5 ms·

1 in 5 Facebook Employees Worked at Google

62 points by GlennKelman 16y ago

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
bretpiatt 16y ago
It isn't about imagination. It is the cycle of the valley. Mature companies have employees go to found their own companies or join other pre-IPO startups. Working for Google you'll have a great career and quality of life but going to Facebook has the potential to make you quite a bit more money through equity.
- joezydeco 16y ago
  So is that the true motivation for all of these xooglers? Cash in on something before they're completely burned out?
raquo 16y ago
Not everyone wants to be in a startup. People running from Google to FB may be doing it for a different culture, for more money, or for a slight change in what they're doing. There's nothing wrong with that.
dstein 16y ago
The bottom line is this - if you were to place a bet (as in betting your career) on which company will be dominant 20 years from now and which will become yet another dying Internet fad, I'd bet in favor of Facebook. Absolutely everyone overestimates Google's chances of continuing to dominate forever.
- ct 16y ago
  What more can Facebook do vs. Google? Seems there's more options at Google IMO. (I don't work at Google, but wish I did).
- jerf 16y ago
  Let's see, looking back at 1990... I'd bet on neither, but I sure wouldn't bet on the one far more easily replaced by a distributed secure system. Diaspora may seem like a joke now, but 20 years of development on Diaspora('s great grandchild)? Getting a standardized distributed social networking account will be like getting an email address is today.
  - dstein 16y ago
    If we compare whether Facebook or Google can be more easily replaced I could argue that Google has a higher chance of being replaced because some startup can come along and build a better search engine for less than 1% of what it cost Google. Whereas I don't see Diaspora really being much different than a Jabber protocol with social networking features. Jabber didn't kill any instant messager protocol, it just further fragmented the instant messager market, which is now dominated by Facebook because of it's critical mass. You're forgetting that open standards can also threaten Google's entire business model. Semantic Web standards (and related technologies being worked on) will eventually make conventional search engines like Google completely obsolete.
    - dirtyaura 16y ago
      You underestimate Google's own ability to take advantage of new web standards and technologies, and Google's inhouse skills of running huge data centers efficiently. In the pure search tasks, Google is likely going to be really good in the future too. At one point, the serious future threat for Google was Facebook, because Facebook was a big walled garden, that Google couldn't crawl. If Facebook is the number one web page for a few hundred million people, businesses start to operate inside Facebook more on more, which would make Facebook a good starting point for your searches too, making Google the second choice. Although other aspects of this scenario have happened, the search part hasn't, and it seems that Facebook has changed the strategy from walled garden to more open place, and try to become a critical infrastructure piece of the whole web with like buttons and instant personalization.
    - stakent 16y ago
      Google will be replaced but not by search engine like better Google. There will something completely new, like visible now in mass personal computing shift from desktop (Windows) to mobile (it looks like the Android is next main OS). The great question is what will push Google into oblivion.
- mfukar 16y ago
  Companies that will dominate 20 years from now won't exist for another 19 years, so..
  - mahmud 16y ago
    So it takes a year to go from zero to a position of global dominance?
    - mfukar 16y ago
      If that's all you got from that sentence, I'm terribly, terribly sorry.
      - Radix 16y ago
        That's also all I got. Maybe you weren't as clear as you believe and your sarcasm is misplaced.
      - mahmud 16y ago
        mfukar, I think you have been unjustly burried with the downvotes there, but I really wish you would come back with an explanation. Did you mean that in 20 years, technology would progress so rapidly that change will be near instantaneous?
        mfukar 16y ago
        I meant that even today, it's near impossible to predict the state of the economy next week, let alone in 20 years. We're also talking about a completely different society, like most societies changed from the '60s to the '80s and so forth. Different needs, different priorities, different state of affairs in a global level. Take Google, for instance. Google first offered a useful product on 1998. Turned a profit first in 2001 ($105 mil). Its IPO took place in 2004 ($23 bn, wasn't it?). Even if one were so dense as to deny the upcoming global dominance of Google (at least in online search) back in 2000, those timeframes are so off the 20 year mark it's not even funny. And yes, of course I expect progress (regardless of scale) in the future to take place a lot faster. We've already seen trends spread overnight. Who says someone won't be able to capitalize on such internet behaviour? Even if I'm too irrelevant to tell, I seriously doubt there won't be someone in 20 years' time.
- cabalamat 16y ago
  > The bottom line is this - if you were to place a bet (as in betting your career) on which company will be dominant 20 years from now and which will become yet another dying Internet fad, I'd bet in favor of Facebook. You statement is ambiguous; it doesn't say whether facebook will be the former or the latter. (my take is it could easily go either way).
  - dstein 16y ago
    Ugh, I hate arguing grammar. Technically what I said was not ambiguous. If you quote the first sentence alone, it could only be considered ambiguous if you consider "dying internet fad" as a favorable bet. My 2nd sentence confirms my intent.
- maw 16y ago
  Do you really think so? Google handily passes the "actually does something useful" test. Facebook, not so much.
  - waterlesscloud 16y ago
    Facebook has about a million times stronger lock-in though. Changing my primary search engine requires no effort at all on my point, and I lose practically nothing by doing so. Gmail is probably Google's most-likely-to-last product.
    - rmc 16y ago
      Social Network sites have come and gone, e.g. MySpace, Bebo, etc. Lock-in to social network sites isn't so big a deal. Also, people might want to change from Facebook, now that their employers and parents are on it.
  - tlack 16y ago
    One way of looking at it: Facebook has changed the way people communicate and socialize with each other. I think in some ways that is more fundamental than what Google has done - change the way people search. Furthermore, Google has seemed to have trouble innovating in the past couple years, but Facebook has been accelerating the pace of its innovations.
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      FaceBook is 6 years old and has roughly 2000 employees. Google was 6 years old and had roughly 2000 employees in 2004. Does anyone remember what Google introduced in 2004 and early 2005, and how revolutionary they seemed at the time? GMail, Orkut, Local, Books, Scholar, Maps, and Code ring a bell? There seems to be an inflection point in just about every major tech company's history. First they have to dominate their initial core market. Then they need to figure out how to make money off it. Then they can use the data gathered from their core, and the top-notch employees they hire with the money, to launch lots of innovative side projects. Then everybody starts taking their innovative products for granted, but they make so much money that management can't justify letting people work on further innovative side projects that will fail 90% of the time. FaceBook is currently in stage 3. Google would be in stage 4, except that the founders still actively push through projects like Wave and Instant and self-driving cars. I predict that ten years from now, both companies will be in stage 4, and the new hotness will be some company that hasn't been started yet.
addoway 16y ago
I honestly don't see anything wrong with it. Facebook is the favorite to be here for many years to come. You would have to believe that on top of stock options these individuals are getting paid quite a bit more money to switch. Maybe it's the though of getting to work for Facebook during the time when it was fun to work for Google years ago.
unshift 16y ago
here's a shocking revelation: facebook is pre-IPO and employees who get stock options stand to make a decent amount of money. i know it's almost taboo around here to suggest that someone could even consider switching jobs for better pay/more potential stock upside vs. considering only some sort of imaginary "passion" for their job, but that's how it works.
- timr 16y ago
  Just because you join a company pre-IPO doesn't mean that you automatically get rich. If Google employees are really jumping ship for Facebook IPO riches, then I sincerely hope they've been given truckloads of stock units, because joining as employee 1200-whatever at Facebook means that there isn't much upside left in the share values. In particular, if you start at Facebook today, the stock units you get are being sold on secondary public exchanges at frothy values. The stock is as close to fully and fairly valued as it's going to get short of an IPO.
  - bretpiatt 16y ago
    This assumes you only get options and not restricted stock units. With the accounting changes in the way corporations have to value options many more now give out RSUs as well.
  - unshift 16y ago
    you don't have to get rich for it to be worthwhile. i joined a company a year before its IPO, got a modest number of shares, and it amounted to a nice little bonus every month. didn't make me rich but allowed me to build up a lot of savings while paying down my mortgage. it's totally worth trying to get into that situation if the option is available.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
nanijoe 16y ago
The article makes the underlying assumption that the single most important factor for deciding where to work , is how exciting the new job is, compared to the old one. I real life, people take a lot of 'other things into consideration when making such decisions. 'Boring' things like money, career advancement and job security usually rank above 'the excitement' of the opportunity.
GavinB 16y ago
In the modern business world, you often have to jump organizations to get more money or the position suited to you. That's how an efficient market works. People are jumping back and forth between Google and Facebook because they are so similar, but may offer differences in the exact position and compensation offered.

62 points by GlennKelman 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

It isn't about imagination. It is the cycle of the valley. Mature companies have employees go to found their own companies or join other pre-IPO startups. Working for Google you'll have a great career and quality of life but going to Facebook has the potential to make you quite a bit more money through equity.

joezydeco 16y ago
So is that the true motivation for all of these xooglers? Cash in on something before they're completely burned out?

raquo 16y ago

Not everyone wants to be in a startup. People running from Google to FB may be doing it for a different culture, for more money, or for a slight change in what they're doing. There's nothing wrong with that.

dstein 16y ago

The bottom line is this - if you were to place a bet (as in betting your career) on which company will be dominant 20 years from now and which will become yet another dying Internet fad, I'd bet in favor of Facebook. Absolutely everyone overestimates Google's chances of continuing to dominate forever.

ct 16y ago
What more can Facebook do vs. Google? Seems there's more options at Google IMO. (I don't work at Google, but wish I did).
jerf 16y ago
Let's see, looking back at 1990... I'd bet on neither, but I sure wouldn't bet on the one far more easily replaced by a distributed secure system. Diaspora may seem like a joke now, but 20 years of development on Diaspora('s great grandchild)? Getting a standardized distributed social networking account will be like getting an email address is today.
- dstein 16y ago
  If we compare whether Facebook or Google can be more easily replaced I could argue that Google has a higher chance of being replaced because some startup can come along and build a better search engine for less than 1% of what it cost Google. Whereas I don't see Diaspora really being much different than a Jabber protocol with social networking features. Jabber didn't kill any instant messager protocol, it just further fragmented the instant messager market, which is now dominated by Facebook because of it's critical mass. You're forgetting that open standards can also threaten Google's entire business model. Semantic Web standards (and related technologies being worked on) will eventually make conventional search engines like Google completely obsolete.
  - dirtyaura 16y ago
    You underestimate Google's own ability to take advantage of new web standards and technologies, and Google's inhouse skills of running huge data centers efficiently. In the pure search tasks, Google is likely going to be really good in the future too. At one point, the serious future threat for Google was Facebook, because Facebook was a big walled garden, that Google couldn't crawl. If Facebook is the number one web page for a few hundred million people, businesses start to operate inside Facebook more on more, which would make Facebook a good starting point for your searches too, making Google the second choice. Although other aspects of this scenario have happened, the search part hasn't, and it seems that Facebook has changed the strategy from walled garden to more open place, and try to become a critical infrastructure piece of the whole web with like buttons and instant personalization.
  - stakent 16y ago
    Google will be replaced but not by search engine like better Google. There will something completely new, like visible now in mass personal computing shift from desktop (Windows) to mobile (it looks like the Android is next main OS). The great question is what will push Google into oblivion.
mfukar 16y ago
Companies that will dominate 20 years from now won't exist for another 19 years, so..
- mahmud 16y ago
  So it takes a year to go from zero to a position of global dominance?
  - mfukar 16y ago
    If that's all you got from that sentence, I'm terribly, terribly sorry.
    - Radix 16y ago
      That's also all I got. Maybe you weren't as clear as you believe and your sarcasm is misplaced.
    - mahmud 16y ago
      mfukar, I think you have been unjustly burried with the downvotes there, but I really wish you would come back with an explanation. Did you mean that in 20 years, technology would progress so rapidly that change will be near instantaneous?
      - mfukar 16y ago
        I meant that even today, it's near impossible to predict the state of the economy next week, let alone in 20 years. We're also talking about a completely different society, like most societies changed from the '60s to the '80s and so forth. Different needs, different priorities, different state of affairs in a global level. Take Google, for instance. Google first offered a useful product on 1998. Turned a profit first in 2001 ($105 mil). Its IPO took place in 2004 ($23 bn, wasn't it?). Even if one were so dense as to deny the upcoming global dominance of Google (at least in online search) back in 2000, those timeframes are so off the 20 year mark it's not even funny. And yes, of course I expect progress (regardless of scale) in the future to take place a lot faster. We've already seen trends spread overnight. Who says someone won't be able to capitalize on such internet behaviour? Even if I'm too irrelevant to tell, I seriously doubt there won't be someone in 20 years' time.
cabalamat 16y ago
> The bottom line is this - if you were to place a bet (as in betting your career) on which company will be dominant 20 years from now and which will become yet another dying Internet fad, I'd bet in favor of Facebook. You statement is ambiguous; it doesn't say whether facebook will be the former or the latter. (my take is it could easily go either way).
- dstein 16y ago
  Ugh, I hate arguing grammar. Technically what I said was not ambiguous. If you quote the first sentence alone, it could only be considered ambiguous if you consider "dying internet fad" as a favorable bet. My 2nd sentence confirms my intent.
maw 16y ago
Do you really think so? Google handily passes the "actually does something useful" test. Facebook, not so much.
- waterlesscloud 16y ago
  Facebook has about a million times stronger lock-in though. Changing my primary search engine requires no effort at all on my point, and I lose practically nothing by doing so. Gmail is probably Google's most-likely-to-last product.
  - rmc 16y ago
    Social Network sites have come and gone, e.g. MySpace, Bebo, etc. Lock-in to social network sites isn't so big a deal. Also, people might want to change from Facebook, now that their employers and parents are on it.
- tlack 16y ago
  One way of looking at it: Facebook has changed the way people communicate and socialize with each other. I think in some ways that is more fundamental than what Google has done - change the way people search. Furthermore, Google has seemed to have trouble innovating in the past couple years, but Facebook has been accelerating the pace of its innovations.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    FaceBook is 6 years old and has roughly 2000 employees. Google was 6 years old and had roughly 2000 employees in 2004. Does anyone remember what Google introduced in 2004 and early 2005, and how revolutionary they seemed at the time? GMail, Orkut, Local, Books, Scholar, Maps, and Code ring a bell? There seems to be an inflection point in just about every major tech company's history. First they have to dominate their initial core market. Then they need to figure out how to make money off it. Then they can use the data gathered from their core, and the top-notch employees they hire with the money, to launch lots of innovative side projects. Then everybody starts taking their innovative products for granted, but they make so much money that management can't justify letting people work on further innovative side projects that will fail 90% of the time. FaceBook is currently in stage 3. Google would be in stage 4, except that the founders still actively push through projects like Wave and Instant and self-driving cars. I predict that ten years from now, both companies will be in stage 4, and the new hotness will be some company that hasn't been started yet.

addoway 16y ago

I honestly don't see anything wrong with it. Facebook is the favorite to be here for many years to come. You would have to believe that on top of stock options these individuals are getting paid quite a bit more money to switch. Maybe it's the though of getting to work for Facebook during the time when it was fun to work for Google years ago.

unshift 16y ago

here's a shocking revelation: facebook is pre-IPO and employees who get stock options stand to make a decent amount of money. i know it's almost taboo around here to suggest that someone could even consider switching jobs for better pay/more potential stock upside vs. considering only some sort of imaginary "passion" for their job, but that's how it works.

timr 16y ago
Just because you join a company pre-IPO doesn't mean that you automatically get rich. If Google employees are really jumping ship for Facebook IPO riches, then I sincerely hope they've been given truckloads of stock units, because joining as employee 1200-whatever at Facebook means that there isn't much upside left in the share values. In particular, if you start at Facebook today, the stock units you get are being sold on secondary public exchanges at frothy values. The stock is as close to fully and fairly valued as it's going to get short of an IPO.
- bretpiatt 16y ago
  This assumes you only get options and not restricted stock units. With the accounting changes in the way corporations have to value options many more now give out RSUs as well.
- unshift 16y ago
  you don't have to get rich for it to be worthwhile. i joined a company a year before its IPO, got a modest number of shares, and it amounted to a nice little bonus every month. didn't make me rich but allowed me to build up a lot of savings while paying down my mortgage. it's totally worth trying to get into that situation if the option is available.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

nanijoe 16y ago

The article makes the underlying assumption that the single most important factor for deciding where to work , is how exciting the new job is, compared to the old one. I real life, people take a lot of 'other things into consideration when making such decisions. 'Boring' things like money, career advancement and job security usually rank above 'the excitement' of the opportunity.

GavinB 16y ago

In the modern business world, you often have to jump organizations to get more money or the position suited to you. That's how an efficient market works. People are jumping back and forth between Google and Facebook because they are so similar, but may offer differences in the exact position and compensation offered.