

Working at Google - the first 6 months - frognibble
http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/06/working-at-google-the-first-6-months.html

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davidw
> Google likes to solve tough problems on a global scale. People work
> hard...and love it. Most nights I work late and eat dinner at Google. Last
> night there were at least 400 people eating dinner at 8:00PM. Larry Page was
> there too, sitting at the table next to me. This is not unusual. When you
> are achieving goals and being recognized for your work...it doesn't feel
> like work. Again, to use the New England Patriots analogy, you put
> everything you've got into it every single day, but when you are doing it
> alongside the best in the world, it is a privilege and doesn't seem like
> work at all.

Ok, I can definitely see that. On the other hand... if I weren't home for
dinner, my daughter would wonder where 'dada' was.

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jbarham
Seconded. Being home for supper w/ wife and two-year-old son is the highlight
of my day.

Read a different way "Last night there were at least 400 people eating dinner
at 8:00PM" means that there were at least 400 people who either don't have
families or for whatever reason felt it was better to stay at the office than
to be at home w/ their families. The novelty of eating in a company cafeteria
wears off, the long-term grind of working for a company where there is
pressure to put the company ahead of your personal life does not.

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danielrhodes
When you have a family and lots of outside obligations, you lose the ability
to take risk and gain large rewards in favor of increased stability. It's not
a matter of one being better than the other. These people work extremely hard
and contribute in ways that they find meaningful. Nobody should be criticized
for being dedicated.

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kenjackson
When you have a family that you love and enjoy you already have the large
reward. Work you enjoy is icing on top of that. The reason you may seek less
risk with family is that the upside is relatively small (it will always be
dwarfed by family), and the downside is large (losing your home, putting
financial stress on your family, etc..).

But I agree, they shouldn't be criticized for being dedicated to their job.
But I do think posts, like Don's, seem to implicitly criticize those people
who aren't at the cafeteria at 8pm.

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ddodge
Ken, There is NO implicit criticism of people who don't work nights, and none
was intended. Sorry if you came away with that impression.

Google is all about achievement...not which hours you choose to work. The fact
is that most employees do not stay for dinner. Google people have different
work schedules. Some come in early, some stay late, some work 9 to 5 at the
office, and get back online at night after the kids go to bed. Some people
work from home. There is no pressure to conform to some schedule.

Google is like a college campus. There are people everywhere, all working
different schedules. There is always someone around so you never feel alone.

Don

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kenjackson
Sounds really really sales-pitchy. I'm sure its a great place to work, but
when you first six months are all roses, it just sounds fake to me. Maybe it
really is all roses, but then that wouldn't explain why some people leave for
jobs that look like almost worse positions at other companies (e.g., Eric
Tseng).

Google reminds me of the rich kid who tries so hard to let you know how great
it is to be rich. It's like, "kid, I just assumed being rich was pretty good,
but the more you testify the more I think something is wrong with it".

~~~
jonursenbach
Well he _is_ a developer advocate/evangelist, of course it's going to sound
really sales-pitchy.

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csmeder
To work at Microsoft for the past few years and strongly evangelize it takes a
certain kind of person. It means the person either is dishonest or looks at
the company he works for with Rose Colored Goggles.

I don't know enough about him to comment on the former but I bet its a lot of
the latter.

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adbge
Google sounds more and more like a boys club lately. I think some of the
employees need to come back down to earth and realize that not everyone at
Google is a coding rockstar and there are people doing more important work
than Google.

Of course, I've never worked at Google, so maybe they all are coding rockstars
and save the world on a daily basis. I find that thought a little unsettling
though.

~~~
martincmartin
What are the great products to come out of Google? Search, of course. Google
Maps, and with it, AJAX: pretty impressive. GMail too.

But Google Earth was an acquisition. So was YouTube, despite the effort they
put into Google Video. So was Google Docs word processor, although the
spreadsheet was home grown.

Google has, what, 20,000 engineers? That's a LOT of effort for what they have
to show for it.

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mquander
Google Reader is best in its class, in my opinion (although I have dozens of
RSS feeds, not hundreds.) Google Books is great and represents a huge amount
of effort. I don't know where Blogger came from, but Google has had it for a
long time; Chrome is fantastic and getting better fast; Google's machine
translation of webpages seems to be getting better constantly. Google App
Engine, Google Scholar, Google Voice (acquired recently, though,) Google Code
(good until Github ate its lunch in my opinion.)

~~~
hugh3
Okay, but _apart_ from Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, AJAX, Google Earth,
YouTube, Google Scholar, Google Calculator, Google Apps, Blogger, Google App
Engine, Google Voice, Google Code, AdWords, Google.org, Google Video, Froogle,
iGoogle, Google Translate, Google News, Google Image Search, MapReduce, Google
Finance, Google Calendar, Chrome, Android, Orkut, Picasa, Knol (OK, forget
Knol), Sketchup, Latitude, and Google Pacman, what else has Google done for
us?

~~~
moted
Wave :)

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ojbyrne
"It is the work life equivalent of playing for the New England Patriots and
winning Super Bowls."

Except its been 5 years since the Pats won a Super Bowl. Feels kind of the
same.

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arithmetic
This is a shoddy sales pitch, at best. Remember his first post as soon as he
left Msft titled "Thanks Microsoft, Hello Google"
([http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2009/11/thank...](http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2009/11/thanks-
microsoft-hello-google.html)). I'm all for talking about your past work
experience, but that particular post just costed Don his credibility.

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myth_drannon
Every time I think about Google, I remember Deepness in the sky/Vernor Vinge
's Emergent culture and how they were able to invent a brain device that
created what they called Focus , device that induces an obsession with a
single idea... of course the engineers are coming to Google voluntary, it's
not like it enslaves them...

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Roboprog
Great book, by the way.

"Emergents" -- as opposed to the "Qeng Ho" (sp?), who in contrast seemed more
like a bunch of franchise owners* cooperating when they had common goals
and/or to make some good trades? (and help a dispersed human civilization
along here and there)

* "franchise owner" in the sense of owning and operating a store associated with a broader brand.

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zeynel1
I would like to know how google compares with Apple rather than Microsoft.
Apple is a different culture both from google and Microsoft yet it is a
dynamic corporation that designs and markets new successful products
efficiently and for profit. How does engineering culture in Apple differ from
Google?

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smackfu
No one in Apple is allowed to talk about it, is one difference.

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mkramlich
Well sometimes they can talk about it, but only in a language approved by
Steve Jobs.

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awa
Interesting to note that he starts of with saying he wasn't at Microsoft in
1985 and then talks about a bunch of similarities between Google of now and
Microsoft of 1985.

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ddodge
Read carefully. I said people who were there (at Microsoft) in 1985 told me
about it, and there are striking similarities.

I know it is hard to imagine today that Microsoft was once like this...but
they were. In a follow up post I might dive into how they lost that feeling.
Personally, I think when the business people started outnumbering the
engineering people...is when they started losing their way.

Don

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bobbyi
Isn't having too many "engineering people" and too few "business people" the
reason why Google hasn't come up with any compelling new products over the
past five years, not couting the ones acquired by their "business people"
(Android, Grand Central, Youtube, etc.)?

Isn't having good "business people" the reason why every Fortune 500 company
pays huge license fees to Microsoft and not to Google?

~~~
nostrademons
Chrome?

