4 ms·

When you use specific terms like PIPs and perf, we know who you're talking about. I interviewed at Google recently and asked my interviewers about you, Michael,

When you use specific terms like PIPs and perf, we know who you're talking about. I interviewed at Google recently and asked my interviewers about you, Michael, based on the threads you start here that talk about the management vs. engineers culture at Google. Rather than go "oh, Michael, you're so wrong," I gave you a chance and brought it up as a valid concern to each of my five interviewers. The resounding sentiment from every single engineer who interviewed me (two of them with more than 8 years at Google) was how badly you misrepresent and malign Google and how half of engineering wishes they could correct you, but legality and common sense prevents them from doing so. (It goes without saying that it's really interesting that all five knew who you were, since I interviewed on the warm coast and you worked in NY.) I didn't just get that from people putting on a game face to interview me. I know five current Googlers from all walks of life and corporate structure, including someone who worked near you during your tenure, and they all hate what you do in public. It's an effective technique, really, because you know that you win if they go toe to toe with you. Given that you're discussing slitting throats for more equity in other parts of this thread, and previously you've compared Google management to the terrorists that brought down the World Trade Center, I implore you to seek help. Please. Way too many people feed in to your reality distortion who haven't been around the block in the valley and Hacker News, and it's disgusting to watch.

michaelochurch 13y ago
When you use specific terms like PIPs and perf, we know who you're talking about. I wasn't talking about Google. Not for that specific case. That happened at another company, where I didn't work, but I know the story. Lots of companies use PIPs and performance reviews. The resounding sentiment from every single engineer who interviewed me (two of them with more than 8 years at Google) was how badly you misrepresent and malign Google and how half of engineering wishes they could correct you, but legality and common sense prevents them from doing so. If they want to defend their company's practices, they should. Who knows? Perhaps the company improved massively after I left. Perhaps calibration scores were abolished last year. I'd have no way of knowing and, if that's the case, the public should know. I'm better known for that than I'd like to be. However, I'd say that my support is about 25/25/50. 50 percent of Googlers see me as Emmanuel Goldstein and would probably never want to talk to me, that's true. I don't like that I have potentially thousands of enemies, but sometimes a person like me has to do the right thing, even at the cost of unpopularity. 25 percent are just completely indifferent. 25 percent view me positively because they want to see Google improve and think it takes someone like me to draw executive attention to problems. Oddly enough, I'm probably doing more good for Google engineers than anyone realizes, because upper management is now aware of abuses in the middle and, at least, has a chance to correct them. I haven't probed (I don't care) but the company could be fixing itself, thanks to something I started. Of course, the perverse irony is that if Google management fixes their culture, I'll probably still be the villain (as a guy who worked there at the nadir and gave it a negative reputation) rather than the catalyst. The best thing for my personal reputation is for Google not to improve itself, because then I'm still right. Still, it's better for the world for Google to heed my advice and fix itself in order to make all the things I've said wrong. I know five current Googlers from all walks of life and corporate structure, including someone who worked near you during your tenure, and they all hate what you do in public. I've said a lot of positive things about Google. They have great engineers. I've also criticized the place. Whoever came up with "calibration scores" needs to stop using his employer as a nursing home and start using an actual nursing home as a nursing home. If Google's upper management indicates will to resolve its cultural problems (and hell, I'll work with them on this, and at a cut rate) then I will shut up. I am already willing to admit that my information is a year and a half out of date. So there.
- notmchurch 13y ago
  I'm sorry, Michael, but it is not true that 25% of Googlers view you positively. The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially following your revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing people who ostensibly gave you bad references. You need to get over this delusion that Google is wrong and and you are right, and that eventually Google will somehow come to its senses and beg for your forgiveness and guidance. It is never going to happen. Ever. I really think that you should seek professional help. You're not just going to wind up an unemployed pariah at the rate you're going; you're going to wind up in a padded cell.
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially following your revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing people who ostensibly gave you bad references. I don't know what you're talking about. You need to get over this delusion that Google is wrong and and you are right Not delusion. All I have said is that they're badly run and that most of the corrosion is in the middle-management layer. and that eventually Google will somehow come to its senses and beg for your forgiveness and guidance. It is never going to happen. Ever. You are almost certainly right on that one, although I find it pretty obvious. People rarely backtrack on mistakes, and organizations are even more prone to foolish consistency. Also, how in the fuck am I the crazy one? I don't attack a person I've never met just to uphold the reputation of a gigantic company. It's actually a bit sickening. Yes, I have taken aim at Google's management. If you are an engineer, you aren't in this fight and you should stay out, because I never did have any problem with you.
    - nostrademons 13y ago
      "The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially following your revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing people who ostensibly gave you bad references. I don't know what you're talking about." He's talking about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5625659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5625659 "Yes, I have taken aim at Google's management. If you are an engineer, you aren't in this fight and you should stay out, because I never did have any problem with you." I think the reason many Googlers speak up against you is because of basic empathy: we see a group of people being unfairly maligned, and it's not right or ethical to keep secret and let that happen. It's somewhat unfortunate that the response of many of them has been to malign you, but you have to understand that your perception of the company is very different from many other insiders' perception of the company. Yes, it's quite possible you drew a bad manager; they do exist, even at Google. But you paint with an awfully broad brush, making grandiose proclamations about how the company is rotten to the core and run by sociopaths that should be shot, and I and many other Googlers just don't see it. My manager(s) worked his ass off so that I and his other reports could have an environment where we're free to innovate, free to work on things that interest us, and free to accomplish things. A lot of mid-level managers burn out because of it, eventually getting fed up with having to reconcile so many different constraints and getting zero credit for it. My VPs also seem to usually make good decisions: I disagree with them sometimes (okay, often), but I can usually see the rationale behind them and the market realities that are driving them to those decisions. Those decisions don't always go my way - I had 3 projects canceled within a span of 6 months in late 2010, and I just had my year-long research project canceled when 2 weeks before I'd been led to believe it was a long-term investment - but when I take a step back and look at the organizational forces, I can usually see how those really were the best decisions for the organization. Sometimes you can have a technically awesome solution that when you try to scale up to a team and bring to the real world, just doesn't work.

michaelochurch 13y ago

When you use specific terms like PIPs and perf, we know who you're talking about. I wasn't talking about Google. Not for that specific case. That happened at another company, where I didn't work, but I know the story. Lots of companies use PIPs and performance reviews. The resounding sentiment from every single engineer who interviewed me (two of them with more than 8 years at Google) was how badly you misrepresent and malign Google and how half of engineering wishes they could correct you, but legality and common sense prevents them from doing so. If they want to defend their company's practices, they should. Who knows? Perhaps the company improved massively after I left. Perhaps calibration scores were abolished last year. I'd have no way of knowing and, if that's the case, the public should know. I'm better known for that than I'd like to be. However, I'd say that my support is about 25/25/50. 50 percent of Googlers see me as Emmanuel Goldstein and would probably never want to talk to me, that's true. I don't like that I have potentially thousands of enemies, but sometimes a person like me has to do the right thing, even at the cost of unpopularity. 25 percent are just completely indifferent. 25 percent view me positively because they want to see Google improve and think it takes someone like me to draw executive attention to problems. Oddly enough, I'm probably doing more good for Google engineers than anyone realizes, because upper management is now aware of abuses in the middle and, at least, has a chance to correct them. I haven't probed (I don't care) but the company could be fixing itself, thanks to something I started. Of course, the perverse irony is that if Google management fixes their culture, I'll probably still be the villain (as a guy who worked there at the nadir and gave it a negative reputation) rather than the catalyst. The best thing for my personal reputation is for Google not to improve itself, because then I'm still right. Still, it's better for the world for Google to heed my advice and fix itself in order to make all the things I've said wrong. I know five current Googlers from all walks of life and corporate structure, including someone who worked near you during your tenure, and they all hate what you do in public. I've said a lot of positive things about Google. They have great engineers. I've also criticized the place. Whoever came up with "calibration scores" needs to stop using his employer as a nursing home and start using an actual nursing home as a nursing home. If Google's upper management indicates will to resolve its cultural problems (and hell, I'll work with them on this, and at a cut rate) then I will shut up. I am already willing to admit that my information is a year and a half out of date. So there.

notmchurch 13y ago
I'm sorry, Michael, but it is not true that 25% of Googlers view you positively. The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially following your revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing people who ostensibly gave you bad references. You need to get over this delusion that Google is wrong and and you are right, and that eventually Google will somehow come to its senses and beg for your forgiveness and guidance. It is never going to happen. Ever. I really think that you should seek professional help. You're not just going to wind up an unemployed pariah at the rate you're going; you're going to wind up in a padded cell.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially following your revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing people who ostensibly gave you bad references. I don't know what you're talking about. You need to get over this delusion that Google is wrong and and you are right Not delusion. All I have said is that they're badly run and that most of the corrosion is in the middle-management layer. and that eventually Google will somehow come to its senses and beg for your forgiveness and guidance. It is never going to happen. Ever. You are almost certainly right on that one, although I find it pretty obvious. People rarely backtrack on mistakes, and organizations are even more prone to foolish consistency. Also, how in the fuck am I the crazy one? I don't attack a person I've never met just to uphold the reputation of a gigantic company. It's actually a bit sickening. Yes, I have taken aim at Google's management. If you are an engineer, you aren't in this fight and you should stay out, because I never did have any problem with you.
  - nostrademons 13y ago
    "The vast majority of Googlers view you as a nutter, especially following your revelation a few days ago that you are thinking about killing people who ostensibly gave you bad references. I don't know what you're talking about." He's talking about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5625659 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5625659 "Yes, I have taken aim at Google's management. If you are an engineer, you aren't in this fight and you should stay out, because I never did have any problem with you." I think the reason many Googlers speak up against you is because of basic empathy: we see a group of people being unfairly maligned, and it's not right or ethical to keep secret and let that happen. It's somewhat unfortunate that the response of many of them has been to malign you, but you have to understand that your perception of the company is very different from many other insiders' perception of the company. Yes, it's quite possible you drew a bad manager; they do exist, even at Google. But you paint with an awfully broad brush, making grandiose proclamations about how the company is rotten to the core and run by sociopaths that should be shot, and I and many other Googlers just don't see it. My manager(s) worked his ass off so that I and his other reports could have an environment where we're free to innovate, free to work on things that interest us, and free to accomplish things. A lot of mid-level managers burn out because of it, eventually getting fed up with having to reconcile so many different constraints and getting zero credit for it. My VPs also seem to usually make good decisions: I disagree with them sometimes (okay, often), but I can usually see the rationale behind them and the market realities that are driving them to those decisions. Those decisions don't always go my way - I had 3 projects canceled within a span of 6 months in late 2010, and I just had my year-long research project canceled when 2 weeks before I'd been led to believe it was a long-term investment - but when I take a step back and look at the organizational forces, I can usually see how those really were the best decisions for the organization. Sometimes you can have a technically awesome solution that when you try to scale up to a team and bring to the real world, just doesn't work.