

The GOOG-MSFT Exodus: Working at Google vs. Working at Microsoft - Anon84
http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2008/06/29/TheGOOGMSFTExodusWorkingAtGoogleVsWorkingAtMicrosoft.aspx

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andreyf
It amazes me how someone thinks he can generalize something about a
15,000-person organization having worked with a tiny piece of it for a short
time. I think the author should have stuck more to Sergei's tune, when he
said: "I left because Microsoft turned out to be the right place for me".

Want promotions and management positions and fancy titles? Then a flat
organizational structure is not for you.

Want exhaustive tests, project managers, and countless meetings? Then a
"startup mentality" is not for you, either.

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Tichy
So at what point would it be legit to form an opinion?

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emmett
Google might still have a chance to do interesting things. Somehow they're
managing to avoid adding huge amounts of "process" to building projects? They
ship code fast?

Sounds like everything is going fine...

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vchakrav
Actually, Google does have one major challenge -- how to motivate its people.
I'm not talking about fresh college graduates, but rather people who are high
up in the organization because they happened to join early on. Many of these
people are worth a lot of money, and presumably see day to day work at Google
as a way to spend their time, socialize, and to flex their political muscle.

In such a place, bringing in new hungry blood is very difficult to do,
especially since the old crowd will try very hard to protect their power
structure. In the long term, this does cause problems in the ranks, since
success within the company starts to become a measure of how well you can
navigate politically, vs. the quality of work produced.

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willz
Great insight. Very practical. I hope Google founders are NOT reading this.

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j2d2
I think the focus on critical thinking in addition to an understanding of
fundamentals is a quick way to find people who can _learn_ any existing
technologies. What one knows shows what they're interested in, but can they
learn new things fast?

I do agree that a title of junior-developer for people who've been in the
industry for a while seems silly.

