
 Google Finds That Perks Can't Keep Some Employees From Leaving - nickb
http://www.dailytech.com/Google+Finds+That+Perks+Cant+Keep+Some+Employees+From+Leaving/article11794.htm
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tdavis
It must just be me, but if I had a job at Google I wouldn't leave it to go
work at a place like Facebook. All they have going for them is mass adoption
which doesn't mean much without a worthwhile monetization strategy which
they've yet to find.

Work for a high-flying tech company with more perks than anybody, 20% of my
time to work on whatever I want and a proven method for generating massive
income or jump ship to work at the "hottest thing" of the moment where they
need to take millions of funding each year just to keep the lights on and
expansion moving along... seems a pretty easy decision to me.

Have we _really_ gotten to the point where working at Google is considered
"soul numbing work?" Some people would be wise to gain some perspective.

~~~
menloparkbum
Hardly anyone gets to do the 20% time. Google has done a good job keeping its
engineering hiring relatively top notch, but it has not done the same with its
management hiring process. Thus there is a good chance your manager will be a
complete psycho.

~~~
bluelu
A friend also told me taht he had no time working on his 20% project, because
he was so busy doing the other stuff. And I suspect the bonus depends on the
regular work, and not on your pet project ;-).

Hell, not even the inventor of python can work on python full time. (only
50%). I expected at least him to work 50% on it, as it's so widely used inside
google. The same for people working on php.

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ambition
I think of job satisfaction as a function with weighted attributes. There's a
"perks at work" attribute, a money attribute, an attribute for how much you
like your team, how many weekly hours the work culture demands of you, how
much you like your boss, whether the work is meaningful and related to your
life goals, the opportunities to advance in the company and to grow as a
person, whether you can live in a location you like, etc. etc. Google's
problem relative to this article is that for many people, the "perks at work"
weighting isn't that high. So no matter how good Google's perks are, other
factors can dominate.

I think there might be a bit of an effect where people don't appreciate what
they don't have to pay for, too.

~~~
skmurphy
The title positions Google as a nice resort no one should want to leave. But
for most engineers (who would have pursued a different career if they were
purely money motivated) salary and perks are "hygiene factors", which can
dissatisfy if they are inadequate but can't really satisfy. See Hertzberg's
"Two Factor" theory of job satisfaction
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_factor_theory>

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wallflower
Outside the bubble of SV/Google, some of us accept free coffee (that we have
to make ourselves) in the morning as a perk

~~~
neilc
I wouldn't call that "outside the bubble of SV/Google"; I would say that is
"inside the bubble of working a crappy job". There are _many_ companies
outside SV/Google that offer far more perks than free coffee in the morning
(and there are even SV companies like Intel that don't offer even that).

~~~
ambition
Lack of perks, by itself, does not a crappy job make. It may be indicative of
other crappiness, but not certainly not definitive.

~~~
neilc
Certainly true.

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mattmaroon
Everyone keeps referring to their lunches as "haute cuisine". Maybe I missed
something the couple times I ate there, but I don't think it's fair to refer
to a buffet as that. I guess relative to the normal corporate vending machines
it's pretty awesome, but it's far from a Michelin 3 Star joint.

~~~
dcurtis
Are you kidding? How many buffets have you been to with real, decently awesome
sushi? Filet Mignon? It's a several leaps above Hometown Buffet in so many
ways...

~~~
menloparkbum
It's kind of like the whole foods buffet.

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markbao
Perks are great - but always remember that there will always be people getting
paid $200,000 a year that choose a chance making it big with a startup over a
steady salary.

~~~
Andys
And the more you pay them, the quicker they'll be able to self-bootstrap.

~~~
xirium
They've been paid obscenely well in stock options. Even if the Google stock
price falls to its initial US$85 per share, at least 2200 Googlers are going
to get US$10 million or more in vested stock options this summer (
[http://www.news.com/Life-after-Google%2C-with-
millions/2100-...](http://www.news.com/Life-after-Google%2C-with-
millions/2100-1030_3-6226900.html) ).

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KirinDave
Also, Google's engineering and hiring and payment policies are frustratingly
biased towards C++ developers. I know several top-notch web developers who
have turned down google offers because they'd be making less than other
companies would pay them, and many of those startups offer options as well.

When you find a top-notch web developer, telling them they're not worth as
much as a C++ developer (of any ability) is just crazy. They're a rare and
hotly contested breed in the valley.

~~~
menloparkbum
It is much easier to find a top notch web developer than it is to find someone
top notch who is good at C++. This is the case anywhere in Silicon Valley
where C++ programmers who actually know what they are doing are needed.
VMWare, for instance, pays like $160,000 starting salary to C++ wizards.

~~~
KirinDave
> It is much easier to find a top notch web developer than it is to find
> someone top notch who is good at C++.

I disagree with this. Top notch people in web development are extremely rare.
You can find a lot of mediocre people, or motivated people, but finding people
both motivated and talented is hard.

It's also unfortunate that Google limits itself to C++, but that's a whole
different story.

~~~
blogimus
I agree that it is harder to find top notch people than mediocre, that just
seems natural, following the talent bell curve(most in the middle level of
ability, some very poor, some excel) but how does Google limits itself to C++?
I read a lot of noise on Google using Python:
<http://www.python.org/about/quotes/> (and this is just a starting point of
the info on Google using Python)

~~~
hello_moto
They're not limiting themselves to C++. But, view it from a different
perspective:

1) C++ is a superset of C (to some extend, this isn't 100% true, but most
concepts in C are applicable to C++)

2) If you know C++, it is a little bit easier to grok Java

3) I heard most of their back-end stuffs are written in C++

I also read news about Google being a huge Python company. But to be honest, I
haven't heard a product that they shipped that is written in Python.

Python is big internally where they need tools to support their development.

PS:

\- GAE library does not count as their product

\- Exclude YouTube because they chose Python on their own

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jmzachary
Maybe it's just me, but I don't know if I could get serious work done at that
Zurich office. I think it would feel more like working at FAO Schwartz.

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Mystalic
Facebook's perks are better. I've seen both. Still dreaming about that damn
candy and drink station.

~~~
aston
That candy and soda count as a perk indicates the demographic Facebook is
trying to woo to work there.

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LPTS
It must be a fine line to walk between finding hyper-intelligent people,
meeting their intense need for self actualization, and mostly employing them
in the soul numbing work of selling ads.

~~~
gojomo
This criticism -- that genius is being wasted on "soul numbing" ad work --
strikes me as an inaccurate cheap shot.

First, because most of the brain power at Google isn't devoted to the ad
systems, but to the services that attract an audience. Don't you think their
most "hyper-intelligent people" are engaged in the constant and noble battle
to continue improving search, for an ever-changing internet and against the
efforts of many unscrupulous manipulators?

Second, because even creating better ad systems is a valuable and
intellectually challenging activity. Directly, because matching people to info
about things they may want is crucial to our economy, and online systems can
do it better than ever before. Indirectly, because ad revenues make so much of
the rest of the internet possible. Ad work is no more "soul numbing" than any
other commercial work to "make something people want".

~~~
Tichy
"constant and noble battle"

Oh come on, give me a break. Google is a commercial company. They are in it
for the money, like everybody else.

~~~
gojomo
Google looks at the web and tries to make money. A phisher or scammer looks at
the web and tries to make money. Does that make them equivalent?

You can be motivated by money but still be engaged in a noble pursuit.

Newspapers are published by for-profit companies in a constant and noble
battle to report the truth, even though many other entities work hard to get
falsehoods reported.

Pharmaceuticals are developed by for-profit companies in a constant and noble
battle against disease.

The point of my grandparent comment is that the brainpower Google uses for its
core service -- improving search -- is engaged in an honorable, beneficial
activity. It's a hard problem, they're working against other profit-motivated
malicious actors, and we all get a throwoff benefit from Google's work, even
if we never click an ad.

That the activity also makes them money, or even was primarily motivated by
making money, doesn't change that.

~~~
Tichy
Your examples only prove the point: newspapers in a noble battle for the
truth? Pharmaceutical companies in a noble battle against disease? No offence,
but I think you need some reality checks. Not saying that newspapers don't hit
upon the truth occasionally, or that pharmaceuticals don't cure the odd
disease. But to quote a physician I once talked to: "I wouldn't be surprised
if the cure against HIV is already lying in some drawer and not being
published, because it has no benefits for the pharmaceutical companies". Or
try reading an actual newspaper (not Hacker News) for a couple of days, then
reconsider your opinion. It's very obvious that all they care about is making
money, and perhaps they get the odd ego boost out of manipulating public
opinion to their whims.

I didn't mean this as a hardcore left wing or whatever paranoid comment (at
least I don't consider myself any of those things). Maybe it is just because I
am a foreign speaker that "noble" simply doesn't sound right to me. Noble is
more than just beneficial in my book, I guess it also involves making
sacrifices and stuff.

Again I want to stress that I have nothing whatsoever against people reaping
benefits of their work. I just took issue with the label "noble", that's all.

Edit: if you could point me to a newspaper that is really fighting a noble
battle for the truth, I would be delighted to hear about it. I might actually
start reading it.

~~~
gojomo
I thought it might be a word-choice and cultural issue; I suspect in Europe
'noble' has different connotations because there are actual aristocracy doing
things, occasionally altruistically. (Americans mainly think of aristocracy as
a source of camp entertainment.) I meant 'noble' as 'deservedly outstanding;
moral; admirable; honorable; generous'.

The journalists working for profit-making papers I have met do believe their
work a noble calling, even when they feel cynical or compromised by the
economic realities of their market. Though each has internalized biases one
should be aware of, the NYTimes and WSJ are both great papers whose staff is
usually fighting hard to arrive at the truth.

~~~
Tichy
I think individual journalists are doing a good job and might have the right
motivation, I just have never seen the actual newspapers to operate on that
basis.

