

Why I left Google (2012) - Hitchhiker
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/archive/2012/03/13/why-i-left-google.aspx

======
jrockway
This is from March of _last year_ , BTW, and has been discussed numerous other
times on HN.

(Ironically, there have been so many other articles titled "Why I left Google"
on HN that I can't actually find this one in the archives. But it's there :)

~~~
wslh
The issues around "Why I left A_PUBLIC_COMPANY" are really important. The
question go beyond Google(s), it forces us to think if there are alternatives
to growing or being public without doing a deal with the "devil". I don't
think so, the definition of a public company implies that.

Can private companies with less capital win this game and stay relevant in the
long term?

~~~
joonix
There are plenty of massive, dominant private companies. Koch, SC Johnson, the
list goes on ...

The nature of VC or anyone investing OPM requires a short horizon. When it's
your own money you don't ever have to cash out.

~~~
snaky
Exactly.

I was reading about Ford Thunderbird recently - the car that "created the
market niche", was a huge success, rose Ford brand to a new level etc., and
oops, the project was _closed_ by board and reopened only after huge fight by
Henry Ford II.

------
michaelwww
So he leaves Google because of steps they are taking to protect and enhance
their revenue stream, and joins Microsoft? As a former Microsoftie, all I can
say is that is like going from the kettle to the fire and doesn't make sense.

~~~
forgotAgain
I've worked for neither company but my thought was the same as yours.

Anyone who licenses software from Microsoft knows that lately their most
important objective is increasing licensing revenues.

Changing products to increase licensing or changing them to enhance a
different revenue stream is six of one, half a dozen of the other for me.

~~~
michaelwww
After reading this
([http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/archive/2012/05/25/google...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/archive/2012/05/25/google-20-time-
vs-the-microsoft-garage.aspx)) I think his preference is mostly cultural. I
never worked at Google, but I was born, raised and work in tech in the Bay
Area. Microsoft culture rubbed me the wrong way when I was there. It seemed
more what I imagine to be an organized and orderly Northern European
governance under the cloudy, rainy skies. California Bay Area culture is more
sunny and free libertarian with a dash of anarchy thrown in. You may discount
my general characterization, but these things matter and people definitely
have a preference.

------
numbsafari
The way these things read... I wonder if people are getting paid an extra
bonus to have PR write up a "why I left the other guy" post and put their name
on it as way to just bundle up a bunch of FUD in one place.

I'm not a big fan of either Google or Microsoft, so I don't really care about
what they say. It's just that these "why I quit" letters have become
boilerplate PR pieces that don't really offer anything new or interesting.

~~~
niggler
I look at it as a more public exit interview. I don't doubt that his expressed
concerns were part of why he did leave (I also don't doubt that there are
other factors)), and by making those concerns public there's a chance that
more people may see it and try to rectify the problems.

~~~
numbsafari
Yeah, but in the entire history of people quitting and writing "letters to the
editor", has any manager ever actually read it and thought anything other than
"whatever, dude wasn't on board, glad he left"?

Do you really think Sergey Brin or Larry Page or Eric Schmidt are going to
read this and think "oh man, we better change what we're doing".

Nope.

People who are fans of MS are going to read it and say "yeah, see, I told you
google is evil. Even his 15 year old daughter had a poignant critique of
Google+ that shows she's not only wise beyond her years, but that Google+
sucks just like I always thought already."

It just doesn't sound genuine.

~~~
marssaxman
It sounds genuine to me. He articulates a lot of the same reservations I felt
during my brief time working there.

------
aviraldg
I lost all interest in reading the article after looking at the msdn.com
domain.

EDIT: Downvoters, I don't see how this is wrong. Microsoft has a long history
of spreading FUD about competitors (Florian Mueller/FOSSPatents,
<http://www.scroogled.com/> [when their own practices are very much the same],
sponsoring fake studies that show that the TCO of Linux is much greater than
that of Windows, and so on.) I certainly would be interested in an unbiased
opinion on the topic, but I don't think anyone on Microsoft's payroll can give
me that.

~~~
jere
The article is all about the difference between the innovation being created
by low level employees and the stupid decisions by top level management who
want to shut it all down. The author is among the former and even says he
_doesn't like ads_ , so I think your proposition that he is a Microsoft shill
working in an elaborate anti-Google marketing campaign is misguided.

There's not much excuse for not reading things and then complaining about
them.

~~~
twinge
James Whittaker was not a "low level employee," he was a director of
engineering. This is the same level as Kurzweil. At that level he was
responsible for many management decisions, some of them probably "stupid."

~~~
chetanahuja
A company the size of Google has 100's of "Director"s. There are probably 3 or
4 layers between a director and the CEO... if not more. I doubt he had much to
do with the actual market direction of the company (ironically... since the
word "Director" would lead you to believe that it had something to do with
directing).

------
nilkn
This guy was only at Google for three years (less, in fact), but this reads
like he was a 10 year veteran or something. I can't really take it all that
seriously because of that.

He was offered a Partner position at Microsoft. That's why he left. No need to
philosophize about corporate culture here.

~~~
platinum1
The funny thing is, before he was at Google, he was at Microsoft... and here's
what he had to say to CNN/Fortune
(<http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/29/the-problem-with-micr...>) in 2011
about Microsoft:

"You want to innovate in mobile? ...deal with the made men who run the
relevant cartel. And if they don't like you or your idea, your innovation goes
nowhere."

------
wslh
Are Google's driverless car just a way to show more ads? Instead of driving a
car you could be watching an ad.

~~~
meerita
And Google Glasses? Chromebook? Nexus? Jesus this guy is plainly wrong.

~~~
kbouw
And don't forget to mention Google Shoes :P

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/google-
shoes_n_2853...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/google-
shoes_n_2853098.html)

~~~
meerita
But the phone is good (i'm iPhone owner), and the rest of the projects looks
promising.

------
qdog
I think this person's opinion is rather colored. Google has been about ads
since before they were public. I personally don't have a Facebook page, and
don't use g+ that much, so I'm not as infatuated with social networking as
much as some I suppose, but I keep track of my karma on HN hourly when I post
a message here, so to each his own.

I have no idea what his second article about Microsoft and the mobile space is
getting at. Look, if you think g+ is failing, what makes you think Microsoft
is going to suddenly own the mobile space? I interviewed at a place in Seattle
about 7 years ago that was doing Windows phone stuff, and again at MSFT at a
different point for the windows mobile team as an embedded SWE. Microsoft has
been in the mobile space forever, yet he's saying they are the innovative
company capable to turning on a dime and taking over a new space? I don't
believe it.

My wife has a windows phone, I don't like it, she hates the Bing search. I
just bought a nexus 4 to replace my G2 because I want software updates for a
long time. My wife is probably moving to an iPhone or Nexus. Last I looked
gmail supports imap, you don't have to view ads. I only see ads on my nexus
when I use google services, they don't flash up on my screen randomly.

I work on security for Windows, but for my own personal use, I just bought an
ARM chromebook. It's a great price, despite the 'secure bootloader', it took
me about 5 minutes to get the Ubuntu install started on an SD card, and if I
screw up the recovery is drop dead simple. Right now, we are sweating bullets
because if we make a mistake on Win8 boot, we are going to hose up the machine
and recovery is long and painful.

Google has plenty of problems, and sure if you ask me, Google+ has a terrible
interface and shipping it without a good API was brain dead, but Microsoft
sure doesn't seem to be setting the mobile world on fire.

So I'd take this and many articles like it with a giant cake of salt.

------
Colliwinks
"Sharing is not broken"

"Share this on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, LinkedIn, SlashDot,
Myspace, Technorati, Friendfeed, Messenger, or Stumbleupon."

~~~
rburhum
Only two of those are relevant. With the right content, a third one may also
work. The rest, you can ignore

~~~
fatjokes
Probably what somebody said about Reader, when all the Google services were
listed.

------
elaineo
I recently switched from using the Google Translate API to the Bing/Microsoft
Translator API for my Android app, because Google charges usage fees while MS
is free at the lowest tier. This was the first time I saw Google charge money
for a service that Microsoft offers for free.

~~~
nivla
Can you be kind enough to comment on the quality of translations? I am in need
of a translation API for one of my projects and it is down to Google or Bing.

~~~
elaineo
I have only used English-Spanish, but as far as I can tell, the results are
approximately the same (translating individual words with appropriate verb
conjugation but no regard for context).

You can test them out in their browser apps: <http://www.bing.com/translator/>
<http://translate.google.com/>

~~~
nivla
Cool.. thanx for your input! :)

------
lucb1e
Shouldn't the title be _Quitting Google_ instead? This title sounds like
Google is quitting, when instead an employee quit Google.

~~~
piyush_soni
Right. That's what I thought while clicking the link "Google quitting _what_?
"

~~~
qompiler
That's it folks, Sergey pulled the plug out of the Google server below his
desk. Everyone go home.

------
saturdaysaint
Little mention of Android and Chrome? No mention of Docs/Drive, self driving
cars, Go, Google Fiber or their growing forays into hardware (Nexus, Glass)?

As a lot of these indicate, one of Google's chief contributions in recent
memory is helping to make computing cheap, ubiquitous and decidedly not
monopolized by Microsoft. In the blink of an eye, we've gone from a world
where everything the average person owns that can install software runs on
Windows to a world where more like 1/3 (and shrinking) of a household's
computing devices run Windows. And in 2013, Chromebooks and Steamboxes look
like they could displace a lot more of MS's presence.

There's a conflict of interest here. Even if their game is more complex than
Coke vs Pepsi, these are very direct competitors. An ambitious Microsoftie has
something to gain in a coy, well written put down that conveniently ignores
the competition's bigger recent achievements.

------
nchlswu
I feel like I've read or seen a fair bit of Google criticism from ex-Googlers
on the msdn blogs. Can anyone confirm I haven't just been seeing this post
over and over?

I don't care if it's just optics; having a post about this on your current
employers blog platform makes me highly suspicions, no matter how many people
share his opinion

------
Apocryphon
Between this piece and other comments I've seen in the wake of the anti-Google
backlash of this past week, why is it that supposedly under Eric Schmidt, a
"business guy" Google was all innovation and tech, and then when Larry Page, a
very technical cofounder, took over, the company is now some sort of ad
machine? If this is true, what does this say about leading personalities and
company culture?

~~~
ohsnapman
I've always felt that Ben Horowitz's characterization was the best:

<http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/15/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo/>

TLDR Eric was a peacetime CEO and could allow the company to do the things he
allowed. Larry is a wartime CEO. Hard decisions need to be made, and the
company needs to be driven with focus.

------
petrel
Google first Kills or acquire small companies and then kill the acquired
company for integrating it with Google Plus. Then turn off the service without
thinking about the peoples using it.

It is the power of huge money, monopoly and over confidence.

------
niggler
Hate to be that guy, but who is James Whittaker?

(nice writeup, as it mirrors the feelings many of my google friends feel)

~~~
enginous
He was an engineering director for a couple of years working on the dev/test
tool chain and Google+.

He's done a few books, including one he co-authored called _How Google Tests
Software_ , which is a fairly pragmatic discussion of large-scale testing
practices at Google. (I'm not sure if this is still the case, but Nooglers
used to read this book as a part of their orientation.)

------
sidcool
Why is this being upvoted now is beyond me. Am I missing something?

~~~
Mahn
HN works in mysterious ways.

------
mikecane
So it's a year later and sharing still isn't broken and Google still isn't
part of it. Maybe that's the point?

------
piyush_soni
The fact that this 'personal blog' is on _blogs.msdn.com_ says a lot :)

------
qwertzlcoatl
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click
ads."

\- Jeff Hammerbacher, Facebook

------
voodoomagicman
So he goes to microsoft?

~~~
thinkling
See: "Why I joined Microsoft",
[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/archive/2012/03/14/why-i-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/archive/2012/03/14/why-
i-joined-microsoft.aspx)

------
ok_craig
This is going to come back every time Google does something the community here
doesn't like, or which they see as "corporate-minded focus" over innovation.

------
weix
Working at Google have much higher pressure than MS. not a place for loser.

~~~
flyinRyan
Nice personal attack for someone who's writing is barely comprehensible.

------
nailer
This site has very wide columns. Here's a readability link that might be
easier to scan:

<http://www.readability.com/articles/nljhmuka>

------
herdrick
I don't know. Google has come up with Glass and is working hard on the self
driving car. Sounds pretty innovative still to me. I hope the author is wrong
about the pipeline of new stuff.

------
arthurrr
The way I see it, Google is the new Microsoft, and Microsoft is not dead yet,
but becoming more and more irrelevant. Now, what has to happen for Google to
become irrelevant?

------
qompiler
I don't like Google. But I don't like Microsoft either.

And this guy has evil written all over him. He worked at Microsoft for 3 years
prior to joining Google. He is now back working for Microsoft. Blogging on
msdn.com.

<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/james-whittaker/13/878/229>

~~~
chollida1
> And this guy has evil written all over him.

Can you explain what about him makes him "evil"?

~~~
paranoiacblack
I think it's fairly clear that if you work for a large company like Google or
Microsoft, you are quite literally the spawn of Satan.

~~~
jdolitsky
^^ hahaha

------
troebr
This blog post is one year old.

~~~
namenotrequired
I'm sure I've seen it on hackernews before.

------
kushti
Google+ is a bizarre

------
ttrreeww
The guy joined Microsoft as a Partner, Partners got it good at Microsoft,
500k/year (range is around 300k to 1 million a year) average and they were
exempt from the yearly 10% mandatory cut the rest of the workers are exposed
to.

------
mannu4u4u
Google's New Portal Provides Help for Hacked Sites
[http://www.hackersnewsbulletin.com/2013/03/googles-new-
porta...](http://www.hackersnewsbulletin.com/2013/03/googles-new-portal-
provides-help-for.html)

------
shreeshga
"Why I left Google" - said no Guido ever.

~~~
packetslave
Um, you do know that Guido works at Dropbox now, right?

