
Why Are Google Employees So Disloyal? - fraXis
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-29/why-are-google-employees-so-disloyal-.html?cmpid=yhoo
======
Jun8
"A lack of employer loyalty is a defining feature of Generation Y."

Before attempting such overarching explanations, try simpler ones first: It's
very easy to change jobs in the Valley due to (i) neutron star -like tech
company density and (ii) a social graph that has an unnaturally large number
of connections. Both of these stem from how the place got started. Compare the
churn rates with, say, Chicago, and you'll see that they are quiet different.

The other important point that this (brain dead) article does not consider is
the high rate of learning you experience at these companies. Working at a top
company like Google or Facebook or like getting a MS, in perhaps half the
time. If you work on the right projects and you pay attention, you can gain
tremendous insider knowledge in less than a year, which increases your
marketability. Then the salary/position you've been hired for may not be
applicable any more.

~~~
hvs
I find that any time an article references a "generation" it is the product of
lazy writing/thinking. Plotting individuals along some imaginary scale based
on when they were born is only slightly more useful than using horoscopes.

I say this a "Gen X'er" (I think. I was born in 1976 as a product of "Baby
Boomers" so I've never known exactly what personality traits I was supposed to
exhibit.)

------
verisimilidude
I went to a job interview last year (at a trendy SF-type start-up) during
which the interviewer boasted, "We have _amazing_ catered dinners every night
at 7pm." To some, that may sound like a perk. To me, it sounded like late
nights. That was actually the red-flag that convinced me I was a bad fit for
their culture (despite otherwise having really complementary domain
knowledge/skills).

Though I'm not sure how much of that anecdote applies to Google, it's still
worth noting that not all perks are interpreted as such by employees.

~~~
zdw
7PM? Ah, that means work starts at 11AM, right?

Sounds great for night owls.

~~~
LockeWatts
Depends where you work, I suppose. I just got told that 8-6 was the standard
working day around here, and that I need to start coming in earlier, or it
would start to reflect poorly on me. Glad I'm leaving soon.

~~~
arkitaip
Is that a startup or established business?

~~~
LockeWatts
It would be <redacted>, a very well known large software company, that deals
primarily in online sales.

~~~
alanlewis
If the employer is in California, and if you are making less than 88K a year,
what they are doing may be illegal (IANAL)
[http://www.dir.ca.gov/t8/11170.html](http://www.dir.ca.gov/t8/11170.html)

~~~
LockeWatts
We're based in Seattle. I don't think there's much to be done, except leave.

------
general_failure
Most smart people are ambitious and they want to make a high impact on the
world. Such people will always want to move on to a position where they can
make important decisions about the direction of product and technology - no,
we are not talking about which build system to use (gyp? cmake?) or whether
the usb protocol should be text based or binary based. Whilst these are
important, people want to make decisions like "should chrome os be killed and
replaced with android?", "what's the next most important feature required for
android?" and so on. Things that change the future of technology.

A company can provide only limited positions for such decision making. So,
people move on to startups where they hope their thoughts will shape the
future in a big way (future of technology or future of company). Note that
this is regardless whether these people are any good at decision making
outside their tech expertise. Today's low bootstrap cost startup world makes
it possible for them to find out. And that's what they do.

~~~
mentat
Excellent analysis. This is exactly where I am personally. It's interesting
because you really want to have those kind of people as long as possible as
they have the fire and passion to make things better, but they will leave.

~~~
general_failure
Indeed. They will leave unless you can identify talent and ambition for
decision making and move them to such a position.

I also think companies of today must have a "ycombinator" division that
encourages entrepreneurship. Like google ventures but for employees. It should
be trivial to get into without having to get into insane amount of documents
and proposals. Something like: \- people that have been for 3 years can apply
for "ventures" with an idea \- give people real funding \- they get to use all
resources of parent company \- absolutely no interference from the parent
company for like 1 year or something. I think you will find that if people
don't have interest in their idea, they will just come back to join parent
company and do normal jobs.

------
kevingadd
I still don't get why people are attached to the concept of company loyalty in
the first place. Maybe it made sense back in the era where you'd work for a
company for 2+ decades and retire on a pension, but we don't live in that
world anymore.

Loyalty is earned, not implicitly deserved. There are thousands of companies
out there where a software engineer can show up, do quality work, and draw a
salary and benefits. The fact that a company like Google happens to have an
on-site masseuse or slightly better 401k plan doesn't really mean anything at
all; there are way bigger factors to consider: work/life balance, healthy
management and corporate structure, good project planning, opportunities for
personal growth, etc.

A company that big tends to have a lot of project churn and waste, too, so
it's not unnatural for some of that churn and waste to result in more people
leaving than might be the average at a smaller company.

~~~
saraid216
> I still don't get why people are attached to the concept of company loyalty
> in the first place. Maybe it made sense back in the era where you'd work for
> a company for 2+ decades and retire on a pension, but we don't live in that
> world anymore.

Why not? What changed?

It's not enough reason to dismiss a concept by saying, "Times changed." You
have to examine _why_ they changed and whether or not the things lost are
worth preserving or reinventing for the new era.

~~~
specialist
_What changed?_

The '80s happened. Greed is good.

The decades of corporatist funded libertarian populist propaganda finally
started to work.

Supply side economics. Mergers and acquisitions. Corporate raiders. Looting
pensions. Gaming investment vehicles, or outright fraud. Long-term sustained
assault on labor. Offshoring, outsourcing, guest workers. Regressive taxation.
Defaults. Bailouts. Deficit spending. Etc.

~~~
saraid216
While the rest of your comment is arguably useful,

> The '80s happened.

is the exact kind of response I was complaining about. This one sentence says
nothing.

~~~
specialist
80's = Reaganomics

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics)

"Greed is good." is a quote by the character Gordon Gecko from the movie Wall
Street.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Gekko](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Gekko)

~~~
saraid216
Was it honestly more difficult to say "Reaganomics happened" than it was to
say "The '80s happened"?

~~~
specialist
Apologies. I won't repeat the mistake.

------
jlgreco
When you recruit straight from universities and try to give the air of being
some sort of continuation of university _(all those perks that are designed to
make people stay on campus as long as possible and /or make people fresh from
college feel at home. It really seems like the only thing they are missing are
the dorms...)_, then perhaps you should expect some of your employees to
eventually start "graduating".

------
10098
> Google is known for its rigorous entry testing: Potential new recruits are
> asked trick questions like "How many golf balls do you think will fit into a
> school bus?"

That is a stupid myth, nobody asks these questions, at least it's not for
software engineers.

~~~
jwoah12
Agreed. After having done interviews at Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and
Amazon at various times over the past 5 years, I never encountered a single
one of these questions. I wonder why this myth continues to live on.

~~~
saalweachter
Also, am I just stupid or is that not a trick question?

~~~
blankenship
“One. I think one golf ball would fit inside a school bus. Probably more. But
I feel confident about one.”

~~~
DannyBee
Even if you treat it as a real question, it's not that hard, because buses
meet maximum vehicle width restrictions, are of a few common lengths (which
are _rarely_ violated because they want to meet CDL gross vehicle weight
restrictions so normal bus drivers can drive them), and the interiors are
basically standardized.

Using 35' x 7.5' x 6.5' would give you a reasonably close interior volume.

Golf balls, on the other hand, have a standard volume (2.483 cubic inches).
Even if you didn't know the number, you could guess pretty well and say the
radius was an inch (which would get you close).

Even if you start varying the bus width, length, and height, you can see the
answer is somewhere between 1 and 2 million for a sanely sized bus.

------
sksksk
The article makes a false assumption that perks are what keeps you at a
company. I'd say that they're nice things to have and definitely work as great
recruitment tools. However, if the work you're doing is boring, no amount of
free food will make up for that.

We (people working in the software industry) are extremely lucky that we can
jump around and work on pretty much whatever we want. I've only been out of
uni for three years and I've got to make slot machines, car sharing platforms,
mobile apps and transportation apps.

So, if you have the opportunity to basically go do whatever you want, why
wouldn't you take it? It's certainly not going to last forever

~~~
s3r3nity
I disagree -- really good health/dental/etc. insurance + 401k matching +
daycare + maternity/paternity leave + etc. can go FAR in maintaining good
retention rates and/or recruiting new talent...though I don't have data off-
hand to support the generality of that statement.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I disagree. Many of us don't want a job so much as to get paid for what we
want to do anyways. Give me work that excites and interests me over pay/perks
any day, within limits of course.

I've never even applied to google before because they have a bad reputation of
sending people like me to work on ads. Do you work to live or live to work?
How you answer this question determines what you'll value more.

~~~
s3r3nity
To some extent I agree -- but I think that's because I'm a spoiled white
moderately wealthy tech worker (and I'm guessing you fall into at least one of
those adjectives if you're on HN.)

It would sound incredibly naive to the average worker in the world, however,
to pass up all of that (even free food) simply because you don't live/breathe
your work.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Well, on the topic of current and ex-Google employees, they probably fit into
the moderately wealthy tech worker mold, but not necessarily the white label,
which I don't think is very relevant. Where I work, I'm the only white guy on
my team and the rest are Chinese and have similar views on work.

------
soupboy
I stopped reading at "Potential new recruits are asked trick questions like
"How many golf balls do you think will fit into a school bus?"

~~~
DannyBee
Me too. Can't even bother to get simple things right.

------
rhizome
Judging from the number of job ads where companies and recruiters tout their
principals as "former Googlers" or "Stanfords," or "Facebookers," this would
seem to be a petard upon which Google et al have hoisted themselves through
their corporate branding via their "smart" hiring practices. That branding is
transitive, but it winds up fomenting a kind of credibility bubble among those
they hire.

------
ibejoeb
Or, "Why can't Google retain talent?"

Or, "Average Googler works 4 years; stockholders see consistent gains."

I struggle to find the author's point. By the title alone, this tenure seems
to be some vice of Google and tech in general. Furthermore, it's an indictment
of an entire class of workers.

Is Exxon really that much better a company than Google? It must be, because
the employees stick around for 2 more years!

Google, as a company, still changes entirely over a four year period. That
average tenure sees through a whole generation. I could write an article
claiming it to be the defining characteristic of a successful company.

This is as good as gossip.

~~~
prospero
The linked report seems to suggest that the median time was 1.1 years, not 4.

------
colindean
I can't find the original posting of it, but there was a blog post written a
couple of years ago by someone who "didn't want to spend the rest of [their]
career finding new ways to get people to click ads".

I wonder if this feeling applies not just to Google Adsense/Adwords team, but
ultimately to other Google products, many of which are essentially ways to get
people to click ads.

~~~
bdon
You might be thinking of this piece on Jeff Hammerbacher:
[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b42250609...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b4225060960537.htm)

~~~
colindean
I'm pretty sure that's it. Thanks!

------
malandrew
Did they separate the turnover numbers for those above the Real Googlers line
vs everyone else?

I would expect very different numbers between those two groups.

~~~
shmageggy
Can you expand on what you mean by "Real Googlers line"?

~~~
malandrew
It's a line that lies somewhere between senior and staff where you are allowed
open allocation (choose your projects and whatnot) instead of closed
allocation (you will work on what your told and for who you are told to work
with)

------
lettergram
I remember listening to an interview Marissa Mayer (now CEO of yahoo!) from I
believe the audio book: In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our
Lives.

Amazon Link: [http://www.amazon.com/In-The-Plex-Google-
Thinks/dp/145587572...](http://www.amazon.com/In-The-Plex-Google-
Thinks/dp/1455875724)

She told the interviewer (I believe Steven Levy) that they train future
managers by sending them all around the world and spending a ridiculous amount
on each one, but they only expect one of every five or six to be there within
three years. They want those type of people because they are ambitious and
they want the Google ideology everywhere so they are happy to do it.
Essentially, even if you can only get an employee for a year, Google usually
highers the best and brightest so they'll probably achieve great things AND
when they move on there will still be a connection to Google (and spread
Google ideology).

Also, from the ex-Google employees I have talked to they don't feel they can
make a big enough difference and would rather join a startup. That's probably
because they vet the applicants so well to get ambitious individuals they end
up losing them because they want to start or join a new company to both make
more money and make a larger impact.

------
tomjen3
Hopefully the people google hire are smart enough to know that there os no
such thing as loyality towards employees in business and as a direct
consequence there should be none from employees toward businesses, once a
better offer is availeble.

------
chrisduesing
Too many people are making the assumption that this is the new normal, or has
something to do with the morals of a group of people.

Instead, it is simply a market at work. Right now there are too few highly
skilled programmers and too many job openings. Exacerbating the effect is
cheap capital which allows companies to keep raising salaries.

When the market shifts, which it invariably will, hiring will slow and average
tenure will increase.

------
thatinstant
Link bait! The author doesn't truly answer the question in the title and even
worse, the author throws a whole generation of people under the bus, so to
speak. There is no balance to the explanation as it is one-sided with the
employees to blame. Find me a corporation (that still exists) that is _truly_
loyal to its employees... The author needs to read Richard Wolff.

------
gnosis
When was the last time a corporation was "loyal" to its employees?

~~~
ihsw
The article seems to imply that there's a large imbalance between employer and
employees, specifically that companies go to great pains for employee
retention. Employee retention is expensive and it could be construed that the
article writer equates perks with 'loyalty.'

So, to answer your question: all the time. By continuously offering perks they
remain 'loyal' to you.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Then why don't they offer contracted, non-at-will employment?

------
neutronicus
Apparently, one moves up the pay ladder faster by job-hopping.

~~~
marssaxman
Is this surprising? It has been true of the software industry as long as I've
been involved in it, which is just over two decades now.

~~~
neutronicus
I'm in academia, so I don't want to claim firsthand knowledge.

That's just a good explanation for high turnover rate.

------
mhurron
Why should I be loyal to a company? What benefit is it to me? I can not expect
the same from them, why should they expect it from me?

~~~
poink
This seems like the simplest answer. What about most modern large companies
would inspire loyalty from their employees?

------
strlen
It's not entirely clear whether or not they're counting contractors and those
in traditionally high turnover roles like support and commissions-based remote
sales.

If the turn over for technical staff is indeed greater than industry and
location average (and I suspect it isn't), then I think the reason is a bit
simpler than most suspect: especially with less experienced engineers (0-3
years out of university), working for a company like Google quickly builds
more career capital (as a result of strong engineering culture, social proof,
ability to do fairly unique work, etc...) as opposed to same length stay
elsewhere. In other words, it becomes easier for many to go elsewhere if they
seek greater responsibility, better projects, flexibility (e.g., being able to
work remotely full time), equity/salary, to move from SDET or SRE to a pure
software engineering role, to get a position at a growing company that would
have previously passed on them, and so forth...

While I'm inclined to believe commentators promotion mechanisms on Google's
technical ladder could be improved (and I am sure this is something Google is
working to improve continuously), I don't necessarily think this kind of
turnover is unhealthy. If a great person leaves and it's apparent to everyone
that they've been overlooked and Google _should have_ promoted them _before_
they attempted to resign, it helps show a pattern of what kind of workers are
overlooked; if a person leaves and the opposite is true (e.g., they weren't
performing in a way that warranted a promotion, they weren't technically
qualified to take on a project of their choice, etc...) then it serves a
safety mechanism: those unhappy with their role leave -- meaning the average
worker is happier with their role than otherwise.

------
meerita
Probably they cannot feel fulfilled professionally in the current company. I
heard that some took the entrance to Google to earn the title "former Google
engineer" and then get better positioning for investment.

------
rdouble
Once systems get as large as the ones at Google, it can feel like the piece of
the puzzle you are working on is inconsequential. This leads to boredom and
ennui. There are currently a lot of opportunities to get paid well while
feeling like you are making a bigger impact on the direction of a company, or
simply just have the opportunity to create something from scratch. I often
wonder if Google will turn into a place where older engineers go to "retire"
with a stable job if their stints at startup companies never work out.

------
asveikau
Median time in position means that if a company hires a lot, it goes down. For
example Amazon was high on this list, but anyone who's been to Seattle lately
knows they are hiring like mad. I think you need some kind of metric that
accounts for recent hires. Maybe some of those recent hires will leave in a
year or two, but some of them won't.

------
samspenc
"The median employee tenure at Google is just more than one year, according to
the payroll consultancy PayScale."

Can someone confirm this? I know friends at Google and follow work from
Googlers who contribute to standards, and no one I know there fits this
description.

------
cmancini
This article isn't even about Google. The title is for linkbait and page
views. Bershidsky should stick to writing about Russian affairs, not
conventional "wisdom" generalizations about the "latest" trends in technical
employment.

------
known
They're allowed to think out-of-the-box
[http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2006/05/googles-20-percent-
tim...](http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2006/05/googles-20-percent-time-in-
action.html)

------
Dewie
> In one recent ranking of companies with the highest employee turnover rates,
> the Mountain View, California, company is among the leaders. The median
> employee tenure at Google is just more than one year, according to the
> payroll consultancy PayScale.

Let me ask: does these numbers reflect only employees quitting, or does it
also reflect the employee leaving the company on the corp's initiative
(getting fired)? If it is the latter, then only talking about employee loyalty
seems like a pretty big jump to a flawed conclusion.

As an aside: I've heard that many American jobs have at-will employment.
Working for someone that can fire me at any time for any reason doesn't really
inspire _loyalty_ in my mind.

~~~
solarmist
A note: corps is a military term for a group of multiple divisions of troops.
That's how I read it initially. Before I realized you meant "corp's".

Be careful with your abbreviations.

