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I hate how "normal" of a company google is becoming. Closing down services and products not because they aren't profitable, but because they aren't profitable e

I hate how "normal" of a company google is becoming. Closing down services and products not because they aren't profitable, but because they aren't profitable enough. They've really lost their way the last few years. In the late 2000's/early 2010's, google was pictured as the "fun" place to work. In part due to their coding competitions and the various other events they held for students throughout the year. Everyone I knew wanted to work for google. Now? everyone sees FAANG just the same as any other company. Most of the people I know who wanted to work at google, and a few that worked at google, now have higher paying, more enjoyable, and more stable jobs elsewhere.

jsnell 4y ago
> I hate how "normal" of a company google is becoming. Closing down services and products not because they aren't profitable, but because they aren't profitable enough. What specific services and products are you thinking of there? How do you know they were profitable?
- Beldin 4y ago
  Just to be pedantic: not profitable enough doesn't necessarily imply profitable. Consider, eg, shutting down their (Stadia's) game studio before the release of their first game. First release was scheduled a few months later, with no significant delays having occurred. Nevertheless, shutdown. No one would expect it to have made a profit without a release. But apparently there was no way they could be profitable enough to warrant keeping.
waboremo 4y ago
Most of those aren't really the huge pulls. Sure Google was "fun" and offered good benefits, but it was also incredibly stable despite it's competitive edge and "fastmoving-ness". After the massive layoffs that dwarfed any previous ones at Google (combined), that's no longer a pull to joining Google over other major techs.
Eumenes 4y ago
Worked at Google in the early 2010s and it was still a bit quirky/different, not enterprise at all ... but they were hiring armies of project managers, agile coaches, multiple layers of HR specialists ...
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
> Most of the people I know who wanted to work at google, and a few that worked at google, now have higher paying, more enjoyable, and more stable jobs elsewhere Honest question (this is really not a challenge), care to share where? I always thought of the FAANGs (collectively) giving the best compensation in the business. Which companies are paying more than Google but with more stability?
- vineyardmike 4y ago
  This doesn't exactly answer your question but some FAANGS pay better than others, and its related to the "desirability" of the company. Eg. Amazon started beating out Google's pay, since people wanted to work at google, and had to be coheres to working at amazon. I can't answer where pays better than FAANG, but companies in the bay (eg. Uber) are starting to approach the salary. Even smaller no-name bay companies are starting to match on base salary (equity+bonus is harder to match).
  - elijaht 4y ago
    > Even smaller no-name bay companies are starting to match on base salary (equity+bonus is harder to match). FWIW- I see a lot of places with matching or better base than FANG, but it's precisely because the equity at FAANG is so high. The only places I see with meaningfully higher pay than FAANG + hot tech companies of the day (ex. Doordash, Datadog, ...) are hedge funds. Curious if there is anywhere else
    - sbrother 4y ago
      One thing that complicates this is that Google (and probably the rest of FAANG but I don’t have experience there) is happy to severely downlevel people versus the positions they could get elsewhere. They also aggressively cut compensation if you live outside of SF/NYC. I’ve done a couple stints as an L4 SWE at Google and it is one of the worst paying places I’ve worked - but that’s because I’m comparing it to larger scope roles at smaller companies. Whereas yeah Staff or Director at Google is pretty hard to compete with.
shadowgovt 4y ago
It's been a long time coming. Google ran an experiment: "We are surrounded by stodgy, calcified software firms. Can we build a company that isn't like that and is also successful?" For a long time, they succeeded. But I think that experiment has run to a conclusion and they've discovered for themselves why their competition became stodgy and calcified (it wasn't because that's what they wanted to be; it's because the larger you get, the more diverse work you're doing, the more you're rewarded for being reliable and efficient, not scrappy and disruptive).
- htrp 4y ago
  >We are surrounded by stodgy, calcified software firms. Cue Amazon's efforts to stay away from 'Day 2'...
- evilduck 4y ago
  It's hard to be the scrappy and disruptive company when you've established the reputation that all of your new products efforts are a probably just months away from being showcased on https://killedbygoogle.com https://killedbygoogle.com.
  - lucidguppy 4y ago
    I wonder what would happen if they spun stuff off instead of killing stuff. Keep 20% ownership, it's an alternative to layoffs.
- ramblerman 4y ago
  > For a long time, they succeeded. I'm not sure I'd give them that much credit in executing on any strategy. Google sat on perhaps the biggest moat any recent company has known. They had cash to burn for decades and to their credit put a lot of that towards employee happiness. But I'm not sure they ever really got anything off the ground for the "post" search era.
  - neel8986 4y ago
    youtube, android, chrome, maps, google doc, drive to name a few.

jsnell 4y ago

> I hate how "normal" of a company google is becoming. Closing down services and products not because they aren't profitable, but because they aren't profitable enough. What specific services and products are you thinking of there? How do you know they were profitable?

Beldin 4y ago
Just to be pedantic: not profitable enough doesn't necessarily imply profitable. Consider, eg, shutting down their (Stadia's) game studio before the release of their first game. First release was scheduled a few months later, with no significant delays having occurred. Nevertheless, shutdown. No one would expect it to have made a profit without a release. But apparently there was no way they could be profitable enough to warrant keeping.

waboremo 4y ago

Most of those aren't really the huge pulls. Sure Google was "fun" and offered good benefits, but it was also incredibly stable despite it's competitive edge and "fastmoving-ness". After the massive layoffs that dwarfed any previous ones at Google (combined), that's no longer a pull to joining Google over other major techs.

Eumenes 4y ago

Worked at Google in the early 2010s and it was still a bit quirky/different, not enterprise at all ... but they were hiring armies of project managers, agile coaches, multiple layers of HR specialists ...

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

> Most of the people I know who wanted to work at google, and a few that worked at google, now have higher paying, more enjoyable, and more stable jobs elsewhere Honest question (this is really not a challenge), care to share where? I always thought of the FAANGs (collectively) giving the best compensation in the business. Which companies are paying more than Google but with more stability?

vineyardmike 4y ago
This doesn't exactly answer your question but some FAANGS pay better than others, and its related to the "desirability" of the company. Eg. Amazon started beating out Google's pay, since people wanted to work at google, and had to be coheres to working at amazon. I can't answer where pays better than FAANG, but companies in the bay (eg. Uber) are starting to approach the salary. Even smaller no-name bay companies are starting to match on base salary (equity+bonus is harder to match).
- elijaht 4y ago
  > Even smaller no-name bay companies are starting to match on base salary (equity+bonus is harder to match). FWIW- I see a lot of places with matching or better base than FANG, but it's precisely because the equity at FAANG is so high. The only places I see with meaningfully higher pay than FAANG + hot tech companies of the day (ex. Doordash, Datadog, ...) are hedge funds. Curious if there is anywhere else
  - sbrother 4y ago
    One thing that complicates this is that Google (and probably the rest of FAANG but I don’t have experience there) is happy to severely downlevel people versus the positions they could get elsewhere. They also aggressively cut compensation if you live outside of SF/NYC. I’ve done a couple stints as an L4 SWE at Google and it is one of the worst paying places I’ve worked - but that’s because I’m comparing it to larger scope roles at smaller companies. Whereas yeah Staff or Director at Google is pretty hard to compete with.

shadowgovt 4y ago

It's been a long time coming. Google ran an experiment: "We are surrounded by stodgy, calcified software firms. Can we build a company that isn't like that and is also successful?" For a long time, they succeeded. But I think that experiment has run to a conclusion and they've discovered for themselves why their competition became stodgy and calcified (it wasn't because that's what they wanted to be; it's because the larger you get, the more diverse work you're doing, the more you're rewarded for being reliable and efficient, not scrappy and disruptive).

htrp 4y ago
>We are surrounded by stodgy, calcified software firms. Cue Amazon's efforts to stay away from 'Day 2'...
evilduck 4y ago
It's hard to be the scrappy and disruptive company when you've established the reputation that all of your new products efforts are a probably just months away from being showcased on https://killedbygoogle.com https://killedbygoogle.com.
- lucidguppy 4y ago
  I wonder what would happen if they spun stuff off instead of killing stuff. Keep 20% ownership, it's an alternative to layoffs.
ramblerman 4y ago
> For a long time, they succeeded. I'm not sure I'd give them that much credit in executing on any strategy. Google sat on perhaps the biggest moat any recent company has known. They had cash to burn for decades and to their credit put a lot of that towards employee happiness. But I'm not sure they ever really got anything off the ground for the "post" search era.
- neel8986 4y ago
  youtube, android, chrome, maps, google doc, drive to name a few.