
Why I won’t work for Google - beshrkayali
http://qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-google/
======
etfb
The primary reason I won't work for Google is because I'm nowhere near smart
enough. But I like to tell myself that the ethical shortcuts they've taken in
pursuit of the almighty dollar are a good secondary reason. It's just that I
don't need a secondary reason, so yay, consequence-free ethics!

~~~
mehrdada
> The primary reason I won't work for Google is because I'm nowhere near smart
> enough

I think plenty of people tend to vastly overestimate Google's (or Facebook's,
...) hiring bar. I know quite a few people who would be happy to work there
and (I believe) can easily beat the hiring process, but they self-eliminate
themselves from the game, so I definitely recommend to folks not to make a
prejudice about whether they can get into, because they generally don't have
many data points, and go interview anyway. Let them figure out whether you are
smart enough or not; don't self-eliminate. Never let the widespread propaganda
lead you to believe that everyone hired by a successful company in the valley
is a genius. They collectively hire many thousands of people; it's hard to
believe they are all geniuses.

~~~
67726e
Honestly, I used to think the same way. I am a college dropout that has about
3 years professional experience (thoigh I have been programming since I was a
kid) and I suddenly have a Google recruiter coming after me and trying to get
me to interview. I have worked with a guy who now works at Google and some
people who interviewed at one time or another. They say the same thing as the
parent post; Google hires good programmers, and they happen to have some
geniuses. Don't quit the race before you even start it.

~~~
smikhanov
Did you actually interview with them? I have Computer Science education, 10+
years of industry experience, am very familiar with most of the Cormen book
and have been programming since I was a kid. I was interviewing with Google
twice (after their recruiters reached out to me) and haven't made the bar.

Don't think that the fact of recruiter getting in touch mean anything -- they
are playing their own numbers game.

~~~
lispylol
> Don't think that the fact of recruiter getting in touch mean anything --
> they are playing their own numbers game.

Exactly. In some conversations I've had with fellow dev's they seem to equate
a message from a recruiter with a job offer. I never understood this. Sure, I
get messages from recruiters on LinkedIn but it's prob. the same generic
letter blasted to hundreds or even thousands of candidates. The quality of
your online profiles (SEO?) as a programmer is directly related to the volume
of messages you get from recruiters.

~~~
brown9-2
It's an easy mistake to make when you aren't very familiar with the modern
recruiting process.

It is literally the job of the recruiters to keep the pipeline as full as
possible.

~~~
67726e
I don't make the mistake of thinking a recruiter calling me on several
occasions, attempting to get me to interview is a job offer. What I find
surprising is that the recruiter still wants me to interview even after I
explained who and what I am. Maybe that's just an overzealous recruiter trying
to fill numbers. Maybe Google has relaxed standards outside of what people
usually think. One of the first things I said to the recruiter was something
along the lines of "Are you sure you have the right guy?"[0] followed up with
"I'm not quite sure that I am qualified". Between talking to the recruiter and
people who work there or passed the interview, it sure doesn't seem like they
are only looking for geniuses.

I'm just trying to offer a point of data regarding what Google by proxy of
their recruiters, looks for. The recruiter himself has been working for Google
for quite a while, so either he really knows how to game the system, is
currently desperate, or Google doesn't have as extreme standards as one would
think.

[0] -
[https://twitter.com/67726e/status/431870786169630720](https://twitter.com/67726e/status/431870786169630720)

~~~
brown9-2
I don't think it really matters to the recruiter if you are qualified, or if
they are judged on how many people they source end up getting offers. They are
just there to get you in the door.

~~~
67726e
I suppose that would depend on how the recruiters operate. I'd imagine that at
Google's size, they probably have recruiters just feeding people into the
pipeline. I tend to assume people aren't just doing a shitty job, in this case
throwing people at a wall and seeing what sticks, despite how much it clashes
with my "imposter syndrome" mentality.

------
quaunaut
I'm still waiting on proof from Snowden as to Apple/Google/Facebook's direct,
illegal cooperation with the NSA. So far, all I've seen proof of is compliance
with warrants(which admittedly are questionable, but Google has a direct
financial gain in fighting them, not helping them), claims that they've fought
them, and evidence that the NSA is both tapping the trunk as well as
decrypting SSL'd communications.

~~~
eurleif
> Google has a direct financial gain in fighting them

Wait, what? Google has a direct financial gain in fighting warrants? How do
you figure?

~~~
quaunaut
In fighting overbroad warrants, via the National Security Letters. Having NSLs
at all significantly increases consumer distrust in Google, and gives them
literally zero gains in return. It even costs them work, if you're looking at
the small stuff. They don't get anything out of it.

Edit: Clarified what NSL means.

~~~
eurleif
NSLs and warrants are completely different things. Warrants are (or can be)
for the contents of messages, and must be signed by a judge. NSLs only cover
metadata, and only require an FBI agent's signature. An NSL is a type of
subpoena, not a type of warrant.

Also, fighting them takes work too. Much more work (done by more highly-paid
individuals) than complying with them. The PR angle may make it a net gain,
but I don't think there's a slam-dunk case for that being true. What about
consumers who believe NSLs are a necessary tool to fight terrorists?

~~~
quaunaut
> NSLs and warrants are completely different things. Warrants are (or can be)
> for the contents of messages, and must be signed by a judge. NSLs only cover
> metadata, and only require an FBI agent's signature. An NSL is a type of
> subpoena, not a type of warrant.

Are we sure that's all NSL's cover? I've been told repeatedly that we can't be
told _what_ is required under the NSLs by their very nature(despite being
overturned by the Supreme Court). Also, I was under the impression a subpoena
also requires a judge's approval.

Regardless, while the two(a subpoena and a warrant) are different, in this
case their nature is more than a bit similar, considering subpoenas generally
are used to produce information, whereas warrants are to be able to reasonably
search for information- which on a server, the two are only differentiated by
who is accessing the data and how.

~~~
eurleif
>I've been told repeatedly that we can't be told what is required under the
NSLs by their very nature(despite being overturned by the Supreme Court).

NSL power is defined by law, and is limited to metadata, not content. I
suspect what they meant is that specific details about whose information is
being requested, and how many requests are received, can't be released.

>Also, I was under the impression a subpoena also requires a judge's approval.

An administrative subpoena is a type of subpoena that does not need to be
signed by a judge. An NSL is a type of admin subpoena that the FBI uses for
national security matters, but the FBI uses admin subpoenas in other
investigations, too. Many other federal agencies also have admin subpoena
power, and some states grant it to their agencies as well.

------
hitchhiker999
Perhaps a few people don't understand why OP takes this so seriously. This is
the 'long game', the game for the betterment of human existence. (Cliche? yes,
true enough? - probably)

If you still feel these huge corporations have our best interests at heart,
you are being a touch naive.

They are not 'evil' ofc, but they're probably not the best idea for the
future.

~~~
l33tbro
What is your best idea for the future? Do you think I or anyone else would
find it palatable?

Here's the thing: the profit motive is the impulse of corporations, not the
sum total of all behavior. There are great people in corporations that do
amazing shit within corporate structures. Coca-Cola have done incredible
social art installations recently -
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_4vOUDImE)

Google is a huge corporation based on the profit principle, but making coin
has been the means for Page to fulfil his dreams of being remembered as our
modern Tesla.

~~~
hrktb
About Coca Cola, there is this very good talk by Melinda Gates about what they
do in the developping world:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofit...](http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_french_gates_what_nonprofits_can_learn_from_coca_cola)

I think enabling enterprising people to do business may be the most positive
thing Coca Cola does to the world.

For Google, it seems making money is not the end game. What they do have many
positive fallouts, but I'm not sure they move the 'real' world forward as much
as Microsoft (while openly evil, they brought a unified computing environment
to the world) or Apple or even Amazon.

~~~
hitchhiker999
With all due respect, and thank you for the reply - I feel compelled to say
this:

I used to think like that, however after many years of observing the
_complicit_ abuse corporations like these preside over - I can no longer hold
that opinion.

~~~
hrktb
If it is about Coca Cola, I have an idea of what kind of abuse or corporate
behavior it has, and I don't think 'sugared water' is much needed in our world
(I don't deny the value, I just think it's not a need). But even for such a
company, there are some positive fallouts.

In the ranking of evil companies, I'm not sure they even come close to the
French water groups or big medical corporations, but I might just lack
information.

Edit: for Amazon and Microsoft, of course I get how bad they can behave.
Amazon more so when it comes to distribution level workers and general social
behavior. Microsoft I don't kniw if there are people ignorant of what they did
the last decades.

------
Oletros
> We witnessed Google sending cease and desist letters to the developers and
> maintainers of the popular Android CyanogenMod for violating some patents by
> modifying open source elements of an open source licensed project

Taking into account that this is not what happened between Google and Cyanogen
I doubt about the knowledge of him

~~~
jccalhoun
He doesn't even get the phrase "Don't be evil" right. He writes "Don't do
evil" multiple times.

Then he is surprised that google reads email. How else are they supposed to
find out if something is spam or not if they don't read it? And email isn't
secure in the first place. Anyone that doesn't know that shouldn't be up for a
technical job at an internet-based company in the first place.

It seems like his complaint is that google allegedly turned emails over to the
government. Well then why is he bringing up the distraction of "google reads
my mom's email!!!"?

------
p4bl0
I can't access the linked blogpost because the website is offline, but from
the comments here I understand that the main reason the author is invoking for
not working at Google is because of Snowden's revelations and Google
implication with the NSA.

I think this is strange, we knew way before Snowden's revelations what Google
did with the privacy of their users. That in itself should be enough to not
want to work there, if you care about it. I know more than a handful of people
(including me) who refused jobs from Google (often more than one time, for
example I had to ask them to write down to not contact me again after the
third time) _before_ Snowden's revelations. The reasons were multiple: "don't
be evil" is a joke, Google has been a big company for years now and not really
a fun startupy place, it may happens that the job you want is not the kind of
jobs that Google offers, and it's not even true anymore (or at least, it is
less and less) that having worked at Google make your resume special.

~~~
enscr
cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-google/

~~~
provemewrong
I don't know if ironic is the right word, but it certainly is funny reading
the Google's cached version of the article.

~~~
p4bl0
And I suppose in a Google browser too, because as I expected, my Firefox
doesn't know what to do with cache: URLs.

~~~
nanofortnight
Stick it into Google: [http://google.com/search?q=cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-
work-for...](http://google.com/search?q=cache:qnrq.se/why-i-wont-work-for-
google/)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
This doesn't work behind the great firewall, unfortunately.

------
sidcool
The response doesn't seem convincing. By this standards he's not supposed to
work for any corporation. I am a Google fanboy, I agree, and this might skew
my opinion, but I am always open to debate.

~~~
harshreality
Agreed. The response seems to conflate a bunch of different things and pretend
it's all Google's fault. Snowden didn't blow the whistle on Google. Google
can't control what the NSA is tapping or what court orders it gets. Maybe some
people inside Google knew about inter-datacenter taps and didn't do anything
about it, but once all of Google became aware, they started encrypting those
links. Automatic indexing of email contents leaves Google open to subpoenas
for information about that indexed content, but the emails would be there to
subpoena either way. I don't understand the problem.

What has Google ever done to _help_ TLAs wiretap anyone?

~~~
Apachez
Encryption is worthless if you have handed over the cipherkeys... but I guess
this might fool some of the public at least.

~~~
prolde
Encryption can be done in a matter where the private keys are stored in the
user's end, making it far harder for the likes of the NSA to break the
encryption.

One example of this is Jitsi's implementation of Off The Recording chatting.
When using an XMPP server through Jitsi, the NSA may be able to read the
cipher text sent but not the plaintext because the keys are stored on the chat
participants computers. Not even the chat server owners know the chat
plaintext.

------
theboss
"Nicklas, a simple no thank you I am not interested would have sufficed
-Patrick"

------
tompagenet2
I think this unduly conflates his displeasure at the automated scanning of
emails to target advertising and the NSA etc. bulk access to data. The former
doesn't make the latter any more likely. All webmail services must hold their
customers' emails, and they are therefore open to being read by a government
or third party. Users could encrypt their emails, but it's very hard to do
this while also making logging in and accessing anywhere fast easy for all
users.

~~~
flavor8
Yes, exactly.

Any webmail service that stores email unencrypted on its servers is subject to
subpoena / FISA requests, and there isn't much they can do about it.

They could roll out client-side encryption -- but there's little business
incentive for them to do so on free accounts. That said, as an option for
paying apps users, it would be quite valuable.

Automatic scanning of emails isn't ethically suspect in my opinion.

My reasons for not working at google right now are: lack of desire to engage
in big company politics, the apparent softening of the 20% time policy,
regular-corporate/long hours, and the commute I'd have to take. Otherwise it'd
be near top of my list should I go back into full time business.

~~~
kumbasha
What about the fact that they colluded with Apple and other companies to keep
their engineer salaries as low as possible?

~~~
flavor8
I'm by no means a fanboy. From what I understand the salary thing wasn't
exactly a conspiracy, but it was an extremely poor policy. I don't think
anybody has much to complain about in terms of the benefits package from
google, though.

In terms of "big companies", their sins are relatively innocuous, and if I
wanted to work in big tech they'd be #1 on my list given the technology &
resources that they make available. I'd certainly never work for Apple,
Facebook, Oracle or Microsoft. I'd need a lot of convincing to work for
Amazon.

------
etherael
All mainstream modern technology companies are in a no win tragic situation.
They are accountable to the state which overrides their ability to make any
kind of actual independent decisions when the interests of the state are at
stake. Going against this would be an exercise in futility and you may well
end up in prison for doing so.

Getting angry at them for what they are forced at gunpoint to do is just
wasted energy, though I do agree with seeking alternatives free from the
influence of the state and not patronising companies that are forced to
operate in those interests purely from the perspective of pragmatism.

All they can do is stick to the letter of the law. I think the harder the
state clamps down and the more totalitarian it becomes, the more black market
alternatives for mainstream services will come into being and the more
pressure there will be for a truly free parallel economy to flourish.

~~~
clarry
> All mainstream modern technology companies are in a no win tragic situation.

Actually the big companies (and to a lesser degree other significant entities
like Wikipedia) that essentially hold the keys to the Internet and have the
money -- if anyone, they are in a position to change things. They have
tremendous power. Think civil disobedience. Corporate disobedience? There are
many legal as well as illegal things these corps could do to flip the bird at
the state. And the result might be that they get heard, unlike all the EFF
campaigners and individuals who can only complain on Internet forums.

~~~
rwallace
A company called Qwest tried that, and its CEO ended up in prison on trumped-
up charges of insider trading. Calls for other people to become martyrs for
your favorite cause don't have a lot of moral authority in my book.

~~~
gte910h
> ended up in prison on trumped-up charges of insider trading

Or on charges that fit the statute, but are over-criminalized.

We have way too many laws. Everyone is violating them, so drawing the ire of
criminal prosecutors = jail term.

------
joeblau
This is a lot longer than my response I gave the Google recruiter:

    
    
      I appreciate you contacting me, but I'm currently in the process of
      raising a funding round for my startup which precludes me from
      looking at other opportunities right now.  However; if you know any
      investors in the IoT space, I would love to chat.
    

Funny thing is that in about 6 months, they are going to probably contact Him,
and Me again.

~~~
davidw
Here's what I wrote them last time, more or less:

> Thank you for your interest and taking the time to discuss employment
> opportunities, but at this time I have decided not to pursue a further
> relationship with Google as an employer. I wish you the best in your future
> endeavors.

~~~
twic
Mine was:

"Unfortunately, Google is not a company i have any interest in working for.
Thanks for getting in touch, though, and good luck with your hunt."

The impression i've formed is that Google is full of people who are quite
smart, but think they're really smart, and have decided to build themselves a
technical ecosystem that has no interaction with the rest of the world. That
doesn't sound like fertile ground for personal growth.

Also, given that i am in London, it would have meant working on AdWords, which
sounds dull.

~~~
vidarh
I'm also in London. Last time (5-6 different Google recruiters over the last
6-7 years) I went through phone screening with the recruiter after she was
very convincing when telling me why this time would be different (after I'd
given her my "standard" paragraph by e-mail about why I generally think
talking to Google is a waste of my time). This was for a management position,
and she then got me set up for technical interview.

The guy in question gave me a bunch of totally idiotic questions about details
about filesystem implementations, and clearly didn't like it when I pointed
out to him that there wasn't one single answer to the questions he raised the
way he'd asked them, and proceeded to give him an outline of the various
solutions that applied for a few different filesystems. He wanted specific
textbook details about a filesystem that was entirely irrelevant for the
position.

My impression was that he was "textbook smart", and would answer questions
about the specific stuff he'd studied very well - the questions he asked fit
very well with that -, and would probably excel at brainteasers, but his
interpersonal skills and broader understanding of the subjects he asked me
about appeared to be so weak that had I been on the other side of the table,
I'd never have considered hiring him.

I "failed" that interview, only to have the recruiter bring it up in some
recruitment committee or something and get it set aside and get me through to
the next step on the basis of the notes I sent her of all the issues I saw
with the questions. But only after she spent a lot of time lamenting the
process (this is a common team with Google recruiters - every one I've spoken
to has been incredibly frustrated at their own processes).

But by then I'd lost interest - the guy in question was in the group I'd have
managed, and I really did not like the thought of having to deal with him on a
daily basis. Or the thought of a team staffed with similar people... Or the
thought of working somewhere where the HR processes are so messed up that
their recruiters spends half the time they talk to me apologising about how
their recruitment works.

I know there are lots of great people at Google, but every interaction I've
had with their recruitment process makes me less inclined to want to work
there.

------
ddorian43
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b-3Zibp...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:b-3ZibpM6IIJ:qnrq.se/why-
i-wont-work-for-google/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

~~~
clips
How ironic that one would be using Google's cached version to read this

~~~
Aldo_MX
More ironic that Google has a cached copy and CloudFlare not.

~~~
Donzo
Not really ironic because nobody expects that CloudFlare Always On cached
copies will actually work.

------
primitivesuave
Pretty well-written sentiment, only thing is that recruiters cast a pretty
wide net and certainly wouldn't read through anyone's life story if presented
with the opportunity.

However, I'm sure that if every person who gets contacted by a Google
recruiter responds with a similar diatribe about their disillusionment with
Google's ways, they just might take notice.

~~~
charlesism
Since it's made the top spot on HN, the recruiter himself no longer matters.
Hundreds of Google employees will read it today.

------
jrockway
Just out of curiosity, what do you folks see as the difference between looking
at text with the intent to correct spelling (like this text box does) versus
looking at text to put an advertisement next to it?

(If I wanted to go reductio ad absurdum, what about looking at text to change
<a href="...">foo</a> into a link?)

To be clear: I'm honestly curious, not trying to defend or advocate for one
interpretation over another.

~~~
prolde
In my opinion, Google's activities are "evil" because they intentionally
profile their consumers through parsing all their personal data (email,
shopping history, etc). Furthermore, Google chooses to spy on their users
through a matter that allows the NSA to collect entire profiles for Google's
users. Google does this mainly for the money involved.

~~~
partridgeeater
Agreed. I also have no visibility into the data Google has gathered about me,
or any way of telling them to delete all the data they have on me.

~~~
Jabbles
[https://www.google.com/dashboard](https://www.google.com/dashboard)

------
snarfy
I won't work for google, apple, or microsoft due to the illegal no-poaching
agreements they made. I don't want to work for amazon because they are retail
- engineering is overhead to be trimmed.

Through some weird twist of fate I find myself actually admiring Facebook, not
the site, but the company.

~~~
dredmorbius
Most of the large tech companies mostly turn me off, though there are little
glimmers of things they do that are positive. Ironically, I've been breaking
my radio silence on G+ over the past couple of days discussing some of this in
relation to Gundotra's exodus and the "death of G+" discussions (short answer:
yes and no).

I just got accused of having favorable views of Facebook (I don't -- I think
what the company does is detestable and Zuck's morals are beyond reprehensible
.... except that the company's stand in breaking the wage-suppression
collusion cabal was a stunning case of doing the right thing).

But in terms of a company which could tempt me ... there aren't many.

~~~
yuhong
Personally, I want to fix them if possible. That is why I posted a wishlist
for Satya on a blog's comments for example, and why I like to discuss Google
with for example michaelochurch. On Facebook, I posted this:
[http://www.quora.com/What-has-happened-to-Mark-
Zuckerbergs-o...](http://www.quora.com/What-has-happened-to-Mark-Zuckerbergs-
opinion-on-privacy-since-the-early-days-of-Facebook?share=1)

------
ikusalic
To be fair Google is a great company. But because of some actions they have
taken they are not so outstandingly appealing as they were few years ago. Of
course that's natural given their size. Many big companies are way worse. But
still, they are now just another company that's good to their employees (many
of whom are still quite passionate about it). No more, no less, that's all
Google is.

------
eclipxe
Wouldn't want to work with this guy. Fair points but come on, the poor
recruiter is the wrong person to rant to.

~~~
danieldk
_the poor recruiter is the wrong person to rant to._

Why? If enough talented individuals reject a Google position (or more
accurately, entry to Google's interview process) for moral reasons, the
message will be sent up the chain of command.

Google thrives on talent. If it becomes hard to acquire new talent, they have
a serious problem.

~~~
saalweachter
Well, for one thing, rejecting it at the point of a recruiter reaching out to
you is a weak signal. Get through the hiring process and then reject the job
offer, and it will become a much stronger signal. I'm willing to bet dollars
to donuts that way fewer people reject job offers than turn down recruiters
soliciting for a phone screen.

With only a little bit of sarcasm, I would also say that accepting the job
offer, working loyally for some amount of time, and then quitting in protest
would be a much stronger signal still.

------
jorgecastillo
Quite frankly if we put in a balance everything good and bad Google has ever
done, the positive things they've done outweigh the negative things by a ton.
I think that of all the tech companies Google is the most awesome. Seriously I
am glad I don't have to pay an Apple tax or a Microsoft tax to develop mobile
apps. I am grateful that Android is OSS just for that Google will always have
my sympathy.

~~~
eevilspock
You are paying a Google tax. It's simply being paid on your behalf by
advertisers, who get reimbursed from you when you buy products from companies
who advertise on Google. If you don't buy any products that have advertising
costs, then you are being subsidized by other consumers. In addition, we all
are paying for the overhead inefficiencies of this indirect system, with all
the middlemen and middle-pieces involved. Lastly, we all pay for the social
costs of advertising. We'd all be better off if Google and the other so-called
free web services nixed ads and just charged us straight up.

There is no free lunch, and there is no free web. We all have to start seeing
this truth.

------
reikonomusha
There are more reasons to not work for Google, including their (sometimes?)
rather poor interview process.

~~~
sidcool
That comes as a surprise to me. Poor interview process? They have the world's
best engineers at their disposal, don't they? A poor interview process would
point otherwise.

~~~
idlewan
"They have the world's best engineers at their disposal"

That's what they like telling the world. They probably employ a lot of smart
people, because they can afford better work conditions and salaries.

However, they don't have the monopoly on smart engineers. You can't rank
people from best to worse: everyone is different. You can certainly recognize
that some people are smart, but there is more smart people outside of google
than inside.

The notion that they "have the best" is ridiculous, because there is no such
thing as "the best engineers".

I'd prefer saying they have optimized picking their engineers so that they
have more chance of picking smart ones.

------
AliAdams
A better Google is one you pay for and whose income and subsequently
motivations align with the customer, not third parties.

The idea of Google being a virtual personal assistant who knows everything
about you but who you can trust to keep that information private is very cool
and I think more aligned with where Google really wants to go. The problem is
that they need to rely on advertising for now which means you'll never really
trust what that PA says and what it is telling others about you.

------
xkarga00
I think it's naive to be that proud. Sure Google isn't the best company in the
world as far as its policies about costumer data and privacy but if OP's
mother or friends are really concerned about their privacy they can opt out
and use another equivalent service to Google Search, Gmail, etc. But then
again most mainstream services if not all have their own dark policies, don't
they?

------
varelse
If you want Google to leave you alone for the rest of eternity, all you have
to do is go work there and enjoy the perks for a few months (the food is
excellent and they pay quite well) and then try to find work more suitable to
your skill set than what the Hogwarts Hat of blind allocation has assigned you
to for the next 2 years of your life(1).

Since you will most likely have been assigned to a team no one wants to work
on (hence the openings), the mere act of questioning the almighty G will
enrage the inept mid-level management chain and they will in turn blacklist
you with HR. Once you are blacklisted, you will be cordially invited to not
let the portal barrier impact your posterior on the way out. And beyond
occasional accidental profile views on linkedin, no more Google recruitment
spam.

It worked for me. It can work for you.

1\. Exceptions to this rule are when you are hand-picked for a moonshot, an
acquihire, or for your specific skills, at which point, Google is an excellent
place to work. Ignore everything I'm saying in these cases, you've hit the
jackpot.

------
raphaelj
It's not so hard to get in touch with Google recruiters. You just need to get
a not so bad score at their Codejam contest.

As a side note, about a year ago, a girl from Google called me from London for
a job opportunity (in French, my mother tongue, it nicely surprised me).
Anyway, I put the girl call down as I was waiting a call from my then
girlfriend to meet up for our first date. We all seem to have different
reasons to refuse a job opportunity from Google !

------
mlinksva
A 2011 version, different author
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2933619)

------
muyuu
He made Patrick read way too much. I wouldn't work for Google because I
consider it to be an extremely dangerous and immoral company. It's not the
only one but it's up there at the top with the likes of Facebook and to some
extent Microsoft, Oracle, Apple.

One could go on forever on this but an email to them is probably not the right
place to do this (although he did publish it).

------
catshirt
if only Patrick got a dollar every time he got this response

did anyone else find the quote at the end at least a little ironic?

~~~
ddorian43
he must get more than a dollar, from his employer

~~~
catshirt
depends how many of these he gets

------
mqsiuser
There are typical kinds of people. He seems to be very idealistic. And it's
awesome and free advertisement for him as a person/hacker, where he (and his
github projects) now can profit. He is in high dept towards google now :)

------
karangoeluw
Oh please. You got contacted by a recruiter and NOT given a job.

------
level09
a bit offtopic: I suppose cloudflare's "always online" mode wont work unless
the origin server sends a cache headers that lasts for long ?

------
puppetmaster3
Some searching shows he is supportive of #anakata, and maybe people can read
up.

~~~
ptr
They both live (lived?) in Cambodia, it seems.

------
higherpurpose
> Google says “Don’t do evil” on one hand.

They stopped saying that, so past tense should be used when mentioning it.

~~~
partridgeeater
So they didn't actually mean what they said?

~~~
higherpurpose
They did, but only for a while, until it became too inconvenient for their
company goals.

------
auvrw
from the panic_bcast source

    
    
        s.bind(("", 1337)) # Listen on all devices
    

haha

------
pabb
I mean, I get that he's trying to make a point here, and he clearly feels as
strongly about this as he's written. But it sounds like an idealistic 13-year-
old wrote the whole diatribe: "Boo, how dare you you big jerk spy. Spying on
my mom and friends. You just want money. Like a big fat bully jerk."

Seriously? All corporations are in pursuit of profit. I get the underlying
issue he has, but only through the context of growing up with Google and
seeing them grow to what they are now. His post is littered with tons of hard
to believe idealistic BS.

Berating them for not closing down their service like Lavabit? Are you
kidding? "Yes, let's shut down our 15+ year old company, one of the most
profitable and successful in the world, just to prove a point" \-- surely
that's the rational thing to do. I'm not a fan of Google's "spying", but you
need to look at the situation from the lense of this being how they (and
Facebook, and probably any other web-based company that had the clout) are
seizing a competitive advantage that almost no one else can provide. People
are feeding them petabytes of data, and it's in their best interest to turn
that information into financial gain. Yes, I think a big side-effect of that
they appear to be intrusive and "evil", but to pretend that the company is the
issue, and that only Google would take advantage of such a situation is
comical, and incredibly naive. The writer of the article surely can understand
that any other entity with such great access to user information would use it.

~~~
qnrq
Profit is wonderful, even more so if earned through other means than tracking
users' Internet activity unknowingly. Most users of the Internet don't know
that Google sees them in most corners and much of the data collection remains.

Most users don't know how to defend themselves pro-actively. For example we
have the disaster of people being connected with their political views in
France[1]. The same (not really, hashed emails) vulnerability was then used by
the Swedish Researchgruppen[2], an extremist leftwing organization, to publish
who said what under the assertion of anonymity and as a direct followup
leftwing journalists are now chasing outed "trolls" with baseball bats and
cameras[3] for a TV show(!).

1: [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/29/de-
anonymisin...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/29/de-anonymising-
political-forums)

2: [http://torquemag.io/if-you-wouldnt-say-it-in-person-would-
yo...](http://torquemag.io/if-you-wouldnt-say-it-in-person-would-you-say-it-
online/)

3: [http://www.friatider.se/plansch-for-nya-tv3-serien-
aschberg-...](http://www.friatider.se/plansch-for-nya-tv3-serien-aschberg-med-
basebolltra-jagar-asiktsregistrerade)

Nedless to say these individuals are being directly targeted and harmed due to
what they wrote on the Internet. It's not the fault of Disqus or Gravatar,
it's the consequence of uninformed users.

Now imagine the hoards of victims that will emerge in the shadows of a Google
database leak. For it will leak, of course it will, it's only a matter of
time. If data can get out of North Korea it can get out of Google.

The dangers are not necessarily what Google is doing but what Google enables
others to do.

Google closed down their service in China in protest againt what they said was
anti democratic; remaining in the US is a hypocrisy, although perfectly
aligned with other propaganda.

You are right, this is very much government driven. I agree - we should remove
the government. Google can lead the revolution by closing down or switch
jurisdiction in protest. Their voice is heard, ours is not.

------
hellbreakslose
Are you even serious? I read your post. Its a nice fairytale. Let me explain
to you what my dad has tought me: We live under structured societies and under
a specific set of rules we call LAW. (I most certainly disagree with that...
but thats life and how it is) Yes under my fantasy world everyone would have
the same possibilities and everyone would be happy yada yada. But under the
Actual world we are living at ... Google is just another part. The set of LAWS
that have been up there and been built for the past 200-300 years made it
clear that Goverments are above those Laws and can do anything they like.

If it wasn't Google tracking your data, it would be someone else doing it
cause thats how the world that they setted up works! Do you think Google is
happy with handing out info to goverments? No, its done cause they are forced
to, and yes they can ask something in exchange. Thats the game of Power (Read
Game of Thrones, you might understand that.)

So I suggest you to get out of that imaginary world of yours and live life (I
don't say change your ideas), but if you really want to blame someone - BLAME
YOURSELF, for voting for the politicians in your country and for not being
able to force them into taking your opinion and stop spying on you.

Also regarding adSense and all the tracking... Well thats how business works,
if you don't like it then its ok. Noone forced you to use google search or
gmail or whatever it is that google has included in their adSense algorythm

Regards, A friendly man that lives TODAY!

~~~
qnrq
Hi, OP here.

>> We live under structured societies and under a specific set of rules we
call LAW.

We don't, you do. I packed my backpack and moved to the 3rd world at 22 and
haven't ever been back because I need chaos. There is practically no law where
I am, and that was one of many reasons for abandoning your structured
societies.

>> Read Game of Thrones, you might understand that

Amazing insult. "Read a book, you idiot! A really stupid one!" Thanks for the
smile. :-)

>> So I suggest you to get out of that imaginary world of yours and live life
(I don't say change your ideas), but if you really want to blame someone -
BLAME YOURSELF, for voting for the politicians in your country and for not
being able to force them into taking your opinion and stop spying on you.

I live in the jungle, life is great here! You should try it. I never voted for
any politician. I will never blame myself for something that I didn't create.

>> Noone forced you to use google search or gmail or whatever it is that
google has included in their adSense algorythm

Agree, but on the other hand the general public is uninformed about these
matters. I consider customer unawareness to be quite a problem in general. How
can we fix it? I don't think asking those that you disagree with to change is
a good approach.

------
dscrd
Well, I suppose this is not entirely unlike applying for them and not getting
the job.

------
juggty_dev
Google Should Modify these 8 Points [http://www.thegeekyglobe.com/google-
should-modify-8-points.h...](http://www.thegeekyglobe.com/google-should-
modify-8-points.html)

------
raverbashing
I won't work for Google for a very simple reason

After you went through an unsuccessful interview with them (even if it's more
than 5 years ago), if you send them your CV again, it goes to /dev/null

Really

So, yeah, other companies are hiring... And there are good possibilities
outside of the big companies, it may even be more fun and less red tape

~~~
skj
This is untrue.

For one, I am a counterexample.

Also, I know members of hiring committees, and they tell me that if you have a
failed interview one year, and a pretty good interview the next, that is a
stronger hire signal than a pretty good interview without the previous failed
one. That is, it shows growth.

~~~
raverbashing
Hard when you don't even get an interview anymore and recruiters leave you
hanging without an answer.

Your experience doesn't match mine, I'm not saying you're being untrue, I'm
saying YMMV

~~~
skj
I'm simply pointing out that your explanation is not the correct one, since
it's not consistent with other evidence.

------
hpaavola
I think you should work for Google. They might teach you a thing or two about
how to handle traffic.

~~~
Apachez
Yeah, I suppose you (hpaavola) have one or more thing to teach Cloudflare
about how to deal with traffic (which this host is using as frontend)?

~~~
Intrepidd
Cloudflare is not having any issue, it's just used here as a proxy to help
with caching and static files. The real server hosting the application is
down.

However this comment was a bit useless.

~~~
dtech
Cached version:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fqnrq.se%2Fwhy-
i-wont-work-for-google%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fqnrq.se%2Fwhy-i-wont-work-
for-google%2F)

(Ironically by Google)

~~~
axanoeychron
This is a funny coincidence.

------
teddyh
Google first approached me in 2010. Here is the relevant part of my otherwise
short reply:

 _Google follows what I believe to be unethical business practices –
including, but not limited to, condoning censorship, invading their users’
privacy,_ [publishing] _proprietary software, and making available and
encouraging the use of network services with far too little user control of
the programs._

A little more than a year later, Kragen Javier Sitaker wrote this, which I
thought was the best explanation of why one wouldn’t want to work for Google:

[http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-
tol/2011-August/...](http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-
tol/2011-August/000938.html)

