10 ms·

Considering that it is a claim from a _prospective_ employee about the interview process, the settlement of 35k per person seems relatively generous.

by eej71 7y ago

josefx 7y ago
Considering what they would have earned the first year at Google if they weren't discriminated against that looks more like a drop in the bucket.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  Doesn't your statement assume that they were all good enough to actually be hired?
  - shados 7y ago
    All good enough to be hired AND that if they were, that the job they eventually did get paid substantially less. That is very possible, but it's still a loaded assumption indeed.
  - josefx 7y ago
    They were all good enough to get in person interviews at least[1]. If I read that document correctly Google would have been able to argue about the qualifications of various individuals and have them removed from the lawsuit after discovery concluded. Of course I am not a lawyer so I might be wrong. [1]see court document on https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/bizwomen/news/latest-news/2017/08/nearly-300-have-joined-google-age-case.html https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/bizwomen/news/latest-news...
    - dmitrygr 7y ago
      Phone screens at google are not foolproof, and some candidates get to skip them for various reasons. I've seem some candidates make it to onsite and then be unable to answer my warmup question of: write a function that takes an integer, leaves all the zero bits alone, changes all the one bits into zero bits, and returns the result.
      - pcwalton 7y ago
        How is a disguised return 0 anything remotely resembling a good question? I highly suspect most people who are "unable to answer" are actually just misunderstanding the question, since it's phrased in such a bizarre way. The way you phrased it, I'm not even 100% sure that "return 0" is the answer you're looking for!
        ghaff 7y ago
        That’s the right return value of course but ignoring everything else doesn’t actually meet the requirements of the question. Of course in a live situation you can ask if that’s ok or if they actually want useless bit twiddling.
        pcwalton 7y ago
        But there's no such thing, semantically, as "leaving zero bits alone". The value 0 has no notion of "where it came from". The expression "x & 0" is semantically equivalent to the expression "0", in that they represent the same value. In my view, the fact that the question even lends itself to philosophical debate like this just illustrates how exceptionally bad the question is, even by Google standards.
        ghaff 7y ago
        Oh I don’t disagree. Literally going through bit by bit and zeroing any bit not equal to zero would be grossly inefficient especially if you know it’s unnecessary.
        lonelappde 7y ago
        It's not grossly inefficient to do 64 iterations of an arithmetic loop for a trick toy function that has no reason to ever be called in practice.
        dmitrygr 7y ago
        It is a warm up meant to take 20 seconds. Before we get to something actually meaningful
smt88 7y ago
"Generous" is hard for me to have an opinion about. $11M is less than a rounding error for Google. "Fair" isn't as hard. It's not fair, if (as I suspect) Google is guilty of age discrimination. There should be greater consequences than just trying to pay people what they might've lost financially from the discrimination. Or, to put it another way: Google deserves to be punished if this was actually happening.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  If you see it from the other side, it is more than 50,000 for each of the 200 people, even if the lawyers will likely get 1/3 of that, it remains 35,000 US$ or so. For what? Having been NOT hired (but making it to the interview). Presumably, even if a bit "old" according to Google standards, these people are anyway "top notch" in programming and almost surely soon found an appropriate job at some other company. So, the compensation is seemingly very hypothetical, covering what? 2-3 months of wages for someone hypothetically getting 140,000-200,000 US$ per year. Or is it because the applicant could have been hired at 160,000 US$ per year but only makes - poor little thing - 125,000 US$ from the company that hired him/her, and so first year is covered?
  - mbrumlow 7y ago
    Engineers at google can make way over 200k in salary and even more in total compensation. Given these guys were over 40, and many of them likely seasoned it is likely they would have made way more than the numbers you are suggesting.
    - jaclaz 7y ago
      I don't doubt that, it was just an attempt to put the numbers in pespective, if you believe that it is only 1 month or 15 days of wage it is ok as well, but what was the actual inconvenience to them? Let's bring it to the extreme, 35,000 US$ for the hassle of making four (fruitless) interviews?
      - onemoresoop 7y ago

Considering that it is a claim from a _prospective_ employee about the interview process, the settlement of 35k per person seems relatively generous.

by eej71 7y ago

Considering that it is a claim from a _prospective_ employee about the interview process, the settlement of 35k per person seems relatively generous.

josefx 7y ago

Considering what they would have earned the first year at Google if they weren't discriminated against that looks more like a drop in the bucket.

dmitrygr 7y ago
Doesn't your statement assume that they were all good enough to actually be hired?
- shados 7y ago
  All good enough to be hired AND that if they were, that the job they eventually did get paid substantially less. That is very possible, but it's still a loaded assumption indeed.
- josefx 7y ago
  They were all good enough to get in person interviews at least[1]. If I read that document correctly Google would have been able to argue about the qualifications of various individuals and have them removed from the lawsuit after discovery concluded. Of course I am not a lawyer so I might be wrong. [1]see court document on https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/bizwomen/news/latest-news/2017/08/nearly-300-have-joined-google-age-case.html https://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/bizwomen/news/latest-news...
  - dmitrygr 7y ago
    Phone screens at google are not foolproof, and some candidates get to skip them for various reasons. I've seem some candidates make it to onsite and then be unable to answer my warmup question of: write a function that takes an integer, leaves all the zero bits alone, changes all the one bits into zero bits, and returns the result.
    - pcwalton 7y ago
      How is a disguised return 0 anything remotely resembling a good question? I highly suspect most people who are "unable to answer" are actually just misunderstanding the question, since it's phrased in such a bizarre way. The way you phrased it, I'm not even 100% sure that "return 0" is the answer you're looking for!
      - ghaff 7y ago
        That’s the right return value of course but ignoring everything else doesn’t actually meet the requirements of the question. Of course in a live situation you can ask if that’s ok or if they actually want useless bit twiddling.
        pcwalton 7y ago
        But there's no such thing, semantically, as "leaving zero bits alone". The value 0 has no notion of "where it came from". The expression "x & 0" is semantically equivalent to the expression "0", in that they represent the same value. In my view, the fact that the question even lends itself to philosophical debate like this just illustrates how exceptionally bad the question is, even by Google standards.
        ghaff 7y ago
        Oh I don’t disagree. Literally going through bit by bit and zeroing any bit not equal to zero would be grossly inefficient especially if you know it’s unnecessary.
        lonelappde 7y ago
        It's not grossly inefficient to do 64 iterations of an arithmetic loop for a trick toy function that has no reason to ever be called in practice.
      - dmitrygr 7y ago
        It is a warm up meant to take 20 seconds. Before we get to something actually meaningful

smt88 7y ago

"Generous" is hard for me to have an opinion about. $11M is less than a rounding error for Google. "Fair" isn't as hard. It's not fair, if (as I suspect) Google is guilty of age discrimination. There should be greater consequences than just trying to pay people what they might've lost financially from the discrimination. Or, to put it another way: Google deserves to be punished if this was actually happening.

jaclaz 7y ago
If you see it from the other side, it is more than 50,000 for each of the 200 people, even if the lawyers will likely get 1/3 of that, it remains 35,000 US$ or so. For what? Having been NOT hired (but making it to the interview). Presumably, even if a bit "old" according to Google standards, these people are anyway "top notch" in programming and almost surely soon found an appropriate job at some other company. So, the compensation is seemingly very hypothetical, covering what? 2-3 months of wages for someone hypothetically getting 140,000-200,000 US$ per year. Or is it because the applicant could have been hired at 160,000 US$ per year but only makes - poor little thing - 125,000 US$ from the company that hired him/her, and so first year is covered?
- mbrumlow 7y ago
  Engineers at google can make way over 200k in salary and even more in total compensation. Given these guys were over 40, and many of them likely seasoned it is likely they would have made way more than the numbers you are suggesting.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    I don't doubt that, it was just an attempt to put the numbers in pespective, if you believe that it is only 1 month or 15 days of wage it is ok as well, but what was the actual inconvenience to them? Let's bring it to the extreme, 35,000 US$ for the hassle of making four (fruitless) interviews?
    - onemoresoop 7y ago