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> More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office. Google has ov

> More than 250 people have moved from Google and related firms to the federal government or vice versa since President Barack Obama took office. Google has over 30,000 employees in Mountain View alone, and that's just a portion of its workforce. The term "Obama administration" in the headline is somewhat misleading considering that the above quote says it's surveyed from "the federal government," which is a huge workforce regardless of where you draw the boundaries. Statistically, is it really that anomalous that ~250 people flowed between the two in 8 years?

jzwinck 10y ago
Some back of the envelope math: 50% of total staff are at Mountain View. Of 60k staff, maybe 20-25k are engineers. So in the US it's probably 10-15k engineers total. In my experience, software engineer attrition is around 20% per year in firms with good employee satisfaction. That's 2-3k engineers excited to be tackling new opportunities each year. In 8 years: 16-24k employees. Of course Google is a great place to work and they weren't as large 8 years ago, so let's guess 10-15k employees turned over. Of that, 250 is 2%. The government says around 2700 people work for the executive [1]. That is 0.002% of the total workforce in the US. Google could replace the entire executive with castaway engineers every year. [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-employment-since-1962/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-docu...
- argonaut 10y ago
  You're reading the table (egregiously) wrong. It says around 2.7 million people work for the executive branch of government. That is about 1.8% of the employed US workforce. 2700 doesn't pass the smell test, anyways.
- justinlardinois 10y ago
  Did the linked article ever say that the flow was limited to software engineers?
gedrap 10y ago
I got the same impression. It would be worth taking a second look at if the vast majority of those 250 people were top executives: >> Regulation watchdogs may be just as keen about the moves between Google and the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission. Those government bodies regulate many of the programs that are at the heart of Google’s business, and there have been at least 15 moves between Google and its lobbying firms and those commissions. >> The 18 people involved in the revolving door listed in this story are just the tip of the 251-plus name iceberg, though in some cases people among that 251 are low-level employees. So they looked at ~20 people in the article who moved from Google to the government. Given the size of Google, that number seems to be barely significant. "Google employees have enjoyed good employability" seems like a better title, unless there's something major that I've missed.
- rmah 10y ago
  Yes, the impression the article wants you to have is that those people are top (or at least important) execs at both google and the government who are able to make decisions that benefit one or the other or themselves. The reality, if you dig into the data, is that the vast majority are not.

jzwinck 10y ago

Some back of the envelope math: 50% of total staff are at Mountain View. Of 60k staff, maybe 20-25k are engineers. So in the US it's probably 10-15k engineers total. In my experience, software engineer attrition is around 20% per year in firms with good employee satisfaction. That's 2-3k engineers excited to be tackling new opportunities each year. In 8 years: 16-24k employees. Of course Google is a great place to work and they weren't as large 8 years ago, so let's guess 10-15k employees turned over. Of that, 250 is 2%. The government says around 2700 people work for the executive [1]. That is 0.002% of the total workforce in the US. Google could replace the entire executive with castaway engineers every year. [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-documentation/federal-employment-reports/historical-tables/total-government-employment-since-1962/ https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-docu...

argonaut 10y ago
You're reading the table (egregiously) wrong. It says around 2.7 million people work for the executive branch of government. That is about 1.8% of the employed US workforce. 2700 doesn't pass the smell test, anyways.
justinlardinois 10y ago
Did the linked article ever say that the flow was limited to software engineers?

gedrap 10y ago

I got the same impression. It would be worth taking a second look at if the vast majority of those 250 people were top executives: >> Regulation watchdogs may be just as keen about the moves between Google and the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission. Those government bodies regulate many of the programs that are at the heart of Google’s business, and there have been at least 15 moves between Google and its lobbying firms and those commissions. >> The 18 people involved in the revolving door listed in this story are just the tip of the 251-plus name iceberg, though in some cases people among that 251 are low-level employees. So they looked at ~20 people in the article who moved from Google to the government. Given the size of Google, that number seems to be barely significant. "Google employees have enjoyed good employability" seems like a better title, unless there's something major that I've missed.

rmah 10y ago
Yes, the impression the article wants you to have is that those people are top (or at least important) execs at both google and the government who are able to make decisions that benefit one or the other or themselves. The reality, if you dig into the data, is that the vast majority are not.