
Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development - maxidog
https://medium.com/@WhatALongHandle/hi-its-google-corporate-development-d0c77fd69191
======
MCRed
For a period I was heavily recruited by google. Their recruiters tried a great
many variations of attempts to trick me into interviewing for a job. It seems
weird that they would do this, because pretty soon, it would become obvious
that it was a job interview and nothing more. Maybe there are a lot of
talented engineers out there who are doing startups but aren't really
committed to them and google manages via the fame of its name and wearing them
down to convince them to give up and become employees.

I agree with this article's characterization of it as a scam, as they are
pretending to be something they are not. This is manipulative and dishonest.
What I experienced was less heinous but had the same elements-
misrepresentation, name dropping, attempts at emotional manipulation with tone
and timing (the first call being so dead, then enthusiastic in the second-
very "HR recruiter", not corp dev.)

Worse, once I'd eventually figure out what was going on, and put one of them
off of me, a few weeks later another would show up, with another variation.

~~~
ovulator
"What's wrong with this country? Can't a man walk down the street without
being offered a job!?"

~~~
sanderjd
Yeah all the comments on here about being tricked into job interviews just
seem so crazy to me. Is google really so desperate to interview people? I've
always heard they get tons of applications and that it's incredibly difficult
(and time consuming) to get an offer after an interview with them, so why
would they be going through all of this trouble to get people in the funnel?
I'm really not sure what to make of it all.

~~~
simi_
I'm CTO at a small startup in a small-ish city in Germany. Every time we
advertise a position we get _tons_ of applicants, and yet that doesn't mean
anything. Good and reliable engineers are _very_ hard to find and recruit.
We've managed to crop together a rock solid team, but only by sheer dumb luck
(and getting burned several times).

~~~
czbond
As a separate, off topic note, I'm looking to move to Germany from the states
(CTO of two prior 'smaller' startups). Where would you look for positions? I'm
a damn good engineer - but I can't NOT lead - and all I'm seeing thus far are
junior/senior dev positions.

~~~
simi_
AngelList. That's how I got my job.

If you can afford the travel, come and mingle at some startup events. Berlin
is obviously the best city to do that, although Cologne (where I'm located)
and, I imagine, Munich/Dusseldorf/Hamburg are pretty good too.

~~~
czbond
Thanks for the advice - I didn't know AngelList had traction out there! That
will make it a lot easier....

------
cromwellian
I think there's an either-or fallacy here, it could have been an attempt at an
acqui-hire, but when the people talking to him tried to push it through, other
people reviewed the situation and decided just to offer a generous employment
package.

Consider, a single-engineer company with an interesting app and talented
engineer, just how much do you expect to be acquired for? Recognize that a
$1M-2M offer is about what you could make in 4 years at Google at the
appropriate level and with the appropriate amount of restricted stock units.

So, if the amount of compensation would be approximately the same, but the one
pathway (acquisition) requires a lot more legal groundwork and expense, and
the other doesn't (just extend an offer of employment with generous signing
bonus)

I think there's a little bit of ego involved here. It's easy to believe you
have a winning app that's going to be huge, and be insulted when other people
don't see the potential. ("A mere engineer!? Me?! I'm an entrepreneur who
should have more respect!"), but the reality is, very few apps on the app
store take off like rocketships, most fail, and so unless you have unique very
valuable IP, or have built up a lot of valuable data, chances are, most
companies are going to view it as an acqui-hire.

Paul Graham was right, you talk to Corp Dev if you're very successful, or nor
very successful (probably going to die). As Kenny Rogers said you've got to
know when to fold 'em, and this could have been a situation to negotiate a
nice big fat signing bonus.

~~~
declan
Well put. Also as <abalone> suggested nearby, the author of the linked
article, Max Christian, fumbled the exchange and instead of a million-dollar
exit ended up with... what?

Instead of the claim of "I can easily get to twice £X million" \-- in revenue?
profit? valuation? -- it looks like the author's RoomScan app is near-
moribund. RoomScan Pro, which sells for $4.99, hasn't been updated in over
half a year and is listed as "optimized for iPhone 5." It's been mentioned in
only two articles indexed by Google News in the last eight months. The
Roomscan Twitter account hasn't been updated since November. The free version
of the app has been updated more recently, but free in this context isn't
exactly going to pay the bills.

These are not the signs of an app that is getting to "twice £X million"
anytime soon.

I do think it's an innovative idea and a good implementation, but as we see on
HN all too frequently, not all innovative ideas and good implementations
amount to a "twice £X million" valuation. Any company (or product) is only
worth what the market will pay.

As for Google, I don't know how their corpdev team works, but my rule of thumb
after working at some very large companies is: don't attribute to malice what
can be explained by bureaucracy. It's not unusual for different teams not to
know what the other is doing, even when they should. I don't see anything that
justifies speculating about nonexistent employees named Maxine, and that kind
of bizarre speculation likely poisoned the discussion.

Whoops.

~~~
nostrademons
The right answer would've been to respond to the original message with "If
you're serious, make an offer. Otherwise, I intend to continue building this
business independently."

Once you get sucked into the conversation you've lost. This is business, not
social chit-chat. Know what you're hoping to get out of the conversation and
direct it toward getting that; if they won't oblige, end the conversation and
don't waste time on it.

~~~
MicroBerto
/thread

------
abalone
This is actually a good example of how to fumble a decent exit for a
struggling app. This was written in April 2014 so we have the benefit of
hindsight for evaluating this claim:

"I’ve already built an £X million company in this area that was limited to the
UK & Ireland; this time it’s global and I can easily get to twice £X million"

Based on the number of reviews for roomscan I'm going to guess that getting to
"twice £X million" has not in fact been that easy. The app does show creative
thinking though and you can see what Google may have spotted potential in him.
$2M would have been an incredible exit for him.

I suppose there is something good in entrepreneurs having outsized, seemingly
delusional expectations for their startups. However, it's important to be self
aware and not take deep, personal offense at what are reasonable market offers
for your work. You can just say no thanks, $2M is too low of a max offer.

What you do definitely not do is have a paranoid meltdown on a blog post and
start wildly speculating about deceptive practices like using fake identities
and fake meeting requests with zero support. Also probably not a good idea to
send over paperwork from your last company's sale to prove how awesome your
current company is.

It may be hard to accept the reality of how your project is really doing but
don't slip into a bad mental place like this. You may just end up passing on a
million dollar outcome.

~~~
MCRed
There was no $2M. They never made a $2M offer. This wasn't even the people in
Google that do acquisitions. This was a hiring manager and a HR recruiter tag
teaming the guy and pretending like it was about acquisition in order to get
him to take their call at a time when he was overloaded with interest from
other parties.

~~~
abalone
$2M was mentioned as the max offer for these types of deals (read: acquihire).
They didn't have to get to the point of making an offer; he rejected that
maximum.

And $2M is definitely an acquisition.

~~~
dsugarman
mentioning $2M as a cap for acquihires was not an offer for an acquihire and
was definitely not an acquihire offer for $2M. if you come back and say $2M
seems nice, you just fell for a nasty trick.

~~~
abalone
Correct. However the point still stands that he considered $2M insultingly
low. Not because he felt it was fake, but because _even if it were a real
offer_ it wasn't enough.

------
jaysonelliot
I'm having an incredibly hard time mustering up sympathy or concern for
someone who feels they were "scammed" into interviewing for a job that could
come with a $2 million signing bonus.

Even if it were the "golden handcuffs" situation someone posited in this
thread, where the money would come over three or four years, it's a situation
most people would be pleased as Punch to find themselves in.

Naturally, everyone thinks they're Tom Brady, and they're going to be the ones
to be the next golden boy getting courted by M&A and feted by TechCrunch and
all the rest. But most of us are really just the Danny Aikens of the world,
working hard, in the game, happy to be paid for what we love to do.

The author wrote an app. By all accounts, it's a good idea, reasonably well-
executed. Not world-changing, not something that's going to build a new
industry and launch dozens of careers, or a service that will transform
people's lives, or disrupt a market. A nice app.

For that, he's indignant that he might get a multi-million dollar signing
bonus and a secure job at one of the largest and most influential corporations
on the planet.

If there were ever an example of the arrogance and entitlement outsiders pin
on Silicon Valley and the startup / tech community, this would be it. Work
because you are passionate about it, because you want to build great things
and meet great challenges. Be grateful that you have a good life. Life isn't a
lottery.

~~~
unreal37
I think you read a lot of things into this article that aren't there. This
isn't about some entitlement to more money. The article is about deceptive
recruiting practices at Google. Phone calls and emails filled with lies. Why
would Google even need to lie about a potential acquisition (and name drop the
founder) when they aren't even looking for one?

The OP just wants the Google person to say, "Hi, I'm from Google HR.
Interested in talking about a job?" versus the smoke and mirrors they
represented.

~~~
jaysonelliot
The author himself says right in the article that he felt entitled to much
more than $2 million.

 _I explain again that I’ve already built an £X million company in this area
that was limited to the UK & Ireland; this time it’s global and I can easily
get to twice £X million. I don’t know what Silicon Valley numbers are like, I
say, but surely even there acqui-hire numbers don’t go as high as twice £X
million? She replies that it’s usually a maximum of 2 million. I guess that’s
dollars._

If he was unhappy with the way Google approached him with their generous rock-
star offer, he could simply turn them down and move on. A lengthy blow-by-blow
essay seems like pointless complaining about a problem 99% of the world would
give their eyeteeth to have.

~~~
vehementi
Why are you using the word entitled?

If he believes he can sell his company for $10M and thus rejects a $2M offer,
he is not suffering from entitlement and arrogance. He does not feel entitled
to $10M. He does not believe the world owes him $10M. He is simply not selling
for a lower price than he thinks he can sell for later.

------
robmcm
I take it the application is RoomScan
([https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-
floo...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-
floor/id571436618?mt=8)).

It's bugging me that I can't understand how it works, at least not in a way
that would produce accurate results in most environments (i.e. No GPS).

[http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/roomscan-app-iphone-
floor-...](http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/roomscan-app-iphone-floor-plans/)

Anyone have any ideas?

~~~
potatolicious
The accelerometer and gyroscope. The double integral of acceleration is
displacement. On iPhones/iOS it's _extremely_ accurate to the point where you
can integrate displacement from it and not be far off from the real result -
over short timespans/distances anyways.

One of the lesser-appreciated qualities of Apple hardware (more accurately,
hardware and drivers) is the quality and accuracy of their sensors.

~~~
voodoomagicman
I have tried this as well - it was definitely not as simple as taking the
double integral.

In my experience moving and the stopping the phone would always end up with
the two accelerations not exactly canceling out so that the calculated
position would drift away from the true position at a constant rate.

Even applying a floor to velocity to eliminate the drift, the distances
calculated for simple linear motions were consistently off by ~50% in either
direction.

This was a few years ago so sensors may have improved - have you actually done
this in practice and found it to work?

~~~
VLM
You could play substantial DSP style filtering games such that your average
human walks at a very constant speed and is mostly either standing perfectly
still or walking at a constant speed. So your non-moving data points are
rounded to zero and generate an error signal, and your moving datapoints can
be average together to a constant generating an error signal, and the error
signals can be shared between the two data sets and analyzed and averaged.
Also all data has a resultant spectrum when you ram it thru a FFT, and I'm
guessing the data spectrum looks a lot different than a noise spectrum
enabling all kinds of fun filtering. Further I'm guessing a FFT analysis will
show peaks at stride rate, and variations in stride rate will predictably vary
velocity.

My first guess was pure optical, an inside out 3-d scanner basically. OK,
image analysis shows there's corners and walls, and the building code requires
all doorknobs to be at exactly X inches off the floor, countertops Y off the
floor, stairs of certain rise/run combos, and the room dimensions WILL round
to closest integer inch so you do some curve fitting and the highest
correlation dimensions win. Especially when in the article he described it as
placing the phone against all the walls. A simple inertial nav system wouldn't
care if you held the phone at an angle or upside down, but optical needs
flatness. You'd be making one of those 360 degree panorama pix, kind of, then
analyzing it.

Maybe I should be creating a 2 zillion pound startup instead of posting to HN?

~~~
mojuba
Half a zillion idea: use sound echolocation principles.

Edit: [http://www.gsmnation.com/blog/2013/06/19/echolocation-app-
le...](http://www.gsmnation.com/blog/2013/06/19/echolocation-app-lets-you-map-
rooms-like-a-bat/)

------
bambax
Recruiting is a lot like dating.

Companies are only interested in candidates that won't work for them and
people would prefer to work for firms that won't hire them.

For all the talk about "competence" or "love" or even attractiveness or
education, the only thing that really matters is social status.

All people ever want is trade up.

There are tricks to make this work; you can fool the other party (difficult
and dangerous), you can fool yourself (easy and efficient, but kind of sad),
or you can use different scales and engage in some kind of status exchange.

The recruiter needs to be a part of this trade by having some inherent
tangible value themselves, to make the whole thing believable; I bet if Larry
Page had made the call himself the whole thing might have worked, maybe even
without any serious money offered.

But if the person on the other end of the line is a nobody the process is
doomed from the start, because it signals there is no status on offer.

On the other hand, sending a copy of a former deal sounds needy and insecure,
like a guy a party bragging that he used to date a model once -- something
George Costanza would say. Why should anyone care? Are you dating a model
right now is what we want to know.

~~~
enneff
If that's your take on dating then I feel very sorry for you.

~~~
bambax
I don't date.

~~~
enneff
Does that matter? That you take such a dim, cynical view of human
relationships is what saddens me.

~~~
bambax
No, it doesn't. I'm surprised you care how I view human nature. Saying my
views are cynical, though, is a little like saying it's sad the reason the
earth rotates around the sun isn't because the earth loves the sun so much, it
wants to curl around it.

What matters isn't whether I'm cynical or dry or cold, etc.; what matters is
whether I'm right, and if not, why not.

~~~
enneff
FWIW, you're wrong.

~~~
bambax
You missed the part about why not.

~~~
welly
> Companies are only interested in candidates that won't work for them and
> people would prefer to work for firms that won't hire them.

This bit. Might be applicable for recruiting but not for dating. Perhaps in
some cases but by no means all or even close to all. And for someone who
claims not to date, I'm not sure you're even qualified to make such a bold
statement.

~~~
bambax
Didn't say I never dated -- I don't date because I'm married. And you don't
need to be a lobster yourself to be able to observe how lobsters live, feed,
mate.

Also, I thought I was saying something pretty much uncontroversial; I'm
surprised people go out of their way to say it's "bold" and "sad". Really,
it's neither.

~~~
enneff
Only if you have a depressingly cynical view of human relationships.

------
mcv
Fits in nicely with Paul Graham's story not to talk to corp dev at all.

Still, I find myself hoping that someone did turn up on April 9.

~~~
maxidog
Nope, that really was the end of the story.

------
LunaSea
If this is all there is to the story it's quite disgusting from Google.

~~~
Perdition
They are a huge publicly traded corporation and you expected different?

------
api
"It’s a ridiculous idea — touch your phone against each wall and get a floor
plan."

Uhh... no it's not. Make that actually work and show it to some architects,
interior designers, and real estate people. Be sure to have a mop on hand for
drool.

~~~
graycat
Do something with audio: The iPhone has speakers, right? And software can send
a signal to the speakers? Or if not speakers, then a female plug can use to
drive speakers? And the thing has a microphone, right? And might add on some
tubes or some such to make the speaker and microphone directional? For the
signal to make the signal to noise ratio better and to make the sound more
directional, use high frequency. Or just build a little ultrasonic attachment
that sends out the signal and get back the reflected signal.

Distance to the wall? Sure, the first and strongest part of the reflected
signal will be from the line from the iPhone to the wall that is perpendicular
to the wall (that's the shortest distance), and that's what is wanted.

But as I recall, there are laser distance measuring devices available for
carpenters, surveyors, etc.

~~~
ay
[https://iqtainment.wordpress.com/acoustic-
ruler/](https://iqtainment.wordpress.com/acoustic-ruler/)

I've played with it - with some calibration, it seems to work. But YMMV, and I
got it mostly just in an appreciation of the author's clever idea.

~~~
graycat
Fantastic! I was just guessing and didn't know someone had already done it!

Thanks!

------
Kiro
I don't understand the problem. Was he expecting a $100m acquisition and was
upset it was only $2m? Feels like an overly aggressive reaction to something
most people would only dream of.

~~~
debacle
Google initially was talking about an investment or purchase, but the
discussion soon devolved into an acqui-hire situation.

But in reality an acqui-hire was the intent all along, Google was just being
deceptive.

~~~
Kiro
> Google initially was talking about an investment or purchase

I don't see anything like that. Also, what’s the difference between a purchase
and acquihire in this case? Both would surely mean an employment at Google.

~~~
forgottenpass
_what’s the difference_

Off the top of my head? Price, role at Google post accusation, golden
handcuffs.

------
jschuur
The story ends with an awful lot of assumptions.

~~~
d357r0y3r
I read the end a couple of times to see if I missed something, but I agree
with your assessment. The author sounds a bit paranoid.

------
api
I get the impression there's an epidemic of big companies trying to "poach
startup founders from themselves."

I posted this to the other thread, and I now see that my experience is perhaps
tame compared to others.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8876561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8876561)

Like someone else quipped: "oh no! seems like you can't walk down the street
today without being aggressively offered a job!" There are worse problems to
have. :P

------
MindTwister
Does anyone have similar experiences with Google?

~~~
jlarocco
The few times I've interviewed with Google (plain old job interviews, not as
an acquisition or acqui-hire), they've always been pretty arrogant. Enough so
that I wouldn't interview with them again if they contacted me. The attitude
is clearly, "You're going to jump through our hoops and do what we say,
because we're Google and we're totally awesome and we can take you or leave
you."

I don't know if the guy in this story is really as bad ass and worth as much
as he thinks he is, but the interaction with Google sounds spot on.

~~~
birdmanjeremy
I actually really enjoyed the interview process with Google. It was
expeditious and respectful. It was, however, clear they are not used to taking
"No" for an answer, and that's when things got a little uncomfortable.

~~~
nostrademons
My own interview process was pretty delightful (which is a good part of why I
ended up working there), but when I have referred friends or even been an
interviewer, I've seen stuff that's so sloppy and disrespectful that I started
adopting a "friends don't refer friends to work at Google" policy.

I suspect it may've been because I was hired at the bottom of the 2009
recession, right around when they fired all the temps and all the permanent
recruiters were fearful of their jobs and there were virtually no other
candidates in the pipeline, while folks who applied in 2007 or 2011-2012 when
it was much busier got a terrible experience.

~~~
divegeek
I interviewed in late 2010 and was hired in early 2011. I had a great
experience. Other than the long delay between interview and offer, of course.
It may be relevant that I didn't interview in MTV.

------
tlrobinson
_Googler #1 doesn’t do M &A for [Famous Named Googler]. She’s just a recruiter
for Googler #2, whom she knew from the outset._

This seems like a risky tactic. [Famous Named Googler] probably doesn't like
[low level recruiters] misrepresenting their relationship with him/her.

~~~
Kiro
Yes, which is why I don't think it's true.

------
samsolomon
What's the best course of action in this case? Surely, it isn't to ignore the
email.

~~~
mcv
According to Paul Graham, a polite but short refusal:
[http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html](http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html) .
Well, unless you know you're ready to sell.

~~~
falcolas
This person seemed ready to sell, and was interested in having discussions to
that end, so that advice isn't of much assistance there, unfortunately.

~~~
iopq
He shouldn't be, because his business is growing and about to achieve success,
but is not yet worth much. There is no way he gets a fair evaluation based on
being popular for a few days.

~~~
ceejayoz
Some people are happy to take a $1M payout over the chance there'll be a $1B
payout in a decade.

------
mathattack
Seems like a strange scam, in that the only outcome is an offer for employment
which one can refuse if they want.

------
tzz
Does Google ever access your Google Analytics or other Google tools you are
using to get more insight info about your website or app? Would they ever do
such thing?

~~~
ForHackernews
I wonder if they read your personal Gmail account to see if you're considering
other offers? Or if you've corresponded with other people about their
proposal?

~~~
driverdan
They would be facing hefty lawsuits if they did that.

~~~
ForHackernews
Are you a lawyer? Their terms of service[0] and privacy policy[1] appear to
give them pretty broad leeway:

"When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through our
Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use,
host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those
resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your
content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly
perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in
this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and
improving our Services, and to develop new ones."

I could easily argue that spying on your email in order to gain advantages in
acquisitions or hiring could be justified for "improving [their] Services" or
"to develop new ones".

[0]
[https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/](https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/)
[1]
[https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en...](https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/intl/en/policies/privacy/google_privacy_policy_en.pdf)

~~~
magicalist
> _I could easily argue that spying on your email in order to gain advantages
> in acquisitions or hiring could be justified for "improving [their]
> Services" or "to develop new ones"._

You would lose in front of virtually any judge if you argued that.

~~~
ForHackernews
Are you a lawyer? I'm not, so I don't know.

What part of their T&C (or existing law?) prevents Google from reading your
email?

------
kaitari
A less popular takeaway from this article, albeit anecdotal, is that Twitter
ads work really well when targeted appropriately.

------
chetanahuja
I'd love to see a googler from the appropriate side respond here and present
their side of the story. That seems to be the difference between the
engineering and business sides of google... if this was a critique of one of
google's technical products, there would be multiple googlers here responding
in this thread by now.

------
kkotak
I really don't see how Google or any other company would be so interested in
hiring OP or acquiring the product based on what it does. Even in Silicon
Valley there are some standards by which valuations are done. This seems like
a scam from the other end to gain attention.

------
idealform01
It would be great to have a site that compiled recruiting scams that companies
do.

I have been taken by a couple and really would love to have a site that said,
"if you are thinking about working for CompanyX, be sure to look out for the
following tactics: Z,Y,Z"

~~~
gravedave
What about [http://www.glassdoor.com/](http://www.glassdoor.com/) ? It
features company reviews that you can read.

------
CmonDev
In addition to that their corporate culture became too intense and naturally
it resulted in some staff becoming deluded. Many people want to work for
Google, but not everyone. Maybe not even the majority of engineers.

------
omega_rythm
Was there a followup to that story? It seems like the author made a lot of
assumptions (I read PG article about Corp devs).

------
blazespin
Downvote me, but jeesuz christ, talk about first world problem...

------
winston84
You know, if the devil says "I don't do evil", I wouldn't believe him for a
second.

------
known
quiz != interview

------
davidgerard
Google recruiters are lying weasels? SAY IT AIN'T SO!

------
anon7933
So????

------
hharnisch
Can Google remove "Don't Be Evil" from their core values yet?

