6 ms·

Google’s secret perk? A private hackerspace

199 points by yan 15y ago

latch 15y ago
Even within a small company cliques are a fact of life. But, something about the way this is worded seems...awful? "which is open to any employee that meets some pretty strict requirements. A written test is given before an employee can access the facilities, and even then they must be deemed worthy of working on particular pieces of equipment" I'd like to assume this is a safety issue, but this is Google which is known to be pretty elitist. Some employees will always get more perks than others (more money, more vacation time, more options...). Part of the very nature of picking "haves" is that you inherently devalue the "have-nots". One step forward for having a more streamlined interview process, one step back for having interviews/tests for access to perks even after you're employed.
- jedc 15y ago
  Umm... this doesn't sound 'elitist', it sounds like 'health and safety requirement' alone. My university opened up a facility like this when I was there, and had very similar requirements. That said, I (nor anyone else I've heard of) don't have any specific information about this lab/workshop...
- joe_bleau 15y ago
  It's a safety issue. Pressurized acetylene must be treated with great respect, and just the other day I read about a chem student that was killed in a lathe accident at Yale.
  - latch 15y ago
    thanks for explaining. Still seems a bit like having a golf course and only letting employees with a certain handicap play. Maybe they could balance this out by offering an area with less dangerous equipment and/or lessons/instructors/supervision for everyone else.
    - kaib 15y ago
      When I still worked for Google the shops were split into four rooms with separate certification process and access for each. It was easy to get access to the EE or Woodworking shop, harder for the Metalworking and Welding.
    - ceejayoz 15y ago
      If your golf handicap is "liable to kill someone", I'm fine with you being banned from the course.
      - metageek 15y ago
        Yes, golf and caber tossing both come from Scotland. No, that doesn't mean they mix.
- wladimir 15y ago
  I guess it's the same in any company with "dangerous areas", and has nothing to do with elitism, but with common sense. I work at a company that produces lithography machines, and to get access to the clean-rooms you have to do all kinds of extra courses and tests, depending on the kind of technology used in there.
- dfc 15y ago
  Only certain employees at home depot can use the power saw to rip lumber. I doubt that is a sign of latent elitism. I be more concerned if google let any employee walk in and pick up a torch. If you want to be paranoid not having certification requirements would be evidence of some scary social darwinistic elitism.
newmediaclay 15y ago
This sounds a lot like the design studio at Apple. It's basically Jony Ive and ~10 designers who have full rights to prototype new products, even if they're completely random. I think a telling difference is the fact that this is a part of the core myth of Apple and the emphasis on beautiful design and small teams. It's not some hidden away secret. Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1367481/Apples-Jonathan-Ive-How-did-British-polytechnic-graduate-design-genius.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1367481/Appl... - "Jobs swiftly brought Ive in from the cold, moving the designers into a building on campus and investing in the latest rapid-prototyping equipment. He also beefed up Apple’s security, locking down the design studio to prevent leaks and installing a private kitchen so designers wouldn’t talk shop in public.
- martythemaniak 15y ago
  Sounds nothing like it actually - this one being open to any employee who wishes to take advantage of it, the other one being a private perk for a top exec and his close associates.
  - starpilot 15y ago
    And I doubt the Apple shop has welders or bandsaws.
    - pclark 15y ago
      They certainly have bandsaws
kaib 15y ago
I've actually worked at Google and been certified to use all of the shops including welding and metalworking. And the industrial grade heavy duty plasma cutter. The shops are really cool and they serve a slightly different purpose than for example TechShop. At TechShop a lot of the tinkering is more social, the Google shops are definitely less crowded. We run a similar much smaller shop at Tinkercad and I hope to expand that one in the future as well. The only gripe I have is that the campus is large enough that the Pi shops are a short distance away so you might not drop down there as often as you would like. That said the EE shop was pretty close to core campus. As for the certification and elitism. The cert process was very straightforward and relevant. People easily forget that metalworking and some woodworking machines don't let you learn by experimenting. These machines kill in seconds, sometimes for mistakes that are very unintuitive. Like wearing gloves has killed several people. Which is unintuitive when you are handling razor sharp pieces of metal. Or the recent fatal accident at Yale where student was pulled in by her hair. As for the particulars of Ihab. He is a very smart and diligent guy but he had very little practical machine shop experience. He recognized it himself and took classes to compensate. These standards aren't high just due to Rod, but because most Googlers are smart enough to be critical of their own skills when faced with lethal equipment. Re-posted from this earlier thread on the same subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2487979 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2487979 Edit: s/MIT/Yale/ for the lathe accident. Thanks.
- yan 15y ago
  (A small note, that lathe incident was in Yale) edit: s/Columbia/Yale/
  - kunjaan 15y ago
    It was actually at Yale. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/nyregion/yale-student-dies-in-machine-shop-accident.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/nyregion/yale-student-dies...
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
joeyespo 15y ago
Awesome. I'm personally so much more of a software hacker. But I do have a friend that can do all kinds of hardware hacks, from woodwork to welding. He loves doing it too, but often hits a roadblock with certain ideas since he doesn't have the required machinery and is currently employed outside this field of work. And without the funds, also doesn't have the opportunity to go very far with his hobby. Unfortunately, he also doesn't have the software background to work at Google. It's an amazing perk they offer for sure. It'd be really cool if they expanded this to allow some non-computer geeks to pitch in every now and then though.
meterplech 15y ago
This is incredible. I think Google is doing a great job of transitioning from a startup to a big company. They have so many things like this, 20% time, and letting tech guys focus on tech and still get promotions. I feel like they are trying to make themselves the Mecca for brilliant technologists. If you aren't a startup with an "us" against the world mentality, you have to add compelling reasons to attract talent.
- unshift 15y ago
  transitioning? they've had over 20,000 employees for a few years now. you cease to be a startup after you've started up. for them that probably happened around 1998-2000.
  - ja27 15y ago
    IBM has 426,000. AT&T has 294,000. GE has 287,000. Those are big companies at least in the tech community.
xster 15y ago
def jealous
Darklink 15y ago
Very interesting, I wish there were some more pictures of the inside of the shop itself. Knowing Google, I'm sure everything in there is top of the line.
martian 15y ago
TechShop in SOMA (San Francisco) has similar machinery and equipment, from the sound of it. http://techshop.ws/ http://techshop.ws/ A potential perk for SF-based startups could be access to shops like this. Buying all that equipment is expensive. Austin TX has a similar communal workspace http://www.makeatx.com/ http://www.makeatx.com/ and I'm sure similar spaces exist in other cities.
mkramlich 15y ago
I bet that's where SkyNet will be built. (Has been built?)

199 points by yan 15y ago

latch 15y ago

Even within a small company cliques are a fact of life. But, something about the way this is worded seems...awful? "which is open to any employee that meets some pretty strict requirements. A written test is given before an employee can access the facilities, and even then they must be deemed worthy of working on particular pieces of equipment" I'd like to assume this is a safety issue, but this is Google which is known to be pretty elitist. Some employees will always get more perks than others (more money, more vacation time, more options...). Part of the very nature of picking "haves" is that you inherently devalue the "have-nots". One step forward for having a more streamlined interview process, one step back for having interviews/tests for access to perks even after you're employed.

jedc 15y ago
Umm... this doesn't sound 'elitist', it sounds like 'health and safety requirement' alone. My university opened up a facility like this when I was there, and had very similar requirements. That said, I (nor anyone else I've heard of) don't have any specific information about this lab/workshop...
joe_bleau 15y ago
It's a safety issue. Pressurized acetylene must be treated with great respect, and just the other day I read about a chem student that was killed in a lathe accident at Yale.
- latch 15y ago
  thanks for explaining. Still seems a bit like having a golf course and only letting employees with a certain handicap play. Maybe they could balance this out by offering an area with less dangerous equipment and/or lessons/instructors/supervision for everyone else.
  - kaib 15y ago
    When I still worked for Google the shops were split into four rooms with separate certification process and access for each. It was easy to get access to the EE or Woodworking shop, harder for the Metalworking and Welding.
  - ceejayoz 15y ago
    If your golf handicap is "liable to kill someone", I'm fine with you being banned from the course.
    - metageek 15y ago
      Yes, golf and caber tossing both come from Scotland. No, that doesn't mean they mix.
wladimir 15y ago
I guess it's the same in any company with "dangerous areas", and has nothing to do with elitism, but with common sense. I work at a company that produces lithography machines, and to get access to the clean-rooms you have to do all kinds of extra courses and tests, depending on the kind of technology used in there.
dfc 15y ago
Only certain employees at home depot can use the power saw to rip lumber. I doubt that is a sign of latent elitism. I be more concerned if google let any employee walk in and pick up a torch. If you want to be paranoid not having certification requirements would be evidence of some scary social darwinistic elitism.

newmediaclay 15y ago

This sounds a lot like the design studio at Apple. It's basically Jony Ive and ~10 designers who have full rights to prototype new products, even if they're completely random. I think a telling difference is the fact that this is a part of the core myth of Apple and the emphasis on beautiful design and small teams. It's not some hidden away secret. Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1367481/Apples-Jonathan-Ive-How-did-British-polytechnic-graduate-design-genius.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1367481/Appl... - "Jobs swiftly brought Ive in from the cold, moving the designers into a building on campus and investing in the latest rapid-prototyping equipment. He also beefed up Apple’s security, locking down the design studio to prevent leaks and installing a private kitchen so designers wouldn’t talk shop in public.

martythemaniak 15y ago
Sounds nothing like it actually - this one being open to any employee who wishes to take advantage of it, the other one being a private perk for a top exec and his close associates.
- starpilot 15y ago
  And I doubt the Apple shop has welders or bandsaws.
  - pclark 15y ago
    They certainly have bandsaws

kaib 15y ago

I've actually worked at Google and been certified to use all of the shops including welding and metalworking. And the industrial grade heavy duty plasma cutter. The shops are really cool and they serve a slightly different purpose than for example TechShop. At TechShop a lot of the tinkering is more social, the Google shops are definitely less crowded. We run a similar much smaller shop at Tinkercad and I hope to expand that one in the future as well. The only gripe I have is that the campus is large enough that the Pi shops are a short distance away so you might not drop down there as often as you would like. That said the EE shop was pretty close to core campus. As for the certification and elitism. The cert process was very straightforward and relevant. People easily forget that metalworking and some woodworking machines don't let you learn by experimenting. These machines kill in seconds, sometimes for mistakes that are very unintuitive. Like wearing gloves has killed several people. Which is unintuitive when you are handling razor sharp pieces of metal. Or the recent fatal accident at Yale where student was pulled in by her hair. As for the particulars of Ihab. He is a very smart and diligent guy but he had very little practical machine shop experience. He recognized it himself and took classes to compensate. These standards aren't high just due to Rod, but because most Googlers are smart enough to be critical of their own skills when faced with lethal equipment. Re-posted from this earlier thread on the same subject: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2487979 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2487979 Edit: s/MIT/Yale/ for the lathe accident. Thanks.

yan 15y ago
(A small note, that lathe incident was in Yale) edit: s/Columbia/Yale/
- kunjaan 15y ago
  It was actually at Yale. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/nyregion/yale-student-dies-in-machine-shop-accident.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/nyregion/yale-student-dies...
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]

joeyespo 15y ago

Awesome. I'm personally so much more of a software hacker. But I do have a friend that can do all kinds of hardware hacks, from woodwork to welding. He loves doing it too, but often hits a roadblock with certain ideas since he doesn't have the required machinery and is currently employed outside this field of work. And without the funds, also doesn't have the opportunity to go very far with his hobby. Unfortunately, he also doesn't have the software background to work at Google. It's an amazing perk they offer for sure. It'd be really cool if they expanded this to allow some non-computer geeks to pitch in every now and then though.

meterplech 15y ago

This is incredible. I think Google is doing a great job of transitioning from a startup to a big company. They have so many things like this, 20% time, and letting tech guys focus on tech and still get promotions. I feel like they are trying to make themselves the Mecca for brilliant technologists. If you aren't a startup with an "us" against the world mentality, you have to add compelling reasons to attract talent.

unshift 15y ago
transitioning? they've had over 20,000 employees for a few years now. you cease to be a startup after you've started up. for them that probably happened around 1998-2000.
- ja27 15y ago
  IBM has 426,000. AT&T has 294,000. GE has 287,000. Those are big companies at least in the tech community.

xster 15y ago

def jealous

Darklink 15y ago

Very interesting, I wish there were some more pictures of the inside of the shop itself. Knowing Google, I'm sure everything in there is top of the line.

martian 15y ago

TechShop in SOMA (San Francisco) has similar machinery and equipment, from the sound of it. http://techshop.ws/ http://techshop.ws/ A potential perk for SF-based startups could be access to shops like this. Buying all that equipment is expensive. Austin TX has a similar communal workspace http://www.makeatx.com/ http://www.makeatx.com/ and I'm sure similar spaces exist in other cities.

mkramlich 15y ago

I bet that's where SkyNet will be built. (Has been built?)