
Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or Facebook - ssclafani
http://www.naildrivin5.com/blog/2011/08/01/why-i-wont-work-for-google-twitter-facebook.html
======
cletus
It's strange to have some moral objection to advertising because advertising
is, ultimately, a form of discovery, a way of connecting people who want or
need something with those that supply it. Ad revenue on the Internet, almost
by definition, means someone found something they wanted.

How exactly is it bad to connect people with things they want and need?

The problem with advertising is when it gets too obtrusive, like on TV when,
near the end of a movie, you'll see an ad break every 6 minutes (at least in
Australia).

I generally like the way Google does advertising (disclaimer: I work for
Google). It doesn't get in your way (except in some cases on Youtube). It pays
for a lot of great services that are free to the end user (search, GMail) and
Google clearly separates organic search results from paid promotion.

How anyone can have a moral objection to that baffles me.

~~~
wzdd
Normally I think your posts are very thoughful, but this time you are
attacking a straw man. The OP clearly indicates near the bottom of the post
that it's not about working for the betterment of humanity, but about work he
personally finds fulfilling. Serving ads is not fulfilling work for him.
Morals don't come into it.

~~~
dpark
The OP was attacking a strawman. The assertion that Google and Twitter and
Facebook are not working for the betterment of humanity (or are not doing
fulfilling work) because they sell ads is ridiculous. Those companies may
_not_ be working for the betterment of humanity, but the ad angle is
irrelevant.

Take the following:

> _Google+ isn’t about sharing cat pictures, it’s about serving ads. Twitter’s
> massive network of 140-character bits of information isn’t about connecting
> people across the globe or to view current trends in worldwide thinking,
> it’s about serving ads. Facebook isn’t about entertaining yourself with
> games or sharing interesting links, it’s about serving ads._

Replace every instance of "serving ads" with "making money", and the meaning
is unchanged, but the naivete is more obvious. You can do that to the entire
article.

 _Every_ business is about making money. Whether they make that money by
selling ads, or selling a product, or selling a subscription, or whatever else
is irrelevant. Making money doesn't mean that a business can't also be
connecting people, or organizing the world's information, or curing cancer, or
any other fulfilling goal.

~~~
CognitiveLens
> Whether they make that money by selling ads, or selling a product, or
> selling a subscription, or whatever else is irrelevant

The OP is making the point that, for him, the method of making money is
entirely relevant to his sense of fulfillment when working for a company. He
does _not_ make the claim that a business cannot be doing lots of other cool
things alongside making money - in fact, he points out that Google and Twitter
and Facebook are indeed achieving fulfilling goals, but he objects to the
income stream and therefore would not feel fulfilled by working for those
companies. That's completely fair.

Substituting the claim of the OP about "serving ads" with "making money"
distorts the entire message, and of course makes it sound ridiculous.

~~~
dpark
Then he should just say "I am unwilling to work for a company that sells ads",
rather than trying to say that none of Google's work is meaningful simply
because they sell ads.

I don't believe substituting "serving ads" with "making money" distorts the
message at all. I think it merely highlights how immature his stance is. He
stated quite plainly that Twitter isn't about connecting people, that Facebook
isn't about sharing links, because they are about "serving ads". The
implication here is that a company which sells ads cannot do anything, which
is ridiculous. He set up a strawman.

------
egor83
_In the case of Google ... that purpose is to serve ads._

It's like saying that human's purpose is to consume food.

Food is our way to get energy we need to do something - anything, actually. We
would die without food, but are we limited to that? (Okay, some people
actually are, but these are few).

Google did A LOT - probably more than any other company - to organize and
structure data, make it more accessible - THAT is their purpose (and I believe
Brin or Page actually told that).

~~~
Lewisham
Absolutely.

Google's mission statement is: "Google’s mission is to organize the world's
information and make it universally accessible and useful."

Nothing in that statement necessarily presumes the use of ads to pay for it.
If users said "we'd rather pay 1c per search than see ads" (and the math added
up) Google would change to that instead.

I'm currently an intern at Google. Everyone knows where the money comes from,
but day-to-day, engineers talk about what's best for the users, not about
what's going to help connect ads. That's what the ads division is for, and
that's only one of 7 product groups.

Everyone else is trying to make products to help people, and even ads feels
like its helping too by finding you the products you want more quickly.

~~~
kia
Google's mission statement is: "Google’s mission is to organize the world's
information and make it universally accessible and useful." \--

Yeah. Show me one company which doesn't have a mission statement like helping
people, curing diseases, feeding the hungry...

~~~
Lewisham
Well, here's one for Exxon Mobil (first I chose)

 _Exxon Mobil Corporation is committed to being the world's premier petroleum
and petrochemical company. To that end, we must continuously achieve superior
financial and operating results while adhering to the highest standards of
business conduct._

It clearly states how they intend to make money.

------
Homunculiheaded
I'm not a practicing Buddhist but one of the principles of the Noble Eightfold
path is the idea of 'right livelihood'. Which essentially means that you
should avoid making a living doing something which does harm to other living
things. One of the listed livelihoods to avoid is being in the business of
making weapons. This really struck home when I was working for a company doing
a lot of DARPA work. I had previously worked in Universities and in a small
community organization. I have to say going home at the end of the day at the
previous positions made me feel good about myself in a way that cannot be
replaced with increased income. It was disheartening to know that if I worked
my hardest at the DARPA company, all I did was essentially help the US
military kill people better. I eventually left that position to go work for a
state university.

So I do strongly think that no matter how interesting the problems, and no
matter how good the pay one should avoid working in areas that do cause harm
to others.

Unfortunately the world we live in is a bit more complicated that than one the
Buddha lived in, so answering the question "Does what I do cause harm to
others?" is a bit trickier to answer. I personally don't know if selling ads
meets that qualification, I certainly don't think that merely making a profit
does, and I don't know enough about the field to know about HFT and the like.
But I do think the important thing to do is ask yourself that question, and if
you aren't happy with your answer then it may be time to look elsewhere.

~~~
cpeterso
I used to work for a university supercomputer center, which (surprise,
surprise) ran weapon simulations. I agree with you, though some DARPA research
to "kill people better" does good by reducing collateral damage.

~~~
nkassis
Well DARPA also does defensive work which is meant to deter and protect lives.
Also the Internet was a defensive project by DARPA to enable better
communication across the country in case of a emergency. Just reading a book
on DARPA, what about projects like creating better artificial limbs for
wounded soldiers?

Not saying DARPA is all saint like and all but a lot of their project are
meant at protecting and saving lives (heck they are funding energy research to
avoid wars based on oil etc)

Just going to say without military spending we wouldn't have a lot of great
things. A non military way of funding these things would be even better.

------
aristus
I happen to work for Facebook, and a large fraction of my friends and family
are expatriates. A place to easily keep in touch, share photos of kids, chat
with abuelita, all that boring stuff, directly improves our quality of life.

When I recommend Linux for my friends, the top two "programs" they care about
are Skype and Facebook. After that, maybe Youtube.

As for the ads, yes, that's a source of revenue. If that is a dealbreaker for
author, well, I had that opinion once myself. Then I graduated high school and
worked for a very interesting advertising startup, learned about the origins
and practice of it and how it grew up alongside print, took advantage of and
sped up the development of new technologies, etc. I don't expect to convince
anyone but advertising is itself a worthwhile problem.

~~~
tpatke
I was going to comment that Google, Facebook and Twitter are platforms for
search, connections and communicating respectively. Ads are simply a revenue
model. If Facebook charged $20 per month, would you work for them then?

However, after seeing comments like: I work for facebook - "advertising is
itself a worthwhile problem."

and... I work for google - "People in non-advertising teams hardly ever ask
'how will this effect click-through rates?'."

Hardly ever? :-) Maybe it is more about advertising then I realize.

~~~
aristus
If "more about" means "non-zero", sure. I don't work in ads now, but I
appreciate the extremely tricky and fractal problem they are trying to solve,
in the same way I appreciate the work people do in security, design, features,
reliability, etc.

The OP has a point: most advertising is a waste of time for both the
advertiser and the recipient. There are many perverse incentives that skew
outcomes, even leaving aside spam and scams. It's totally fine to hate bad
ads.

But condemning advertising per se because most ads don't work is like
condemning programming because most strings of characters don't compile.

------
brandnewlow
I find that most anti-ads people change their tune when they try selling
something on the internet.

You get your service/product built. You make a page for it. You wait for
people to come check it out. Your friends drop by. Maybe you sell a few
subscriptions. Then nothing.

So you start looking at ways you can spend money to get people to check out
your service. You're buying ads now. And you're grateful that there are
platforms like Google, Facebook, and eventually Twitter out there to help you
sell your stuff and build your business.

~~~
sidman
Yep thats right. I actually really like ads from google because it isnt
obstructive and they actually help look for what your after. I am well aware
of how they get this information so they can target things to you and whether
or not you agree with this is i guess a different issue which i have some
thoughts on but in the regards to just the adverts discussion alone and their
"intrusiveness or helpfulness" i like them and think they are useful. Interms
of ad quality tho, i cant say the same for facebook ads.

Many years ago when google first started doing targeted ads on their search i
didn't even know they were paid for ads. I thought it was just a new design
and didn't think much more of it. Then i realised "sponsored ads" meant they
where ads people paid for and thought it was a much better way of doing it
then how some search engines where doing it (which at the time) was
artificially putting paid ads higher in the results which obviously skewed
your search result and turned any good search engine into total crap.

Also currently im in aus and just launching a product and the traction has
been pretty good and we have done so by using direct marketing but trying to
get to a more global audience we cant do it the same way as we are when we do
it locally.

We cant hand out flyers, we can do newspaper ads, hell we cant even talk to
the target people, the best we can do is use facebook twitter and tools like
adwords and admob and if you use these tools right people take notice and it
helps build your business. Im happy these things exist cause otherwise how the
hell do we get the audience on the other side of the world if we dont have
presence there.

------
MatthewPhillips
I've never understood the absolute hostility some people have for a small div
of advertising that you can easily ignore.

~~~
pnathan
I don't particularly like being a product, thank you.

~~~
jamesteow
I wonder how many people who say this are the same people who'd pay for every
one of the free services offered by these companies. I for one would rather
have ads.

~~~
veyron
Ads seem harmless until they start using your likeness to sell stuff to others
or vice versa.

~~~
ckuehne
Why exactly is this harmful, i.e., who is harmed and by how much?

~~~
veyron
When my likeness is used in conjunction with a random product, there is an
implicit assumption that I somehow support it. And other people may see it and
distance themselves from me, refuse to do business, or refuse to hire me.

As an extreme example, how would you like it if an unscrupulous porn site
featured your face on an advertisement? Even worse, suppose a prospective
client or employer saw your face on an advertisement for some banned
substance. In most cases, its irreparable damage.

~~~
ckuehne
"suppose a prospective client or employer saw your face on an advertisement
for some banned substance"

But this is not what Google does, or am I missing something? AFAIK, what they
actually do is more akin to shopping basket analysis supermarket chains do. So
my question remains: How exactly does it harm you? Has Google ever linked you
in a publicly identifiable way to some product? Moreover, if you feel bothered
by the way they handle things, why don't you just stop using them?

~~~
veyron
"But this is not what Google does, or am I missing something" <\-- Google in
specific doesnt do anything like that now, but Google and the other sites can
change their terms of service from under us (I dont think people knew five
years ago that Facebook ads would use our likeness or would change their terms
to allow them to do so by default). For all the talk of Google "does no evil",
they are still a company and, push come to shove, could change their terms.

"Moreover, if you feel bothered by the way they handle things, why don't you
just stop using them?" <\-- as explained in my example, I can't stop
prospective clients or employers using google. I certainly can stop myself,
but the damage happens when others see it

------
dstein
If you happen to take a wider view, almost our entire society is frivolous.
Banks, politicians, salesmen, lawyers... very few people actually do anything
that improves peoples lives in meaningful ways. Farmers, scientists, teachers,
and construction workers are maybe the exception.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Many farmers, scientists, teachers, and construction workers lead meaningful
careers.

But think about McDonalds. The food is grown by "farmers", the buildings were
built by construction workers, the people who work there were taught by
teachers, and the food was created by scientists.

Some, but not all, of those people are doing meaningful work.

Now consider the banker that renegotiates mortgages with long time customers
to help them stay solvent, the politicians who stand up for constituents, the
salespeople who help people find a car that will really serve them well, the
lawyer that takes a pay cut to defend the accused...

Meaning is not found in what you do, but how you do it.

~~~
dstein
You've misconstrued "improving someone's life" to being "meaningful work".
Maybe a banker thinks his career is meaningful, but bankers do not improve
people's lives. The people who built the house you're buying are the ones who
improve your life. The banker is an unnecessary middleman. Middlemen in almost
every scenario are redundant and merely add drag to our society. If we could
eliminate the bankers job, automate it somehow, maybe we can get them to pick
cherries or something useful.

~~~
hugh3
What rot. The banker is a middleman, it's true, but a very necessary one. The
bank connects people who _have_ money (old people) to people who want to
_borrow_ money (young people), allowing house-sized quantities of money to be
borrowed and paid back over a period of decades in a way that lowers risk and
maximises accessibility for the depositors. If it weren't for banks, then most
young people would be (essentially) unable to afford to buy houses.

Heck, if it weren't for banks we'd probably live in some kind of Jane Austen
world where the vast majority of the land is owned by a few super-rich
families and the folks who don't inherit money have no way of getting ahead.

~~~
rbarooah
You do realize that half of all wealth in the US is in the hands of 400 super-
rich families, and that this concentration is increasing, not decreasing?

Maybe you were being ironic and I just took you too literally!

------
gregable
I work on Google Search. I don't see my job as ultimately selling ads.

If you look at things that way, you might as well take the argument to it's
extreme. Adwords doesn't actually make Google money, the payment processing
system does. Are the ads just a way to get folks to use our payment processing
system? Is search just a way to get folks to use our payment processing
system? I don't see it that way.

Instead, I see my job as creating a search engine. I create a tool that helps
people learn more about the world around them, more quickly and efficiently
than they would have otherwise. For most queries, ads aren't even displayed.
Making money is one way to bring more resources to that problem. So ads are a
way to drive improvements in search rather than search being a way to drive
eyeballs to ads. Often, the ads are a useful service in their own right which
is an amazingly lucky opportunity.

------
monochromatic
I'd never work for any company, because their whole purpose is to make money.
How tawdry.

In other news, I'm starting my sophomore year of high school this month.

------
slewis
Isn't it possible for a company to have more than one purpose? The people who
run these companies aren't necessarily just greedy corporate bastards. Many of
them want to change the world in positive ways. Ads are the funding mechanism.
The article's viewpoint is one-dimensional IMO.

~~~
igorgue
Changing the way we communicate (Facebook) isn't changing the world...
Startups should quit that cliche it's getting old.

In the end any company purpose is to make money, if you get annoyed by ads,
then go work for a non-profit.

------
dspeyer
I work at Google. This isn't true.

Yes, ads fund everything else. But they don't dominate. People in non-
advertising teams hardly ever ask "how will this effect click-through rates?".

~~~
incosta
People in your team may not ask this question, but people who are in charge of
them do. All the time.

Let me ask you a specific question. Google navigation. It's web-based only,
right? It requires Internet. It does not work in a rural area where your phone
has no Internet. Why not make this application a standalone, to enhance user
experience? To make user "happier"? So that it works even without Internet?
Don't tell me it's not possible: many companies have done this, well before
Google, so Google can do this too. The answer: Google intends to serve ads,
and for this Internet is the key. You don't have an Internet connected phone?
Google does not care about you: you will not see ads.

------
jrockway
Also why he'll never be a journalist, magazine columnist, or work on a TV
show.

Advertising is just a "bug" in the system that a lot of companies are
exploiting: it turns out you can make a lot of money by doing nearly nothing.
Eventually the advertising revenue will dry up because people will become
immune to it (or just smarter), and everyone will figure out some new way to
monetize their services, perhaps by charging money to use them.

If you want advertising to go away, support these companies. The more ads
people see, the less they'll click. And then the whole system blows up.

~~~
webwright
"The more ads people see, the less they'll click. And then the whole system
blows up."

Do you really think so? Read up on priming (
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)> ) and tell me if you still
think so.

Advertising works. Even if NO ONE CLICKS, it still works (brand advertising is
still the lion's share of advertising spending in the world).

~~~
justincormack
I think a lot of geeky people have the same issue as me with internet
advertising. I dont click on ads. I do not buy any advertised products. The
entire market is targetted at some average consumer, like tv ads, not at the
niche markets like me. Google has apparently worked out that I might be
interested in buying cameras, but I do not buy them based on adverts.

The brands that I respect have characteristics that advertising does not
convey as well as informational marketing. I dont believe that wearing your
prouct makes girls sexy, but I might believe that your German engineering is
very good based on data.

I also like some adverts as cultural items, but the web has not been good at
those yet.

So advertising annoys me because it is dumbed down and a waste for me, and I
think that is a common geek view.

~~~
mrkurt
You buy advertised products, and you likely "remember" advertised products
that you've seen alongside content, on TV, etc. Advertising doesn't require
conscious recognition to be effective, and it's very, very difficult to avoid
exposure to things that might qualify as advertisement.

There's actually a great deal of advertising related research out there, which
might make sense when you consider just how much money is floating around.
Here are a few random articles from my notes, they're interesting reads (one
of them might even explain why you even consider using the phrase "german
engineering"):

<http://businesspsych.org/articles/225.html>

<http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/display.asp?id=8342>

[http://tippie.uiowa.edu/marketing/research_papers/packaging....](http://tippie.uiowa.edu/marketing/research_papers/packaging.pdf)

~~~
jrockway
I'm not sure you can make this assertion. If you still shop in stores, then
yes, you probably buy advertised products. But if you just buy everything off
Amazon or niche stores like Whole Foods, it's very easy to buy without having
been exposed to advertising.

Also, I don't watch TV commercials and I use AdBlock, so even if I'm buying
advertised products, it's not because of subconscious conditioning. It's
random chance.

~~~
mrkurt
If you leave your house, you're exposed to advertising. How do you even know
about Whole Foods?

Amazon's entire site can be broadly categorized as advertising, some bits of
it more easily than others. Companies pay for placement at retailers like
Whole Foods and labels are generally exercises in advertising. Sometimes
they're hilariously named, like the "No Ads" sunscreen I remember seeing a
long time ago.

~~~
justincormack
Redefining everything as advertising does not work. I heard of Whole Foods
through word of mouth which is not advertising in general. Sure placement can
be.

~~~
mrkurt
I could very well be wrong, but I doubt you heard enough through word of mouth
to get you in to the store. You need quite a bit of information at a pretty
specific time to go to a grocery store you haven't been to before, everything
from location to a serendipitous follow up thought for "I need groceries
today".

Assuming you did end up there without seeing/hearing any advertising, you went
in and bought products with "advertising" stamped on the front of them, right?
Even store brand products have labels that feature a message the store would
like you to consider. Otherwise we'd just buy things in brown cardboard boxes
and stamped burlap sacks like the good ol' days.

~~~
justincormack
As far as I know I have never seen a Whole Foods advert. Not sure they
advertise here (uk). I spend a fair amount of time finding new grocery shops
in the area.

Considering all labelling to be advertising is, as above, overextension of a
reasonable definition. Although I do buy stuff out of cardboard boxes and
sacks too.

------
raldi
There's a fine line between "You only [do useful thing] so you can serve ads"
and "You only serve ads so you can [do useful thing]"

------
sidcool
I find this blog post utterly stupid. It's a pseudo-idealistic view of the
world. Google created a programming language as their vision of how language
should be. They did not create Google Wave for ads. That's how Google works,
they experiment, and if it's accepted they work out a business model for it. I
cannot speak for Twitter or Facebook, but Google, I am pretty sure, that's the
case. Sorry Mr. Dave Copeland, I differ.

------
mricardo
This is was really "interesting". To summarize it: I will never work for
Google, Facebook or Twitter, because they want to make profit. Jeez...these
are not ONG's or some sort of humanitarian enterprises! How does he think that
these companies pay developer salaries? And saying that all of those companies
are focused in platforms for advertisement is clearly an understatement. I
never cared too much for the add's that Facebook has and neither was offended
by them. It's all business at the end of the day and a legit way of making
money.

------
AlexC04
Every time I click on a title like "Why I'd never work for Google, Twitter, or
Facebook" I keep expecting it to be a great big 96 point for page saying
"Because they wouldn't fucking hire me"

So far, I've only been disappointed by these troll posts.

~~~
akronim
or in comic form, <http://xkcd.com/192/>

~~~
AlexC04
Oh my god. What's even funnier is like the last panel of that comic, I
_actually_ sent cupcakes in with my resume to the local google sattelite
office.

I thought it was really clever. I bought a domain "google____.com", wrote a
custom resume specifically for google, had the cupcakes delivered with the
name of the website written on top (on a tiny printed chocolate coin so as to
be legible)

On the day they arrived, I had about 50 hits from mountain view california, a
bunch from atlanta (roughly the number that worked in this sattelite office)
(screen <http://i.imgur.com/ucsXO.jpg>)

Then nothing but silence. I thought it was the cleverest little trick ever.
Apparently XKCD had thought of it first.

------
yaakov34
I don't get the objection. A company providing an online service has to be
paid somehow. It's either going to be paid by subscriptions, or by
advertisers. The people have spoken: the ad-supported model is nearly
universal, the paywall model is rare and unpopular.

I don't see how Google and Twitter are guilty for giving people what they
want. I am sure Google and Facebook would have gladly avoided the whole
advertising rigmarole if they had been able to charge for their services; but
the fact is, Facebook would have about 150 users now if they did that. I
personally may or may not like this situation, but this is how it works.

Speaking of moral imperatives, I will say one thing for the ad-supported
model: it opens up the internet to developing world markets in which people
would not be able to use paid services.

------
ChuckMcM
As with most folks here I was struck by the wholesale adoption of the
'brilliance applied to clicks' meme. For those who aren't aware of it, its the
'pay the best and the brightest minds to figure out ways to get me to click on
ads.'

It makes for a great sound bite, but it is completely and utterly wrong. To a
first approximation, these internet services don't write ad copy or design ad
banners, and _that_ is where all the effort goes into figuring out how to get
you to click. So don't work for an ad agency :-).

Now what the folks at Google do (I have no direct experience working at either
Facebook or Twitter) is make it so that the system they have can reliably and
efficiently serve advertisements into designated spots on the pages. This
problem is a combination of bin packing and economic theory and systems
design. Trust me when I say that the engineers working in ads (and they are a
small fraction of the company) probably don't care at all whether or not you
'click' they care that they can see the query/page, do the auction, and
provide an ordered set of results in under a few hundred milleseconds. But
lets talk about clicking for a moment.

Ads are a 'tax'. They are a way to subsidize something so that it costs the
consumers less. They do that by selling access to the consumer's eyeballs.
Taxes, like prices, influence consumer behavior (just ask any town in
California (8.75% sales tax) borders Oregon (0% sales tax)). So the upper
limit on ads (as a tax) is when they start driving consumers away.

Like many people I find that some advertising levels are intolerable. I used
to regularly read some gaming web sites until the tax of dealing with all the
advertising became too high. (even with Adblock for web sites, or arriving at
the theatre 10 - 15 minutes post start time so that you can just see the
movie, avoiding ads has a cost too). I wrote a local radio station and
explained to them that a particular ad they played caused me literally to
change the station when they played it, generally leaving me on their
competitor's station. You can't tax your way into a successful business model,
and if you can't afford to offer the service with a combination of upfront
cost and tax then you just quit while you are ahead.

The original post reminded me of John Cuzack's line in "Say Anything" - 'I
don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I
don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or
processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything
sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.'

~~~
wzdd
I don't understand why providing a relevant set of ads in the shortest
possible time is unrelated to encouraging people to click on ads. It seems
clearly to be quite closely related to me -- provide a better ad experience,
and people are more likely to make use of the ads. Whether the engineers
optimising the system realise this or not is somewhat irrelevant.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ok, I agree that providing a better ad experience makes it more likely that
people will use those ads. Would you agree that that might be expressed by
saying, "If the probability of someone clicking on an advertisement is X then
increasing the number of people who see/visit the page proportionally
increases ad clicks by factor X ?"

If you agree that this restatement adequately captures your claim then I'd
like you to consider the difference between "creating a desirable web site",
versus "getting someone to click on an ad."

Using examples, someone who designs an advertisement to 'appear' underneath my
mouse as my mouse traverses a trigger point is "trying to get me to click",
whereas someone who designs a web page on widgets which includes an
advertisement for something associated with widgets off to the side, they are
not working on 'trying to get me to click.'

My claim is that engineers at Google (and presumably Facebook and Twitter) are
working on making your experience with their products the best it can be. This
increases the number of people who use their products, and if the probability
of someone clicking an advertisement is fixed, the higher traffic rates will
result in more clicks. And yet, unlike the original author's posting, they
worked not on 'getting people to click' rather they were working on 'being
more useful to more people.'

Its important to remember that advertisements are not 'evil', not even a
little bit evil. I used to subscribe to BYTE magazine and Computer Shopper in
part to get access to the advertisements. These represented companies who had
things I would likely want to purchase and knowing about them was a service,
not a burden. The consumer 'cost' of advertising relates to how much the
consumer cares that its 'part of what they are looking for' or not.

Abusive use of advertising decreases your readership which reduces the rate
your desirability as an advertising platform. Its a negative value coefficient
in the feedback loop so it self corrects.

------
nowarninglabel
This is why I work for Kiva. There are lots of new projects with fun
technologies, but at the end of the day, it's all about "saving the world".
Plus, I end up meeting a lot of Google, Twitter, and Facebook folk anyways.

------
epenn
Saying that Google's primary purpose is to serve ads is like saying that a
government's primary purpose is to collect taxes. It's a means to an end; not
an end in and of itself.

------
sltkr
I sympathize to some extend, but I think it is unfair to characterize "Google,
Twitter and Facebook" as only advertising companies. A lot of the engineering
effort at these companies goes into improving their core services, too.

If you are working on Google's search engine, you are actually making the
world's body of knowledge more easily accessible. This is a huge boon to the
millions (or billions?) of people who use Google's free search engine every
day. Arguably, many engineers can have a bigger positive impact on the world
working at Google than they could have on their own.

Similarly, Facebook allows millions of people to connect and communicate.
Remember the revolution in Egypt? It started on Facebook.

So yes, I agree that it is sad that so many smart people are working on how to
serve ads more effectively. But the reason these internet companies serve ads
is because they need to pay for the engineers and server farms that provide a
service, which "nobody" is willing to pay for in cash. If you think you can do
better (provide the service without covering the costs with advertising)
please do, but until you demonstrate that this is possible, I think we'll have
to take the bad with the good.

------
mvgoogler
I work at Google. I can't say I ever worry about advertising. I worry about
creating a kick-ass product that people want to use.

The number one 'core value' at Google is "Focus on the user and all else will
follow". From what I've seen that holds pretty true across the company.

If it isn't a product that people love to use there won't be anybody to show
ads to. If it's a product people _do_ love to use, the people who work
directly on the ads system will figure out how to serve up effective ads.

From my perspective, it's not functionally different from when I worked at
companies with a more traditional sales model. In either case my job is to
create a product that is compelling to users. Whether the users pay with cash
or 'pay' by clicking on ads my job and my focus are the same.

My job is to make users happy. Period.

------
mooneater
Imo its worth working at any big shop for a year to see how things work at
scale, and understand the problems bigger companies face. Consider it part of
your training.

Dont hand over a significant chunk of your productive career. Just use them to
sharpen your own saw.

------
tuxidomasx
There is a common sentiment in this thread that advertising is something we
should accept willingly for the privilege of enjoying a free or discounted
service. while that may reflect the current reality of the situation,
indifference towards the current model doesnt promote innovation and change.
Am i doomed to see banner ads and interstitials for the rest of my life? I
rather like the idea of being ad-averse if it means there is an increased
incentive to find an alternative way to monetize on the web

------
twilsndfdf
First, this guy has a right to his opinion, and that's OK (I work at Google).
But Google does not exist to serve ads. It exists to control the internet, to
suck money out of it, and to keep other companies from encroaching on its
territory. This is why it is attracting attention from Washington.

Back to the matter at hand---finding work...hard work...that is fulfilling is
not easy, but I think it is worth it. Many people find this outside of what
they do for a living, so the only criticism of this piece I have is that it
suggests that it is ONLY possible to find fulfillment through the thing you do
to pay the rent and put food on the table.

I've seen OPower's website. I like it. This is a great idea, and I'm happy to
see it take off, so I can see this being very fulfilling work - perhaps the
most important work of a lifetime, way more unique and special than one of
Google's foot soldiers. But not everyone has that chance, that opportunity, a
role like that, and yet everyone has the chance, the opportunity to orient
themselves to seek out what is fulfilling to them, to lead a meaningful life,
which often involves changing jobs! And I don't think the author understands
that this is a universal drive, something which transcends the place of
employment.

------
zdw
I've had similar feelings about working for financial services industries -
all of their main revenue sources don't actually make anyone's life any
better, other than in some tangential way that is secondary to the enrichment
of the company.

That said, most internet companies do deliver some modicum of usefulness to
their users, as a byproduct of selling their eyeballs to advertisers (which is
the actual product).

~~~
ckuehne
Except that they do. Ever wondered, for example, how Google, Apple, Microsoft
or any other public company that makes products you are likely using got their
main funding? (Hint: IPO.)

------
saalweachter
I'm personally a little annoyed with the "the user is not the customer" meme.

I used to work on a product search engine. I had _four_ , count them _four_
distinct groups I had to please with my shopping search engine.

The first group was the user. If the users didn't like our site, find the item
they were looking for, and buy it, we didn't make money and I got fired.

The second group were the merchants. The merchants wanted our fire hose of
traffic to always be pointed at each of them individually, all the time,
always increasing. If the merchants didn't like the traffic we were sending
them and ended our relationship, we didn't make money and I got fired.

Also up there was the Googlebot, a customer of its own. If the Googlebot
didn't like our site, it wouldn't send any traffic to us, we wouldn't send any
traffic to our merchants, we wouldn't make any money and I would get fired.

Finally was the sysadmin. The sysadmin was the only guy who actually had to
_run_ the software I wrote. If he wasn't happy with it, our site would go down
in the middle of the night, he wouldn't be able to get it back up without
waking _me_ up in the middle of the night, and I would feel really bad, and
maybe even get fired.

The world isn't black and white. You can serve many masters. Some days what's
better for the user takes priority, some days what's better for the sysadmin
takes priority. Some days you smack a giant ass banner ad on the top of the
site, other days you take down the giant ass banner ad because it's slowing
down your site and driving users away and costing you more money than it
brings in. There are gradations between the white-gloved consummate servant to
the user and packing your users into the chute to get sheared, chopped,
battered and fried.

The "users are products" meme is just so goddamn emo-sophomoric-simplistic-
annoying. Blarghch.

------
canistr
I agree with this guy and it's pretty much why I prefer working in the defence
industry where there's a purpose beyond selling ads.

~~~
william42
Personally, I'd rather sell ads than make things that kill people.

~~~
canistr
Working in defence =/= making weapons. And honestly, I'd rather not make
things that invade people's privacy.

------
danso
Let's look at tools and apps that typically do not have ads: public data tools
on government websites. Even at the federal level, there is nothing that comes
close to the usability of what Google and FB provide. For example, the most
advanced delivery system used by the U.S. to inform their customers, the
public, of Treasury expenditures is monthly excel spreadsheets.

Try using a local crime mapping tool, like California's Megan's Law offender
database.

because there are no systematic metrics to tell how much and in what fashion
these data apps are being used, the government has no ability to tell if their
apps are actually effective. Furthermore, there's no near-term incentive to
improve these tools because no profit margin depends on these apps actually
being used.

The author here should be commended for his idealism, but that doesn't warrant
the viewpoint that money-making mechanisms serve no beneficial purpose besides
a company's bottom line.

------
rysulliv
I think this is a bit of a pessamistic view of the companies in questions. I
mean sure we can all agree that their revenue model at the end of the day is
ALL about advertising, and sure companies only care about making money right?
So I can see where you care coming from and why, but there are a lot of
engineers at those places who could care less about serving up a single ad.

Google, Facebokk, Twitter, and anyone else who wants to make a dime off of
advertising has 1 goal that should always be higher on their priority list
than serving up ads...getting more users and keeping them happy. Without the
massive scale of users that these companies have, who would care how many ads
they are serving.

I know what I am saying is all very obvious, but I think there are far more
people inside those companies that are aiming to solve and inovate on problems
within the user space rather than just the ad space.... just IMHO.

------
nl
a) There is a long tradition of advertising supporting other enterprises
without corrupting it. Did the Watergate investigation only occur _to sell
advertising_? Few would argue that was the case, but many would argue that
revenue from advertising made it possible.

b) Advertising can (and should) get much better than it is. In the ideal form
you would never see an ad until the moment you needed what it was selling and
at that point the advertised product would be _exactly_ what you needed.
Working towards that goal is interesting, and teaches us at least as much
about human intelligence as all the research in AI labs over the last 25
years.

------
gfaremil
I think the problem for engineers working for certain companies such as
Google, Twitter, or Facebook is not that your customer are advertising
companies.

The real challenge (and problem) for some engineers is that your user is _not_
your customer.

The joy of interacting with customers which are actually paying for things you
made for them is sometimes priceless.

Also when working for Google, Twitter, or Facebook you might never learn how
to envision and build the product (and company from it) which is sold directly
to the customer.

So don't expect the next Oracle, Informatica, or Apple coming from ex-Googlers
(even they have a lot of engineering knowledge in that space).

------
InclinedPlane
Yeah, I liked google, twitter, and facebook back in their early days, before
they sold out and went mainstream. I use a different search engine and social
network now, they're pretty small, you probably haven't heard of them.

------
jleader
Cue Lloyd Dobler: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process
anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or
buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or
processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a
career, I don't want to do that."

(from <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098258/quotes?qt=qt0367508>, or
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEgu7jdc_fs>).

------
yason
I've always thought of advertisers and advertising as "it's immoral to let a
sucker keep his money".

If advertisers are freely willing to pay for the web services I use eventhough
I don't bother with ads myself, it's more than ok.

If there are enough suckers who actually buy that stuff to keep the
advertisers' budgets on black so that they can keep paying for the web
services I use, it's more than ok, too.

In neither case, I'm not the sucker and I still benefit from the scheme
despite the fact that I don't even do anything, except run adblock.

------
gfaremil
From engineering point of view, the sad thing (and danger) about Google,
Twitter, or Facebook is they will get in trouble as soon as some other company
figure outs more efficient advertising model (and starts eating their
revenue).

In other words, regardless of all these great things Google is doing and great
technology, if somebody invents better ad market than AdSense, all this great
technology will not help them at all. That is the problem.

------
meow
One might argue all our activities are geared for one thing: existence. But
then it is not mere existence that counts, but what the existence results in,
that makes any one useful to the world. Same goes with Google. They have to
exist to do cool things (like android, remote controlled cars, street view
etc).. and their existence depends on serving ads.

------
evandijk70
I've wondered a lot whether ads don't actually add value. Seeing as the ads
get more and more directed to you personally, knowing about something might
actually be good for you.

For example: let's say I'm looking for "Animal Farm" online. An ad for the
book "1984" might actually create value in this case.

------
methodin
Ads don't annoy people, people annoy people. Would it be hypocritical if his
company advertised to get customers? Where does the author think we'd be
without advertising in terms of the internet? Very odd logic for not wanting
to work at said companies.

------
beagledude
I needed new tires for my car, got a google ad for a new set of tires from a
local place with a $100 rebate, got the tires, got my rebate the other day in
the mail. Advertising just saved me $100, it's not ALL evil.

------
yhlasx
Pointless. How come it got so much up-votes ..

You might not work for the big three for "these reasons", but i doubt that
anyone else would even think about reconsidering their wish to work/job there.

------
Volscio
Leaving this here. <http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/5uf9/>

------
tomica
this guy must be young, as he doesn't seem to remember how fucking awful the
internet was before google (google search that is. he seems to take it for
granted, as anything invented before i was born.. like running water... or
electricity).

    
    
      I’m not saying that my code needs to save the world or support 
      humanitarian causes, but it should at least be something that I like, 
      or I would use, or that I care about.
    

and i am not just talking about how awful search was. remember punch-the-
monkey ads? i feel like google adwords is the second greatest internet
invention.

so i have to look at a couple of (non-intrusive, often related to my interest)
ads, in order to pay for my access to any bit on information from anywhere in
the world, in single-digit milliseconds?

and btw, google's self-driving cars? toootally about freeing-up more of your
time to be able to watch even more ads -- because today, i don't look at ads
(billboards) while i am driving..

(ask me why advertising is the only way to pay for a service like search at a
scale like the internet -- with transaction costs and all that)

------
vrode
You wouldn't work for them, because they won't hire you.

------
xtan
those grapes probably suck anyway.

~~~
anonymoushn
I don't think it's strange to think that there are many devs that could work
for Google, Facebook, or Twitter but choose not to. All the companies I've
applied to consist mostly of such people.

------
arrestation
Or, they allow their programmers considerable free reign in order to continue
to attract bright programmers.

------
mruniverse
Where does he work?

------
funkah
It's true, but quite reductive, that that these smart people are working on
these interesting projects in the service of advertising. If you think in
these terms, Walter Cronkite worked for ads, too.

Also, consider that to the extent that these projects are open-sourced or
otherwise widely available, they create external value. Go will not be solely
used by Google, though it may have been created to serve Google's aims.
Likewise for whatever messaging system Twitter built this week.

------
ristretto
So, go work for a research institution that tackles a difficult, "noble"
problem. Good programmers would be much appreciated.

------
AltIvan
I cant believe this is posted on Hacker news...

Everything is not so simple; we use their (amazing) products, we pay by
clicking ads. And it is useful for society as a whole (Google, Twitter and
Facebook).

I am 100% sure that not even half of the programmers who work at Google are
working in the "deliver ads" area. Many of them are working in a little piece
of something that does something that someone else is going to find really
useful... just like millions of people in earth!

------
jsavimbi
Applications like those provided by Google, Twitter and Facebook only achieve
their popularity based on their widespread use, thus the need to keep them
free and supported by advertising. Just like television, radio, the heavily-
subsidized news industry and many, many more programs that rely on
sponsorships in lieu of publicly-funded grants. These programs create jobs and
in many cases promote education and health awareness through outreach, not to
mention life-saving services and charities who without the use of advertising
would not be able to sustain themselves. Advertising is a fact of life and has
been socially pervasive since times immemorial. Advertising is communication
and vice versa. Without it we would not be able to function as a society.

* that tv license they have in the UK is whack.

~~~
MartinCron
_that tv license they have in the UK is whack_

From over here in the United States, it looks like it's not such a terrible
thing. The BBC manages to produce great programming and content, and the
license is much less than what the typical US consumer pays for cable.

~~~
masterzora
If I actually had a cable subscription, I would totally agree with you, too. I
have a TV hooked up to my computer that I use for Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime
Instant rather than deal with Comcast. Unfortunately, if I were setup like
this in the UK I'd still have to pay the BBC licence.

Actually, I say "unfortunately", but I would actually be okay with it. The
Beeb has some amazing content. But there are definitely more than a couple
people with TVs who have no interest in cable (or BBC) subscriptions.

~~~
shrikant
IIRC, you only have to pay for a TV license if you watch BBC stuff as it's
being broadcast.

You have the option of saying you don't need a license, in which case they
send someone around to make sure you aren't lying. This is how it is currently
at my place (althought they never got around to sending their van over..)

~~~
phpnode
The "detector vans" are FUD, what they actually do is just assume that
everyone has a TV and send them a letter. The TV licencing company (and it is
a company, not a government organisation) is quite misleading in the way it
practices, their inspectors cannot for example enter your property unless you
let them in. And they can't force you to answer any questions. So there's no
way for them to prove you're watching TV without a licence. All that said,
personally I think the TV licence is awesome value for money, BBC TV and Radio
programmes are generally of very high quality, and of course there are no
adverts and there are very strict guidelines on impartiality etc

------
starpilot
Hipsterdom has thoroughly penetrated software engineering. The underlying
theme is that some person thinks he's too cool/intelligent/noble for
[something everyone else wants]. Rejecting something scarce and highly
selective, employment at aforementioned companies, also suggests some level of
sour grapes.

~~~
joezydeco
Hipsterdom? You're about 40 years late to the party. Think hippies.

