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Why I won’t work for Google

217 points by beshrkayali 12y ago

jorgecastillo 12y ago
Quite frankly if we put in a balance everything good and bad Google has ever done, the positive things they've done outweigh the negative things by a ton. I think that of all the tech companies Google is the most awesome. Seriously I am glad I don't have to pay an Apple tax or a Microsoft tax to develop mobile apps. I am grateful that Android is OSS just for that Google will always have my sympathy.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  You are paying a Google tax. It's simply being paid on your behalf by advertisers, who get reimbursed from you when you buy products from companies who advertise on Google. If you don't buy any products that have advertising costs, then you are being subsidized by other consumers. In addition, we all are paying for the overhead inefficiencies of this indirect system, with all the middlemen and middle-pieces involved. Lastly, we all pay for the social costs of advertising. We'd all be better off if Google and the other so-called free web services nixed ads and just charged us straight up. There is no free lunch, and there is no free web. We all have to start seeing this truth.
ddorian43 12y ago
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b-3ZibpM6IIJ:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-google/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b-3Zibp...
- clips 12y ago
  How ironic that one would be using Google's cached version to read this
  - porpoisemonkey 12y ago
    Not at all. Google's caches are pretty commonly used to view pages with high levels of traffic.
    - etfb 12y ago
      https://google.com/search?q=define:irony https://google.com/search?q=define:irony
      - porpoisemonkey 12y ago
        I'm not sure why you posted this link. The comment I was responding to does not meet any of the definitions you posted. As others have pointed out using Google cache to view a high traffic anti-Google article would be coincidental and not ironic.
  - Aldo_MX 12y ago
    More ironic that Google has a cached copy and CloudFlare not.
    - Donzo 12y ago
      Not really ironic because nobody expects that CloudFlare Always On cached copies will actually work.
  - axanoeychron 12y ago
    It is not ironic, it's just a coincidence.
catshirt 12y ago
if only Patrick got a dollar every time he got this response did anyone else find the quote at the end at least a little ironic?
- ddorian43 12y ago
  he must get more than a dollar, from his employer
  - catshirt 12y ago
    depends how many of these he gets
- gohrt 12y ago
  It's a methathematic wrap up consistent with the internal logic of the response.
- Dewie 12y ago
  I thought that it was so ironic that I assumed it was intentional.
joeblau 12y ago
This is a lot longer than my response I gave the Google recruiter: I appreciate you contacting me, but I'm currently in the process of raising a funding round for my startup which precludes me from looking at other opportunities right now. However; if you know any investors in the IoT space, I would love to chat. Funny thing is that in about 6 months, they are going to probably contact Him, and Me again.
- davidw 12y ago
  Here's what I wrote them last time, more or less: > Thank you for your interest and taking the time to discuss employment opportunities, but at this time I have decided not to pursue a further relationship with Google as an employer. I wish you the best in your future endeavors.
  - twic 12y ago
    Mine was: "Unfortunately, Google is not a company i have any interest in working for. Thanks for getting in touch, though, and good luck with your hunt." The impression i've formed is that Google is full of people who are quite smart, but think they're really smart, and have decided to build themselves a technical ecosystem that has no interaction with the rest of the world. That doesn't sound like fertile ground for personal growth. Also, given that i am in London, it would have meant working on AdWords, which sounds dull.
    - mtrimpe 12y ago
      > Also, given that i am in London, it would have meant working on AdWords, which sounds dull. That's the main reason I'll never apply to Google. Not that I won't get in, but that I won't have the political klout to actually get to work on some of the fun stuff. They're employing tens of thousands of very bright people; yet the truly interesting stuff will have been done by a few hundred / thousand of those. What reason do I have for believing that I'll be in that small percentage rather than the other 90+% doing boring grunt work...
    - vidarh 12y ago
sidcool 12y ago
The response doesn't seem convincing. By this standards he's not supposed to work for any corporation. I am a Google fanboy, I agree, and this might skew my opinion, but I am always open to debate.
- joeblau 12y ago
  He may make enough money freelancing that he doesn't need to work for any corporation. If you're good at what you do in the Software space, you can command very strong 6 figure salaries and only have to "work" part of the year to maintain a very comfortable lifestyle.
  - nutjob2 12y ago
    Who do you think freelancers work for, exactly?
    - joeblau 12y ago
      I only freelance for companies smaller than 15 people. Like the other person said, it could be anybody from an individual to a small team to a large corporation.
    - muyuu 12y ago
      They can also work for individuals, startups, partnerships etc which don't need to be incorporated (at least not in my country).
- chaired 12y ago
  He could work for a corp that is small enough that it still seems like it is made of decent human beings. My interview experience with G was more than enough to ensure I never seek to work there again. And, the trauma of having all my media accounts force-Hoovered into G+ left me little choice but to revoke the last little bit of admiration I had for this once-cool-as-beans company.
- harshreality 12y ago
  Agreed. The response seems to conflate a bunch of different things and pretend it's all Google's fault. Snowden didn't blow the whistle on Google. Google can't control what the NSA is tapping or what court orders it gets. Maybe some people inside Google knew about inter-datacenter taps and didn't do anything about it, but once all of Google became aware, they started encrypting those links. Automatic indexing of email contents leaves Google open to subpoenas for information about that indexed content, but the emails would be there to subpoena either way. I don't understand the problem. What has Google ever done to help TLAs wiretap anyone?
hpaavola 12y ago
I think you should work for Google. They might teach you a thing or two about how to handle traffic.
- Apachez 12y ago
  Yeah, I suppose you (hpaavola) have one or more thing to teach Cloudflare about how to deal with traffic (which this host is using as frontend)?
  - Intrepidd 12y ago
    Cloudflare is not having any issue, it's just used here as a proxy to help with caching and static files. The real server hosting the application is down. However this comment was a bit useless.
    - dtech 12y ago
      Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fqnrq.se%2Fwhy-i-wont-work-for-google%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fqnrq.se%2Fwhy-i-wont-work-for-google%2F https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp... (Ironically by Google)
      - axanoeychron 12y ago
        This is a funny coincidence.
ikusalic 12y ago
To be fair Google is a great company. But because of some actions they have taken they are not so outstandingly appealing as they were few years ago. Of course that's natural given their size. Many big companies are way worse. But still, they are now just another company that's good to their employees (many of whom are still quite passionate about it). No more, no less, that's all Google is.
primitivesuave 12y ago
Pretty well-written sentiment, only thing is that recruiters cast a pretty wide net and certainly wouldn't read through anyone's life story if presented with the opportunity. However, I'm sure that if every person who gets contacted by a Google recruiter responds with a similar diatribe about their disillusionment with Google's ways, they just might take notice.
- charlesism 12y ago
  Since it's made the top spot on HN, the recruiter himself no longer matters. Hundreds of Google employees will read it today.
theboss 12y ago
"Nicklas, a simple no thank you I am not interested would have sufficed -Patrick"
- mr_schnippel 12y ago
  Nah, it probably went down like this: "Niklas thank you for kindly sharing your worldview with me. I'm always trying to fill the void of my poor intellect's inability to create its own opinions. Is there any feed I can subscribe to? I'm sure I'm going to need more opinions going forward as I waddle through life."
quaunaut 12y ago
I'm still waiting on proof from Snowden as to Apple/Google/Facebook's direct, illegal cooperation with the NSA. So far, all I've seen proof of is compliance with warrants(which admittedly are questionable, but Google has a direct financial gain in fighting them, not helping them), claims that they've fought them, and evidence that the NSA is both tapping the trunk as well as decrypting SSL'd communications.
- Apachez 12y ago
  This might give you a hint? http://thehackernews.com/2014/05/ios-apple-iphone-data-protection-email-attachment.html http://thehackernews.com/2014/05/ios-apple-iphone-data-prote... Apple iOS 7 Updates Silently Remove Encryption for Email Attachments Thursday, May 01, 2014
  - quaunaut 12y ago
    From what I'm reading in other places this seems more like an oversight than malicious intent. It was present in iOS 7, then broke in later versions. The e-mails themselves are still fully encrypted, and the iPhone data itself can be encrpyted, the main trouble seems to be what's transmitted during sync, since the actual researcher[1] claims a valid workaround is simply disabling mail synchronization. 1. http://www.andreas-kurtz.de/2014/04/what-apple-missed-to-fix-in-ios-711.html http://www.andreas-kurtz.de/2014/04/what-apple-missed-to-fix...
- eurleif 12y ago
  > Google has a direct financial gain in fighting them Wait, what? Google has a direct financial gain in fighting warrants? How do you figure?
  - quaunaut 12y ago
    In fighting overbroad warrants, via the National Security Letters. Having NSLs at all significantly increases consumer distrust in Google, and gives them literally zero gains in return. It even costs them work, if you're looking at the small stuff. They don't get anything out of it. Edit: Clarified what NSL means.
Oletros 12y ago
> We witnessed Google sending cease and desist letters to the developers and maintainers of the popular Android CyanogenMod for violating some patents by modifying open source elements of an open source licensed project Taking into account that this is not what happened between Google and Cyanogen I doubt about the knowledge of him
- apozem 12y ago
  My thoughts exactly. If this guy didn't care to look up that the toss-up was about gApps (Google's proprietary products), that casts doubt onto the rest of his piece.
- jccalhoun 12y ago
  He doesn't even get the phrase "Don't be evil" right. He writes "Don't do evil" multiple times. Then he is surprised that google reads email. How else are they supposed to find out if something is spam or not if they don't read it? And email isn't secure in the first place. Anyone that doesn't know that shouldn't be up for a technical job at an internet-based company in the first place. It seems like his complaint is that google allegedly turned emails over to the government. Well then why is he bringing up the distraction of "google reads my mom's email!!!"?
eclipxe 12y ago
Wouldn't want to work with this guy. Fair points but come on, the poor recruiter is the wrong person to rant to.
- Apachez 12y ago
  Better to accept the offer and some months later become a Snowden v2?
- danieldk 12y ago
  the poor recruiter is the wrong person to rant to. Why? If enough talented individuals reject a Google position (or more accurately, entry to Google's interview process) for moral reasons, the message will be sent up the chain of command. Google thrives on talent. If it becomes hard to acquire new talent, they have a serious problem.
  - saalweachter 12y ago
    Well, for one thing, rejecting it at the point of a recruiter reaching out to you is a weak signal. Get through the hiring process and then reject the job offer, and it will become a much stronger signal. I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that way fewer people reject job offers than turn down recruiters soliciting for a phone screen. With only a little bit of sarcasm, I would also say that accepting the job offer, working loyally for some amount of time, and then quitting in protest would be a much stronger signal still.
- aendruk 12y ago
  It's an open letter; he's writing for us, not the recruiter. The recruiter merely serves as a prompt.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
dscrd 12y ago
Well, I suppose this is not entirely unlike applying for them and not getting the job.
etfb 12y ago
The primary reason I won't work for Google is because I'm nowhere near smart enough. But I like to tell myself that the ethical shortcuts they've taken in pursuit of the almighty dollar are a good secondary reason. It's just that I don't need a secondary reason, so yay, consequence-free ethics!
- sk5t 12y ago
  Although I agree with the thrust of your comment, re. intelligence, I will nevertheless downvote you for being petulant.
  - eternalban 12y ago
    This (GP) current top comment is an indirect ad-hominem and taking valuable real estate in this page. Up voting you.
- vixin 12y ago
  Your honesty is to be applauded.
- id 12y ago
  It's not enough to be smart, you have to convince them that you're smart. And if the recruiters dislike you for whatever reason, there's nothing you can do about it.
  - jschuur 12y ago
    I think Google's recruiters realize that some really smart people have certain personality types that may mean they don't perform well in classical interviews.
  - mmahemoff 12y ago
    It's not enough to be smart reason 2: Intelligence is not the only quality they're selecting for.
- threeseed 12y ago
auvrw 12y ago
from the panic_bcast source s.bind(("", 1337)) # Listen on all devices haha
p4bl0 12y ago
I can't access the linked blogpost because the website is offline, but from the comments here I understand that the main reason the author is invoking for not working at Google is because of Snowden's revelations and Google implication with the NSA. I think this is strange, we knew way before Snowden's revelations what Google did with the privacy of their users. That in itself should be enough to not want to work there, if you care about it. I know more than a handful of people (including me) who refused jobs from Google (often more than one time, for example I had to ask them to write down to not contact me again after the third time) before Snowden's revelations. The reasons were multiple: "don't be evil" is a joke, Google has been a big company for years now and not really a fun startupy place, it may happens that the job you want is not the kind of jobs that Google offers, and it's not even true anymore (or at least, it is less and less) that having worked at Google make your resume special.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- enscr 12y ago
  cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-google/
  - provemewrong 12y ago
    I don't know if ironic is the right word, but it certainly is funny reading the Google's cached version of the article.
    - p4bl0 12y ago
      And I suppose in a Google browser too, because as I expected, my Firefox doesn't know what to do with cache: URLs.
      - nanofortnight 12y ago
        Stick it into Google: http://google.com/search?q=cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-google/ http://google.com/search?q=cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for...
hitchhiker999 12y ago
Perhaps a few people don't understand why OP takes this so seriously. This is the 'long game', the game for the betterment of human existence. (Cliche? yes, true enough? - probably) If you still feel these huge corporations have our best interests at heart, you are being a touch naive. They are not 'evil' ofc, but they're probably not the best idea for the future.
- l33tbro 12y ago
  What is your best idea for the future? Do you think I or anyone else would find it palatable? Here's the thing: the profit motive is the impulse of corporations, not the sum total of all behavior. There are great people in corporations that do amazing shit within corporate structures. Coca-Cola have done incredible social art installations recently - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE Google is a huge corporation based on the profit principle, but making coin has been the means for Page to fulfil his dreams of being remembered as our modern Tesla.
  - hrktb 12y ago
    About Coca Cola, there is this very good talk by Melinda Gates about what they do in the developping world: http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofits_can_learn_from_coca_cola http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofit... I think enabling enterprising people to do business may be the most positive thing Coca Cola does to the world. For Google, it seems making money is not the end game. What they do have many positive fallouts, but I'm not sure they move the 'real' world forward as much as Microsoft (while openly evil, they brought a unified computing environment to the world) or Apple or even Amazon.
    - hitchhiker999 12y ago
      With all due respect, and thank you for the reply - I feel compelled to say this: I used to think like that, however after many years of observing the complicit abuse corporations like these preside over - I can no longer hold that opinion.
tompagenet2 12y ago
I think this unduly conflates his displeasure at the automated scanning of emails to target advertising and the NSA etc. bulk access to data. The former doesn't make the latter any more likely. All webmail services must hold their customers' emails, and they are therefore open to being read by a government or third party. Users could encrypt their emails, but it's very hard to do this while also making logging in and accessing anywhere fast easy for all users.
- loup-vaillant 12y ago
  There you go: webmails, while extremely usable, help government snooping by their very nature. If e-mail was decentralized like it was meant to be, spying would be that much harder. (Yes, everyone could host their mail at home. Yes, it can be plug&play useable. No, no one bothered to sell the damn stuff, probably because webmails were more profitable —or believed to be.) But when you think of it for like 2 seconds, automated scanning does help the NSA. Such software is easy to re-purpose. With the right subpoena, I give Google a week before it gives away a nice social graph of US dissidence to the NSA.
- flavor8 12y ago
  Yes, exactly. Any webmail service that stores email unencrypted on its servers is subject to subpoena / FISA requests, and there isn't much they can do about it. They could roll out client-side encryption -- but there's little business incentive for them to do so on free accounts. That said, as an option for paying apps users, it would be quite valuable. Automatic scanning of emails isn't ethically suspect in my opinion. My reasons for not working at google right now are: lack of desire to engage in big company politics, the apparent softening of the 20% time policy, regular-corporate/long hours, and the commute I'd have to take. Otherwise it'd be near top of my list should I go back into full time business.
  - kumbasha 12y ago
    What about the fact that they colluded with Apple and other companies to keep their engineer salaries as low as possible?
AliAdams 12y ago
A better Google is one you pay for and whose income and subsequently motivations align with the customer, not third parties. The idea of Google being a virtual personal assistant who knows everything about you but who you can trust to keep that information private is very cool and I think more aligned with where Google really wants to go. The problem is that they need to rely on advertising for now which means you'll never really trust what that PA says and what it is telling others about you.
puppetmaster3 12y ago
Some searching shows he is supportive of #anakata, and maybe people can read up.
- ptr 12y ago
  They both live (lived?) in Cambodia, it seems.
etherael 12y ago
All mainstream modern technology companies are in a no win tragic situation. They are accountable to the state which overrides their ability to make any kind of actual independent decisions when the interests of the state are at stake. Going against this would be an exercise in futility and you may well end up in prison for doing so. Getting angry at them for what they are forced at gunpoint to do is just wasted energy, though I do agree with seeking alternatives free from the influence of the state and not patronising companies that are forced to operate in those interests purely from the perspective of pragmatism. All they can do is stick to the letter of the law. I think the harder the state clamps down and the more totalitarian it becomes, the more black market alternatives for mainstream services will come into being and the more pressure there will be for a truly free parallel economy to flourish.
- clarry 12y ago
  > All mainstream modern technology companies are in a no win tragic situation. Actually the big companies (and to a lesser degree other significant entities like Wikipedia) that essentially hold the keys to the Internet and have the money -- if anyone, they are in a position to change things. They have tremendous power. Think civil disobedience. Corporate disobedience? There are many legal as well as illegal things these corps could do to flip the bird at the state. And the result might be that they get heard, unlike all the EFF campaigners and individuals who can only complain on Internet forums.
  - etherael 12y ago
    > Think civil disobedience. Corporate disobedience? Not a great approach, see Lavabit and associated businesses. Or that telco executive who was imprisoned (Qwest, thanks rwallace) on trumped up charges due to not playing ball with the national security apparatus to the requisite degree of submission. You paint a target on your back taking this path in a big way, it's simply not worth the risk to insulate people from the consequences of their own political decisions.
  - rwallace 12y ago
    A company called Qwest tried that, and its CEO ended up in prison on trumped-up charges of insider trading. Calls for other people to become martyrs for your favorite cause don't have a lot of moral authority in my book.
reikonomusha 12y ago
There are more reasons to not work for Google, including their (sometimes?) rather poor interview process.
- sidcool 12y ago
  That comes as a surprise to me. Poor interview process? They have the world's best engineers at their disposal, don't they? A poor interview process would point otherwise.
  - skj 12y ago
    Poor process from the candidate's viewpoint. It is long and fraught with false negatives. The fact that there are very few false positives is what allows Google to have "the world's best engineers".
  - idlewan 12y ago
    "They have the world's best engineers at their disposal" That's what they like telling the world. They probably employ a lot of smart people, because they can afford better work conditions and salaries. However, they don't have the monopoly on smart engineers. You can't rank people from best to worse: everyone is different. You can certainly recognize that some people are smart, but there is more smart people outside of google than inside. The notion that they "have the best" is ridiculous, because there is no such thing as "the best engineers". I'd prefer saying they have optimized picking their engineers so that they have more chance of picking smart ones.
  - threatofrain 12y ago
    Industrial / Org psychology is a rather new sub discipline. It's still hard to beat a metric like general mental ability in predicting job performance across a variety of jobs.
  - reikonomusha 12y ago
    Here is one such account: http://symbo1ics.com/blog/?p=2055 http://symbo1ics.com/blog/?p=2055
mr_schnippel 12y ago
It blows my mind that people name ethical issues when choosing an employer when myriads of other more practical considerations come to mind. Well, it really doesn't, it takes all sorts. What blows my mind is to see so many replies to discuss this crazy opinion.
level09 12y ago
a bit offtopic: I suppose cloudflare's "always online" mode wont work unless the origin server sends a cache headers that lasts for long ?
jrockway 12y ago
Just out of curiosity, what do you folks see as the difference between looking at text with the intent to correct spelling (like this text box does) versus looking at text to put an advertisement next to it? (If I wanted to go reductio ad absurdum, what about looking at text to change <a href="...">foo</a> into a link?) To be clear: I'm honestly curious, not trying to defend or advocate for one interpretation over another.
- jaseg 12y ago
  During spelling correction, there is not any need for any data to leave your computer. In fact, the spelling correction on this text box is a feature of your browser, not of news.ycombinator.com. The whole point about serving targeted ads is aggregating multiple sources of data to build an extensive "customer" profile.
- prolde 12y ago
  In my opinion, Google's activities are "evil" because they intentionally profile their consumers through parsing all their personal data (email, shopping history, etc). Furthermore, Google chooses to spy on their users through a matter that allows the NSA to collect entire profiles for Google's users. Google does this mainly for the money involved.
  - fredgrott 12y ago
    hmm having Google extend more effort after finding out that their data pipes to their servers were being spied upon by NSA seems to discount part of this Compare Google and USPS..whereas the USPS has stated in public that their customer is the mass mailers(spammers) ..Google attempts a balance between two different customer groups..
  - partridgeeater 12y ago
    Agreed. I also have no visibility into the data Google has gathered about me, or any way of telling them to delete all the data they have on me.
    - 12y ago
raphaelj 12y ago
It's not so hard to get in touch with Google recruiters. You just need to get a not so bad score at their Codejam contest. As a side note, about a year ago, a girl from Google called me from London for a job opportunity (in French, my mother tongue, it nicely surprised me). Anyway, I put the girl call down as I was waiting a call from my then girlfriend to meet up for our first date. We all seem to have different reasons to refuse a job opportunity from Google !
higherpurpose 12y ago
> Google says “Don’t do evil” on one hand. They stopped saying that, so past tense should be used when mentioning it.
- partridgeeater 12y ago
  So they didn't actually mean what they said?
  - higherpurpose 12y ago
    They did, but only for a while, until it became too inconvenient for their company goals.
- saalweachter 12y ago
  The informal Google motto has always been "Don't be evil.". Volumes could be written about the fine distinction between "Don't be evil." and the phrases it's often confused for, "Don't do evil." or "Do no evil.".
juggty_dev 12y ago
Google Should Modify these 8 Points http://www.thegeekyglobe.com/google-should-modify-8-points.html http://www.thegeekyglobe.com/google-should-modify-8-points.h...
deleted 12y ago
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hellbreakslose 12y ago
Are you even serious? I read your post. Its a nice fairytale. Let me explain to you what my dad has tought me: We live under structured societies and under a specific set of rules we call LAW. (I most certainly disagree with that... but thats life and how it is) Yes under my fantasy world everyone would have the same possibilities and everyone would be happy yada yada. But under the Actual world we are living at ... Google is just another part. The set of LAWS that have been up there and been built for the past 200-300 years made it clear that Goverments are above those Laws and can do anything they like. If it wasn't Google tracking your data, it would be someone else doing it cause thats how the world that they setted up works! Do you think Google is happy with handing out info to goverments? No, its done cause they are forced to, and yes they can ask something in exchange. Thats the game of Power (Read Game of Thrones, you might understand that.) So I suggest you to get out of that imaginary world of yours and live life (I don't say change your ideas), but if you really want to blame someone - BLAME YOURSELF, for voting for the politicians in your country and for not being able to force them into taking your opinion and stop spying on you. Also regarding adSense and all the tracking... Well thats how business works, if you don't like it then its ok. Noone forced you to use google search or gmail or whatever it is that google has included in their adSense algorythm Regards, A friendly man that lives TODAY!
- Spearchucker 12y ago
  I'm not sure he's naïve enough to think that his not working at Google will change Google. Nor that if Google didn't do it others wouldn't either. He's saying that given their attributes, he chooses not to work there. I doubt he'd work for Microsoft either, for much of the same reasons. This is no different to my own choice of not working for Oracle (or Google for that matter). I did work for Microsoft though, and have no regrets about that one. In fact it was one of my best experiences. Either way I know it changes nothing, beyond possibly being able to influence people close to me - but I like myself more for it.
- kumbasha 12y ago
  Blame yourself? No, I'll blame the people who have more than 1/360,000,000th of a unit of political power in the country, i.e. the actual rich people and politicians who actually do these things that we hate. I will take 1/360,000,000th of the share of the blame, and nothing more.
muyuu 12y ago
He made Patrick read way too much. I wouldn't work for Google because I consider it to be an extremely dangerous and immoral company. It's not the only one but it's up there at the top with the likes of Facebook and to some extent Microsoft, Oracle, Apple. One could go on forever on this but an email to them is probably not the right place to do this (although he did publish it).
mqsiuser 12y ago
There are typical kinds of people. He seems to be very idealistic. And it's awesome and free advertisement for him as a person/hacker, where he (and his github projects) now can profit. He is in high dept towards google now :)
deleted 12y ago
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raverbashing 12y ago
I won't work for Google for a very simple reason After you went through an unsuccessful interview with them (even if it's more than 5 years ago), if you send them your CV again, it goes to /dev/null Really So, yeah, other companies are hiring... And there are good possibilities outside of the big companies, it may even be more fun and less red tape
- ktran03 12y ago
  I believe you are misinformed. Google wipes your slate clean, and you can try again in 6-12 months.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    Did you actually experience that or you just heard about it?
    - jccalhoun 12y ago
      I have heard of people that have applied for jobs at google multiple times and had interviews a couple times over the years before they got a job there.
      - skj 12y ago
        In fact it's incredibly common.
      - raverbashing 12y ago
        Did they got to an on-site interview? Because one thing that has happened is recruiters leaving you hanging on, so, they'll ask for some info, then no further communication (even if you ask)
    - krazen 12y ago
      I was interviewed by Google in 2008, rejected. They contacted me again in 2010. I told them I wasn't interested at that time for personal reasons. They contacted me again in 2012. I interviewed again, I was given an offer.
xkarga00 12y ago
I think it's naive to be that proud. Sure Google isn't the best company in the world as far as its policies about costumer data and privacy but if OP's mother or friends are really concerned about their privacy they can opt out and use another equivalent service to Google Search, Gmail, etc. But then again most mainstream services if not all have their own dark policies, don't they?
snarfy 12y ago
I won't work for google, apple, or microsoft due to the illegal no-poaching agreements they made. I don't want to work for amazon because they are retail - engineering is overhead to be trimmed. Through some weird twist of fate I find myself actually admiring Facebook, not the site, but the company.
- rabino 12y ago
  I can't really explain why, but I agree with you re: Facebook. Of all the big ones, is the one I'd like to work for the most. Maybe is the amount of social experiment you could do, I dunno. Re: Amazon, I think you are totally wrong. They are a tech company that happens to do Retail.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  Most of the large tech companies mostly turn me off, though there are little glimmers of things they do that are positive. Ironically, I've been breaking my radio silence on G+ over the past couple of days discussing some of this in relation to Gundotra's exodus and the "death of G+" discussions (short answer: yes and no). I just got accused of having favorable views of Facebook (I don't -- I think what the company does is detestable and Zuck's morals are beyond reprehensible .... except that the company's stand in breaking the wage-suppression collusion cabal was a stunning case of doing the right thing). But in terms of a company which could tempt me ... there aren't many.
  - yuhong 12y ago
    Personally, I want to fix them if possible. That is why I posted a wishlist for Satya on a blog's comments for example, and why I like to discuss Google with for example michaelochurch. On Facebook, I posted this: http://www.quora.com/What-has-happened-to-Mark-Zuckerbergs-opinion-on-privacy-since-the-early-days-of-Facebook?share=1 http://www.quora.com/What-has-happened-to-Mark-Zuckerbergs-o...
pabb 12y ago
I mean, I get that he's trying to make a point here, and he clearly feels as strongly about this as he's written. But it sounds like an idealistic 13-year-old wrote the whole diatribe: "Boo, how dare you you big jerk spy. Spying on my mom and friends. You just want money. Like a big fat bully jerk." Seriously? All corporations are in pursuit of profit. I get the underlying issue he has, but only through the context of growing up with Google and seeing them grow to what they are now. His post is littered with tons of hard to believe idealistic BS. Berating them for not closing down their service like Lavabit? Are you kidding? "Yes, let's shut down our 15+ year old company, one of the most profitable and successful in the world, just to prove a point" -- surely that's the rational thing to do. I'm not a fan of Google's "spying", but you need to look at the situation from the lense of this being how they (and Facebook, and probably any other web-based company that had the clout) are seizing a competitive advantage that almost no one else can provide. People are feeding them petabytes of data, and it's in their best interest to turn that information into financial gain. Yes, I think a big side-effect of that they appear to be intrusive and "evil", but to pretend that the company is the issue, and that only Google would take advantage of such a situation is comical, and incredibly naive. The writer of the article surely can understand that any other entity with such great access to user information would use it.
- eternalban 12y ago
  These are posts by workers in the tech field. Instead of dismissing it, you may want to consider if you are (a) a hopelessly powerless entity caught in a socio-economic regime that you can not in any way alter (e.g. "do no evil"); or (b) a member of a sub-set of society that actually has both the power and knowledge to get Nikola-Tesla-wanna-be-Page and fellow travelers to toe the required tech-ethical line.
- qnrq 12y ago
  Profit is wonderful, even more so if earned through other means than tracking users' Internet activity unknowingly. Most users of the Internet don't know that Google sees them in most corners and much of the data collection remains. Most users don't know how to defend themselves pro-actively. For example we have the disaster of people being connected with their political views in France[1]. The same (not really, hashed emails) vulnerability was then used by the Swedish Researchgruppen[2], an extremist leftwing organization, to publish who said what under the assertion of anonymity and as a direct followup leftwing journalists are now chasing outed "trolls" with baseball bats and cameras[3] for a TV show(!). 1: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/29/de-anonymising-political-forums http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/29/de-anonymisin... 2: http://torquemag.io/if-you-wouldnt-say-it-in-person-would-you-say-it-online/ http://torquemag.io/if-you-wouldnt-say-it-in-person-would-yo... 3: http://www.friatider.se/plansch-for-nya-tv3-serien-aschberg-med-basebolltra-jagar-asiktsregistrerade http://www.friatider.se/plansch-for-nya-tv3-serien-aschberg-... Nedless to say these individuals are being directly targeted and harmed due to what they wrote on the Internet. It's not the fault of Disqus or Gravatar, it's the consequence of uninformed users. Now imagine the hoards of victims that will emerge in the shadows of a Google database leak. For it will leak, of course it will, it's only a matter of time. If data can get out of North Korea it can get out of Google. The dangers are not necessarily what Google is doing but what Google enables others to do. Google closed down their service in China in protest againt what they said was anti democratic; remaining in the US is a hypocrisy, although perfectly aligned with other propaganda. You are right, this is very much government driven. I agree - we should remove the government. Google can lead the revolution by closing down or switch jurisdiction in protest. Their voice is heard, ours is not.
teddyh 12y ago
Google first approached me in 2010. Here is the relevant part of my otherwise short reply: Google follows what I believe to be unethical business practices – including, but not limited to, condoning censorship, invading their users’ privacy, [publishing] proprietary software, and making available and encouraging the use of network services with far too little user control of the programs. A little more than a year later, Kragen Javier Sitaker wrote this, which I thought was the best explanation of why one wouldn’t want to work for Google: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2011-August/000938.html http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2011-August/...
karangoeluw 12y ago
Oh please. You got contacted by a recruiter and NOT given a job.
mlinksva 12y ago
A 2011 version, different author https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933619
varelse 12y ago
If you want Google to leave you alone for the rest of eternity, all you have to do is go work there and enjoy the perks for a few months (the food is excellent and they pay quite well) and then try to find work more suitable to your skill set than what the Hogwarts Hat of blind allocation has assigned you to for the next 2 years of your life(1). Since you will most likely have been assigned to a team no one wants to work on (hence the openings), the mere act of questioning the almighty G will enrage the inept mid-level management chain and they will in turn blacklist you with HR. Once you are blacklisted, you will be cordially invited to not let the portal barrier impact your posterior on the way out. And beyond occasional accidental profile views on linkedin, no more Google recruitment spam. It worked for me. It can work for you. 1. Exceptions to this rule are when you are hand-picked for a moonshot, an acquihire, or for your specific skills, at which point, Google is an excellent place to work. Ignore everything I'm saying in these cases, you've hit the jackpot.

217 points by beshrkayali 12y ago

Quite frankly if we put in a balance everything good and bad Google has ever done, the positive things they've done outweigh the negative things by a ton. I think that of all the tech companies Google is the most awesome. Seriously I am glad I don't have to pay an Apple tax or a Microsoft tax to develop mobile apps. I am grateful that Android is OSS just for that Google will always have my sympathy.

eevilspock 12y ago
You are paying a Google tax. It's simply being paid on your behalf by advertisers, who get reimbursed from you when you buy products from companies who advertise on Google. If you don't buy any products that have advertising costs, then you are being subsidized by other consumers. In addition, we all are paying for the overhead inefficiencies of this indirect system, with all the middlemen and middle-pieces involved. Lastly, we all pay for the social costs of advertising. We'd all be better off if Google and the other so-called free web services nixed ads and just charged us straight up. There is no free lunch, and there is no free web. We all have to start seeing this truth.

ddorian43 12y ago

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b-3ZibpM6IIJ:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-google/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b-3Zibp...

clips 12y ago
How ironic that one would be using Google's cached version to read this
- porpoisemonkey 12y ago
  Not at all. Google's caches are pretty commonly used to view pages with high levels of traffic.
  - etfb 12y ago
    https://google.com/search?q=define:irony https://google.com/search?q=define:irony
    - porpoisemonkey 12y ago
      I'm not sure why you posted this link. The comment I was responding to does not meet any of the definitions you posted. As others have pointed out using Google cache to view a high traffic anti-Google article would be coincidental and not ironic.
- Aldo_MX 12y ago
  More ironic that Google has a cached copy and CloudFlare not.
  - Donzo 12y ago
    Not really ironic because nobody expects that CloudFlare Always On cached copies will actually work.
- axanoeychron 12y ago
  It is not ironic, it's just a coincidence.

catshirt 12y ago

if only Patrick got a dollar every time he got this response did anyone else find the quote at the end at least a little ironic?

ddorian43 12y ago
he must get more than a dollar, from his employer
- catshirt 12y ago
  depends how many of these he gets
gohrt 12y ago
It's a methathematic wrap up consistent with the internal logic of the response.
Dewie 12y ago
I thought that it was so ironic that I assumed it was intentional.

joeblau 12y ago

This is a lot longer than my response I gave the Google recruiter: I appreciate you contacting me, but I'm currently in the process of raising a funding round for my startup which precludes me from looking at other opportunities right now. However; if you know any investors in the IoT space, I would love to chat. Funny thing is that in about 6 months, they are going to probably contact Him, and Me again.

davidw 12y ago
Here's what I wrote them last time, more or less: > Thank you for your interest and taking the time to discuss employment opportunities, but at this time I have decided not to pursue a further relationship with Google as an employer. I wish you the best in your future endeavors.
- twic 12y ago
  Mine was: "Unfortunately, Google is not a company i have any interest in working for. Thanks for getting in touch, though, and good luck with your hunt." The impression i've formed is that Google is full of people who are quite smart, but think they're really smart, and have decided to build themselves a technical ecosystem that has no interaction with the rest of the world. That doesn't sound like fertile ground for personal growth. Also, given that i am in London, it would have meant working on AdWords, which sounds dull.
  - mtrimpe 12y ago
    > Also, given that i am in London, it would have meant working on AdWords, which sounds dull. That's the main reason I'll never apply to Google. Not that I won't get in, but that I won't have the political klout to actually get to work on some of the fun stuff. They're employing tens of thousands of very bright people; yet the truly interesting stuff will have been done by a few hundred / thousand of those. What reason do I have for believing that I'll be in that small percentage rather than the other 90+% doing boring grunt work...
  - vidarh 12y ago

sidcool 12y ago

The response doesn't seem convincing. By this standards he's not supposed to work for any corporation. I am a Google fanboy, I agree, and this might skew my opinion, but I am always open to debate.

joeblau 12y ago
He may make enough money freelancing that he doesn't need to work for any corporation. If you're good at what you do in the Software space, you can command very strong 6 figure salaries and only have to "work" part of the year to maintain a very comfortable lifestyle.
- nutjob2 12y ago
  Who do you think freelancers work for, exactly?
  - joeblau 12y ago
    I only freelance for companies smaller than 15 people. Like the other person said, it could be anybody from an individual to a small team to a large corporation.
  - muyuu 12y ago
    They can also work for individuals, startups, partnerships etc which don't need to be incorporated (at least not in my country).
chaired 12y ago
He could work for a corp that is small enough that it still seems like it is made of decent human beings. My interview experience with G was more than enough to ensure I never seek to work there again. And, the trauma of having all my media accounts force-Hoovered into G+ left me little choice but to revoke the last little bit of admiration I had for this once-cool-as-beans company.
harshreality 12y ago
Agreed. The response seems to conflate a bunch of different things and pretend it's all Google's fault. Snowden didn't blow the whistle on Google. Google can't control what the NSA is tapping or what court orders it gets. Maybe some people inside Google knew about inter-datacenter taps and didn't do anything about it, but once all of Google became aware, they started encrypting those links. Automatic indexing of email contents leaves Google open to subpoenas for information about that indexed content, but the emails would be there to subpoena either way. I don't understand the problem. What has Google ever done to help TLAs wiretap anyone?

hpaavola 12y ago

I think you should work for Google. They might teach you a thing or two about how to handle traffic.

Apachez 12y ago
Yeah, I suppose you (hpaavola) have one or more thing to teach Cloudflare about how to deal with traffic (which this host is using as frontend)?
- Intrepidd 12y ago
  Cloudflare is not having any issue, it's just used here as a proxy to help with caching and static files. The real server hosting the application is down. However this comment was a bit useless.
  - dtech 12y ago
    Cached version: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fqnrq.se%2Fwhy-i-wont-work-for-google%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fqnrq.se%2Fwhy-i-wont-work-for-google%2F https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp... (Ironically by Google)
    - axanoeychron 12y ago
      This is a funny coincidence.

ikusalic 12y ago

To be fair Google is a great company. But because of some actions they have taken they are not so outstandingly appealing as they were few years ago. Of course that's natural given their size. Many big companies are way worse. But still, they are now just another company that's good to their employees (many of whom are still quite passionate about it). No more, no less, that's all Google is.

primitivesuave 12y ago

Pretty well-written sentiment, only thing is that recruiters cast a pretty wide net and certainly wouldn't read through anyone's life story if presented with the opportunity. However, I'm sure that if every person who gets contacted by a Google recruiter responds with a similar diatribe about their disillusionment with Google's ways, they just might take notice.

charlesism 12y ago
Since it's made the top spot on HN, the recruiter himself no longer matters. Hundreds of Google employees will read it today.

theboss 12y ago

"Nicklas, a simple no thank you I am not interested would have sufficed -Patrick"

mr_schnippel 12y ago
Nah, it probably went down like this: "Niklas thank you for kindly sharing your worldview with me. I'm always trying to fill the void of my poor intellect's inability to create its own opinions. Is there any feed I can subscribe to? I'm sure I'm going to need more opinions going forward as I waddle through life."

quaunaut 12y ago

I'm still waiting on proof from Snowden as to Apple/Google/Facebook's direct, illegal cooperation with the NSA. So far, all I've seen proof of is compliance with warrants(which admittedly are questionable, but Google has a direct financial gain in fighting them, not helping them), claims that they've fought them, and evidence that the NSA is both tapping the trunk as well as decrypting SSL'd communications.

Apachez 12y ago
This might give you a hint? http://thehackernews.com/2014/05/ios-apple-iphone-data-protection-email-attachment.html http://thehackernews.com/2014/05/ios-apple-iphone-data-prote... Apple iOS 7 Updates Silently Remove Encryption for Email Attachments Thursday, May 01, 2014
- quaunaut 12y ago
  From what I'm reading in other places this seems more like an oversight than malicious intent. It was present in iOS 7, then broke in later versions. The e-mails themselves are still fully encrypted, and the iPhone data itself can be encrpyted, the main trouble seems to be what's transmitted during sync, since the actual researcher[1] claims a valid workaround is simply disabling mail synchronization. 1. http://www.andreas-kurtz.de/2014/04/what-apple-missed-to-fix-in-ios-711.html http://www.andreas-kurtz.de/2014/04/what-apple-missed-to-fix...
eurleif 12y ago
> Google has a direct financial gain in fighting them Wait, what? Google has a direct financial gain in fighting warrants? How do you figure?
- quaunaut 12y ago
  In fighting overbroad warrants, via the National Security Letters. Having NSLs at all significantly increases consumer distrust in Google, and gives them literally zero gains in return. It even costs them work, if you're looking at the small stuff. They don't get anything out of it. Edit: Clarified what NSL means.

Oletros 12y ago

> We witnessed Google sending cease and desist letters to the developers and maintainers of the popular Android CyanogenMod for violating some patents by modifying open source elements of an open source licensed project Taking into account that this is not what happened between Google and Cyanogen I doubt about the knowledge of him

apozem 12y ago
My thoughts exactly. If this guy didn't care to look up that the toss-up was about gApps (Google's proprietary products), that casts doubt onto the rest of his piece.
jccalhoun 12y ago
He doesn't even get the phrase "Don't be evil" right. He writes "Don't do evil" multiple times. Then he is surprised that google reads email. How else are they supposed to find out if something is spam or not if they don't read it? And email isn't secure in the first place. Anyone that doesn't know that shouldn't be up for a technical job at an internet-based company in the first place. It seems like his complaint is that google allegedly turned emails over to the government. Well then why is he bringing up the distraction of "google reads my mom's email!!!"?

eclipxe 12y ago

Wouldn't want to work with this guy. Fair points but come on, the poor recruiter is the wrong person to rant to.

Apachez 12y ago
Better to accept the offer and some months later become a Snowden v2?
danieldk 12y ago
the poor recruiter is the wrong person to rant to. Why? If enough talented individuals reject a Google position (or more accurately, entry to Google's interview process) for moral reasons, the message will be sent up the chain of command. Google thrives on talent. If it becomes hard to acquire new talent, they have a serious problem.
- saalweachter 12y ago
  Well, for one thing, rejecting it at the point of a recruiter reaching out to you is a weak signal. Get through the hiring process and then reject the job offer, and it will become a much stronger signal. I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that way fewer people reject job offers than turn down recruiters soliciting for a phone screen. With only a little bit of sarcasm, I would also say that accepting the job offer, working loyally for some amount of time, and then quitting in protest would be a much stronger signal still.
aendruk 12y ago
It's an open letter; he's writing for us, not the recruiter. The recruiter merely serves as a prompt.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

dscrd 12y ago

Well, I suppose this is not entirely unlike applying for them and not getting the job.

etfb 12y ago

The primary reason I won't work for Google is because I'm nowhere near smart enough. But I like to tell myself that the ethical shortcuts they've taken in pursuit of the almighty dollar are a good secondary reason. It's just that I don't need a secondary reason, so yay, consequence-free ethics!

sk5t 12y ago
Although I agree with the thrust of your comment, re. intelligence, I will nevertheless downvote you for being petulant.
- eternalban 12y ago
  This (GP) current top comment is an indirect ad-hominem and taking valuable real estate in this page. Up voting you.
vixin 12y ago
Your honesty is to be applauded.
id 12y ago
It's not enough to be smart, you have to convince them that you're smart. And if the recruiters dislike you for whatever reason, there's nothing you can do about it.
- jschuur 12y ago
  I think Google's recruiters realize that some really smart people have certain personality types that may mean they don't perform well in classical interviews.
- mmahemoff 12y ago
  It's not enough to be smart reason 2: Intelligence is not the only quality they're selecting for.
threeseed 12y ago

auvrw 12y ago

from the panic_bcast source s.bind(("", 1337)) # Listen on all devices haha

p4bl0 12y ago

I can't access the linked blogpost because the website is offline, but from the comments here I understand that the main reason the author is invoking for not working at Google is because of Snowden's revelations and Google implication with the NSA. I think this is strange, we knew way before Snowden's revelations what Google did with the privacy of their users. That in itself should be enough to not want to work there, if you care about it. I know more than a handful of people (including me) who refused jobs from Google (often more than one time, for example I had to ask them to write down to not contact me again after the third time) before Snowden's revelations. The reasons were multiple: "don't be evil" is a joke, Google has been a big company for years now and not really a fun startupy place, it may happens that the job you want is not the kind of jobs that Google offers, and it's not even true anymore (or at least, it is less and less) that having worked at Google make your resume special.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
enscr 12y ago
cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-google/
- provemewrong 12y ago
  I don't know if ironic is the right word, but it certainly is funny reading the Google's cached version of the article.
  - p4bl0 12y ago
    And I suppose in a Google browser too, because as I expected, my Firefox doesn't know what to do with cache: URLs.
    - nanofortnight 12y ago
      Stick it into Google: http://google.com/search?q=cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-google/ http://google.com/search?q=cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for...

hitchhiker999 12y ago

Perhaps a few people don't understand why OP takes this so seriously. This is the 'long game', the game for the betterment of human existence. (Cliche? yes, true enough? - probably) If you still feel these huge corporations have our best interests at heart, you are being a touch naive. They are not 'evil' ofc, but they're probably not the best idea for the future.

l33tbro 12y ago
What is your best idea for the future? Do you think I or anyone else would find it palatable? Here's the thing: the profit motive is the impulse of corporations, not the sum total of all behavior. There are great people in corporations that do amazing shit within corporate structures. Coca-Cola have done incredible social art installations recently - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE Google is a huge corporation based on the profit principle, but making coin has been the means for Page to fulfil his dreams of being remembered as our modern Tesla.
- hrktb 12y ago
  About Coca Cola, there is this very good talk by Melinda Gates about what they do in the developping world: http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofits_can_learn_from_coca_cola http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofit... I think enabling enterprising people to do business may be the most positive thing Coca Cola does to the world. For Google, it seems making money is not the end game. What they do have many positive fallouts, but I'm not sure they move the 'real' world forward as much as Microsoft (while openly evil, they brought a unified computing environment to the world) or Apple or even Amazon.
  - hitchhiker999 12y ago
    With all due respect, and thank you for the reply - I feel compelled to say this: I used to think like that, however after many years of observing the complicit abuse corporations like these preside over - I can no longer hold that opinion.

tompagenet2 12y ago

I think this unduly conflates his displeasure at the automated scanning of emails to target advertising and the NSA etc. bulk access to data. The former doesn't make the latter any more likely. All webmail services must hold their customers' emails, and they are therefore open to being read by a government or third party. Users could encrypt their emails, but it's very hard to do this while also making logging in and accessing anywhere fast easy for all users.

loup-vaillant 12y ago
There you go: webmails, while extremely usable, help government snooping by their very nature. If e-mail was decentralized like it was meant to be, spying would be that much harder. (Yes, everyone could host their mail at home. Yes, it can be plug&play useable. No, no one bothered to sell the damn stuff, probably because webmails were more profitable —or believed to be.) But when you think of it for like 2 seconds, automated scanning does help the NSA. Such software is easy to re-purpose. With the right subpoena, I give Google a week before it gives away a nice social graph of US dissidence to the NSA.
flavor8 12y ago
Yes, exactly. Any webmail service that stores email unencrypted on its servers is subject to subpoena / FISA requests, and there isn't much they can do about it. They could roll out client-side encryption -- but there's little business incentive for them to do so on free accounts. That said, as an option for paying apps users, it would be quite valuable. Automatic scanning of emails isn't ethically suspect in my opinion. My reasons for not working at google right now are: lack of desire to engage in big company politics, the apparent softening of the 20% time policy, regular-corporate/long hours, and the commute I'd have to take. Otherwise it'd be near top of my list should I go back into full time business.
- kumbasha 12y ago
  What about the fact that they colluded with Apple and other companies to keep their engineer salaries as low as possible?

AliAdams 12y ago

A better Google is one you pay for and whose income and subsequently motivations align with the customer, not third parties. The idea of Google being a virtual personal assistant who knows everything about you but who you can trust to keep that information private is very cool and I think more aligned with where Google really wants to go. The problem is that they need to rely on advertising for now which means you'll never really trust what that PA says and what it is telling others about you.

puppetmaster3 12y ago

Some searching shows he is supportive of #anakata, and maybe people can read up.

ptr 12y ago
They both live (lived?) in Cambodia, it seems.

etherael 12y ago

All mainstream modern technology companies are in a no win tragic situation. They are accountable to the state which overrides their ability to make any kind of actual independent decisions when the interests of the state are at stake. Going against this would be an exercise in futility and you may well end up in prison for doing so. Getting angry at them for what they are forced at gunpoint to do is just wasted energy, though I do agree with seeking alternatives free from the influence of the state and not patronising companies that are forced to operate in those interests purely from the perspective of pragmatism. All they can do is stick to the letter of the law. I think the harder the state clamps down and the more totalitarian it becomes, the more black market alternatives for mainstream services will come into being and the more pressure there will be for a truly free parallel economy to flourish.

clarry 12y ago
> All mainstream modern technology companies are in a no win tragic situation. Actually the big companies (and to a lesser degree other significant entities like Wikipedia) that essentially hold the keys to the Internet and have the money -- if anyone, they are in a position to change things. They have tremendous power. Think civil disobedience. Corporate disobedience? There are many legal as well as illegal things these corps could do to flip the bird at the state. And the result might be that they get heard, unlike all the EFF campaigners and individuals who can only complain on Internet forums.
- etherael 12y ago
  > Think civil disobedience. Corporate disobedience? Not a great approach, see Lavabit and associated businesses. Or that telco executive who was imprisoned (Qwest, thanks rwallace) on trumped up charges due to not playing ball with the national security apparatus to the requisite degree of submission. You paint a target on your back taking this path in a big way, it's simply not worth the risk to insulate people from the consequences of their own political decisions.
- rwallace 12y ago
  A company called Qwest tried that, and its CEO ended up in prison on trumped-up charges of insider trading. Calls for other people to become martyrs for your favorite cause don't have a lot of moral authority in my book.

reikonomusha 12y ago

There are more reasons to not work for Google, including their (sometimes?) rather poor interview process.

sidcool 12y ago
That comes as a surprise to me. Poor interview process? They have the world's best engineers at their disposal, don't they? A poor interview process would point otherwise.
- skj 12y ago
  Poor process from the candidate's viewpoint. It is long and fraught with false negatives. The fact that there are very few false positives is what allows Google to have "the world's best engineers".
- idlewan 12y ago
  "They have the world's best engineers at their disposal" That's what they like telling the world. They probably employ a lot of smart people, because they can afford better work conditions and salaries. However, they don't have the monopoly on smart engineers. You can't rank people from best to worse: everyone is different. You can certainly recognize that some people are smart, but there is more smart people outside of google than inside. The notion that they "have the best" is ridiculous, because there is no such thing as "the best engineers". I'd prefer saying they have optimized picking their engineers so that they have more chance of picking smart ones.
- threatofrain 12y ago
  Industrial / Org psychology is a rather new sub discipline. It's still hard to beat a metric like general mental ability in predicting job performance across a variety of jobs.
- reikonomusha 12y ago
  Here is one such account: http://symbo1ics.com/blog/?p=2055 http://symbo1ics.com/blog/?p=2055

mr_schnippel 12y ago

It blows my mind that people name ethical issues when choosing an employer when myriads of other more practical considerations come to mind. Well, it really doesn't, it takes all sorts. What blows my mind is to see so many replies to discuss this crazy opinion.

level09 12y ago

a bit offtopic: I suppose cloudflare's "always online" mode wont work unless the origin server sends a cache headers that lasts for long ?

jrockway 12y ago

Just out of curiosity, what do you folks see as the difference between looking at text with the intent to correct spelling (like this text box does) versus looking at text to put an advertisement next to it? (If I wanted to go reductio ad absurdum, what about looking at text to change <a href="...">foo</a> into a link?) To be clear: I'm honestly curious, not trying to defend or advocate for one interpretation over another.

jaseg 12y ago
During spelling correction, there is not any need for any data to leave your computer. In fact, the spelling correction on this text box is a feature of your browser, not of news.ycombinator.com. The whole point about serving targeted ads is aggregating multiple sources of data to build an extensive "customer" profile.
prolde 12y ago
In my opinion, Google's activities are "evil" because they intentionally profile their consumers through parsing all their personal data (email, shopping history, etc). Furthermore, Google chooses to spy on their users through a matter that allows the NSA to collect entire profiles for Google's users. Google does this mainly for the money involved.
- fredgrott 12y ago
  hmm having Google extend more effort after finding out that their data pipes to their servers were being spied upon by NSA seems to discount part of this Compare Google and USPS..whereas the USPS has stated in public that their customer is the mass mailers(spammers) ..Google attempts a balance between two different customer groups..
- partridgeeater 12y ago
  Agreed. I also have no visibility into the data Google has gathered about me, or any way of telling them to delete all the data they have on me.
  - 12y ago

raphaelj 12y ago

It's not so hard to get in touch with Google recruiters. You just need to get a not so bad score at their Codejam contest. As a side note, about a year ago, a girl from Google called me from London for a job opportunity (in French, my mother tongue, it nicely surprised me). Anyway, I put the girl call down as I was waiting a call from my then girlfriend to meet up for our first date. We all seem to have different reasons to refuse a job opportunity from Google !

higherpurpose 12y ago

> Google says “Don’t do evil” on one hand. They stopped saying that, so past tense should be used when mentioning it.

partridgeeater 12y ago
So they didn't actually mean what they said?
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  They did, but only for a while, until it became too inconvenient for their company goals.
saalweachter 12y ago
The informal Google motto has always been "Don't be evil.". Volumes could be written about the fine distinction between "Don't be evil." and the phrases it's often confused for, "Don't do evil." or "Do no evil.".

juggty_dev 12y ago

Google Should Modify these 8 Points http://www.thegeekyglobe.com/google-should-modify-8-points.html http://www.thegeekyglobe.com/google-should-modify-8-points.h...

deleted 12y ago

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hellbreakslose 12y ago

Are you even serious? I read your post. Its a nice fairytale. Let me explain to you what my dad has tought me: We live under structured societies and under a specific set of rules we call LAW. (I most certainly disagree with that... but thats life and how it is) Yes under my fantasy world everyone would have the same possibilities and everyone would be happy yada yada. But under the Actual world we are living at ... Google is just another part. The set of LAWS that have been up there and been built for the past 200-300 years made it clear that Goverments are above those Laws and can do anything they like. If it wasn't Google tracking your data, it would be someone else doing it cause thats how the world that they setted up works! Do you think Google is happy with handing out info to goverments? No, its done cause they are forced to, and yes they can ask something in exchange. Thats the game of Power (Read Game of Thrones, you might understand that.) So I suggest you to get out of that imaginary world of yours and live life (I don't say change your ideas), but if you really want to blame someone - BLAME YOURSELF, for voting for the politicians in your country and for not being able to force them into taking your opinion and stop spying on you. Also regarding adSense and all the tracking... Well thats how business works, if you don't like it then its ok. Noone forced you to use google search or gmail or whatever it is that google has included in their adSense algorythm Regards, A friendly man that lives TODAY!

Spearchucker 12y ago
I'm not sure he's naïve enough to think that his not working at Google will change Google. Nor that if Google didn't do it others wouldn't either. He's saying that given their attributes, he chooses not to work there. I doubt he'd work for Microsoft either, for much of the same reasons. This is no different to my own choice of not working for Oracle (or Google for that matter). I did work for Microsoft though, and have no regrets about that one. In fact it was one of my best experiences. Either way I know it changes nothing, beyond possibly being able to influence people close to me - but I like myself more for it.
kumbasha 12y ago
Blame yourself? No, I'll blame the people who have more than 1/360,000,000th of a unit of political power in the country, i.e. the actual rich people and politicians who actually do these things that we hate. I will take 1/360,000,000th of the share of the blame, and nothing more.

muyuu 12y ago

He made Patrick read way too much. I wouldn't work for Google because I consider it to be an extremely dangerous and immoral company. It's not the only one but it's up there at the top with the likes of Facebook and to some extent Microsoft, Oracle, Apple. One could go on forever on this but an email to them is probably not the right place to do this (although he did publish it).

mqsiuser 12y ago

There are typical kinds of people. He seems to be very idealistic. And it's awesome and free advertisement for him as a person/hacker, where he (and his github projects) now can profit. He is in high dept towards google now :)

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raverbashing 12y ago

I won't work for Google for a very simple reason After you went through an unsuccessful interview with them (even if it's more than 5 years ago), if you send them your CV again, it goes to /dev/null Really So, yeah, other companies are hiring... And there are good possibilities outside of the big companies, it may even be more fun and less red tape

ktran03 12y ago
I believe you are misinformed. Google wipes your slate clean, and you can try again in 6-12 months.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Did you actually experience that or you just heard about it?
  - jccalhoun 12y ago
    I have heard of people that have applied for jobs at google multiple times and had interviews a couple times over the years before they got a job there.
    - skj 12y ago
      In fact it's incredibly common.
    - raverbashing 12y ago
      Did they got to an on-site interview? Because one thing that has happened is recruiters leaving you hanging on, so, they'll ask for some info, then no further communication (even if you ask)
  - krazen 12y ago
    I was interviewed by Google in 2008, rejected. They contacted me again in 2010. I told them I wasn't interested at that time for personal reasons. They contacted me again in 2012. I interviewed again, I was given an offer.

xkarga00 12y ago

I think it's naive to be that proud. Sure Google isn't the best company in the world as far as its policies about costumer data and privacy but if OP's mother or friends are really concerned about their privacy they can opt out and use another equivalent service to Google Search, Gmail, etc. But then again most mainstream services if not all have their own dark policies, don't they?

snarfy 12y ago

I won't work for google, apple, or microsoft due to the illegal no-poaching agreements they made. I don't want to work for amazon because they are retail - engineering is overhead to be trimmed. Through some weird twist of fate I find myself actually admiring Facebook, not the site, but the company.

rabino 12y ago
I can't really explain why, but I agree with you re: Facebook. Of all the big ones, is the one I'd like to work for the most. Maybe is the amount of social experiment you could do, I dunno. Re: Amazon, I think you are totally wrong. They are a tech company that happens to do Retail.
dredmorbius 12y ago
Most of the large tech companies mostly turn me off, though there are little glimmers of things they do that are positive. Ironically, I've been breaking my radio silence on G+ over the past couple of days discussing some of this in relation to Gundotra's exodus and the "death of G+" discussions (short answer: yes and no). I just got accused of having favorable views of Facebook (I don't -- I think what the company does is detestable and Zuck's morals are beyond reprehensible .... except that the company's stand in breaking the wage-suppression collusion cabal was a stunning case of doing the right thing). But in terms of a company which could tempt me ... there aren't many.
- yuhong 12y ago
  Personally, I want to fix them if possible. That is why I posted a wishlist for Satya on a blog's comments for example, and why I like to discuss Google with for example michaelochurch. On Facebook, I posted this: http://www.quora.com/What-has-happened-to-Mark-Zuckerbergs-opinion-on-privacy-since-the-early-days-of-Facebook?share=1 http://www.quora.com/What-has-happened-to-Mark-Zuckerbergs-o...

pabb 12y ago

I mean, I get that he's trying to make a point here, and he clearly feels as strongly about this as he's written. But it sounds like an idealistic 13-year-old wrote the whole diatribe: "Boo, how dare you you big jerk spy. Spying on my mom and friends. You just want money. Like a big fat bully jerk." Seriously? All corporations are in pursuit of profit. I get the underlying issue he has, but only through the context of growing up with Google and seeing them grow to what they are now. His post is littered with tons of hard to believe idealistic BS. Berating them for not closing down their service like Lavabit? Are you kidding? "Yes, let's shut down our 15+ year old company, one of the most profitable and successful in the world, just to prove a point" -- surely that's the rational thing to do. I'm not a fan of Google's "spying", but you need to look at the situation from the lense of this being how they (and Facebook, and probably any other web-based company that had the clout) are seizing a competitive advantage that almost no one else can provide. People are feeding them petabytes of data, and it's in their best interest to turn that information into financial gain. Yes, I think a big side-effect of that they appear to be intrusive and "evil", but to pretend that the company is the issue, and that only Google would take advantage of such a situation is comical, and incredibly naive. The writer of the article surely can understand that any other entity with such great access to user information would use it.

eternalban 12y ago
These are posts by workers in the tech field. Instead of dismissing it, you may want to consider if you are (a) a hopelessly powerless entity caught in a socio-economic regime that you can not in any way alter (e.g. "do no evil"); or (b) a member of a sub-set of society that actually has both the power and knowledge to get Nikola-Tesla-wanna-be-Page and fellow travelers to toe the required tech-ethical line.
qnrq 12y ago
Profit is wonderful, even more so if earned through other means than tracking users' Internet activity unknowingly. Most users of the Internet don't know that Google sees them in most corners and much of the data collection remains. Most users don't know how to defend themselves pro-actively. For example we have the disaster of people being connected with their political views in France[1]. The same (not really, hashed emails) vulnerability was then used by the Swedish Researchgruppen[2], an extremist leftwing organization, to publish who said what under the assertion of anonymity and as a direct followup leftwing journalists are now chasing outed "trolls" with baseball bats and cameras[3] for a TV show(!). 1: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/29/de-anonymising-political-forums http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/29/de-anonymisin... 2: http://torquemag.io/if-you-wouldnt-say-it-in-person-would-you-say-it-online/ http://torquemag.io/if-you-wouldnt-say-it-in-person-would-yo... 3: http://www.friatider.se/plansch-for-nya-tv3-serien-aschberg-med-basebolltra-jagar-asiktsregistrerade http://www.friatider.se/plansch-for-nya-tv3-serien-aschberg-... Nedless to say these individuals are being directly targeted and harmed due to what they wrote on the Internet. It's not the fault of Disqus or Gravatar, it's the consequence of uninformed users. Now imagine the hoards of victims that will emerge in the shadows of a Google database leak. For it will leak, of course it will, it's only a matter of time. If data can get out of North Korea it can get out of Google. The dangers are not necessarily what Google is doing but what Google enables others to do. Google closed down their service in China in protest againt what they said was anti democratic; remaining in the US is a hypocrisy, although perfectly aligned with other propaganda. You are right, this is very much government driven. I agree - we should remove the government. Google can lead the revolution by closing down or switch jurisdiction in protest. Their voice is heard, ours is not.

teddyh 12y ago

Google first approached me in 2010. Here is the relevant part of my otherwise short reply: Google follows what I believe to be unethical business practices – including, but not limited to, condoning censorship, invading their users’ privacy, [publishing] proprietary software, and making available and encouraging the use of network services with far too little user control of the programs. A little more than a year later, Kragen Javier Sitaker wrote this, which I thought was the best explanation of why one wouldn’t want to work for Google: http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2011-August/000938.html http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2011-August/...

karangoeluw 12y ago

Oh please. You got contacted by a recruiter and NOT given a job.

mlinksva 12y ago

A 2011 version, different author https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933619

varelse 12y ago

If you want Google to leave you alone for the rest of eternity, all you have to do is go work there and enjoy the perks for a few months (the food is excellent and they pay quite well) and then try to find work more suitable to your skill set than what the Hogwarts Hat of blind allocation has assigned you to for the next 2 years of your life(1). Since you will most likely have been assigned to a team no one wants to work on (hence the openings), the mere act of questioning the almighty G will enrage the inept mid-level management chain and they will in turn blacklist you with HR. Once you are blacklisted, you will be cordially invited to not let the portal barrier impact your posterior on the way out. And beyond occasional accidental profile views on linkedin, no more Google recruitment spam. It worked for me. It can work for you. 1. Exceptions to this rule are when you are hand-picked for a moonshot, an acquihire, or for your specific skills, at which point, Google is an excellent place to work. Ignore everything I'm saying in these cases, you've hit the jackpot.