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For a period I was heavily recruited by google. Their recruiters tried a great many variations of attempts to trick me into interviewing for a job. It seems w

by MCRed 12y ago

For a period I was heavily recruited by google. Their recruiters tried a great many variations of attempts to trick me into interviewing for a job. It seems weird that they would do this, because pretty soon, it would become obvious that it was a job interview and nothing more. Maybe there are a lot of talented engineers out there who are doing startups but aren't really committed to them and google manages via the fame of its name and wearing them down to convince them to give up and become employees. I agree with this article's characterization of it as a scam, as they are pretending to be something they are not. This is manipulative and dishonest. What I experienced was less heinous but had the same elements- misrepresentation, name dropping, attempts at emotional manipulation with tone and timing (the first call being so dead, then enthusiastic in the second- very "HR recruiter", not corp dev.) Worse, once I'd eventually figure out what was going on, and put one of them off of me, a few weeks later another would show up, with another variation.

ForHackernews 12y ago
I don't see why it's a scam. Isn't an "aqui-hire" pretty standard practice these days?
- piqufoh 12y ago
  It's a scam because the author didn't believe there was any 'acqui' part of the 'acqui-hire'. He believed the proposition of an acquisition was a fabrication intended to lure him in for an interview.
  - SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
    $2M as part of a signing bonus seems like an "acqui" to me. It just wasn't enough for the author. Which is fine, but not exactly as much of a scam as he implied. This article just seems to be a real world example of PG's essay this month about "don't talk to corp dev." [1] [1] http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
    - chii 12y ago
      it's not a scam in the sense of an illegal scam, but it certainly is trying to prey on someone who might not know better. If you are a lone engineer, but is capable of making a successful app, you have a certain aptitude for programming. This is useful to google. The recruiter is making a bet that this lone engineer is not business savvy enough to know how much their true worth is, and if the bet worked, google would've been able to low-ball hire a really good engineer. They failed this time, but you don't hear about the times this strategy succeeds, because those 'acqui-hires' might've even been celebrated by the "victim" as success!
      - SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
        $2M is a reasonable definition of "success" as far as I am concerned. And the $300-$500k+ salaries that Google is frequently throwing at engineers these days are worth more than the marginal chance you'll make a multi-million dollar exit event. So I'd hesitate to call anyone hired by Google a "victim."
        chii 12y ago
        let's say you found a rough diamond in a mine (that you own), which if polished, could be worth $10 mil, but somebody offered you $2 mil for it. Do you still think it's a good deal to take it? It's not the absolute amount that matters - it's how much they are "underpaying".
        SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
        It's only a valid analogy if there is risk associated with polishing it. If the diamond could be worth $10M when polished, but also could be worth $0 because of flaws you can't yet see, and there's only a 20% chance that it will be worth $10M, then $2M is exactly the right amount to take. And in this particular case, I'd take the $2M every time, because that's the exact expected value of 20% odds of a $10M valuation. And when you have your own company, there is always some level of risk. The chance of $10M may be far less than 20% -- and there may be a 1% chance of $200M. It's only if you think your diamond has either already been polished to the point of being worth more than $2M, or you feel your own odds of success at polishing are better than 20%, that you should say no to the offer. The original author believed that, which is perfectly fine. He had previous experience with selling a company, and so he may have even been right. But those with less experience may actually do well to sell unless someone with more experience is around to tell them they're sitting on a diamond mine that's worth way more than the offer. Or you can roll the dice based on your own appraisal of the odds; that's fine too. I've actually been in the situation where I did say no to terms I didn't find good enough, but then later the company failed and I ended up owning 100% of nothing. So having them "underpay" for me would have ended up with me owning 40% of something at least, since they were going to fund it to the next level. It's easy to take a look at the odds and guess wrong -- and it's also easy to be an armchair quarterback and tell people that they should have taken a chance instead of the easy cash. As a result of my experience, I'd likely lean toward the easy cash at this point, but feel free to make your own decisions as you see fit.
- geofft 12y ago
  An "acqui-hire" is the process of acquiring a team that you know works well together and is capable of putting out a product and probably has relevant domain knowledge, without going through the traditional process of finding generally competent people, throwing them in a room, and seeing if they can get something done. If it's a solo founder, and especially if they're not being recruited to work on a similar sort of project, I don't think there's anything to make it an "acqui-hire" instead of a "yo, shut down your company and come work for us".
  - abalone 12y ago
    There's a crucial difference. Acquihires are typically at a much higher price, one reason being that other investors often need to be taken care of for the founder to leave on good terms. The corpdev/recruiter even mentioned $2M as a maximum figure. That's not exactly a typical engineering signing bonus.
    - vidarh 12y ago
      It's not a typical engineering signing bonus, but it's far from unheard of.
      - imacomputer2 12y ago
        Seriously? You've heard of engineers being hired for 2M? I want that job! This is a serious question. 2M is just unthinkable for me.
        patio11 12y ago
        Know that this is a thing that exists in the world. At least one HNer could get it approximately tomorrow if they wanted it. Typical form is a large equity grant which, for a publicly traded company, is indistinguishable from cash with a vesting schedule.
        tmuir 12y ago
fecak 12y ago
As a recruiter, I'd be curious to hear what tricks were played to get you to interview. I'm an independent, so when I speak to people there is never anything ambiguous about our discussions (my clients are not looking to acquire your product if you have one). Is it possible that Google liked your product and subsequently thought you might be a good hire, but didn't like your product as a potential acquisition? That is where I think the difference lies. Were you contacted as "I'm from Google and we are interested in you", or "I'm from Google and we are interested in your product"? That is a big difference. The fact that you specifically mention "Their recruiters" would lead me to believe it was the former, but if they mention your product (beyond some acknowledgment of it) that might fall into a gray area. Thousands of people abandon small side projects and independent businesses every year to join companies as an employee. Just because a company is recruiting someone who happens to have some product doesn't necessarily mean that the hiring company has interest in both the person and the product.
- jtbigwoo 12y ago
  >> Thousands of people abandon small side projects and independent businesses every year to join companies as an employee. Just because a company is recruiting someone who happens to have some product doesn't necessarily mean that the hiring company has interest in both the person and the product. In the post above, the whole bit about being from "Google Corporate Development" is shady. We're only hearing one side of the story, but it seems someone at Google is using a famous name and the fuzzy promise of an acquisition to try to trick him into coming to California for a job interview.
  - fecak 12y ago
    I understand your point as it relates to the blog post. My comment was specific to the parent post about being contacted by Google recruiters. I agree that being contacted by "Corp Dev" is shady if there is no intent on a potential acquisition. That said, I don't find it shady at all if a Google recruiter contacts talented technologists who happen to have some sort of side project. If DHH gets a call from Google, they'd better have interest in Basecamp. If some Ruby dev who has a small product with 500 customers gets a call from Google recruiters (not corp dev), the dev shouldn't assume it's an acquihire situation. There is, as usual, some gray area of course.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
raverbashing 12y ago
I think Google alienated too much people (see the whatsapp case) now they're trying to get founders of startups onboard rather than people that go through their dog and pony show.
- warcher 12y ago
  What happened with WhatsApp? I hadn't heard anything about this.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-rejected-whatsapp-co-founder-brian-acton-for-a-job-back-in-2009-2014-2?IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-rejected-whatsapp-co... (He was also rejected by twitter)
  - fidotron 12y ago
    Mr Page ended up begging them not to sell to Facebook. https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Was-Willing-to-Beat-Facebook-s-19-Billion-Offer-for-WhatsApp https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Was-Willing-to-Beat-Fa...
- chris123 12y ago
  Recruiting a founder of a startup also serves to nip (or at least slow down or delay) a potential rival employers (actually convert him/her to attracting people for your team).
ovulator 12y ago
"What's wrong with this country? Can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job!?"
- delucain 12y ago
  Sure, it's a VERY extreme example of "First World Problems" or whatever the meme is, but do you want a job when the offer is a con from the start? What kind of relationship with your employer does that create?
  - lugg 12y ago
    I've been feeling for a while now, software developers need agents. I only talk to one recruiter. If I want a particular job I know is going I will direct him to it and he will handle any side lining from other recruiters. Works a treat.
    - prbuckley 12y ago
      My friend Altay started a software developer agency. Altay is a great guy and YC alum. You might want to check it out, http://www.10xmanagement.com/ http://www.10xmanagement.com/
    - hkmurakami 12y ago
      An acquaintance of mine (she used to be a den herself) wrote here about why engineers today don't have agents. http://blog.alinelerner.com/why-talent-agents-for-engineers-dont-exist/ http://blog.alinelerner.com/why-talent-agents-for-engineers-...
      - kngspook 12y ago
        I've worked with Aline. She's fucking awesome.
    - logicallee 12y ago
      Hi. we're working on this. can you imagine what, if any, part of this could be done purely online? what would your top three features be? (in an actual, online agent, actually on your side.)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jseliger 12y ago
manages via the fame of its name [. . .] What I experienced was less heinous but had the same elements- misrepresentation, name dropping I think the original author should name everyone involved. I understand why he didn't, but people can only get away with this shit because they do it anonymously and no one talks to each other. This is a much less extreme example, but years ago my former landlord threatened to kill me over a small claims court case (http://jakeseliger.com/2010/08/28/dont-rent-an-apartment-from-navid-abedian-in-tucson-arizona-or-how-i-learned-to-be-wary-of-lawsuits http://jakeseliger.com/2010/08/28/dont-rent-an-apartment-fro... if you're curious) and I wrote a post about what happened using his real name. Perhaps not surprisingly, since then I've gotten two emails thanking me for the story—one from someone who'd rented from him and had a bad experience and one from someone who avoided him. In general it's a good idea to keep non-public conversations non-public, but when the people starting those conversations rely on them in order to do nasty stuff the principle should no longer apply.
- amirmc 12y ago
  Your comment seems to completely absolve the company that hired these people. Why give them a pass but not the people they're paying to do this?
  - usefulcat 12y ago
    I don't get this at all. Where does GP say anything suggesting Google either should be or is absolved of wrongdoing? Did you perhaps reply to the wrong comment?
- bsder 12y ago
  > I wrote a post about what happened using his real name. Be careful giving this advice. This only worked because A) (minor) you filed a police report and B) (major) he didn't have enough money to drag you through a serious defamation lawsuit. If he decided to drag you through a defamation lawsuit, you would likely have lost because you wouldn't have had enough resources to defend aggressively. It's good to out bad actors, but do make sure that you aren't putting yourself in a vulnerable situtation.
boomzilla 12y ago
It actually goes both ways. In fact, some start-up people welcome this kind of approaches, because they can turn around and show potential investors/employees that "we are validated by Big Names at Google, come and join us". Hell, I've seen this first hand and it was not even an email, just a passing compliment from some reasonably "big name". So it's all a game, don't hate the players, hate the rules. It makes it hard to know when someone is legit though. I think that's one reason why investors are over reliant on their networks, as the signal/noise ratio is too low in SV. "Fake it till you make it" is the motto. However, I don't think I can complain too much. Without all the hypes, we wouldn't have this favorable job market. Not sure how long it's going to last, but at least it's good for now.
- Retra 12y ago
  >So it's all a game, don't hate the players, hate the rules. There are no rules. Trying to paint this turd with catchy slogans isn't helpful either.
  - derefr 12y ago
    You're thinking of "rules" as in externally-imposed rules. The parent is using "rules" in the sense of social contracts and market incentives: best-practices that emerge from the game-theoretic equilibria between players. For example, "don't start a nuclear war" isn't an explicit rule by some world government, but it does seem to be a rule all the world-leaders are implicitly following. For another, "don't appear to be physically weak in prison" is a "rule" that everybody knows, despite no single authority enforcing it. The environment itself—made up of the other players and their incentives—enforce it, through their self-interested reactions.
    - gress 12y ago
      And people are just unfeeling automata whose only value is to maximize their game theoretic outcomes. /s
      - pjlegato 12y ago
presootto 12y ago
A lot of recruiters at Google are temps and will lie through they're teeth in order to get candidates interested. Google still has a reputation of being an amazing workplace. This, however, is becoming less and less true. Just last week Victoria Lease resigned after months of sexual harassment without any consequence for the perpetrators. There are much better places to work for then Google these days. Disclaimer: I work for TAGA (The Arrogant Google Assholes)
- kelukelugames 12y ago
  > Just last week Victoria Lease resigned after months of sexual harassment without any consequence for the perpetrators. I find this hard to believe because if you are smart enough to work at Google then you should be smart enough to know your rights. If the harassment is persistent and comes from multiple perpetrators then she can build a timeline to show HR, a lawyer, or the EEOC.
  - GCA10 12y ago
    Careful how you connect the dots. Yes, building a timeline and bringing in EEOC is one option. But then your identify for the next 1 to 5 years is defined by your harassment case. At the very least, you've got a big new time demand that may impede your ability to focus 100% on your next job. At the worst, you're seen as an angry litigant that no one else wants to hire. It's a nasty world out there. Such unwelcome outcomes explain why many smart people with legitimate grounds for pressing charges ... choose not to do so.
  - bigethan 12y ago
    Have you ever been harassed? It's a much deeper situation than being aware of your rights, etc. And, if you assume that working at Google means you're smart, it means her harassers are just as smart as she is, and also aware of what her possible course of action may be. (I don't know anything about Victoria Lease's situation, just this response had hints of victim blaming)
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
Raphael 12y ago
Perhaps "corporate development" is biz-speak for "mergers and acquisitions", but from a literal perspective, a standard hire would develop the corporation.
- kngspook 12y ago
  I'd love to see Google PR put out a statement explaining that your definition of Corp Dev is what Google uses. :P
walterbell 12y ago
> Worse, once I'd eventually figure out what was going on, and put one of them off of me, a few weeks later another would show up, with another variation. Start collecting pseudonyms and storylines in a github repo? This could make for an entertaining movie script, where a Skynet-like company uses advanced surveillance technology to triage a talent pipeline. Startups encounter a random obstacle course and are only recruited after clearing a statistical threshold of surviving economIc warfare. When a candidate says no, they are moved to a different level of the game. All the while, the recruiting algos grow smarter as they generate new startup obstacles and observe how the talent responds. The Exam experimented with this concept, http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bkdt2Sygew0 http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bkdt2Sygew0

by MCRed 12y ago

ForHackernews 12y ago

I don't see why it's a scam. Isn't an "aqui-hire" pretty standard practice these days?

piqufoh 12y ago
It's a scam because the author didn't believe there was any 'acqui' part of the 'acqui-hire'. He believed the proposition of an acquisition was a fabrication intended to lure him in for an interview.
- SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
  $2M as part of a signing bonus seems like an "acqui" to me. It just wasn't enough for the author. Which is fine, but not exactly as much of a scam as he implied. This article just seems to be a real world example of PG's essay this month about "don't talk to corp dev." [1] [1] http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
  - chii 12y ago
    it's not a scam in the sense of an illegal scam, but it certainly is trying to prey on someone who might not know better. If you are a lone engineer, but is capable of making a successful app, you have a certain aptitude for programming. This is useful to google. The recruiter is making a bet that this lone engineer is not business savvy enough to know how much their true worth is, and if the bet worked, google would've been able to low-ball hire a really good engineer. They failed this time, but you don't hear about the times this strategy succeeds, because those 'acqui-hires' might've even been celebrated by the "victim" as success!
    - SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
      $2M is a reasonable definition of "success" as far as I am concerned. And the $300-$500k+ salaries that Google is frequently throwing at engineers these days are worth more than the marginal chance you'll make a multi-million dollar exit event. So I'd hesitate to call anyone hired by Google a "victim."
      - chii 12y ago
        let's say you found a rough diamond in a mine (that you own), which if polished, could be worth $10 mil, but somebody offered you $2 mil for it. Do you still think it's a good deal to take it? It's not the absolute amount that matters - it's how much they are "underpaying".
        SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
        It's only a valid analogy if there is risk associated with polishing it. If the diamond could be worth $10M when polished, but also could be worth $0 because of flaws you can't yet see, and there's only a 20% chance that it will be worth $10M, then $2M is exactly the right amount to take. And in this particular case, I'd take the $2M every time, because that's the exact expected value of 20% odds of a $10M valuation. And when you have your own company, there is always some level of risk. The chance of $10M may be far less than 20% -- and there may be a 1% chance of $200M. It's only if you think your diamond has either already been polished to the point of being worth more than $2M, or you feel your own odds of success at polishing are better than 20%, that you should say no to the offer. The original author believed that, which is perfectly fine. He had previous experience with selling a company, and so he may have even been right. But those with less experience may actually do well to sell unless someone with more experience is around to tell them they're sitting on a diamond mine that's worth way more than the offer. Or you can roll the dice based on your own appraisal of the odds; that's fine too. I've actually been in the situation where I did say no to terms I didn't find good enough, but then later the company failed and I ended up owning 100% of nothing. So having them "underpay" for me would have ended up with me owning 40% of something at least, since they were going to fund it to the next level. It's easy to take a look at the odds and guess wrong -- and it's also easy to be an armchair quarterback and tell people that they should have taken a chance instead of the easy cash. As a result of my experience, I'd likely lean toward the easy cash at this point, but feel free to make your own decisions as you see fit.
geofft 12y ago
An "acqui-hire" is the process of acquiring a team that you know works well together and is capable of putting out a product and probably has relevant domain knowledge, without going through the traditional process of finding generally competent people, throwing them in a room, and seeing if they can get something done. If it's a solo founder, and especially if they're not being recruited to work on a similar sort of project, I don't think there's anything to make it an "acqui-hire" instead of a "yo, shut down your company and come work for us".
- abalone 12y ago
  There's a crucial difference. Acquihires are typically at a much higher price, one reason being that other investors often need to be taken care of for the founder to leave on good terms. The corpdev/recruiter even mentioned $2M as a maximum figure. That's not exactly a typical engineering signing bonus.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    It's not a typical engineering signing bonus, but it's far from unheard of.
    - imacomputer2 12y ago
      Seriously? You've heard of engineers being hired for 2M? I want that job! This is a serious question. 2M is just unthinkable for me.
      - patio11 12y ago
        Know that this is a thing that exists in the world. At least one HNer could get it approximately tomorrow if they wanted it. Typical form is a large equity grant which, for a publicly traded company, is indistinguishable from cash with a vesting schedule.
        tmuir 12y ago

fecak 12y ago

As a recruiter, I'd be curious to hear what tricks were played to get you to interview. I'm an independent, so when I speak to people there is never anything ambiguous about our discussions (my clients are not looking to acquire your product if you have one). Is it possible that Google liked your product and subsequently thought you might be a good hire, but didn't like your product as a potential acquisition? That is where I think the difference lies. Were you contacted as "I'm from Google and we are interested in you", or "I'm from Google and we are interested in your product"? That is a big difference. The fact that you specifically mention "Their recruiters" would lead me to believe it was the former, but if they mention your product (beyond some acknowledgment of it) that might fall into a gray area. Thousands of people abandon small side projects and independent businesses every year to join companies as an employee. Just because a company is recruiting someone who happens to have some product doesn't necessarily mean that the hiring company has interest in both the person and the product.

jtbigwoo 12y ago
>> Thousands of people abandon small side projects and independent businesses every year to join companies as an employee. Just because a company is recruiting someone who happens to have some product doesn't necessarily mean that the hiring company has interest in both the person and the product. In the post above, the whole bit about being from "Google Corporate Development" is shady. We're only hearing one side of the story, but it seems someone at Google is using a famous name and the fuzzy promise of an acquisition to try to trick him into coming to California for a job interview.
- fecak 12y ago
  I understand your point as it relates to the blog post. My comment was specific to the parent post about being contacted by Google recruiters. I agree that being contacted by "Corp Dev" is shady if there is no intent on a potential acquisition. That said, I don't find it shady at all if a Google recruiter contacts talented technologists who happen to have some sort of side project. If DHH gets a call from Google, they'd better have interest in Basecamp. If some Ruby dev who has a small product with 500 customers gets a call from Google recruiters (not corp dev), the dev shouldn't assume it's an acquihire situation. There is, as usual, some gray area of course.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

raverbashing 12y ago

I think Google alienated too much people (see the whatsapp case) now they're trying to get founders of startups onboard rather than people that go through their dog and pony show.

warcher 12y ago
What happened with WhatsApp? I hadn't heard anything about this.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-rejected-whatsapp-co-founder-brian-acton-for-a-job-back-in-2009-2014-2?IR=T http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-rejected-whatsapp-co... (He was also rejected by twitter)
- fidotron 12y ago
  Mr Page ended up begging them not to sell to Facebook. https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Was-Willing-to-Beat-Facebook-s-19-Billion-Offer-for-WhatsApp https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Was-Willing-to-Beat-Fa...
chris123 12y ago
Recruiting a founder of a startup also serves to nip (or at least slow down or delay) a potential rival employers (actually convert him/her to attracting people for your team).

ovulator 12y ago

"What's wrong with this country? Can't a man walk down the street without being offered a job!?"

delucain 12y ago
Sure, it's a VERY extreme example of "First World Problems" or whatever the meme is, but do you want a job when the offer is a con from the start? What kind of relationship with your employer does that create?
- lugg 12y ago
  I've been feeling for a while now, software developers need agents. I only talk to one recruiter. If I want a particular job I know is going I will direct him to it and he will handle any side lining from other recruiters. Works a treat.
  - prbuckley 12y ago
    My friend Altay started a software developer agency. Altay is a great guy and YC alum. You might want to check it out, http://www.10xmanagement.com/ http://www.10xmanagement.com/
  - hkmurakami 12y ago
    An acquaintance of mine (she used to be a den herself) wrote here about why engineers today don't have agents. http://blog.alinelerner.com/why-talent-agents-for-engineers-dont-exist/ http://blog.alinelerner.com/why-talent-agents-for-engineers-...
    - kngspook 12y ago
      I've worked with Aline. She's fucking awesome.
  - logicallee 12y ago
    Hi. we're working on this. can you imagine what, if any, part of this could be done purely online? what would your top three features be? (in an actual, online agent, actually on your side.)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jseliger 12y ago

manages via the fame of its name [. . .] What I experienced was less heinous but had the same elements- misrepresentation, name dropping I think the original author should name everyone involved. I understand why he didn't, but people can only get away with this shit because they do it anonymously and no one talks to each other. This is a much less extreme example, but years ago my former landlord threatened to kill me over a small claims court case (http://jakeseliger.com/2010/08/28/dont-rent-an-apartment-from-navid-abedian-in-tucson-arizona-or-how-i-learned-to-be-wary-of-lawsuits http://jakeseliger.com/2010/08/28/dont-rent-an-apartment-fro... if you're curious) and I wrote a post about what happened using his real name. Perhaps not surprisingly, since then I've gotten two emails thanking me for the story—one from someone who'd rented from him and had a bad experience and one from someone who avoided him. In general it's a good idea to keep non-public conversations non-public, but when the people starting those conversations rely on them in order to do nasty stuff the principle should no longer apply.

amirmc 12y ago
Your comment seems to completely absolve the company that hired these people. Why give them a pass but not the people they're paying to do this?
- usefulcat 12y ago
  I don't get this at all. Where does GP say anything suggesting Google either should be or is absolved of wrongdoing? Did you perhaps reply to the wrong comment?
bsder 12y ago
> I wrote a post about what happened using his real name. Be careful giving this advice. This only worked because A) (minor) you filed a police report and B) (major) he didn't have enough money to drag you through a serious defamation lawsuit. If he decided to drag you through a defamation lawsuit, you would likely have lost because you wouldn't have had enough resources to defend aggressively. It's good to out bad actors, but do make sure that you aren't putting yourself in a vulnerable situtation.

boomzilla 12y ago

It actually goes both ways. In fact, some start-up people welcome this kind of approaches, because they can turn around and show potential investors/employees that "we are validated by Big Names at Google, come and join us". Hell, I've seen this first hand and it was not even an email, just a passing compliment from some reasonably "big name". So it's all a game, don't hate the players, hate the rules. It makes it hard to know when someone is legit though. I think that's one reason why investors are over reliant on their networks, as the signal/noise ratio is too low in SV. "Fake it till you make it" is the motto. However, I don't think I can complain too much. Without all the hypes, we wouldn't have this favorable job market. Not sure how long it's going to last, but at least it's good for now.

Retra 12y ago
>So it's all a game, don't hate the players, hate the rules. There are no rules. Trying to paint this turd with catchy slogans isn't helpful either.
- derefr 12y ago
  You're thinking of "rules" as in externally-imposed rules. The parent is using "rules" in the sense of social contracts and market incentives: best-practices that emerge from the game-theoretic equilibria between players. For example, "don't start a nuclear war" isn't an explicit rule by some world government, but it does seem to be a rule all the world-leaders are implicitly following. For another, "don't appear to be physically weak in prison" is a "rule" that everybody knows, despite no single authority enforcing it. The environment itself—made up of the other players and their incentives—enforce it, through their self-interested reactions.
  - gress 12y ago
    And people are just unfeeling automata whose only value is to maximize their game theoretic outcomes. /s
    - pjlegato 12y ago

presootto 12y ago

A lot of recruiters at Google are temps and will lie through they're teeth in order to get candidates interested. Google still has a reputation of being an amazing workplace. This, however, is becoming less and less true. Just last week Victoria Lease resigned after months of sexual harassment without any consequence for the perpetrators. There are much better places to work for then Google these days. Disclaimer: I work for TAGA (The Arrogant Google Assholes)

kelukelugames 12y ago
> Just last week Victoria Lease resigned after months of sexual harassment without any consequence for the perpetrators. I find this hard to believe because if you are smart enough to work at Google then you should be smart enough to know your rights. If the harassment is persistent and comes from multiple perpetrators then she can build a timeline to show HR, a lawyer, or the EEOC.
- GCA10 12y ago
  Careful how you connect the dots. Yes, building a timeline and bringing in EEOC is one option. But then your identify for the next 1 to 5 years is defined by your harassment case. At the very least, you've got a big new time demand that may impede your ability to focus 100% on your next job. At the worst, you're seen as an angry litigant that no one else wants to hire. It's a nasty world out there. Such unwelcome outcomes explain why many smart people with legitimate grounds for pressing charges ... choose not to do so.
- bigethan 12y ago
  Have you ever been harassed? It's a much deeper situation than being aware of your rights, etc. And, if you assume that working at Google means you're smart, it means her harassers are just as smart as she is, and also aware of what her possible course of action may be. (I don't know anything about Victoria Lease's situation, just this response had hints of victim blaming)
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Raphael 12y ago

Perhaps "corporate development" is biz-speak for "mergers and acquisitions", but from a literal perspective, a standard hire would develop the corporation.

kngspook 12y ago
I'd love to see Google PR put out a statement explaining that your definition of Corp Dev is what Google uses. :P

walterbell 12y ago

> Worse, once I'd eventually figure out what was going on, and put one of them off of me, a few weeks later another would show up, with another variation. Start collecting pseudonyms and storylines in a github repo? This could make for an entertaining movie script, where a Skynet-like company uses advanced surveillance technology to triage a talent pipeline. Startups encounter a random obstacle course and are only recruited after clearing a statistical threshold of surviving economIc warfare. When a candidate says no, they are moved to a different level of the game. All the while, the recruiting algos grow smarter as they generate new startup obstacles and observe how the talent responds. The Exam experimented with this concept, http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bkdt2Sygew0 http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bkdt2Sygew0