
Just Say No To Google: Internal Microsoft Email - jkush
http://no2google.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/life-at-google-the-microsoftie-perspective/
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mark_h
The "google doesn't offer a career path" point didn't necessarily sound as bad
as they were probably assuming: given the choice between moving in to
management if you're good at coding, or being paid more to do what you
presumably enjoy, I know a lot of people who would prefer the latter.

Not a cut-and-dried issue I know, but I suspect it betrays a certain set of
assumptions if not a mentality.

~~~
Goladus
I understood "google doesn't offer a career path" to mean that there's no
structure in place to help you advance to more valuable positions, not
necessarily from coder to management. "Developer to Technical Architect" is
one example given.

The problem with the traditional corporate structure isn't that advancement is
bad, it's that there's often a mistaken assumption that the only thing more
valuable than an individual contributor is a manager of individual
contributors.

In the end I think this one is a wash. It's hard to see how you could do it
both ways, and there are advantages to each. Google's ad hoc style seems to
allow freedom to grow in whatever direction you want, and Google will decide
later on if it's worth a promotion (to SDE II etc). The author seems to
envision a system where the company has specific needs, and will support an
employee with training and mentoring until he fits those needs.

------
eposts
Say NO to Google. Say NO to Microsoft. Say YES to your startup.

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patrickg-zill
Astroturf? Only real post on a freshly minted blog. No information to
substantiate who this person is.

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chaostheory
It reads more like a balanced review to me. jkush did you actually read all of
it?

~~~
byrneseyeview
I think he lifted the title from the blog itself.

~~~
chaostheory
my bad

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dood
The rest of the story has emerged, from the guy who wrote the email (and
notably didn't publish it himself). From <http://www.phatbits.com/?p=3>

" The responses are my personal impressions, communicated to my Microsoft
recruiter in the context of a private 1:1 conversation. A few days after I
sent my response to the recruiter, I saw an anonymized version floating around
and being discussed inside Microsoft. I hadn't realized at the time that I
wrote it that it would be distributed widely within Microsoft so that was a
bit of a shock. "

------
byrneseyeview
See also: <http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/googlife>

~~~
Goladus
I like this reply:

 _I don't know what I should and shouldn't say because of the NDA, but it's
probably okay to say I'm married to a Googler. He hasn't been there too long,
but the only problem we've had so far is that he never seems to want to come
home!

Seriously, though, I've seen a lot of articles that might be labeled "sour
grapes" about Google lately. (Not to imply that yours is one of them - you
made an effort to support your conclusions and it does sound as though you
know some unhappy people, which is unfortunate.) The thing is, I've seen my
husband go through jobs at other corporations. I've waited up for him on the
nights when he was forced to work overtime on a doomed project. I've been
there for him while he struggled under the tyranny of dangerously ignorant
management. I've seen him waste weeks of his time because of thoughtless and
fruitless penny-pinching. He started out so bright, so full of energy and zest
for what he does, and over time I watched that energy and passion wilt under
buzzing florescent lights in suffocating cubicles.

Corporate life in general is terribly depressing. I personally hate it and
work independently. I love what I do and at least this way no one can take my
enthusiasm away from me.

But that's exactly why I think what Google is doing is terribly important.
More companies need to be that way. They need to be families who treat their
employees like children - they take care of them. They reward them for their
hard work. They encourage them to be creative, because they know (and you
know, too) that it only takes one good idea to make a million dollars. Or a
billion. Or an empire.

I'll say this: my husband has never been happier. For that, I'm exceedingly
grateful to Google. They've given him something that he deserves, that
everyone deserves. I wish it were more widely available. I wish we all could
be free to be children, to feel like it's okay to laugh, to look forward to
waking up, to nurture the bright and crazy ideas that wander through your
head. That really doesn't sound like a bad world to me._

