnb-office-san-francisco/ https://customspaces.com/office/ZewNn5vLy4/airbnb-office-san... I don't know how copyright works for interior design, but if it were a book she wrote, and then someone else rewrote without permission, there'd clearly be room for claiming a violation.
- code4tee 11y agoTheres no such thing as "plagiarized" interior design. Certain elements (like a painting) could be plagiarized or reproductions of photos or wall artwork could be a copyright violation, but the overall design and "look and feel" isn't really afforded any copyright protection. Same with things like recipes. If you can figure out how someone makes their "secret sauce" you are free to produce and sell it at will. Trademarks and such are afforded protection, but the food product itself is not.
- serge2k 11y ago> For some reason, Apple doesn’t do as well in these lists as we would think (it’s down to #25 from #22 last year). Once again, Microsoft didn’t make the list curious why apple would be higher but microsoft doesn't seem to be a surprise.
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- GCA10 11y agoWikipedia tells me that of Apple's 43,000 U.S. employees, 30,000 work in Apple stores. That's probably an above-average retail experience, but it's retail. Customers get angry. Long hours. Pay is what it is. I'd expect that a blend of Apple's HQ talent (very satisfied) and its store employees (hmmn) is the explanation.
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- ojm 11y agoFrom some of the employee comments in the video, you would think that they are solving all of the worlds problems, rather than an accomodation booking site.
- ljk 11y agoahem, don't you mean disrupting accommodation booking site scenes?
- anindyabd 11y agoGlassdoor reviews -- like all reviews posted online -- should be taken with a generous helping of salt. A general reason is that most people post reviews to sites like these to either rant or rave, and the employees who had neither a great nor a bad experience (the majority of employees) have little to no incentive to post thoughtful reviews. Arguably, however, companies that a higher proportion of stellar reviews are clearly doing a better job keeping employees happy, so the overall rating may be worth trusting. But heed this warning: I know of one company that has a policy of posting positive reviews on Glassdoor. And they're clever enough to always populate the "Cons" section (and avoid overly glowing reviews) so that they won't give themselves away. Apparently they were having a hard time recruiting new employees, and one of the reasons was negative reviews on Glassdoor. Because Glassdoor wouldn't take the reviews down, they decided to post fake reviews. After learning about this (through a former recruiter at that company) I have a hard time trusting Glassdoor reviews. Who knows how many other companies do the same thing to attract talent?
- adrianlmm 11y agoEven Facebook is a better place than Google to work now, according to that article.
- rahij 11y agoI'm curious as to why that part is hard to believe.
- arasmussen 11y agoAs an ex-Facebook employee, I don't. :)
- jarjoura 11y agoI'd be curious to know why you left!
- puredemo 11y agoYou don't what?
- littletimmy 11y agoWhy?
- lazzlazzlazz 11y agoWhat do you mean and why did you leave?
- oneJob 11y agoClearly any Facebook employee that wants to jump in here would be welcomed. There seems to be a lot of interest in what might have motivated the above comment.
- krisdol 11y agoWhat do you mean by "don't"? There's nothing to "don't".
- rahij 11y ago
- noname123 11y agoI find these rankings to be really arbitrary. They should really have them split into categories like they have them for types of schools people like to go to (engineering schools, big city schools, hipster schools, ivies, facing-saving schools for ivy rejects etc.), Perfect Places for A Personality People also Like Cults (Amazon, Bridgewater Associates) Places for people who like to Chillax and Still Get Paid (Lucrative BigCo with flex-time, summer hours, no morning standups, WFH) Places for parents (BigCo with generous maternal leaves, daycare or benefits for families) Places for brogrammers (Genius formerly known as RapGenius) Places for 'Silicon Valley' Show Lovers (Company mission statement that includes the phrase "change the world," Nerf Guns part of office deco, uncompromising nature to adopt the latest cool tech like Node.js) Places for introverts (Places with offices for employees, not open office plans, WFH options; in fields that are less sales-oriented and more academic, niche research companies) Curious if anyone else has any ideas on the 'ecology' of tech companies and what 'animals' are best fit for which one!
- oh_sigh 11y agoFrom what I could tell, various branches of google fit all the "places" you listed in your post.
- spydertennis 11y agothis could disrupt the recruiting industry. its a matchmaking service and it matches your personality to the company. someone make this please.
- hkmurakami 11y agoI know that HN User kokev wanted to do this (since he himself had a particular set of preferences for employer characteristics) but idk what became of it.
- superuser2 11y ago... this is the recruiting industry, is it not? Are they not taking into account the kinds of cultures people want to work in?
- horsecaptin 11y agoAs a former prospective employee of both, I can say that they're both kind of ok, I guess.
- dack 11y agoI'm continually surprised that Guidewire is up there near the top. If you look at the company itself, it's insurance software, yet they've managed to rank above Google and 3rd overall. I'm somewhat sad that the article doesn't mention them at all. (full disclosure: I did work there previously, along with Google, but now work for neither)
- hkmurakami 11y agoDo you agree with their high ranking, having worked there?
- ceejg 11y agoGlassdoor reviews are faked, at least at my company HR routinely writes tons of positive ones and when we purchase Glassdoor advertising suddenly our negative reviews vanish or get ranked lower and lower.
- randycupertino 11y agoMy boss actually blatantly asked us all to go write some 5-star reviews, it was ridiculous.
- patates 11y agoSame here in Germany, our employer asked us to write 5-star reviews on Kununu (Glasdoor-like site from XING).
- DullDeveloper 11y agoSame at the last place I worked at.
- oneJob 11y agoThis is good to know. Ty. (So much for the "transparency" implications of "glass" door.)
- randycupertino 11y agoIt seems like they have the same business model as yelp- buy advertising with us and we will help you damage control your negative reputation.
- jlappi 11y agoIt's a scummy tactic, but it payed off for Yelp so it's likely also a safe bet for them.
- erik_landerholm 11y agoWho the hell reads glassdoor?
- bogomipz 11y agoBloomberg had someone from Glasdoor on yesterday and they were asking them how they arrived at these results. He said they had an "algorithm", when pressed further about the criteria he mentioned the company had to have at least 75 reviews in the last year, seemed kind of laughable. Their site feels cheap and tacky, not sure how much credibility they have but I don't ever hear people talking about it. I don't doubt AirBnB might be a good work environment but it seems like this is a way for Glasdoor to ride someone else's coat tails to a headline.
- jpr 11y agoHow is Airbnb a tech company?
- steinnes 11y agoIt's funny how Amazon isn't mentioned in the article as one of the tech companies that should by vying for top position. Although I suppose in raw numbers most of their staff are not engineers, so maybe it wouldn't be a fair comparison.
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- chipgap98 11y agoI was excited to see that HubSpot was number 4. Its nice to see a Boston tech company get some love
- digital43 11y agoI wish there was a ranking like this with only reviews from engineers counted as that would be more relevant for me.