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Former Googlers on how they knew it was time to quit
- user9182031 8y agobusinessinsider.com requires disabling AdBlocking to view the article. No Thanks.
- narrowtux 8y agomy adblocker seems to block that script, I had no issues visiting the site while having adblock enabled. (uBlock Origin)
- sodosopa 8y agoPaste the url into outline.com. Works like a charm.
- tallanvor 8y agoWorks fine with Ghostery.
- jaclaz 8y agoNo problem with javascript disabled.
- BeetleB 8y agoTurn off styling and you can see the text.
- mlpinit 8y agoOr you can use outline: https://outline.com/6LD6KV https://outline.com/6LD6KV
- zawerf 8y agoSimilar thread from a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18192534 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18192534
- throwaway3643 8y agoIn the era of Sundar it has become harder and harder to recommend Google as a place to work to friends. Trust me, it is quite noticeable on the inside when the company stops being run by the founders, and starts being run by an MBA with no vision. Posted anonymously to avoid work repercussions. -Googler of > 5.5years
- mliker 8y agoCan you elaborate for those of us considering Google?
- ma2rten 8y agoCan you elaborate for those of us working at Google and don't know what you are talking about?
- TallGuyShort 8y agoOP said the place is noticeably different inside the company under the new leadership. How?
- maxxxxx 8y agoThat's pretty much the destiny of any large corporation. There is almost no way around it.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- daxfohl 8y agoMicrosoft seems like it could be a touch better under Satya than under Bill.
- gota 8y agoI guess the world is so different now that we can't make that comparison fairly. We can try to extrapolate what Bill Gates would do now based on what he did then, but we can't really know for sure. The reverse is also true. Could Satya navigate the old Microsoft and deliver it as (still) one of the most valuable companies in the world? But I digress. The point is, maybe Gates would've done just fine if he had chose to do so. Personally, I'm glad for B&M Gates Foundation's role in the world right now, so I'm kind of glad he didn't
- taneq 8y agoThese responses seem kind of formulaic and bland. I don't know why but I expected something juicier - these are mostly just people realising they need to move on, for the same reasons most of us do.
- Rotdhizon 8y agoAgreed. I expected the reasons for leaving to be way more controversial. Most of them are basically just "I left to do something else". Only 2 of the people in that article left due to conflict, all the others just left for other jobs or hobbies.
- vonmoltke 8y agoGoogle has this aura about it that makes it seem like the pinnacle of career accomplishment, at least for software engineers. There are plenty of starry-eyed college students who are astonished that people ever leave Google voluntarily (unless they are going to Facebook/Netflix/${UNICORN}).
- kelukelugames 8y agoIt's a company with 10s of thousands of people. What did you expect?
- monaghanboy 8y ago>I expected something juicier What does the quantity of employees have to do with the discussion?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoThe greater the sample size, the more room for outliers.
- TeMPOraL 8y agoAlso the smaller chance that a random sample will have outliers in it.
- outside1234 8y agoI left Google because I was working on a crank that was attached to a spindle. It was super boring and what I was learning did not accrue to anything that was valuable outside the company. Otherwise it was a fine place to work. No better than Microsoft or Netflix or the rest, but no worse either.
- Latteland 8y agoThat's basically what happened to me. I got bored after a while, working on a small feature on v8 of something. Fixing bugs and not having much testing for my system was a drag. The original leader of my mature product team was good, but he left and then a first time overly confident bro was the leader. We reported issues but new upper level management didn't matter.
- siberianbear 8y agoFor people outside Silicon Valley or still studying at the university, Google probably seems like an awesome place. It's just another Silicon Valley bigco. That's especially true now. In the early 2000s, it was probably a very cool place. But all big companies get more awful as they get bigger. I'm sure the bureaucracy and politics there are stifling, like all bigcos. I was happy at the other companies I worked at. I selected and targeted all the companies I worked at, and Google wasn't one of them. I never answered the voice mails from Google recruiters and never responded to their LinkedIn messages.
- adamnemecek 8y ago> Everyone wants to work at Google This circle jerk needs to stop.
- jhare 8y agoCan I upvote this a million times pls
- TallGuyShort 8y agoTheir recruiters genuinely think this, which is why I decline. They have no interest in finding a good match between you and the company or why you're not interested in one specific detail. They have an opening, and you are privileged to even be contacted about the position.
- adamnemecek 8y agoIt’s not just recruiters, so many people working there seem to be legitimately brain washed. I just remembered this https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/20/occupy-founder-obama-eric-schmidt-ceo-america https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/20/occupy-fo... Like holy shit. It’s a joke I guess but like is it really?
- TallGuyShort 8y agoNot far from the truth. Recently started working with a former Googler, and almost every sentence starts with, "well at Google, we..." Well that's great, but you realize we're in an entirely different market and business model, right?
- Latteland 8y agoYou don't want to work there because they think everyone wants to work there? That seems silly. It's pretty common for all recruiters in the universe to not have the new employees best interests at heart - they mostly want to find people who can get hired.
- rburhum 8y agoAnyone that has been lucky enough to be able to build and run any organization with 50+ people knows that every month you will have new people joining and at least someone leaving. That has nothing to do with your company culture or how well you can retain good talent, it is just a numbers game. Obviously any organization with thousands of people will have this happen at a much bigger scale.
- brantonb 8y ago>Interviews One of the people featured is a friend and former coworker at a different company. When I sent him this link, he said they never talked to him. They just pulled info off of his blog.
- gregschlom 8y agoPar for the course for business insider.
- cjhopman 8y ago"Interviews" doesn't actually appear in the text of the article or its title. What does appear in the text is a very clear description of where the information came from. "We spoke to several former Googlers to find out why they left the company, compiling their responses with those of other former employees who have written about their departures publicly." I'm am, once again, quite impressed by hn's top comments.
- brantonb 8y agoOk, I know I saw that somewhere when I commented. Did the headline change? It’s clearly not in the article now.
- ukyrgf 8y agoI left my tab open long enough to still have the original title: "Interviews with former Google employees to find out why they decided to leave (businessinsider.com)"
- insertcredit 8y agoI worked at Google for close to 10 years. I resigned when I had made enough money to retire comfortably (for the next 40 years) in a European city. The first two years were enjoyable but then it started going downhill, fast. Some close friends and co-workers had major implosions on the job and I was burned out. Once I realized that Google would suck me dry if I let it and that reality was completely different to the expectations I had going in, I found ways to drastically reduce the number of hours I actually worked and spent the rest (company time) doing things that contributed to my self-development (side projects and reading books, mostly). I spent the last ~5 years doing no more than two hours of actual work per day. Needless to say, these were some of the best, most carefree years of my life. My mind rebounded and it felt great knowing that I was screwing the company that only viewed me as a commodity whilst getting paid top dollar. I am pretty sure I wasn't the only one doing it, either.
- AnarchoYeasty 8y agoBoss makes a dollar I make a dime that's why I ~~poop~~ don't do anything on company time
- notyouravgdoge 8y agoWas the burnout Google-specific, or do you think it would have likely happened at other tech companies as well?