4 ms·

What’s It Like to Work at Google?

21 points by abraham 16y ago

zitterbewegung 16y ago
I would take the interview with a grain of salt because it could be someone plainly making up the whole interview. It hasn't been vetted like the IAMA interviews. Also this should probably point to the original post on reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/clz1m/google_employees_on_reddit_fire_up_your_throwaway/c0tis1y http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/clz1m/google_empl...
- studer 16y ago
  What interview? Blogoscoped is quoting three comments from the Reddit thread.
rick_2047 16y ago
It always amazed me that only 10% of the biggest companies are able to have anything close to a fun environment. Is it that hard to treat employees as...I don't know... Humans and not working units of a factory? I can see why in many of the industries it is hard to implement such standards because of the type of work they do (for example manufacturing industries cannot have time flexibilities) but that only makes up the 50% what about the other half.
- lars512 16y ago
  Google is "fun" for two reasons. They provide lots of perks since, once their salary reaches a certain level, the top of the talent spectrum prefers these improvements to their work environment rather than an incrementally higher salary. They give people their 20% time since their core business involves a lot of speculative investments, and the 20% time is the best way to do that in-house. Average companies generally don't have the resources/incentive to hire the best, so they don't need to provide the same perks. They're also less likely to invest their time speculatively, so no 20% time. I'm sure there's a happy medium where the right amount of perks and fun culture improves company productivity more than it costs up front, much like decreased taxation can sometimes increase tax revenue. I don't think many companies feel confident enough to determine the line appropriately, and I imagine it's more comfortable as a manager to err on the conservative side.
  - joezydeco 16y ago
    I'm sure it's a lot easier to have "fun" at work when you have a money-printing machine in the basement and you have time to play and experiment with new things. If Google wasn't insanely profitable right now, I bet it would be a lot more stressful environment.
mkramlich 16y ago
the OA should instead have been a link to the Reddit discussion. this is like the Mahalo treatment. plus, after the OA points out that since the Reddit discussion may have fake Googlers that we couldn't trust anyone for sure. then it picks 3 to repeat verbatim --- but how can we know those 3 are real?
motter 16y ago
Blogspam already? Why is this being upvoted? Edit: to be clear, my definition of blogspam is "adds no value to the original content".

21 points by abraham 16y ago

I would take the interview with a grain of salt because it could be someone plainly making up the whole interview. It hasn't been vetted like the IAMA interviews. Also this should probably point to the original post on reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/clz1m/google_employees_on_reddit_fire_up_your_throwaway/c0tis1y http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/clz1m/google_empl...

studer 16y ago
What interview? Blogoscoped is quoting three comments from the Reddit thread.

rick_2047 16y ago

It always amazed me that only 10% of the biggest companies are able to have anything close to a fun environment. Is it that hard to treat employees as...I don't know... Humans and not working units of a factory? I can see why in many of the industries it is hard to implement such standards because of the type of work they do (for example manufacturing industries cannot have time flexibilities) but that only makes up the 50% what about the other half.

lars512 16y ago
Google is "fun" for two reasons. They provide lots of perks since, once their salary reaches a certain level, the top of the talent spectrum prefers these improvements to their work environment rather than an incrementally higher salary. They give people their 20% time since their core business involves a lot of speculative investments, and the 20% time is the best way to do that in-house. Average companies generally don't have the resources/incentive to hire the best, so they don't need to provide the same perks. They're also less likely to invest their time speculatively, so no 20% time. I'm sure there's a happy medium where the right amount of perks and fun culture improves company productivity more than it costs up front, much like decreased taxation can sometimes increase tax revenue. I don't think many companies feel confident enough to determine the line appropriately, and I imagine it's more comfortable as a manager to err on the conservative side.
- joezydeco 16y ago
  I'm sure it's a lot easier to have "fun" at work when you have a money-printing machine in the basement and you have time to play and experiment with new things. If Google wasn't insanely profitable right now, I bet it would be a lot more stressful environment.

mkramlich 16y ago

the OA should instead have been a link to the Reddit discussion. this is like the Mahalo treatment. plus, after the OA points out that since the Reddit discussion may have fake Googlers that we couldn't trust anyone for sure. then it picks 3 to repeat verbatim --- but how can we know those 3 are real?

motter 16y ago

Blogspam already? Why is this being upvoted? Edit: to be clear, my definition of blogspam is "adds no value to the original content".