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More importantly, being able to put Google on your resume is a strong signaling mechanism , and the concentration of wicked intelligent, inquisitive people of y

More importantly, being able to put Google on your resume is a strong signaling mechanism , and the concentration of wicked intelligent, inquisitive people of your age is hard to beat. The fact that you chose Google in favor of a number of legitimate startups signals that you are more interested in stuffing your resume than doing something actually interesting, challenging, and impactful. I think the days of Google being the employer of choice for "wicked intelligent" people are long gone. Personally I'd rather hang out in a room of random startup employees (some of whom are probably ex-Googlers) than one full of present day Googlers.

batista 14y ago
>I think the days of Google being the employer of choice for "wicked intelligent" people are long gone. Personally I'd rather hang out in a room of random startup employees Tons of random startup employees (not to mention founders) are of very lame technical and scientific skills, and the problems they work on are ho-hum, me-too at best (front-end trivialities for social media, or variations of scaling a web-stack, basically all been there done that problems...).
FaceKicker 14y ago
> The fact that you chose Google in favor of a number of legitimate startups signals that you are more interested in stuffing your resume than doing something actually interesting, challenging, and impactful. That seems...a tad judgmental? I don't know claim to what GP's reason was, but I'm interning with Google this summer because I have an opportunity to work with a team that's doing work which is relevant to the research I'm doing in grad school, and I don't think such opportunities are as easy to find in startups.
- jimboyoungblood 14y ago
  Sorry- I probably should have phrased it more carefully. I did not mean to disparage Google, but the OP's reason for choosing Google. It sounds like Google is a great place for you this summer, based on your research interests. However, if one's basis for being there is because it "is a strong signaling mechanism" then I stand by my original statement.
  - nostrademons 14y ago
    Well, the point of putting "strong signaling mechanisms" on your resume is to open up other interesting opportunities in the future. Yes, it's stupid that you have to do this, and it would be awesome if everybody just had perfect information about who all the good employees are and which would be the perfect fit for your organization. But people don't, not even at good companies. And in the absence of that, it behooves you to do things that will shift people's perception of you in your favor, so that you have options and aren't prevented from doing what you really want to do.
karamazov 14y ago
This is not accurate. The engineers working at Google are talented, hard-working, and intelligent. Not everyone is interested in starting their own company; some people like working in larger groups on bigger projects and not having to worry about all the non-engineering that goes into a startup. Moreover, just because you're convinced you don't want to work at a big company doesn't mean nobody should work at one. OP is perfectly reasonable for choosing a new experience to see whether they'd like it or not, even if it's one that's unpopular among some crowds. And having Google on your resume is a nice bonus. Even if OP decides to stick with startups after, this will help with getting hired and/or funded.
- jimboyoungblood 14y ago
  I am sure the engineers at Google are all very intelligent. I never meant to imply otherwise. Back in 2004 or so, Google had a virtual monopoly on all the top engineering and CS talent coming out of school. At that time, Apple wasn't as sexy as it is now, Facebook didn't exist, and everything else (Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) just seemed sort of lame and corporate. Every top computer scientist wanted to work at Google. My point was that those days are long gone. Google lost a lot of good talent to Facebook and startups. It no longer has the luxury of cherry picking the best of the best. Getting a job offer from Google is no longer nearly as prestigious as it once was.
  - Nate75Sanders 14y ago
    Microsoft Research is something of an outlier, but I think it deserves mention here.
  - Drbble 14y ago
    When the internship days are done, people learn that a good experience and good pay is more, personally rewarding than prestige. Prestige doesn't feed the chickens.
nostrademons 14y ago
A large number of those present-day Googlers are ex-startup-founders. I've always found it somewhat silly to identify people by their employer. I was a random startup employee at two companies. I was a founder at one. I am currently a Googler. I wrote some open-source software in the interim (which reminds me, I need to go stick a license file in one of those projects because another present-day Googler wants to use it for an internal project). Which category would I fall under in your false dichotomy? Anyone remotely interesting will have a variety of experiences in their career; some will be at startups, and some will be at large established companies.
- jimboyoungblood 14y ago
  What percentage of your fellow Googlers are ex-startup-founders? Yes, there are interesting (and uninteresting) people everywhere. The people I personally find more interesting are found in higher density in startups than BigCo's. ymmv.
  - nostrademons 14y ago
    I don't know what it is company-wide. Among the immediate teams I work with - I am, my boss is, and four of the tech leads for teams I work closely with are. (I'm defining "work closely with" as "would not feel terribly awkward inviting over for a barbecue or board games.") If you add people who've founded successful open-source projects or done interesting projects as part of a larger organization, that number grows significantly. The founder of Gallery is the manager of a large team I work closely with, and on that team are the authors of Rhino, Parrot, Pychecker, "Linux Kernel Development" and "Linux in a Nutshell", and probably a few that I don't know of because I don't know everyone's pre-Google background.
    - Drbble 14y ago
      If you are talking about Gallery the abysmal Android photo viewing app-attempt, I wouldn't lump that in with your list of impressive technical achievements. I hope you are referring to the web album builder or something else.

batista 14y ago

>I think the days of Google being the employer of choice for "wicked intelligent" people are long gone. Personally I'd rather hang out in a room of random startup employees Tons of random startup employees (not to mention founders) are of very lame technical and scientific skills, and the problems they work on are ho-hum, me-too at best (front-end trivialities for social media, or variations of scaling a web-stack, basically all been there done that problems...).

FaceKicker 14y ago

> The fact that you chose Google in favor of a number of legitimate startups signals that you are more interested in stuffing your resume than doing something actually interesting, challenging, and impactful. That seems...a tad judgmental? I don't know claim to what GP's reason was, but I'm interning with Google this summer because I have an opportunity to work with a team that's doing work which is relevant to the research I'm doing in grad school, and I don't think such opportunities are as easy to find in startups.

jimboyoungblood 14y ago
Sorry- I probably should have phrased it more carefully. I did not mean to disparage Google, but the OP's reason for choosing Google. It sounds like Google is a great place for you this summer, based on your research interests. However, if one's basis for being there is because it "is a strong signaling mechanism" then I stand by my original statement.
- nostrademons 14y ago
  Well, the point of putting "strong signaling mechanisms" on your resume is to open up other interesting opportunities in the future. Yes, it's stupid that you have to do this, and it would be awesome if everybody just had perfect information about who all the good employees are and which would be the perfect fit for your organization. But people don't, not even at good companies. And in the absence of that, it behooves you to do things that will shift people's perception of you in your favor, so that you have options and aren't prevented from doing what you really want to do.

karamazov 14y ago

This is not accurate. The engineers working at Google are talented, hard-working, and intelligent. Not everyone is interested in starting their own company; some people like working in larger groups on bigger projects and not having to worry about all the non-engineering that goes into a startup. Moreover, just because you're convinced you don't want to work at a big company doesn't mean nobody should work at one. OP is perfectly reasonable for choosing a new experience to see whether they'd like it or not, even if it's one that's unpopular among some crowds. And having Google on your resume is a nice bonus. Even if OP decides to stick with startups after, this will help with getting hired and/or funded.

jimboyoungblood 14y ago
I am sure the engineers at Google are all very intelligent. I never meant to imply otherwise. Back in 2004 or so, Google had a virtual monopoly on all the top engineering and CS talent coming out of school. At that time, Apple wasn't as sexy as it is now, Facebook didn't exist, and everything else (Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) just seemed sort of lame and corporate. Every top computer scientist wanted to work at Google. My point was that those days are long gone. Google lost a lot of good talent to Facebook and startups. It no longer has the luxury of cherry picking the best of the best. Getting a job offer from Google is no longer nearly as prestigious as it once was.
- Nate75Sanders 14y ago
  Microsoft Research is something of an outlier, but I think it deserves mention here.
- Drbble 14y ago
  When the internship days are done, people learn that a good experience and good pay is more, personally rewarding than prestige. Prestige doesn't feed the chickens.

nostrademons 14y ago

A large number of those present-day Googlers are ex-startup-founders. I've always found it somewhat silly to identify people by their employer. I was a random startup employee at two companies. I was a founder at one. I am currently a Googler. I wrote some open-source software in the interim (which reminds me, I need to go stick a license file in one of those projects because another present-day Googler wants to use it for an internal project). Which category would I fall under in your false dichotomy? Anyone remotely interesting will have a variety of experiences in their career; some will be at startups, and some will be at large established companies.

jimboyoungblood 14y ago
What percentage of your fellow Googlers are ex-startup-founders? Yes, there are interesting (and uninteresting) people everywhere. The people I personally find more interesting are found in higher density in startups than BigCo's. ymmv.
- nostrademons 14y ago
  I don't know what it is company-wide. Among the immediate teams I work with - I am, my boss is, and four of the tech leads for teams I work closely with are. (I'm defining "work closely with" as "would not feel terribly awkward inviting over for a barbecue or board games.") If you add people who've founded successful open-source projects or done interesting projects as part of a larger organization, that number grows significantly. The founder of Gallery is the manager of a large team I work closely with, and on that team are the authors of Rhino, Parrot, Pychecker, "Linux Kernel Development" and "Linux in a Nutshell", and probably a few that I don't know of because I don't know everyone's pre-Google background.
  - Drbble 14y ago
    If you are talking about Gallery the abysmal Android photo viewing app-attempt, I wouldn't lump that in with your list of impressive technical achievements. I hope you are referring to the web album builder or something else.