4 ms·

Well that was an interesting read. Some things that stood out to me, changing depreciation rules to “magically” generate $770M in revenue. Traffic acquisition

Well that was an interesting read. Some things that stood out to me, changing depreciation rules to “magically” generate $770M in revenue. Traffic acquisition costs down for the quarter (I think this is the first time in like 10 years it has gone down). And a stock buyback which does the “let’s pretend our stock is going up” trick. (IBM has been a master of this for years). None of it looked very hopeful for the future of Alphabet. A friend of mine who was in the “sudden layoff of entire projects” wave is starting to feel better about having gotten out with a severance package. I told them (as a survivor of a couple of layoffs back in the dot.com days) that there are pluses and minuses to being picked or being passed over. But everyone gets reminded to polish up their resume and start looking at the alternatives. If you still work there, keep an eye on the people you know are the ones who “get things done” as they will often be the first to leave as it is easier for them. Folks who have moved from cancelled project to cancelled project will find it harder as interviewers will be unconsciously biased against applicants who have never worked on a successful project/product. Take heart though, when “gorilla/monster/dominant” technology companies die, their former employees fertilize the field of new ideas and, at least as I’ve observered over the last 40 years, new greatness emerges.

yodsanklai 4y ago
> Folks who have moved from cancelled project to cancelled project will find it harder as interviewers will be unconsciously biased against applicants who have never worked on a successful project/product. Interviewers don't know whether your projects were successful or not (and often don't care, I don't remember ever being asked this type of questions, SWE interviewing has always been mainly technical for me).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  Would you hire a stadia employee or a search employee?
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    I'd hire whichever one did better on the interview. Stadia had excellent engineers working on it and the product itself was technically amazing.
  - plorkyeran 4y ago
    Yes? I'm not sure how that's even a question. Passing on someone that seems like a good hire because they worked on a technically impressive thing which had some major non-technical problems would be really stupid. Both of those are things which would make me more interested in bringing them in for an interview, not less.
    - cuteboy19 4y ago
      I suppose I should have worded it differently to follow up on the "unconscious bias of recruiters" angle
  - pb7 4y ago
    Stadia was an incredibly impressive technical product. It failed because of terrible product and business vision, not its engineering.
- ChuckMcM 4y ago
  At least in the SF Bay Area, I'd be careful with this assumption: "Interviewers don't know whether your projects were successful or not ..." The number of degrees of freedom between any two people is remarkably small. As someone who has interviewed and hired perhaps two or three hundred people over my career, it was rare that as an interviewer I didn't know more about the interviewer than their resume stated. Later in my career, the depth of information in "ATS" (Applicant Tracking Systems) applications at companies has only gotten deeper. Social media posts, comments on HN :-), peer analysis from others hired from the same company, Etc. What is more, from Google's perspective, a lot of their hiring teams who used these systems to screen candidates were contractors and have often been laid off when Google needed to make better numbers. They didn't just "forget" everything they knew, a number of them with whom I worked, contacted me post Google employment after setting up their own business as recruiters. Not saying its good or bad, just that it is important that a lot of information exists that "follows you" around. The longer you work, the more senior you become, the more it fills with a ratio of "haters/meh/supporters" info. The thing that always annoyed me and I had to ASK recruiters to send me candidates that matched but their "whisper network" suggested they were problems/losers. Sometimes just getting past that screen is really tough for someone. EDIT: sometimes the wording is tricky.
  - nvarsj 4y ago
    Did you just say Google is indexing HN comments with applicants? Can you provide more info?
    - ChuckMcM 4y ago
      Google uses all available information in its hiring and screening tools.
  - yodsanklai 4y ago
    I think I only ever interviewed and worked in big tech companies that recruits candidates at global scale. When interviewing a candidate, we try to avoid bias and pick objective signals. Whether their past projects got canceled is the type of things we actively don't want to know about. But now I suppose that in companies with smaller pools of local candidates, this type of information can make a difference.
pb7 4y ago
Apple has bought back roughly $75B per year since 2018, at least. https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/stock_buyback https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/stock_buyback
hardikgupta 4y ago
> Some things that stood out to me, changing depreciation rules to “magically” generate $770M in revenue. Changing depreciation schedule has no impact on revenue. It only affects costs and therefore profit.
- ChuckMcM 4y ago
  You are correct. Public companies can change their depreciation schedules at any time and accountants use that fact to change their "losses" in a way that is most beneficial to the company. Too much profit so have to pay taxes? Depreciate things faster. Not enough profit to appease the investors? Depreciate things more slowly.
CydeWeys 4y ago
> And a stock buyback which does the “let’s pretend our stock is going up” trick. (IBM has been a master of this for years). Not sure what trick you're referring to. Buybacks are the new dividends; they accomplish the same thing but in a more tax-efficient manner for investors.
- za3faran 4y ago
  Interesting, I haven't thought about it that way before. Are buybacks more volatile compared to dividends?
  - saovq 4y ago
    Buybacks are increasingly viewed as a better way to return money to shareholders, for companies, not individual shareholders. They prop up the stock obviously, but also allow greater flexibility for the company in removing what becomes an expected obligation (dividend payment). In exchange, you can have a discretionary buyback program that can fluctuate in amount over time, and is viewed as less of a bell weather for the company's health. What is good about buybacks for investors is that you can choose how to time your sales, which can result in tax benefits. Dividends you pay tax on a schedule that might be less suitable to whatever financial massaging investors might want to engage in.
    - peteradio 4y ago
      Can you do buybacks forever or just a few decades or so?
      - votepaunchy 4y ago
        You can always split the stock if employee and executive options are not creating sufficient shares.
    - morepork 4y ago
      On top of this, execs typically have a lot of stock based compensation. So buybacks are way better than dividends for them

yodsanklai 4y ago

> Folks who have moved from cancelled project to cancelled project will find it harder as interviewers will be unconsciously biased against applicants who have never worked on a successful project/product. Interviewers don't know whether your projects were successful or not (and often don't care, I don't remember ever being asked this type of questions, SWE interviewing has always been mainly technical for me).

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cuteboy19 4y ago
Would you hire a stadia employee or a search employee?
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  I'd hire whichever one did better on the interview. Stadia had excellent engineers working on it and the product itself was technically amazing.
- plorkyeran 4y ago
  Yes? I'm not sure how that's even a question. Passing on someone that seems like a good hire because they worked on a technically impressive thing which had some major non-technical problems would be really stupid. Both of those are things which would make me more interested in bringing them in for an interview, not less.
  - cuteboy19 4y ago
    I suppose I should have worded it differently to follow up on the "unconscious bias of recruiters" angle
- pb7 4y ago
  Stadia was an incredibly impressive technical product. It failed because of terrible product and business vision, not its engineering.
ChuckMcM 4y ago
At least in the SF Bay Area, I'd be careful with this assumption: "Interviewers don't know whether your projects were successful or not ..." The number of degrees of freedom between any two people is remarkably small. As someone who has interviewed and hired perhaps two or three hundred people over my career, it was rare that as an interviewer I didn't know more about the interviewer than their resume stated. Later in my career, the depth of information in "ATS" (Applicant Tracking Systems) applications at companies has only gotten deeper. Social media posts, comments on HN :-), peer analysis from others hired from the same company, Etc. What is more, from Google's perspective, a lot of their hiring teams who used these systems to screen candidates were contractors and have often been laid off when Google needed to make better numbers. They didn't just "forget" everything they knew, a number of them with whom I worked, contacted me post Google employment after setting up their own business as recruiters. Not saying its good or bad, just that it is important that a lot of information exists that "follows you" around. The longer you work, the more senior you become, the more it fills with a ratio of "haters/meh/supporters" info. The thing that always annoyed me and I had to ASK recruiters to send me candidates that matched but their "whisper network" suggested they were problems/losers. Sometimes just getting past that screen is really tough for someone. EDIT: sometimes the wording is tricky.
- nvarsj 4y ago
  Did you just say Google is indexing HN comments with applicants? Can you provide more info?
  - ChuckMcM 4y ago
    Google uses all available information in its hiring and screening tools.
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  I think I only ever interviewed and worked in big tech companies that recruits candidates at global scale. When interviewing a candidate, we try to avoid bias and pick objective signals. Whether their past projects got canceled is the type of things we actively don't want to know about. But now I suppose that in companies with smaller pools of local candidates, this type of information can make a difference.

pb7 4y ago

Apple has bought back roughly $75B per year since 2018, at least. https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/stock_buyback https://ycharts.com/companies/AAPL/stock_buyback

hardikgupta 4y ago

> Some things that stood out to me, changing depreciation rules to “magically” generate $770M in revenue. Changing depreciation schedule has no impact on revenue. It only affects costs and therefore profit.

ChuckMcM 4y ago
You are correct. Public companies can change their depreciation schedules at any time and accountants use that fact to change their "losses" in a way that is most beneficial to the company. Too much profit so have to pay taxes? Depreciate things faster. Not enough profit to appease the investors? Depreciate things more slowly.

CydeWeys 4y ago

> And a stock buyback which does the “let’s pretend our stock is going up” trick. (IBM has been a master of this for years). Not sure what trick you're referring to. Buybacks are the new dividends; they accomplish the same thing but in a more tax-efficient manner for investors.

za3faran 4y ago
Interesting, I haven't thought about it that way before. Are buybacks more volatile compared to dividends?
- saovq 4y ago
  Buybacks are increasingly viewed as a better way to return money to shareholders, for companies, not individual shareholders. They prop up the stock obviously, but also allow greater flexibility for the company in removing what becomes an expected obligation (dividend payment). In exchange, you can have a discretionary buyback program that can fluctuate in amount over time, and is viewed as less of a bell weather for the company's health. What is good about buybacks for investors is that you can choose how to time your sales, which can result in tax benefits. Dividends you pay tax on a schedule that might be less suitable to whatever financial massaging investors might want to engage in.
  - peteradio 4y ago
    Can you do buybacks forever or just a few decades or so?
    - votepaunchy 4y ago
      You can always split the stock if employee and executive options are not creating sufficient shares.
  - morepork 4y ago
    On top of this, execs typically have a lot of stock based compensation. So buybacks are way better than dividends for them