14 ms·

Why I left Google

288 points by chauzer 13y ago

ryanobjc 13y ago
Great write up, I really want to learn what the next chapter brings. Ultimately, living an authentic life is the only thing that ends up mattering. There are many ways to do this, and you don't have to make grand moves to get there, although it can certainly help. A think a lot of academically gifted folks ultimately can have this problem... you become so focused on what you DO you forget that you're a Human BEING not a Human DOING. (props to my friend who gave me that one)
- th0br0 13y ago
  I want to be a human being not a human doing. I couldn't keep that pace up if I tried. Great quote from John Scatman's "Scatman's World"
- benesch 13y ago
  I've never understood what it means to live an "authentic" life. I really wish I did, because it sounds nice. Is it slowing down to enjoy life? Is it finding the things that make you happy and pursuing them? Is it doing what your inner voice tells you to do? Maybe my inner voice is more confused than most, because mine is simultaneously telling me to get a degree and to drop out of college, to start a company in the hopes of being wildly successful and to find a nice, stable job somewhere so I can spend my free time relaxing.
  - enneff 13y ago
    If you haven't even finished college then you don't have enough data to work from. Keep listening to the voice, but be prepared to be confused a lot in your 20s. That's normal.
  - ryanobjc 13y ago
    That's part of the problem, living an authentic life is an entirely internal process. People end up paying attention to the external things of what this "seems" to mean, and how people got there. But an authentic life is doing things that accomplish your values in life. A lot of living like this is wanting to communicate in a clear and "authentic" way so you end up with little communities of this stuff. As for your problem - the problem is you don't really know what your values are in life. You are letting external requirements drive what you are doing, and you aren't thinking strategically, or agent-y. I'd suggest checking out the book "Focusing". You will be able to help yourself a lot better after you learn how to what the book describes. Also consider http://rationality.org http://rationality.org as well
iandanforth 13y ago
This is the definition of angst. Quite a good example in fact. The most important line though is: "The caveat here is that studying hard my whole life and saving for almost 5 years afforded me the opportunity to have this time completely off payroll[.]"
- twelvechairs 13y ago
  except that a lot of smart people in other industries also study hard but can't save enough for those opportunities. the key is that she also picked a good industry to be in, which is basically down to luck and the opportunities offered by where she grew up
  - nostrademons 13y ago
    Well, there's some degree of conscious choice involved. When I graduated from college, I didn't know exactly what industry I wanted to be in either, but I knew I liked working with computers and I just took the highest-paying offer that wasn't terrible. I'm of the opinion that if you know what you want to do, you should do that. If you don't know what to do, you should take whatever opportunity will expose you to more opportunities in the future. Saving up money is a part of that.
    - twelvechairs 13y ago
      lucky you that your guess went well for you. what worked for you, however, may not necessarily work for others.
      - nostrademons 13y ago
        Salary numbers are not much of a guess - they're stated right there in the offer letter. Neither are expenses - you know exactly how money will be going out and can make choices to limit that. What will make you happy is a guess, and it didn't actually work out the first - or second, or third - time that I tried. I'm still evaluating whether my fourth choice works on a happiness level, but if it doesn't, I've got the resources and professional reputation to try again. But in the absence of any useful information about that, why not take the choice that gives you the biggest chance of being able to make more choices later? Picking a job that gives you savings gives you a bunch of options later, should you decide that you hate it, and it also gives you information about what sort of work you like to do. So if your guess works, great, if it doesn't, you have the resources to try again.
groundCode 13y ago
I don't believe it! cummings using capitals and punctuation. :)
jamesaguilar 13y ago
I'm all for personal fulfillment, but this seems like it could apply to anyone working any job they don't like/love. There is nothing specific to Google in this. Actually, there's very little specific in this at all. I guess somebody found it helpful though because it's at thirty points right now and it was at three ten minutes ago.
- benesch 13y ago
  The difference here is that a software engineering job at Google is widely considered one of the best corporate software engineering jobs in the world. There are thousands who'd love to be in her place; as she notes, the external pressure to like your job at Google is tremendous. That she had the courage to uproot her entire life, despite the pressure, is impressive. (Granted, you could replace "engineer at Google" with "position X at a top company in field.") Edit: As noted below, Elle wasn't a software engineer at Google, but an account manager in the media/marketing department. The point stands, I think.
  - oinksoft 13y ago
    The technology may be great, but at the end of the day, you're still working for a company whose main business is selling ad space. Definitely not a surprise that many people find this less than fulfilling. The amazing thing is that Google has managed to sell an employment experience whose most outstanding feature is creature comforts to a host of smart people.
    - plywoodtrees 13y ago
      At the end of the day, you're still an animal whose main business is eating, pooping, and reproducing. It turns out there's a lot of scope for creativity and joy while keeping the organism alive.
    - cromwellian 13y ago
      The vast majority of Google engineers don't work on ads. The guys working on Google Maps, feel they are working for a mapping company. The guys working on Android feel they're working on mobile. The people working on search feel they're working on machine intelligence issues. Frankly, as a Google employee, I like that the ads business subsidizes research into other areas that are not economical yet or which people won't pay for. The fact that Google culture overall aligns my my views on intellectual property, progressive ideals, and just not being a douche-bag cancels out any "taint" that the money is made on (IMHO, tasteful) ads. I used to work at IBM T.J. Watson research. I had no love for the IBM consulting or mainframe business, but I never had to deal with it. Google's main business might be advertising, but that business is mostly automated, it doesn't take 20,000 engineers to run AdWords.
dude3 13y ago
too many words
- pcunite 13y ago
  wordiness
  - snambi 13y ago
    oh... yeah... way to too verbose. hardcore engineers love to be precise and to the point.
- toyg 13y ago
  No. Too many dull words. There's quite a difference.
pcunite 13y ago
I appreciate the author's transparency. The past 200 years of innovation have created a world that is hard to connect with sometimes. You used to wake up every day looking for food ... hand to mouth ... build a fire or freeze to death. The most joyous times were found simply being with friends and family with no presumptions of better-ness because you knew how much their horse cost. There were times to be alone too. Today its hyper-information, hyper-jobs, hyper-success, hyper-sugary foods. And what is success? What is living? Why is there one ice-cream stop in every town instead of every town having its own ice-cream shop? This new generation wants to understand themselves and how they fit within the spaces they frequent. They don't want to live inside a commercial anymore.
pvdm 13y ago
Are googlers all narcissists ? I read that article and I only heard "I" or "me".
- elliott34 13y ago
  so what? She's living life on her terms. It's a personal article.
- enneff 13y ago
  The title is "Why I left Google". You should expect a discussion of self.
  - cperciva 13y ago
    I expected a discussion of Google, personally.
    - andrewflnr 13y ago
      I for one am glad to see a "why I left Google" post that's not about why Google is doing stuff wrong.
- nilkn 13y ago
  Well, since this seems to be really more of a personal meditation on what is effectively aimlessness in life amidst a world of endless career building, I don't think the focus on herself is unjustified here. This wasn't really about Google, even though the name featured prominently in the article.
- oinksoft 13y ago
  The entire narrative is intensely self-focused. You have to keep in mind that she is basically writing in the same dialect that driven careerists think with. Having so freshly made this decision, you can't expect her to relate the transforming experience in any other way.
- marvin 13y ago
  This is an introspective essay describing a difficult mental process, involving a complete questioning of one's motivation in life. Rather than condemn the author for being a narcissist, people should take the opportunity to study this excellent example of human introspection. I think a lot of people would benefit from having a close look at their goals and motivations. Seems like every other week I see a post on Hacker News about depression or burnout which could have been avoided if the author was able to look at him/herself from a distance.
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untog 13y ago
TL;DR: it wasn't fulfilling I don't really feel like I ought be a critic of anyone's writing (given that I am not one myself) but college boyfriends, wandering away from the campfire to look at the stars... it seems like the author takes a really long route to get to the point.
- toyg 13y ago
  Yeah, for somebody so bright and talented (she can't help mentioning her spotless cursus honorum), her writing is incredibly dull. I expected useful insights in what Google was doing wrong, losing such acclaimed talent, but... nothing. It's all about her wanting to fuck up for once, after a life of unmitigated success. I guess this means Google is actually doing something right by losing her, lest she fucks up the company just because.
  - meowface 13y ago
    The writing is pretty dull, but I think that's because of the nature of the situation. She had a vague dissatisfaction with her time at the company, and she tried to walk people through how she gradually discovered what it was she didn't like. The whole point of it is that there wasn't any specific thing about Google she didn't really like; that's what makes it interesting (yet also boring and confusing) to read about.
  - benesch 13y ago
    That's a silly argument. She's not looking to maliciously screw something up. She's looking to take a risk—to make a decision that, for once, doesn't lead her down the "safe" path to success of good grades, good college, good internship, good job.
    - toyg 13y ago
      From TFA: If I wanted to do nothing, I should. If I wanted to fuck up for once, I should. Wanted means conscious will: she craves the freedom to do everything she wants, including fucking up. I guess an account manager at Google doesn't get that sort of freedom, which might be a good thing after all.
guynamedloren 13y ago
I can relate.
snambi 13y ago
but why did she leave? what is the reason?
- deleted 13y ago
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- jusben1369 13y ago
  She realized she was just following a path that was full of social approval but didn't feel fulfilling. You could removed Google and add a large financial/media/law firm and it would be the same article.
_pfop 13y ago
I left Salesforce.com last year with very similar feelings. In other words, it's called being a twenty-something.
- pavanred 13y ago
  This makes me wonder, we have seen in polls earlier that most people active on HN are in late 20s or thereabouts. Now, such decisions are very important and many concur but is it possible most people who agree with her are more or less in the same age bracket and similar mindsets. Can anyone tell me honestly, how such decisions play out in the long run? I mean, in about 15-20 years from now, after taking such a decision, would one be extremely satisfied with his/her life or will one look back at this as a young person's decision that gave up on comfortable retirements plans, insurances, mortgages, holidays, life style etc. I am guessing there should be both kinds but which has higher odds?
webo 13y ago
She made a video response: http://youtu.be/Qeyt2Mw4sK4 http://youtu.be/Qeyt2Mw4sK4
- michaelwww 13y ago
  Over 8 minutes long! I stopped watching when she talked about feeling alone in her personal struggle. Some young people really don't have a clue. She's among the worlds royalty, "The Princess and the Pea," and doesn't realize it. She's pretty clueless to not even acknowledge that people all around her are dealing with much more serious personal struggles. That would be the polite thing to do and might mitigate some of the cringe factor. Wow, talk about a life of luxury of time, youth, health and choice, that many can only dream about. She's pretty too. I'd trade lives with her in a New York minute. I'm sure she'll be fine.
  - woofyman 13y ago
    Spot on.
  - burntsushi 13y ago
    > I stopped watching when she talked about feeling alone in her personal struggle. Some young people really don't have a clue. I've never understood this weird form of condescension. So because there are many people in the world facing extremely serious personal struggles, we're not allowed to discuss our own, less serious personal struggles without being accused of marginalizing everyone else? What, is "feeling alone" somehow not a valid emotional response unless you're impoverished? And really, WTF does youth have to do with this? I see people in all walks of life talking about their personal struggles.
    - michaelwww 13y ago
      I feel you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. Some of my small problems become ludicrously important to me. We all do that from time to time. I don't broadcast these struggles to the world because I know they are ludicrous. I have a modicum of self-awareness. It seems to me she hasn't developed that sensitivity towards others yet. I have no hard feelings towards her. She represents the best and brightest and I wish her well on her journey of self-discovery. I referenced youth in two senses. First, young people have the luxury of time, and two, this lack of self-awareness is more prevalent in younger people. I think I see what happened here. Her family and friends are astonished that she left Google so she wants to explain herself. It's unfortunate she broadcast it to the world, because she opened herself up to critique by people who don't get the context.
talleyrand 13y ago
Remember that old poster "Poverty Sucks"? Some thoughts are better left unexpressed.
marvin 13y ago
This really hits home for me, and I haven't even finished my degree yet. I should probably delete this comment so my prospective employers won't find it when they start trawling through my social networking history.
- gmartres 13y ago
  https://xkcd.com/137/ https://xkcd.com/137/
ksmith107 13y ago
it seems like she never took the time to find herself. It sounds like she was always involved in something and she was able to shoot strait too the top without thinking about it much. I think a lot of people people just need some time to get it figured out and sometimes some fun years at college isn't enough. I know that was super involved as a undergrad and i thought I had life figured out by the time i was done, but it wasn't until i was an unemployed, relatively unknown person in a different area for my graduate studies that I was able to find out how i wanted i really wanted to do with my own life.
6cxs2hd6 13y ago
> when I walk along the beach alone on a warm summer night and watch the sunset behind the Santa Monica mountains ... The sun sets in the East?
- travisfischer 13y ago
  The coast takes a sharp turn straight west just north of Santa Monica so from Venice looking north west you see Malibu and the Santa Monica mountains. Therefore during the summer the sun does in fact set behind the Santa Monica mountains as can be seen in this photo. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7369/9267881002_dc30589ab0_o.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7369/9267881002_dc30589ab0_o.j...
  - 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
    I had no idea. Wow, that's beautiful.
- deleted 13y ago
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- digisign 13y ago
  The moutains go far to the west from the vantage point of SM or Venice. In the middle of Summer the sun sets in the north west, so over the mountains just above Malibu.
pearjuice 13y ago
Am I the only one who somewhere along the article expected the feminism bomb to go off? "Right after this sentence! Camp fire, this is a trigger! High school boyfriend, oh boy here we go!" Quite surprising it wasn't even remotely refered to at least once.
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dylangs1030 13y ago
Finally, a "Why I Left Google" post that doesn't focus on the company. A lot of people are saying, "This girl has a lot of angst"...well, at least for once she talks about herself and her reasons for leaving, rather than the reasons a company failed her. It's a nice change.
chuhnk 13y ago
I love this post, I really do and it's because it resonates so deeply with me. Ellen is really able to put into words what I could only babble on about in nonsensical conversations with people over the past 6 months. I left Google this year too as have many others (if only you could see the internal epitaph). There were many reasons why I left but none are noteworthy. Many have found themselves in similar situations, facing adversity in their lives, achieving the dream and then wondering what next, the quarter life crisis. Google is the dream but what happens when the dream becomes a reality? Does the reality live up to what you had imagined it to be? Now what? Do you spend 10 years at Google trying to level up? Do you work on complex problems at Google scale? Do you even get that opportunity?
lancewiggs 13y ago
It feels like she has made the first genuine choice about her life. Most people seldom, if ever, make a genuine choice, but follow the obvious path in front of them. In this case, top of class, great college, fantastic job then career and so forth. This site is rightly focussed around people who have made or are thinking about making genuine choices, founding or being part of a start-up. It took me until I was 29 to make my first real choice, and then, and ever since then, I've gone about in the same way. The key is to create real options that are all desirable, and to make a real choice that is for yourself, your family, and for the societal right reasons, not (just) for others' expectations. So what I did, and advise people to do, is to prioritise three completely different options areas, such as travel, starting a company and going corporate. Next, work on each of them as hard as you can to make them as compelling as possible. If you've done a great job, then the three options will be equally good, yet very different, and the choice will be incredibly hard. At this stage it's about refining your criteria and choosing the one that opens the most doors and leaves the least closed. Set a date to decide by, maximize the value of each option by pushing hard, and then pick one. And I recommend always having a plan B and C, no matter what you are doing.
- psbp 13y ago
  I'm not sure if there was an implication of psychedelics at Joshua Tree, but this comment in that context would be just as egregiously confining.
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neilk 13y ago
HN is a pretty negative place these days. Ellen Huerta, if you're reading this, I applaud that you decided not to accept the path that was laid out for you. Also, I suspect that most HN readers won't understand the maturity & security in one's own self-worth it takes to walk away from that level of career success, and particularly a company like Google.
- ryanSrich 13y ago
  Aside from the article having no real connection to hacking or the startup world; the prevalent self absorption is what I assume to be the biggest factor in the negative reviews this article is receiving here on HN. Was it well written? Absolutely. Could someone take away something beneficial from it? Most likely. But is it worthy of being on the front page of hacker news? I'd guess not. Again, though I've seen a drastic decline in the quality of posts in the short time I've been here, which is most likely indicative of the overall decline in quality since combining hacker news and startup news.
  - ricardobeat 13y ago
    I'm in the "hacker and startup world" and find the article absolutely worthy. It resonates with me. It's deeper and more interesting than most of what I've read here for the past weeks. If something doesn't interest you, save your upvote, move on. This comment you just made is a perfect example of the decline in quality of posts here - and please don't take this as a personal attack, one of the reasons discussions get poorer everyday is going 'meta' about HN and the thread itself, like what we're doing right now :/
  - ladybro 13y ago
    Why is it not worthy of being on the front page of HN? While I acknowledge that this is a tech forum and a thousand posts about Javscript alternatives do probably belong on the front page, but we're all human and this offers a good lesson on internal reflection for a situation that we're all probable to experience down the road.
    - 13y ago
nahname 13y ago
>...breaking up with my college boyfriend. He was brilliant, good looking, respected, and everyone loved him — I even loved him — but he wasn’t the one. I'm not even thirty yet, but I feel like most people within my generation are just spoiled children. It's like we need another world war so people can learn to properly appreciate what they have, again.
- doyoulikeworms 13y ago
  Yeah! Everyone, especially young people, should just learn how to settle.
  - nahname 13y ago
    There is a difference between settling and never being happy.
    - deleted 13y ago
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    - vehementi 13y ago
      Yeah it kind of depends on what the root cause of the feeling that he wasn't The One is. Would she have felt that way about him now, after throwing away all that was causing her feelings of inauthenticity? Did she misinterpret some other problem in her life and project it on her relationship and then talk herself into thinking she "opened doors" by leaving that relationship? Etc.
- smtddr 13y ago
  ...or they all need to visit a few other countries like Norway, Finland or Sweden to see how much their own can improve.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Thanks, I'm giad I wasn't the only one who read that and thought it was the most self absorbed, narcissistic things I'd read in quite a while.
gummydude 13y ago
To sum it up, she wants a freedom in every aspect of her life. A business owner suits her well.
ulisesrmzroche 13y ago
Is this the startup? http://mend.co/ http://mend.co/ I know the guys who did that site, but I'm not sure if it's Helen's or not.
drivebyacct2 13y ago
Glad I saw the Twitter-reaction before wasting my time reading it (Not really, I went and tried to read it and nearly vommited several times). On the other hand, I really do feel bad for people that are this clueless.
wyclif 13y ago
Congratulations, this is possibly the most effing boring and self-indulgent thing I've ever read on HN.
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imsofuture 13y ago
Did you just discover you aren't your GPA or your job title? Gimme a break.
- saalweachter 13y ago
  It's a lot harder to realize the game is meaningless when you're winning.
  - imsofuture 13y ago
    But no more laudable, or noteworthy.
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- dwaltrip 13y ago
  Do you think this puts her in the majority or in the minority?
lgrcyanny 13y ago
I appreciate her choice，live for yourself，live for your heart. It needs great courage to quit a high salary job.
lgrcyanny 13y ago
I appreciate her choice，live for yourself，live for your heart. It needs great courage to quit a high salary job.
AznHisoka 13y ago
Sometimes it's a blessing to be in a job that you can't tolerate, or even despise, as opposed to a job that feels prestigious, but still doesn't feel right. With the former, at least you don't feel the pressure to stay because everyone wants to work there.
cromwellian 13y ago
My takeaway, a mid-life crisis at a young age. I'd also like to ad, #firstworldproblems ;-)
frabbit 13y ago
" I could hear old school hip hop from our camp in the distance, but I was surrounded by absolutely nothing and no one, and I felt free in the universe." Please stay away from Joshua Tree and other wilderness areas.
D9u 13y ago
I commend the author on her decision to strike out on her own, as there's nothing better than being your own boss, being responsible for your own failures & successes. Congratulations, and I wish you all the best! The comment regarding a recurring dream was something I also experienced. "recurring dream that I was being chased, jumping through windows and doors, but never getting further away from my chaser" After quite some time having this dream, one night the dream ended with my realization that my pursuer was none other than myself! I had been running from myself. This realization had the effect of me going into business for myself, leaving a high paying job, and struggling for quite awhile before I began to be successful. Today I work longer hours than I ever did for that high paying employer, but the difference is that I enjoy what I do, and I get to choose the projects that I pour my efforts into. Too many are content to remain in their respective comfort zones, and this stifles innovation... You go, girl!
omonra 13y ago
Title can easily substitute 'Google' with 'a large & successful company'. This would not change anything about the story but the title would be more honest (as most who clicked on it here likely expected something Google-specific). The post is not about Google but author's personal life.
primigenus 13y ago
If you're having trouble with the idea that there is a real human behind this article, someone with feelings and motivations for writing what she did and not just some anonymous internet commenter who "takes a long time to get to the point" or "has a boring writing style", I recommend watching this video she published on Youtube in which she responds to questions people had about her article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeyt2Mw4sK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeyt2Mw4sK4 Like the article, it's very honest and personal. It takes guts to broadcast or publish something like that about yourself on the internet and face the music, as is apparent by some of the responses here and on Youtube. Consider thinking about it next time you decide to post a snarky comment or a TL;DR.
- psbp 13y ago
  I bet if she threw in some awkward Homeric references (instead of the boyfriend one), and wrote it a bit overly analytical and detached, then HN would be satisfied.
  - wyclif 13y ago
    My educational background is heavy on Classics, but that's not it at all. I really thought about what she was saying before commenting, and for me it has nothing to do with the incidental that the author is a woman. The problem here is the millenial-style privilege. It's all so shallow, first-world-problem-ish and child-like in its naivete. So she bought into the lie that having a job is a mystical road to self-fulfillment, discovered it's not fulfilling and set out to live, strangely enough, a lot like a housewife, except without the husband. It's curious to me that it's so often bankers, techies, and other members of the 1% who find the courage to "strike out on their own."
    - psbp 13y ago
      Does your education extend to existentialism?
    - md224 13y ago
      The thing is, once you're financially secure and rising up Maslow's hierarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs), these first-world problems are your main concerns: what am I doing with my life, and why am I doing it? Of course it is a luxury to be able to worry about self-actualization and finding a comfortable identity/purpose, but so what? Should she not worry about these things? Should she not question her trajectory? I understand that injustice is happening all over the world, but isn't it still important to examine your own life? Isn't that basically the goal of being alive: to figure out what you really want to do with your time on this planet? I don't consider that Millennial privilege. I consider it a good idea.
ardit33 13y ago
That was good writing. The people that complain about it being too long are probably young and don't appreciate a good personal story. This is not about google, but about author's personal choice to leave something seemingly good behind in order to do something more meaningful/fulfilling; and how she made that choice.
jusben1369 13y ago
This is a fairly standard story with a modern twist. Taking the story at face value she seems as though she was academically very bright from an early age. With that comes a full set of expectations. "Oh, she'll be really successful at whatever she does because she's so bright!" comes in a bunch of variations from teachers, family and friends. Many children want to please their parents and so follow that path and get oddles of social approval. (good grades/schools/careers) Google is the West Coast flavor but it could be a great law firm, Goldman Sachs, medical field etc. At around 30 the majority of these folks don't have too many more hurdles to clear and they start to question the "Why" of what they're doing for the first time. The modern twist is the fact that the author is a little self absorbed and many people are reacting to that. 8 minute YouTube follow up videos etc. A very long winded story that could be tightened up. What's most interesting is how little she's really challenging herself by changing her environment. Same field (tech) and same state (SoCal vs NorCal) She saw how a single weekend with people not from her field impacted her life. Why not take that weekend and stretch it into a year! Imagine what could happen then? Right now with this path I'd say 50%+ chance "relative" poverty will set it in 12 - 18 months and she'll be back in the womb of a large technology company again.
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ricardobeat 13y ago
I wish HN would stop talking about itself, and I could participate in discussion on the linked article for once. Paradox.
ajainy 13y ago
I kind of saved myself lots of frustration, by not reading this article. As soon as I read, "i will have to leave my boyfriend" and I assume, this is one narcissistic article, trying to get people listen her babbling because she has used "google".
oth3r 13y ago
This is the most annoying, cringe-inducing post I've ever read on Hacker News.
realrocker 13y ago
The point of the article is the pursuit of epiphany and not the epiphany itself.In my opinion she is not there yet.
onedev 13y ago
I don't understand all the negative people. I truly don't. You weren't forced to read about her problems. You weren't forced to upvote this post to the front page. Yet all you people do is complain. The post made it to the frontpage because maybe it hit home for a lot of people here? Perhaps people are fascinated by her very personal story? There could be a number of reasons. HN gets very tiring very fast because of all the negativity. It's terrible. Stop and reflect and realize that HUMAN BEINGS are on the other side of the words written here.
- marvin 13y ago
  I think it's fear. This essay questions the motivation and premises of the biggest life choices of many people on Hacker News. Be smart, be ambitious, study hard, be successful, make a lot of money. I've seen people recoil very hard when they are reminded about very deeply buried insecurities. When someone suffers from depression or anxiety, you'll sometimes see the most incredible mental gymnastics to avoid going into therapy and doing a bit of introspection. "I don't like the therapist". "It's boring". "This is pseudoscience". To me this looks like an instance of the same phenomenon; it's more comfortable to reject this premise entirely than to consider that it could also be relevant to your own life.
benched 13y ago
"It was that moment that I realized I was truly free to do whatever I wanted in this world" I've been there. One tends to have such 'realizations' after working at a job like hers and banking 100k or 2. This type of freedom is not the general condition for human beings, is usually fleeting, and is almost always bought with a lot of money.
khalidmbajwa 13y ago
I rarely comment on HN or post stuff here and the response to this post is a reminder of exactly why. The negativity is mind boggling. Here is someone with an exceptionally told, brilliantly written, truly moving story of why she left a secure, outwardly perfect life to pursue something she personally found actually fulfilling.For everyone sitting pretty on their comfy couches, know this is not easy. Staring at your bank account and seeing it getting close zero to everyday, while dealing with the all the shit that comes with pursuing your dreams is truly gut wrenching.You know the lights are about to go off, and you are giving up everything for it, and you are desperately trying to keep going. THAT is not easy. It takes guts. I honestly think HN needs a 'Be Nice' Policy like Quora. I love writing, sharing and commenting on Quora because people are genuinely warm, cordial, friendly and very very constructive in their feedback. On HN however it seems there is a race to see who can post a more Snarky comment. Sad !
mynameishere 13y ago
For the good of the world, let us pray this woman never has any real problems. Let's examine her "problems" thus far: -- Left her wonderful boyfriend. Boo hoo hoo -- Left her wonderful job Boo hoo hoo Jesus Christ. The insulation is a thousand miles thick around this person. Is she really not aware that the universe is full of genuine horrors that don't involve her silly quest towards self-actualization or what-the-fuck-ever she's trying to express? Absolutely pathetic.
- nadnerb 13y ago
  Seriously get over it. You are the one that has the problem here. The wish to become a better individual and not what everyone else thinks you should be is not a crime. Your response doesn't belong on this site. Grow up.
theflubba 13y ago
"It also meant making a physical move to Venice (the one in CA, not Italy) so that I could fulfill my dreams of a spacious 1br apartment to myself (which I couldn’t shell out $3k for in SF)," are you fucking kidding me? rich princess complaining about something most people would kill to have - a comfortable life.
fchollet 13y ago
That was like a perfect storm of self-obsession, self-indulgence, self-aggrandizement and self-pity. Then again, kudos to her for making a tough decision that made her life better. Now I sincerely hope that her increased freedom will allow her to develop a less unhealthy perspective on life than what transpires from her blog post. (Not sure why I'm taking the time to react in what is obviously not a constructive way; maybe I'm just trying to make the nausea go away.)
john_c 13y ago
Reading that makes me angry. As a former ditch-digger, construction laborer, retail associate, airline baggage handler, and furniture mover, I had to scratch and claw my way for 10 years to finally get an engineering position at Google. This woman seems to have every life opportunity handed to her in a silver plate since the day she was born that all she had to do is work hard and not fuck it up. I know people who are brilliant and work immensely hard but just do not have the socioeconomic status and/or luck to even get an interview. She just threw away something that millions of people would literally kill for. Something that I, as recently as 4 years ago, would literally kill for.
- theshadow 13y ago
  I'm sure if a starving child in Africa read your post they would be angry that someone went out of their way to get angry over another person making very personal decision. There are greater things in life to angry over than another person making a decision which they believe will make them happier. Just because you can't seem to fathom how someone might leave behind a cushy job does not give you the right to be judgemental. World is a suckier place when people can't seem to see the world without their tunnel vision.
- honzzz 13y ago
  This is exactly why making decisions like she did is so difficult. Because people judge you and are angry at you just because you are different and you don't want what they want. I am sure that you had some big difficulties in your life and you achieved your goal anyway - it must have been very hard and I admire you for that. But you should try to understand her - her problems are very different than yours but I can imagine that those might be even harder to deal with.
- honzzz 13y ago
  And let me (just for fun) go even farther and provide unsolicited interpretation. Does your anger have anything to do with the possibility that you have the same issue that she had, value (subconsciously) your successes based on how others perceive them and her article 'devalued' what you achieved and triggered defensive reaction?
marvin 13y ago
This link now has 200 comments. 49 of them are pure, vitriolic negativity of the sort I expect to see when my local small-town newspaper posts an online story about first-year students getting drunk. Apparently it was flagged off the front page. Get the fuck over yourselves. If it hurts so much to read a story about a life crisis, you should probably take a few steps back and examine your own life.

288 points by chauzer 13y ago

Great write up, I really want to learn what the next chapter brings. Ultimately, living an authentic life is the only thing that ends up mattering. There are many ways to do this, and you don't have to make grand moves to get there, although it can certainly help. A think a lot of academically gifted folks ultimately can have this problem... you become so focused on what you DO you forget that you're a Human BEING not a Human DOING. (props to my friend who gave me that one)

th0br0 13y ago
I want to be a human being not a human doing. I couldn't keep that pace up if I tried. Great quote from John Scatman's "Scatman's World"
benesch 13y ago
I've never understood what it means to live an "authentic" life. I really wish I did, because it sounds nice. Is it slowing down to enjoy life? Is it finding the things that make you happy and pursuing them? Is it doing what your inner voice tells you to do? Maybe my inner voice is more confused than most, because mine is simultaneously telling me to get a degree and to drop out of college, to start a company in the hopes of being wildly successful and to find a nice, stable job somewhere so I can spend my free time relaxing.
- enneff 13y ago
  If you haven't even finished college then you don't have enough data to work from. Keep listening to the voice, but be prepared to be confused a lot in your 20s. That's normal.
- ryanobjc 13y ago
  That's part of the problem, living an authentic life is an entirely internal process. People end up paying attention to the external things of what this "seems" to mean, and how people got there. But an authentic life is doing things that accomplish your values in life. A lot of living like this is wanting to communicate in a clear and "authentic" way so you end up with little communities of this stuff. As for your problem - the problem is you don't really know what your values are in life. You are letting external requirements drive what you are doing, and you aren't thinking strategically, or agent-y. I'd suggest checking out the book "Focusing". You will be able to help yourself a lot better after you learn how to what the book describes. Also consider http://rationality.org http://rationality.org as well

iandanforth 13y ago

This is the definition of angst. Quite a good example in fact. The most important line though is: "The caveat here is that studying hard my whole life and saving for almost 5 years afforded me the opportunity to have this time completely off payroll[.]"

twelvechairs 13y ago
except that a lot of smart people in other industries also study hard but can't save enough for those opportunities. the key is that she also picked a good industry to be in, which is basically down to luck and the opportunities offered by where she grew up
- nostrademons 13y ago
  Well, there's some degree of conscious choice involved. When I graduated from college, I didn't know exactly what industry I wanted to be in either, but I knew I liked working with computers and I just took the highest-paying offer that wasn't terrible. I'm of the opinion that if you know what you want to do, you should do that. If you don't know what to do, you should take whatever opportunity will expose you to more opportunities in the future. Saving up money is a part of that.
  - twelvechairs 13y ago
    lucky you that your guess went well for you. what worked for you, however, may not necessarily work for others.
    - nostrademons 13y ago
      Salary numbers are not much of a guess - they're stated right there in the offer letter. Neither are expenses - you know exactly how money will be going out and can make choices to limit that. What will make you happy is a guess, and it didn't actually work out the first - or second, or third - time that I tried. I'm still evaluating whether my fourth choice works on a happiness level, but if it doesn't, I've got the resources and professional reputation to try again. But in the absence of any useful information about that, why not take the choice that gives you the biggest chance of being able to make more choices later? Picking a job that gives you savings gives you a bunch of options later, should you decide that you hate it, and it also gives you information about what sort of work you like to do. So if your guess works, great, if it doesn't, you have the resources to try again.

groundCode 13y ago

I don't believe it! cummings using capitals and punctuation. :)

jamesaguilar 13y ago

I'm all for personal fulfillment, but this seems like it could apply to anyone working any job they don't like/love. There is nothing specific to Google in this. Actually, there's very little specific in this at all. I guess somebody found it helpful though because it's at thirty points right now and it was at three ten minutes ago.

benesch 13y ago
The difference here is that a software engineering job at Google is widely considered one of the best corporate software engineering jobs in the world. There are thousands who'd love to be in her place; as she notes, the external pressure to like your job at Google is tremendous. That she had the courage to uproot her entire life, despite the pressure, is impressive. (Granted, you could replace "engineer at Google" with "position X at a top company in field.") Edit: As noted below, Elle wasn't a software engineer at Google, but an account manager in the media/marketing department. The point stands, I think.
- oinksoft 13y ago
  The technology may be great, but at the end of the day, you're still working for a company whose main business is selling ad space. Definitely not a surprise that many people find this less than fulfilling. The amazing thing is that Google has managed to sell an employment experience whose most outstanding feature is creature comforts to a host of smart people.
  - plywoodtrees 13y ago
    At the end of the day, you're still an animal whose main business is eating, pooping, and reproducing. It turns out there's a lot of scope for creativity and joy while keeping the organism alive.
  - cromwellian 13y ago
    The vast majority of Google engineers don't work on ads. The guys working on Google Maps, feel they are working for a mapping company. The guys working on Android feel they're working on mobile. The people working on search feel they're working on machine intelligence issues. Frankly, as a Google employee, I like that the ads business subsidizes research into other areas that are not economical yet or which people won't pay for. The fact that Google culture overall aligns my my views on intellectual property, progressive ideals, and just not being a douche-bag cancels out any "taint" that the money is made on (IMHO, tasteful) ads. I used to work at IBM T.J. Watson research. I had no love for the IBM consulting or mainframe business, but I never had to deal with it. Google's main business might be advertising, but that business is mostly automated, it doesn't take 20,000 engineers to run AdWords.

dude3 13y ago

too many words

pcunite 13y ago
wordiness
- snambi 13y ago
  oh... yeah... way to too verbose. hardcore engineers love to be precise and to the point.
toyg 13y ago
No. Too many dull words. There's quite a difference.

pcunite 13y ago

I appreciate the author's transparency. The past 200 years of innovation have created a world that is hard to connect with sometimes. You used to wake up every day looking for food ... hand to mouth ... build a fire or freeze to death. The most joyous times were found simply being with friends and family with no presumptions of better-ness because you knew how much their horse cost. There were times to be alone too. Today its hyper-information, hyper-jobs, hyper-success, hyper-sugary foods. And what is success? What is living? Why is there one ice-cream stop in every town instead of every town having its own ice-cream shop? This new generation wants to understand themselves and how they fit within the spaces they frequent. They don't want to live inside a commercial anymore.

pvdm 13y ago

Are googlers all narcissists ? I read that article and I only heard "I" or "me".

elliott34 13y ago
so what? She's living life on her terms. It's a personal article.
enneff 13y ago
The title is "Why I left Google". You should expect a discussion of self.
- cperciva 13y ago
  I expected a discussion of Google, personally.
  - andrewflnr 13y ago
    I for one am glad to see a "why I left Google" post that's not about why Google is doing stuff wrong.
nilkn 13y ago
Well, since this seems to be really more of a personal meditation on what is effectively aimlessness in life amidst a world of endless career building, I don't think the focus on herself is unjustified here. This wasn't really about Google, even though the name featured prominently in the article.
oinksoft 13y ago
The entire narrative is intensely self-focused. You have to keep in mind that she is basically writing in the same dialect that driven careerists think with. Having so freshly made this decision, you can't expect her to relate the transforming experience in any other way.
marvin 13y ago
This is an introspective essay describing a difficult mental process, involving a complete questioning of one's motivation in life. Rather than condemn the author for being a narcissist, people should take the opportunity to study this excellent example of human introspection. I think a lot of people would benefit from having a close look at their goals and motivations. Seems like every other week I see a post on Hacker News about depression or burnout which could have been avoided if the author was able to look at him/herself from a distance.

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untog 13y ago

TL;DR: it wasn't fulfilling I don't really feel like I ought be a critic of anyone's writing (given that I am not one myself) but college boyfriends, wandering away from the campfire to look at the stars... it seems like the author takes a really long route to get to the point.

toyg 13y ago
Yeah, for somebody so bright and talented (she can't help mentioning her spotless cursus honorum), her writing is incredibly dull. I expected useful insights in what Google was doing wrong, losing such acclaimed talent, but... nothing. It's all about her wanting to fuck up for once, after a life of unmitigated success. I guess this means Google is actually doing something right by losing her, lest she fucks up the company just because.
- meowface 13y ago
  The writing is pretty dull, but I think that's because of the nature of the situation. She had a vague dissatisfaction with her time at the company, and she tried to walk people through how she gradually discovered what it was she didn't like. The whole point of it is that there wasn't any specific thing about Google she didn't really like; that's what makes it interesting (yet also boring and confusing) to read about.
- benesch 13y ago
  That's a silly argument. She's not looking to maliciously screw something up. She's looking to take a risk—to make a decision that, for once, doesn't lead her down the "safe" path to success of good grades, good college, good internship, good job.
  - toyg 13y ago
    From TFA: If I wanted to do nothing, I should. If I wanted to fuck up for once, I should. Wanted means conscious will: she craves the freedom to do everything she wants, including fucking up. I guess an account manager at Google doesn't get that sort of freedom, which might be a good thing after all.

guynamedloren 13y ago

I can relate.

snambi 13y ago

but why did she leave? what is the reason?

deleted 13y ago
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jusben1369 13y ago
She realized she was just following a path that was full of social approval but didn't feel fulfilling. You could removed Google and add a large financial/media/law firm and it would be the same article.

_pfop 13y ago

I left Salesforce.com last year with very similar feelings. In other words, it's called being a twenty-something.

pavanred 13y ago
This makes me wonder, we have seen in polls earlier that most people active on HN are in late 20s or thereabouts. Now, such decisions are very important and many concur but is it possible most people who agree with her are more or less in the same age bracket and similar mindsets. Can anyone tell me honestly, how such decisions play out in the long run? I mean, in about 15-20 years from now, after taking such a decision, would one be extremely satisfied with his/her life or will one look back at this as a young person's decision that gave up on comfortable retirements plans, insurances, mortgages, holidays, life style etc. I am guessing there should be both kinds but which has higher odds?

webo 13y ago

She made a video response: http://youtu.be/Qeyt2Mw4sK4 http://youtu.be/Qeyt2Mw4sK4

michaelwww 13y ago
Over 8 minutes long! I stopped watching when she talked about feeling alone in her personal struggle. Some young people really don't have a clue. She's among the worlds royalty, "The Princess and the Pea," and doesn't realize it. She's pretty clueless to not even acknowledge that people all around her are dealing with much more serious personal struggles. That would be the polite thing to do and might mitigate some of the cringe factor. Wow, talk about a life of luxury of time, youth, health and choice, that many can only dream about. She's pretty too. I'd trade lives with her in a New York minute. I'm sure she'll be fine.
- woofyman 13y ago
  Spot on.
- burntsushi 13y ago
  > I stopped watching when she talked about feeling alone in her personal struggle. Some young people really don't have a clue. I've never understood this weird form of condescension. So because there are many people in the world facing extremely serious personal struggles, we're not allowed to discuss our own, less serious personal struggles without being accused of marginalizing everyone else? What, is "feeling alone" somehow not a valid emotional response unless you're impoverished? And really, WTF does youth have to do with this? I see people in all walks of life talking about their personal struggles.
  - michaelwww 13y ago
    I feel you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. Some of my small problems become ludicrously important to me. We all do that from time to time. I don't broadcast these struggles to the world because I know they are ludicrous. I have a modicum of self-awareness. It seems to me she hasn't developed that sensitivity towards others yet. I have no hard feelings towards her. She represents the best and brightest and I wish her well on her journey of self-discovery. I referenced youth in two senses. First, young people have the luxury of time, and two, this lack of self-awareness is more prevalent in younger people. I think I see what happened here. Her family and friends are astonished that she left Google so she wants to explain herself. It's unfortunate she broadcast it to the world, because she opened herself up to critique by people who don't get the context.

talleyrand 13y ago

Remember that old poster "Poverty Sucks"? Some thoughts are better left unexpressed.

marvin 13y ago

This really hits home for me, and I haven't even finished my degree yet. I should probably delete this comment so my prospective employers won't find it when they start trawling through my social networking history.

gmartres 13y ago
https://xkcd.com/137/ https://xkcd.com/137/

ksmith107 13y ago

it seems like she never took the time to find herself. It sounds like she was always involved in something and she was able to shoot strait too the top without thinking about it much. I think a lot of people people just need some time to get it figured out and sometimes some fun years at college isn't enough. I know that was super involved as a undergrad and i thought I had life figured out by the time i was done, but it wasn't until i was an unemployed, relatively unknown person in a different area for my graduate studies that I was able to find out how i wanted i really wanted to do with my own life.

6cxs2hd6 13y ago

> when I walk along the beach alone on a warm summer night and watch the sunset behind the Santa Monica mountains ... The sun sets in the East?

travisfischer 13y ago
The coast takes a sharp turn straight west just north of Santa Monica so from Venice looking north west you see Malibu and the Santa Monica mountains. Therefore during the summer the sun does in fact set behind the Santa Monica mountains as can be seen in this photo. http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7369/9267881002_dc30589ab0_o.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7369/9267881002_dc30589ab0_o.j...
- 6cxs2hd6 13y ago
  I had no idea. Wow, that's beautiful.
deleted 13y ago
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digisign 13y ago
The moutains go far to the west from the vantage point of SM or Venice. In the middle of Summer the sun sets in the north west, so over the mountains just above Malibu.

pearjuice 13y ago

Am I the only one who somewhere along the article expected the feminism bomb to go off? "Right after this sentence! Camp fire, this is a trigger! High school boyfriend, oh boy here we go!" Quite surprising it wasn't even remotely refered to at least once.

deleted 13y ago

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dylangs1030 13y ago

Finally, a "Why I Left Google" post that doesn't focus on the company. A lot of people are saying, "This girl has a lot of angst"...well, at least for once she talks about herself and her reasons for leaving, rather than the reasons a company failed her. It's a nice change.

chuhnk 13y ago

I love this post, I really do and it's because it resonates so deeply with me. Ellen is really able to put into words what I could only babble on about in nonsensical conversations with people over the past 6 months. I left Google this year too as have many others (if only you could see the internal epitaph). There were many reasons why I left but none are noteworthy. Many have found themselves in similar situations, facing adversity in their lives, achieving the dream and then wondering what next, the quarter life crisis. Google is the dream but what happens when the dream becomes a reality? Does the reality live up to what you had imagined it to be? Now what? Do you spend 10 years at Google trying to level up? Do you work on complex problems at Google scale? Do you even get that opportunity?

lancewiggs 13y ago

It feels like she has made the first genuine choice about her life. Most people seldom, if ever, make a genuine choice, but follow the obvious path in front of them. In this case, top of class, great college, fantastic job then career and so forth. This site is rightly focussed around people who have made or are thinking about making genuine choices, founding or being part of a start-up. It took me until I was 29 to make my first real choice, and then, and ever since then, I've gone about in the same way. The key is to create real options that are all desirable, and to make a real choice that is for yourself, your family, and for the societal right reasons, not (just) for others' expectations. So what I did, and advise people to do, is to prioritise three completely different options areas, such as travel, starting a company and going corporate. Next, work on each of them as hard as you can to make them as compelling as possible. If you've done a great job, then the three options will be equally good, yet very different, and the choice will be incredibly hard. At this stage it's about refining your criteria and choosing the one that opens the most doors and leaves the least closed. Set a date to decide by, maximize the value of each option by pushing hard, and then pick one. And I recommend always having a plan B and C, no matter what you are doing.

psbp 13y ago
I'm not sure if there was an implication of psychedelics at Joshua Tree, but this comment in that context would be just as egregiously confining.

deleted 13y ago

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neilk 13y ago

HN is a pretty negative place these days. Ellen Huerta, if you're reading this, I applaud that you decided not to accept the path that was laid out for you. Also, I suspect that most HN readers won't understand the maturity & security in one's own self-worth it takes to walk away from that level of career success, and particularly a company like Google.

ryanSrich 13y ago
Aside from the article having no real connection to hacking or the startup world; the prevalent self absorption is what I assume to be the biggest factor in the negative reviews this article is receiving here on HN. Was it well written? Absolutely. Could someone take away something beneficial from it? Most likely. But is it worthy of being on the front page of hacker news? I'd guess not. Again, though I've seen a drastic decline in the quality of posts in the short time I've been here, which is most likely indicative of the overall decline in quality since combining hacker news and startup news.
- ricardobeat 13y ago
  I'm in the "hacker and startup world" and find the article absolutely worthy. It resonates with me. It's deeper and more interesting than most of what I've read here for the past weeks. If something doesn't interest you, save your upvote, move on. This comment you just made is a perfect example of the decline in quality of posts here - and please don't take this as a personal attack, one of the reasons discussions get poorer everyday is going 'meta' about HN and the thread itself, like what we're doing right now :/
- ladybro 13y ago
  Why is it not worthy of being on the front page of HN? While I acknowledge that this is a tech forum and a thousand posts about Javscript alternatives do probably belong on the front page, but we're all human and this offers a good lesson on internal reflection for a situation that we're all probable to experience down the road.
  - 13y ago

nahname 13y ago

>...breaking up with my college boyfriend. He was brilliant, good looking, respected, and everyone loved him — I even loved him — but he wasn’t the one. I'm not even thirty yet, but I feel like most people within my generation are just spoiled children. It's like we need another world war so people can learn to properly appreciate what they have, again.

doyoulikeworms 13y ago
Yeah! Everyone, especially young people, should just learn how to settle.
- nahname 13y ago
  There is a difference between settling and never being happy.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - vehementi 13y ago
    Yeah it kind of depends on what the root cause of the feeling that he wasn't The One is. Would she have felt that way about him now, after throwing away all that was causing her feelings of inauthenticity? Did she misinterpret some other problem in her life and project it on her relationship and then talk herself into thinking she "opened doors" by leaving that relationship? Etc.
smtddr 13y ago
...or they all need to visit a few other countries like Norway, Finland or Sweden to see how much their own can improve.
ams6110 13y ago
Thanks, I'm giad I wasn't the only one who read that and thought it was the most self absorbed, narcissistic things I'd read in quite a while.

gummydude 13y ago

To sum it up, she wants a freedom in every aspect of her life. A business owner suits her well.

ulisesrmzroche 13y ago

Is this the startup? http://mend.co/ http://mend.co/ I know the guys who did that site, but I'm not sure if it's Helen's or not.

drivebyacct2 13y ago

Glad I saw the Twitter-reaction before wasting my time reading it (Not really, I went and tried to read it and nearly vommited several times). On the other hand, I really do feel bad for people that are this clueless.

wyclif 13y ago

Congratulations, this is possibly the most effing boring and self-indulgent thing I've ever read on HN.

deleted 13y ago

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imsofuture 13y ago

Did you just discover you aren't your GPA or your job title? Gimme a break.

saalweachter 13y ago
It's a lot harder to realize the game is meaningless when you're winning.
- imsofuture 13y ago
  But no more laudable, or noteworthy.
- deleted 13y ago
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deleted 13y ago
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dwaltrip 13y ago
Do you think this puts her in the majority or in the minority?

lgrcyanny 13y ago

I appreciate her choice，live for yourself，live for your heart. It needs great courage to quit a high salary job.

lgrcyanny 13y ago

I appreciate her choice，live for yourself，live for your heart. It needs great courage to quit a high salary job.

AznHisoka 13y ago

Sometimes it's a blessing to be in a job that you can't tolerate, or even despise, as opposed to a job that feels prestigious, but still doesn't feel right. With the former, at least you don't feel the pressure to stay because everyone wants to work there.

cromwellian 13y ago

My takeaway, a mid-life crisis at a young age. I'd also like to ad, #firstworldproblems ;-)

frabbit 13y ago

" I could hear old school hip hop from our camp in the distance, but I was surrounded by absolutely nothing and no one, and I felt free in the universe." Please stay away from Joshua Tree and other wilderness areas.

D9u 13y ago

I commend the author on her decision to strike out on her own, as there's nothing better than being your own boss, being responsible for your own failures & successes. Congratulations, and I wish you all the best! The comment regarding a recurring dream was something I also experienced. "recurring dream that I was being chased, jumping through windows and doors, but never getting further away from my chaser" After quite some time having this dream, one night the dream ended with my realization that my pursuer was none other than myself! I had been running from myself. This realization had the effect of me going into business for myself, leaving a high paying job, and struggling for quite awhile before I began to be successful. Today I work longer hours than I ever did for that high paying employer, but the difference is that I enjoy what I do, and I get to choose the projects that I pour my efforts into. Too many are content to remain in their respective comfort zones, and this stifles innovation... You go, girl!

omonra 13y ago

Title can easily substitute 'Google' with 'a large & successful company'. This would not change anything about the story but the title would be more honest (as most who clicked on it here likely expected something Google-specific). The post is not about Google but author's personal life.

primigenus 13y ago

If you're having trouble with the idea that there is a real human behind this article, someone with feelings and motivations for writing what she did and not just some anonymous internet commenter who "takes a long time to get to the point" or "has a boring writing style", I recommend watching this video she published on Youtube in which she responds to questions people had about her article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeyt2Mw4sK4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeyt2Mw4sK4 Like the article, it's very honest and personal. It takes guts to broadcast or publish something like that about yourself on the internet and face the music, as is apparent by some of the responses here and on Youtube. Consider thinking about it next time you decide to post a snarky comment or a TL;DR.

psbp 13y ago
I bet if she threw in some awkward Homeric references (instead of the boyfriend one), and wrote it a bit overly analytical and detached, then HN would be satisfied.
- wyclif 13y ago
  My educational background is heavy on Classics, but that's not it at all. I really thought about what she was saying before commenting, and for me it has nothing to do with the incidental that the author is a woman. The problem here is the millenial-style privilege. It's all so shallow, first-world-problem-ish and child-like in its naivete. So she bought into the lie that having a job is a mystical road to self-fulfillment, discovered it's not fulfilling and set out to live, strangely enough, a lot like a housewife, except without the husband. It's curious to me that it's so often bankers, techies, and other members of the 1% who find the courage to "strike out on their own."
  - psbp 13y ago
    Does your education extend to existentialism?
  - md224 13y ago
    The thing is, once you're financially secure and rising up Maslow's hierarchy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs), these first-world problems are your main concerns: what am I doing with my life, and why am I doing it? Of course it is a luxury to be able to worry about self-actualization and finding a comfortable identity/purpose, but so what? Should she not worry about these things? Should she not question her trajectory? I understand that injustice is happening all over the world, but isn't it still important to examine your own life? Isn't that basically the goal of being alive: to figure out what you really want to do with your time on this planet? I don't consider that Millennial privilege. I consider it a good idea.

ardit33 13y ago

That was good writing. The people that complain about it being too long are probably young and don't appreciate a good personal story. This is not about google, but about author's personal choice to leave something seemingly good behind in order to do something more meaningful/fulfilling; and how she made that choice.

jusben1369 13y ago

This is a fairly standard story with a modern twist. Taking the story at face value she seems as though she was academically very bright from an early age. With that comes a full set of expectations. "Oh, she'll be really successful at whatever she does because she's so bright!" comes in a bunch of variations from teachers, family and friends. Many children want to please their parents and so follow that path and get oddles of social approval. (good grades/schools/careers) Google is the West Coast flavor but it could be a great law firm, Goldman Sachs, medical field etc. At around 30 the majority of these folks don't have too many more hurdles to clear and they start to question the "Why" of what they're doing for the first time. The modern twist is the fact that the author is a little self absorbed and many people are reacting to that. 8 minute YouTube follow up videos etc. A very long winded story that could be tightened up. What's most interesting is how little she's really challenging herself by changing her environment. Same field (tech) and same state (SoCal vs NorCal) She saw how a single weekend with people not from her field impacted her life. Why not take that weekend and stretch it into a year! Imagine what could happen then? Right now with this path I'd say 50%+ chance "relative" poverty will set it in 12 - 18 months and she'll be back in the womb of a large technology company again.

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ricardobeat 13y ago

I wish HN would stop talking about itself, and I could participate in discussion on the linked article for once. Paradox.

ajainy 13y ago

I kind of saved myself lots of frustration, by not reading this article. As soon as I read, "i will have to leave my boyfriend" and I assume, this is one narcissistic article, trying to get people listen her babbling because she has used "google".

oth3r 13y ago

This is the most annoying, cringe-inducing post I've ever read on Hacker News.

realrocker 13y ago

The point of the article is the pursuit of epiphany and not the epiphany itself.In my opinion she is not there yet.

onedev 13y ago

I don't understand all the negative people. I truly don't. You weren't forced to read about her problems. You weren't forced to upvote this post to the front page. Yet all you people do is complain. The post made it to the frontpage because maybe it hit home for a lot of people here? Perhaps people are fascinated by her very personal story? There could be a number of reasons. HN gets very tiring very fast because of all the negativity. It's terrible. Stop and reflect and realize that HUMAN BEINGS are on the other side of the words written here.

marvin 13y ago
I think it's fear. This essay questions the motivation and premises of the biggest life choices of many people on Hacker News. Be smart, be ambitious, study hard, be successful, make a lot of money. I've seen people recoil very hard when they are reminded about very deeply buried insecurities. When someone suffers from depression or anxiety, you'll sometimes see the most incredible mental gymnastics to avoid going into therapy and doing a bit of introspection. "I don't like the therapist". "It's boring". "This is pseudoscience". To me this looks like an instance of the same phenomenon; it's more comfortable to reject this premise entirely than to consider that it could also be relevant to your own life.

benched 13y ago

"It was that moment that I realized I was truly free to do whatever I wanted in this world" I've been there. One tends to have such 'realizations' after working at a job like hers and banking 100k or 2. This type of freedom is not the general condition for human beings, is usually fleeting, and is almost always bought with a lot of money.

khalidmbajwa 13y ago

I rarely comment on HN or post stuff here and the response to this post is a reminder of exactly why. The negativity is mind boggling. Here is someone with an exceptionally told, brilliantly written, truly moving story of why she left a secure, outwardly perfect life to pursue something she personally found actually fulfilling.For everyone sitting pretty on their comfy couches, know this is not easy. Staring at your bank account and seeing it getting close zero to everyday, while dealing with the all the shit that comes with pursuing your dreams is truly gut wrenching.You know the lights are about to go off, and you are giving up everything for it, and you are desperately trying to keep going. THAT is not easy. It takes guts. I honestly think HN needs a 'Be Nice' Policy like Quora. I love writing, sharing and commenting on Quora because people are genuinely warm, cordial, friendly and very very constructive in their feedback. On HN however it seems there is a race to see who can post a more Snarky comment. Sad !

mynameishere 13y ago

For the good of the world, let us pray this woman never has any real problems. Let's examine her "problems" thus far: -- Left her wonderful boyfriend. Boo hoo hoo -- Left her wonderful job Boo hoo hoo Jesus Christ. The insulation is a thousand miles thick around this person. Is she really not aware that the universe is full of genuine horrors that don't involve her silly quest towards self-actualization or what-the-fuck-ever she's trying to express? Absolutely pathetic.

nadnerb 13y ago
Seriously get over it. You are the one that has the problem here. The wish to become a better individual and not what everyone else thinks you should be is not a crime. Your response doesn't belong on this site. Grow up.

theflubba 13y ago

"It also meant making a physical move to Venice (the one in CA, not Italy) so that I could fulfill my dreams of a spacious 1br apartment to myself (which I couldn’t shell out $3k for in SF)," are you fucking kidding me? rich princess complaining about something most people would kill to have - a comfortable life.

fchollet 13y ago

That was like a perfect storm of self-obsession, self-indulgence, self-aggrandizement and self-pity. Then again, kudos to her for making a tough decision that made her life better. Now I sincerely hope that her increased freedom will allow her to develop a less unhealthy perspective on life than what transpires from her blog post. (Not sure why I'm taking the time to react in what is obviously not a constructive way; maybe I'm just trying to make the nausea go away.)

john_c 13y ago

Reading that makes me angry. As a former ditch-digger, construction laborer, retail associate, airline baggage handler, and furniture mover, I had to scratch and claw my way for 10 years to finally get an engineering position at Google. This woman seems to have every life opportunity handed to her in a silver plate since the day she was born that all she had to do is work hard and not fuck it up. I know people who are brilliant and work immensely hard but just do not have the socioeconomic status and/or luck to even get an interview. She just threw away something that millions of people would literally kill for. Something that I, as recently as 4 years ago, would literally kill for.

theshadow 13y ago
I'm sure if a starving child in Africa read your post they would be angry that someone went out of their way to get angry over another person making very personal decision. There are greater things in life to angry over than another person making a decision which they believe will make them happier. Just because you can't seem to fathom how someone might leave behind a cushy job does not give you the right to be judgemental. World is a suckier place when people can't seem to see the world without their tunnel vision.
honzzz 13y ago
This is exactly why making decisions like she did is so difficult. Because people judge you and are angry at you just because you are different and you don't want what they want. I am sure that you had some big difficulties in your life and you achieved your goal anyway - it must have been very hard and I admire you for that. But you should try to understand her - her problems are very different than yours but I can imagine that those might be even harder to deal with.
honzzz 13y ago
And let me (just for fun) go even farther and provide unsolicited interpretation. Does your anger have anything to do with the possibility that you have the same issue that she had, value (subconsciously) your successes based on how others perceive them and her article 'devalued' what you achieved and triggered defensive reaction?

marvin 13y ago

This link now has 200 comments. 49 of them are pure, vitriolic negativity of the sort I expect to see when my local small-town newspaper posts an online story about first-year students getting drunk. Apparently it was flagged off the front page. Get the fuck over yourselves. If it hurts so much to read a story about a life crisis, you should probably take a few steps back and examine your own life.