9 ms·

You work for google because you make insane money and have cachet you can take anywhere and get hired instantly. Hell, you can pull in 10 million funding for yo

• brailsafe 4y ago
  Never say always
• hsn915 4y ago
  Observing super priviliged people whining about how unfair it is to get laid off is really something.
  • paxys 4y ago
    There's nothing "privileged" about working at Google. It's a job, like anything else in tech.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • mediaman 4y ago
      Given median comp at Google, working at Google is quite privileged. Going to Stanford is likewise privileged. Being privileged isn't an insult, just a recognition of fact.
      • paxys 4y ago
        By that logic everyone in the world is privileged compared to those earning 5% less than them, including every person here complaining about a Google employee's privilege. So what does that word mean exactly?
        • nerdponx 4y ago
          Yes
        • postalrat 4y ago
          A wise woman once said: "Now is the envy of all of the dead"
        • sanedigital 4y ago
          With a few exceptions, everyone here on HN is wildly privileged. The .0001% of world-history.
        • galactus 4y ago
          If you go to the other extreme no one but the richest person on earth is priviledged. Come on, making 300k a year or more is privilege even within the context of US white collar jobs.
          • paxys 4y ago
            Regardless of the number, getting paid for your labor & skills is not "privilege". Employees at Google are getting fleeced by the corporation and its shareholders just like the rest of us are by ours. Remember the big tech poaching scandal from a decade ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...)?
      • gretch 4y ago
        > just a recognition of fact It's literally not a fact, it's an opinion. Hey what's your job? You don't need to tell me. But I'm gonna go ahead and say you're privileged compared to a rural chinese farmer that has never held a phone.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
        • sgtnoodle 4y ago
          That farmer might be happier though.
          • prewett 4y ago
            Given how many of them leave their kids with the grandparents and move to Guangdong, etc. to work in the factories and live in bunk houses and send money back home, only seeing their kids once a year during Spring Festival, I think they might not be content. (On the other hand, I guess the ones still farming would be happier, by virtue of self-selection.)
          • Gibbon1 4y ago
            Chinese farmer probably has higher data rates on his phone for less per month.
            • red-iron-pine 4y ago
              And isn't allowed to play gatcha games or WoW anymore
        • ismokedoinks 4y ago
          Welcome to Maoism-Third Worldism comrade
        • mediaman 4y ago
          Privilege is necessarily a comparative concept. Most people in America are privileged compared to a rural Chinese farmer. The median Google employee is privileged compared to average American citizens. It's healthy to acknowledge this.
    • mc32 4y ago
      If you ask the people who were gentrified out of the mission when FAANGers decideed the Peninsula wasn't cool and would move into the Mission, if FAANGers are privileged or just a regular joes and janes, I'm pretty sure I can predict their answer.
      • paxys 4y ago
        Ask the rest of the planet and they'll call these mission hipsters equally privileged.
        • mc32 4y ago
          Relative to COL, it depends. I mean sure, If they moved to King City, maybe? But then why all the complaints about SF affordability if the answer is "move to a locale where your income allows you to afford rent without rent control" --if you can find a job"
    • hsn915 4y ago
      Earning $200k/yr without doing anything special is a privilige very few people in the world get to enjoy. I have no sympathy for these people. Learn a real skill and do something useful. Before you jump and say they do have a skill: why are they whining then? People who have skills don't whine when they are laid off. They just go and find another place to work. The fact that they need to whine so loudly about it tells you everything you need to know: they have nothing of value to contribute, or they were getting paid many times more than their skill is actually worth.
      • paxys 4y ago
        And I bet you think your $50K/$100K/$150K or whatever else salary is perfectly justified and you are adding great value to the world. Why is that? Or will you admit that you are privileged as well?
        • hsn915 4y ago
          I have admitted multiple times on HN and elsewhere that I don't think anything I've done in my career has been particularly valueable or useful to society. I totally own it. I not only don't complain about being "laid off". I often quit jobs myself and spend some "gap" time doing nothing before I find the next job. Currently I'm not working for anyone because I'm sick of all tech jobs.
          • paxys 4y ago
            Okay then I guess everyone on the planet with a steady job is privileged. What about the business/corporate class? Do you think they have more or less privilege than their workers?
          • PenguinCoder 4y ago
            > Often quit jobs myself and spend some "gap" time doing nothing That is a privilege that not many people can afford, especially lower income workers. You're speaking from an enviable position of privilege while complaining about others having privilege. Perspective.
  • girvo 4y ago
    It’s privilege all the way down in our industry, after all
  • bawolff 4y ago
    You say that like bad things can't happen to privliged people or that it somehow doesn't suck for them when it happens.
  • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    The priviliged were fired by the super priviliged. The middle class VS upper class is a perfectly legitimate conflict. Suppose you were are from a lower class, surely the middle class has more interests in common with you than the capital-class does?
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • piva00 4y ago
    Privileged or not they're all workers, as any other person who depends on a salary. They earn more but it doesn't make them less workers than others, solidarity among workers is the bare minimum we should have...
• bikeshaving 4y ago
  How many rats would you say you fight in a typical fiscal year, if you don’t mind me asking?
  • kerblang 4y ago
    Sorry for the late answer: Thousands, sometimes hundreds. There is an ebb & flow, if you will.
    • bikeshaving 4y ago
      The data must flow.
• syspec 4y ago
  Worth noting that many of the people let go were not your 300K/year engineers.
  • masterjefferson 4y ago
    The MEDIAN compensation at google is $300k!
    • lexapro 4y ago
      So 50% were not 300K/year engineers.
      • PenguinCoder 4y ago
        Certainly weren't $35k a year employees either.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• komali2 4y ago
  Mate these people aren't your enemy no matter how much you think they make compared to you. You think it was only blue haired 300k social media managers that got layed off or something? There's sand pounding IT guys there that got layed off too, I know for a fact cause some are my friends. Yeah it was a Google job so it was lux but they were running fiber and getting called in at 2am cause some clueless executive's email broke again. I don't know why people are buying into cult of Google either, I think that's silly, what matters here isn't just that a bunch of people got laid off, but also that now all their former co-workers still at Google have to pick up all their jobs without any more compensation for it. All the saves money from reduction of cost is going to nobody but shareholders - which employees might be a little bit if they're vested, but not to the degree of larger shareholders who contribute nothing.
  • WalterBright 4y ago
    > larger shareholders who contribute nothing They contributed investment capital to the company.
    • komali2 4y ago
      But what labor did they contribute? Follow the chain and at most what they did was buy someone else's labor and attach it to the Google brand (through having more cash for hiring), there's other ways to do that though, like loans, or structuring as a co-op so all employees are simply the only shareholders.
      • csomar 4y ago
        There is a dangerous path in this rationalization that will lead you to Marxism. The theory is cute and some people in Europe thought it would work. It didn't and that's how we ended up with capitalism. Humans are capitalist traders by instinct. Marxism makes logical sense, however.
        • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
          > Humans are capitalist traders by instinct. Humans are Feudal creatures by instict - thats why feudalism lasted thousands of yeats. Democracy and freedom are fragile and unnatural, they must be cherished. > There is a dangerous path in this rationalization that will lead you to Marxism. This is the brain disease of American politics, anyone pointing out injustice of any kind is accused of Marxism. The only acceptable way for society to evolve is ever-increasing privilidges for the wealthy untill average man can never hope to afford real estate and can't afford a layer. Then we will arrive at feudalism.
• dvsdvasvvsavas 4y ago
  [flagged]
• fzeroracer 4y ago
  And below you in the IT sewer are the poor and forsaken, who look upon your work and statements and call you equally privileged while you post on a startup forum started by some of the wealthiest individuals around. You are equally out of touch and yet unable to see this as you look upwards and claim no, it is them that are out of touch.
  • girvo 4y ago
    None of that really disagrees with the commenters point though. They might indeed be privileged and out of touch (nearly guaranteed in fact), but that does not mean Googlers aren’t even more so. Not that I particularly mind either way: we are all a privileged lot in the tech world. Myself absolutely included!
    • gretch 4y ago
      It's not a useful/interesting to just say "you're privileged, stop having thoughts/opinions". We'd quickly just shut down all conversation ever because none of us are 8 year old british chimney sweeps covered in soot. In which case, how is the world a better place? We can acknowledge that there's a lens where some people have privileges ("privileged isn't a binary state") and then still have a discussion about what happened.
    • dvsdvasvvsavas 4y ago
      What is with this thread? Why is a job being called a privilege? Are we completely discounting hard work and merit. Its not like people are inheriting jobs at Google. If working at Google such a privilege and is the goal, work towards it. Like so many other people did, take up a student loans and put yourself through school, build your resume, take up projects, internships, work experience etc. Prep for interviews, what ever it takes. Then you can take the job and enjoy the "spoils", what ever those are. One can't just decide not to put in the work and then look at the guy who did and say... privileged.
      • ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        > One can't just decide not to put in the work and then look at the guy who did and say... privileged. Being a President of Unites States is a privilidge, surely you dont dispute that? Are you putting in the work to become President? If not, you are not allowed to call him priviliged. > If working at Google such a privilege and is the goal, work towards it. Being the Pope is a privilidge too, do you even want to be the Pope? If I don't want to be the Pope, should I be unable to recognise that it's a position of power, privilidge and prestige?
• lmm 4y ago
  Crab bucket mentality right there.
• absrd 4y ago
  If you're upset that you spend your days fighting rats and not making insane money, I think you should target your anger at your boss who keeps you in that situation, rather than at other workers who have it better than you.
• bawolff 4y ago
  > I work in the IT sewer fighting rats. I will always have work. So umm you are claiming that you are part of a class that will always have work and stability unlike the people who work at faang. (Debatable but lets take the claim at face value). You are literally saying that we should not care about the plight of googlers because they are in a different class, which is subject to drawbacks which people like you don't face because of your class. And that that makes them privliged. Did i get that right? That is an interesting definition of privlidge you have there.
• dajtxx 4y ago
  LOL, exactly. I'm trying hard to feel sorry for SV FAANG workers getting laid off but I can't[1]. I'm also struggling to see how their self-esteem will take years to recover from this. Those cosseted 'engineers' earn probably 2 to 4 times a year more than me, and get meals etc. Their severance package is probably my annual wage. Plenty of time to find another gig with their FAANG resumes that suits their expectations. Perhaps if they spent a few years in the less rarified development jobs a lot of us deal with they might better understand their position in the world. [1] No I'm not.
• spit2wind 4y ago
  I love how all the W2s be fighting against themselves as though they aren't all in the same position. Yes, there's a big difference between $300k and $30k. It doesn't feel quite so big, though, when one medical bill can bankrupt you, regardless. Or you're living paycheck to paycheck because school cost you $150k (plus interest). We all have a lot more in common than not. Hard is hard and people matter. Those laid off got a bad deal, period, because it has less to do with actual "merit" and more to do with at-will is a bad deal.
  • jujube3 4y ago
    > It doesn't feel quite so big, though, when one medical bill can bankrupt you, regardless. Can't happen because health insurance has an out-of-pocket maximum for the year > Or you're living paycheck to paycheck because school cost you $150k (plus interest). College prices do need to be reined in, but if you are making 300k you should be able to handle a 150k debt. > Those laid off got a bad deal, period, because it has less to do with actual "merit" and more to do with at-will is a bad deal. Seems like a pretty good deal, honestly. Generous severance packages. Nobody likes layoffs but pretending that this is some kind of humanitarian disaster is just grotesque
• kerblang 4y ago
  Editorial Note: Silly me, grumpy, flaming and point-whoring. Shame. But I really don't care about google, at all.