

What’s It Like to Work at Google? - abraham
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-07-05-n61.html

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zitterbewegung
I would take the interview with a grain of salt because it could be someone
plainly making up the whole interview. It hasn't been vetted like the IAMA
interviews. Also this should probably point to the original post on reddit
[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/clz1m/google_empl...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/clz1m/google_employees_on_reddit_fire_up_your_throwaway/c0tis1y)

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studer
What interview? Blogoscoped is quoting three comments from the Reddit thread.

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mkramlich
the OA should instead have been a link to the Reddit discussion. this is like
the Mahalo treatment. plus, after the OA points out that since the Reddit
discussion may have fake Googlers that we couldn't trust anyone for sure. then
it picks 3 to repeat verbatim --- but how can we know those 3 are real?

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motter
Blogspam already? Why is this being upvoted?

Edit: to be clear, my definition of blogspam is "adds no value to the original
content".

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rick_2047
It always amazed me that only 10% of the biggest companies are able to have
anything close to a fun environment. Is it that hard to treat employees as...I
don't know... Humans and not working units of a factory? I can see why in many
of the industries it is hard to implement such standards because of the type
of work they do (for example manufacturing industries cannot have time
flexibilities) but that only makes up the 50% what about the other half.

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lars512
Google is "fun" for two reasons. They provide lots of perks since, once their
salary reaches a certain level, the top of the talent spectrum prefers these
improvements to their work environment rather than an incrementally higher
salary. They give people their 20% time since their core business involves a
lot of speculative investments, and the 20% time is the best way to do that
in-house.

Average companies generally don't have the resources/incentive to hire the
best, so they don't need to provide the same perks. They're also less likely
to invest their time speculatively, so no 20% time.

I'm sure there's a happy medium where the right amount of perks and fun
culture improves company productivity more than it costs up front, much like
decreased taxation can sometimes increase tax revenue. I don't think many
companies feel confident enough to determine the line appropriately, and I
imagine it's more comfortable as a manager to err on the conservative side.

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joezydeco
I'm sure it's a lot easier to have "fun" at work when you have a money-
printing machine in the basement and you have time to play and experiment with
new things.

If Google wasn't insanely profitable right now, I bet it would be a lot more
stressful environment.

