5 ms·

"A universe where on average, each employee produced $425,450 in profit in 2010, after deducting their salary and all other expenses. (Or alternatively: $1.2 mi

"A universe where on average, each employee produced $425,450 in profit in 2010, after deducting their salary and all other expenses. (Or alternatively: $1.2 million in revenue.)" Wait a minute, you generate that much profit and then you don't get paid even half that much? Sounds like why I left Apple.

klbarry 16y ago
Considering Google takes all of the risk, and creates an environment where it's much easier to create value than on your own, I think it's more than fair.
- Zaak 16y ago
  Agreed. Some people choose to leave Google to start their own companies. Some people choose to stay in the situation they have at Google. Choice is generally a good thing.
- CoolGuySteve 16y ago
  Yeah but out of the $1.2 million of value that his labour is creating, he's only getting around 10% (based on average salaries at Google). Are the reduced risk and added infrastructure really worth Google's 90% cut?
  - brown9-2 16y ago
    You need to deduct employment expenses from that, which is why the article uses the $400k number.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    Would you be able to make that $120K (which seems low to me, actually) elsewhere? That's the important comparison - it's quite possible for you to keep 100% of the value you create, but only create $60-70K/year of value. Several of my college friends (not in the valley) are in that position.
illumin8 16y ago
I hate to break it to you, but people start companies to (shudder) make a profit... If you're not comfortable with someone making $1 million in revenue from your $100K salary, you probably shouldn't get a job anywhere.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- CoolGuySteve 16y ago
  *Except Wall St.
apenwarr 16y ago
Remember that's an average. Some people produce less and get paid less, some people produce more and get paid more. The two are not always correlated of course. In fact, at Google in particular, I'm sure it's crazily skewed: most people there are probably net money losers, and AdWords floats them all. If you took a vote, I bet the majority of people at Google would be terrified to get paid according to the corporate earnings they account for. Also note that the quoted earnings have of course deducted anything that got paid directly to the owners; the listed earnings are the money that is getting re-invested straight back into the company, not paid to the founders, so it's not quite valid to compare it directly to what you would earn if you owned the company.
- sophacles 16y ago
  Just saying, adwords is 100% useless without the other google stuff to run it on. This is important, and certainly makes the "actual per employee" profit much, much more difficult to calculate.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  It's hard to do an accounting, because virtually everything at Google is a team effort. There've been projects I've worked on that have generated hundreds of millions in additional revenue. However, there was a group downstream of us in Ads doing the actual sales. And we had groups upstream that we rely upon for data. And those groups had groups upstream of them that managed the infrastructure. Who earned the money? If you take out any one component of the pipeline, it never happened.
cageface 16y ago
I'm sure Google (and Apple) is a great place to work but after finally cutting the cord and working only for myself last year I can't imagine working for anybody else unless it's absolutely necessary.
- apenwarr 16y ago
  Oddly enough, I'm in the opposite situation: I've never held a serious job that wasn't, in some way or another, working for myself. (Other than 4-month co-op placements as a student.) The opposite experience will be interesting to try out.
  - cageface 16y ago
    If you've never been an employee before you should certainly try it. Even if it doesn't suit you you'll understand the tradeoffs of self-employment vs a regular job a lot better. Personally, the only thing I miss is the social environment of the office.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    I'm really the opposite. After starting and being a member of several startups, I'm on my last. While I've had profitable exits, nothing that I could retire on (and still feel really comfortable). And I've had friends in industry move up the ranks and get high six figure salaries and multi-million dollar bonuses. And I sometimes look at the hecticness of startup life and think that I'm finally getting too old for it. And while the idea of working for myself is a good one, I've always felt like I was working for someone -- just this person never told me who they were, what they wanted, or when I'd be paid. :-)
    - captainbenis 16y ago
      I'm in the same situation. I also don't want to peghole myself as a small company start-up guy. I'd like the experience of working in a large corporate, and also to surround myself in smarter people and learn and teach a tonne.

klbarry 16y ago

Considering Google takes all of the risk, and creates an environment where it's much easier to create value than on your own, I think it's more than fair.

Zaak 16y ago
Agreed. Some people choose to leave Google to start their own companies. Some people choose to stay in the situation they have at Google. Choice is generally a good thing.
CoolGuySteve 16y ago
Yeah but out of the $1.2 million of value that his labour is creating, he's only getting around 10% (based on average salaries at Google). Are the reduced risk and added infrastructure really worth Google's 90% cut?
- brown9-2 16y ago
  You need to deduct employment expenses from that, which is why the article uses the $400k number.
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Would you be able to make that $120K (which seems low to me, actually) elsewhere? That's the important comparison - it's quite possible for you to keep 100% of the value you create, but only create $60-70K/year of value. Several of my college friends (not in the valley) are in that position.

illumin8 16y ago

I hate to break it to you, but people start companies to (shudder) make a profit... If you're not comfortable with someone making $1 million in revenue from your $100K salary, you probably shouldn't get a job anywhere.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
CoolGuySteve 16y ago
*Except Wall St.

apenwarr 16y ago

Remember that's an average. Some people produce less and get paid less, some people produce more and get paid more. The two are not always correlated of course. In fact, at Google in particular, I'm sure it's crazily skewed: most people there are probably net money losers, and AdWords floats them all. If you took a vote, I bet the majority of people at Google would be terrified to get paid according to the corporate earnings they account for. Also note that the quoted earnings have of course deducted anything that got paid directly to the owners; the listed earnings are the money that is getting re-invested straight back into the company, not paid to the founders, so it's not quite valid to compare it directly to what you would earn if you owned the company.

sophacles 16y ago
Just saying, adwords is 100% useless without the other google stuff to run it on. This is important, and certainly makes the "actual per employee" profit much, much more difficult to calculate.
nostrademons 16y ago
It's hard to do an accounting, because virtually everything at Google is a team effort. There've been projects I've worked on that have generated hundreds of millions in additional revenue. However, there was a group downstream of us in Ads doing the actual sales. And we had groups upstream that we rely upon for data. And those groups had groups upstream of them that managed the infrastructure. Who earned the money? If you take out any one component of the pipeline, it never happened.

cageface 16y ago

I'm sure Google (and Apple) is a great place to work but after finally cutting the cord and working only for myself last year I can't imagine working for anybody else unless it's absolutely necessary.

apenwarr 16y ago
Oddly enough, I'm in the opposite situation: I've never held a serious job that wasn't, in some way or another, working for myself. (Other than 4-month co-op placements as a student.) The opposite experience will be interesting to try out.
- cageface 16y ago
  If you've never been an employee before you should certainly try it. Even if it doesn't suit you you'll understand the tradeoffs of self-employment vs a regular job a lot better. Personally, the only thing I miss is the social environment of the office.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  I'm really the opposite. After starting and being a member of several startups, I'm on my last. While I've had profitable exits, nothing that I could retire on (and still feel really comfortable). And I've had friends in industry move up the ranks and get high six figure salaries and multi-million dollar bonuses. And I sometimes look at the hecticness of startup life and think that I'm finally getting too old for it. And while the idea of working for myself is a good one, I've always felt like I was working for someone -- just this person never told me who they were, what they wanted, or when I'd be paid. :-)
  - captainbenis 16y ago
    I'm in the same situation. I also don't want to peghole myself as a small company start-up guy. I'd like the experience of working in a large corporate, and also to surround myself in smarter people and learn and teach a tonne.