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A close family member of mine worked for Oracle as a mechanical engineer for 6 years. He had survived many rounds of layoffs at Sun before it was acquired by Or

A close family member of mine worked for Oracle as a mechanical engineer for 6 years. He had survived many rounds of layoffs at Sun before it was acquired by Oracle and at StorageTek before it was acquired by Sun. He described a depressing corporate culture at Oracle with a seemingly infinite number of middle managers. One of his co-workers spent most of his time in the office managing his real estate business. Larry Ellison is universally hated by the employees. The company is full of academically talented but practically useless people because Oracle will only give interviews to people with a degree from their small list of Ivy-tier universities. Not long ago he retired and left Oracle. As a result of his experience there I'm now of the opinion that these older tech companies frankly can't die fast enough.

president 8y ago
What you're describing is general corporate culture after a company has experienced its hayday. Usually all the passionate people including original founders have cashed out, exited the company, and there is nobody left that actually cares about the company. There is a lot of room for mistakes and not delivering results because money grows on trees. People end up skating by and milking their one-hit-wonder cashcow product for years. Politics becomes rampant and an endless supply of bad hires cause the company to slowly rot to its death.
- monocasa 8y ago
  Oracle's something special in this regard though. It's not like Sun was top of the world when they acquired StorageTek, but having worked in the tape library industry in CO at the time, Oracle seems to be a special section of hell.
  - nate_meurer 8y ago
    Many, many, people who worked on Java and Solaris would agree with you.
- dasil003 8y ago
  Perhaps best described by the Gervais Principle (https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...)
- whatshisface 8y ago
  I wonder what will sprout up in the ashes once Google goes further in that direction. Today the real tech companies are shining beacons of comparative competence but that can't last forever.
  - YeahSureWhyNot 8y ago
    and Google is full on speed in that direction
Anardo 8y ago
"spent most of his time in the office managing his real estate business" That is a lucky guy!
nate_meurer 8y ago
> Oracle will only give interviews to people with a degree from their small list of Ivy-tier universities. That's only for new grads with no work experience. It's a stupid policy, but in my corner of the company we generally made good hiring decisions. I disagree that the company has a lot of useless academics. IME, engineering and product management are full of very smart, capable, hard working people, some of them genuinely brilliant.
- kettlecorn 8y ago
  > Oracle will only give interviews to people with a degree from their small list of Ivy-tier universities. I cannot imagine that a company with a healthy culture could allow such a boneheaded policy to persist.
  - nate_meurer 8y ago
    I agree, not healthy. You know what's more fucked up? Not long after I joined, just after the Sun acquisition, I learned that my previous company was dissolving, and I handed a dozen resumes to my then-director (different director from the one in my other comment; this was a guy who's no longer with Oracle). I don't take referrals lightly, because my reputation is at stake too. In this case, most of my former colleagues were H1-B from India, all of them highly experienced, expert software engineers, dedicated workers, established long-term residents, and personally delightful. These are people I can recommend for any job and I know they'll make me proud. My boss refused to even look at these men's resumes. It was never said out loud, but I was made to believe that there was an informal policy at Sun/Oracle at that time, that non-citizens would not be considered for employment, and my boss justified it by saying, "there are enough Americans who need jobs". Of the three white guys I referred, two were hired. How's that for unhealthy? Edit: Going through my old emails, it actually looks like I went 3 for 6 on the white guys. Nevertheless... [edit: needlessly inflammatory comment removed].
    - raincom 8y ago
      I thought Oracle likes H1-B folks. Even Dept of Labor filed a lawsuit against Oracle alleging that Oracle underpays H1B employees.

president 8y ago

What you're describing is general corporate culture after a company has experienced its hayday. Usually all the passionate people including original founders have cashed out, exited the company, and there is nobody left that actually cares about the company. There is a lot of room for mistakes and not delivering results because money grows on trees. People end up skating by and milking their one-hit-wonder cashcow product for years. Politics becomes rampant and an endless supply of bad hires cause the company to slowly rot to its death.

monocasa 8y ago
Oracle's something special in this regard though. It's not like Sun was top of the world when they acquired StorageTek, but having worked in the tape library industry in CO at the time, Oracle seems to be a special section of hell.
- nate_meurer 8y ago
  Many, many, people who worked on Java and Solaris would agree with you.
dasil003 8y ago
Perhaps best described by the Gervais Principle (https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...)
whatshisface 8y ago
I wonder what will sprout up in the ashes once Google goes further in that direction. Today the real tech companies are shining beacons of comparative competence but that can't last forever.
- YeahSureWhyNot 8y ago
  and Google is full on speed in that direction

Anardo 8y ago

"spent most of his time in the office managing his real estate business" That is a lucky guy!

nate_meurer 8y ago

> Oracle will only give interviews to people with a degree from their small list of Ivy-tier universities. That's only for new grads with no work experience. It's a stupid policy, but in my corner of the company we generally made good hiring decisions. I disagree that the company has a lot of useless academics. IME, engineering and product management are full of very smart, capable, hard working people, some of them genuinely brilliant.

kettlecorn 8y ago
> Oracle will only give interviews to people with a degree from their small list of Ivy-tier universities. I cannot imagine that a company with a healthy culture could allow such a boneheaded policy to persist.
- nate_meurer 8y ago
  I agree, not healthy. You know what's more fucked up? Not long after I joined, just after the Sun acquisition, I learned that my previous company was dissolving, and I handed a dozen resumes to my then-director (different director from the one in my other comment; this was a guy who's no longer with Oracle). I don't take referrals lightly, because my reputation is at stake too. In this case, most of my former colleagues were H1-B from India, all of them highly experienced, expert software engineers, dedicated workers, established long-term residents, and personally delightful. These are people I can recommend for any job and I know they'll make me proud. My boss refused to even look at these men's resumes. It was never said out loud, but I was made to believe that there was an informal policy at Sun/Oracle at that time, that non-citizens would not be considered for employment, and my boss justified it by saying, "there are enough Americans who need jobs". Of the three white guys I referred, two were hired. How's that for unhealthy? Edit: Going through my old emails, it actually looks like I went 3 for 6 on the white guys. Nevertheless... [edit: needlessly inflammatory comment removed].
  - raincom 8y ago
    I thought Oracle likes H1-B folks. Even Dept of Labor filed a lawsuit against Oracle alleging that Oracle underpays H1B employees.