
Ex-Googler: 'Tons of Engineers' Want to Leave Google - ethana
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ex-googler-tons-engineers-want-160246466.html
======
barik
The article is a bit too fluffy for my taste, but in observing my own online
behavior, I think that this part is key:

> People are searching for products on Amazon, rather than using Google.

My own habits suggest that I have a "looking for something to buy mode" and
"looking for information mode". When I want to buy something, I go straight to
Amazon (and sometimes New Egg). When I want to look for information, I use
Google. These two modes don't seem to intersect very frequently, if at all.

~~~
raldi
The top keywords, by the price Google charges to advertise on, are: insurance,
loans, mortgage, attorney, credit, lawyer, donate, degree, hosting, claim,
conference call, trading, software, recovery, transfer, electricity, classes,
rehab, treatment, and cord blood.

None of those are the sort of term you type into Amazon.

~~~
727374
Those are bigger ticket items with bigger margins than, say, a pair of
sneakers so it makes sense for the market to command a higher price for those
ads. Would be better to see total amount spent on ads for different
categories, trended over the last 10 years.

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zippergz
People were leaving right after bonuses years ago. Think about it. First, it's
a huge company, so there are going to be a decent number of people who want to
leave at any given time. And unless you're utterly miserable, it's pretty
foolish to leave right before you get a big bonus. Just wait it out and then
go. It's possible there's an uptick lately, but this is far from a new
phenomenon.

~~~
delecti
Working at Amazon, I can say that there's always a suspicious uptick in ex-
Microsoft hires in late-summmer/early-fall, just after Microsoft gives out
their bonuses.

I think you're absolutely right to attribute that to just being a normal
cyclical thing. I know that whenever I get wanderlust I look to my RSU vesting
schedule.

~~~
philsnow
Many companies, when you say "gee, I'd love to start two weeks from now, but
my next batch of RSUs doesn't vest / bonus doesn't come until two months from
now.", will cover what you're losing out on (or will meet you halfway) with a
hiring bonus or something like it.

Don't let a little vesting keep you from grabbing an opportunity. Two-months-
from-now you will probably look at that next chunk of vesting RSUs the same
way Right-Now you is looking at the upcoming one. Meanwhile, things are moving
really fast at small companies and Two-months-from-now you missed a couple
months of it.

------
sidcool
The article to me seems much like the one I read back in 2012, when people
were predicting Google's gradual downfall. It's important to note that Google
will lose people and so will other companies. Talent will migrate out and come
in. The article seemed too biased to me. Google's search share might be
shrinking, but they have too many strong businesses.

In short, there's nothing new in the article, the same has been said before
about Google and many other firms.

~~~
frostmatthew
> Google's search share might be shrinking, but they have too many strong
> businesses.

90% of their revenue[1] comes from advertising (and 75% of that from ads
displayed on their own properties) - I'd consider that _one_ strong business
(selling ads), not "many" (selling ads on search, selling ads in gmail, etc.)

[1]
[https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html](https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html)

~~~
nostrademons
Do you consider the major media networks (NBCUniversal, CBS, News Corp) to be
in one business - selling ads - or do you consider them to be in many (selling
ads on TV, selling ads on websites, selling ads on Internet Video, selling ads
on Hulu, selling ads in magazines)?

~~~
frostmatthew
NBCUniversal makes money through making movies, amusement parks, and selling
ads. CBS Corporation is mostly ads, but they're owned by National Amusements
so it's really films + ads. News Corp owns HarperCollins (and books seem to be
the one thing companies have never decided to stick ads in) so books + ads for
them.

But to answer your real question, yes I consider all of their "ad businesses"
as one business (selling ads). Perhaps I could be convinced that selling ads
in magazines is a completely different business than selling ads on TV - but I
think it's quite a reach to suggest selling ads on search is completely
different than selling ads in gmail.

------
zak_mc_kracken
An engineer is certainly not a good person to make such claims. A director or
an executive, yes.

Regardless, what I've observed is that a lot of Googlers interview around, get
an offer from a company and then they use that as leverage to get pay raises
at Google because promotions are extremely competitive and scarce.

And it works great.

~~~
jfoutz
Well, it's a little sketchy. It's never clear from an employer's point of view
_why_ someone is looking around. People look around for other jobs for lots of
reasons.

If they're not satisfied at work due to reasons other than money such as lack
of autonomy or boring projects and their employer offers them more money then
they'll stick around without solving the underlying issue. It's very hard for
an employer to distinguish which case an employee falls under. Does this
person just want more money or do they hate their job?

When the time for promotions or layoffs rolls around, this kind of stuff is a
factor. Maybe not on purpose, heck, maybe not at google. But for two identical
candidates - except for this one trick for a raise, people are going to tend
to pick the loyal one for promotion.

Loyalty doesn't count for anything in the modern workforce except it does. It
factors into people's decision making in spite of their best intentions,
because it's part of biological wiring.

It's unfortunate that poeple can't get raises without leverage. Using leverage
brings all these other factors in to play.

~~~
gaius
There is another bit of biological wiring that skews your analysis - proof of
value. Two employees, A is loyal, B has a competing offer? Well loyalty is
good but I'll wager that most managers would assume that B's competing offer
means they are "better" and give B both the promotion and the raise, while A
gets to go on being loyal (or in management-speak, a sucker) for another year.

Same reason it is easier to get a job if you already have a job.

------
demarq
I can't help but feel there is something fishy about the article. It didn't
feel like a genuine write up.

It doesn't help that it's appearing on Yahoo Finance and being written by
Marrisa Mayers' autobiographer.

------
masida
This article should've been named: "Yahoo!'s attempt! at! Fear! Uncertainty!
and! Doubt! against! Google!"

------
klunger
I doubt they would start charging developers to publish to their app store.
This seems completely out of line with the rest of their Android strategy. I
wonder why the VC said it?

~~~
SyneRyder
Google already do charge, don't they? From memory there was a one-off $25 fee
to sign up to sell on the Play Store.

But even if they did, it wouldn't contribute significantly to the company's
revenue - not sure how many developers Google has, but Apple has 380,000
registered developers[1], and even if they all pay $99/yr, that's 'only' $38
Million. Against Google's approx $60 Billion revenue[2], that doesn't move the
needle at all.

[1] [https://www.apple.com/about/job-
creation/](https://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/)

[2]
[https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html](https://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html)

~~~
derf_
I don't think they mean an annual subscription. I assume they mean taking a
larger share of the purchase price of apps, in-app purchases, and maybe even
ad revenue. In the 12 months prior to June, developers earned $5bln for these
things (Apple paid out north of $7.5bln in the same period) [1].

Google used to give developers 70% of app purchase revenue, give carriers 25%,
and keep only 5% for themselves. A year or so ago they moved to keeping almost
all of the non-developer pie. That pie is closer to $2bln than $38mln. But if
they're going to take more, the only place left to take it from is developers.
I can't believe that's going to go over well for them, but I already can't
believe carriers rolled over so easily despite giving Google things it really
needed, like carrier billing for app purchases.

[1] [http://www.beyonddevic.es/2014/06/25/what-we-learned-
about-g...](http://www.beyonddevic.es/2014/06/25/what-we-learned-about-
googles-app-revenue/)

------
fredgrott
There are some fluffy problems with the article..

If you look back at cofounder and CEO comments before the release of iphone
1.0 and android 1.0 you will find that not only Did Google Know of the
decrease in ads per mobile but that they did plan to offset that via the
mobile app store and other efforts..

If you compare the mobile app store revenue to any decrease in ad revenue you
get a very different pciture than the article portrays

------
fidotron
I could be genuinely concerned about the future of Google at this point. A
trivial comparison would be to the position of Microsoft in the 90s, but it
doesn't quite hold up for the very simple reason Microsoft diversified their
revenue streams, crucially into business back office processes, wildly
successfully.

Google's search dominance really is "all they have", and while it is something
others would practically murder for it is now under assault from many angles
such as Siri, Cortana, and most viciously Amazon and Facebook. Heaven forbid
Apple really do launch a search engine because then it will be trouble. There
is simply no way Google will be able to monetise Android devs more because iOS
still has the lion's share of the valuable customers.

More and more people are realising that the PR does not match reality (both
potential talent pool and end users), and this is eroding the Fluffy Google
Halo very fast. Since Page became CEO it feels like even the pretense of it
being some sort of happy-go-lucky hackathon that occasionally produces a
wonder business has disappeared, and let's face it, that image is precisely
why they managed to slurp up so much talent in the first place. Once such
people get enough money to feel secure then yes, they are going to jump.

~~~
__Joker
"Heaven forbid Apple do launch a search engine.." . No they wont and Siri is
your search engine for future.

------
davedx
> Specifically, this VC predicted that Google would soon begin charging [...]
> developers more (or, as much as Apple) for selling apps through the Google
> app store.

He seriously believes Google would do this, after the Play Store is already
completely flooded and discovery is still extremely lacking compared to
desktop search? I don't believe it.

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sjg007
Does anybody know if there is a way to force Amazon to only show Prime
products by default? Sometimes the cheapest is less than the prime price but
the free shipping is like 2 weeks vs 2 days.

I know that I can click "Show prime only" after I've done the search, but for
people like my wife, they typically just click the first cheap listing and see
it is says free shipping. But then the order takes 2 weeks instead of 2 days
to arrive.

Having to sift through all the listings is annoying.

------
programminggeek
The idea that people are doing product searches elsewhere should be deeply
troubling for Google. Product keyword ads are arguably the most valuable
keyword searches. Any "buying keyword" is the most valuable. It's a huge deal.

------
aappleby
I don't.

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_almosnow
Why don't they leave then?

Dignity is dead...

~~~
nkohari
Did you read the article? Bonuses that they only receive if they stay for a
certain period of time.

~~~
_almosnow
... and?

~~~
mod
And money is important to them?

~~~
_almosnow
And you know what dignity is?

~~~
saraid216
I think you just burned what little you had left here.

