I'm a former Cisco Systems employee. Since they started laying people off, from what I understand, this complicates green card application issues, so employees there, while not at risk of getting laid off, have their residency status put into jeopardy.
So, they need to go somewhere they can get the clock started again.
Also, there's a sentiment that places like the big tech giants have had their day and there's no bright future days ahead.
Something that wasn't really covered here but I think might be important is culture. If we were to jump back 6 or 8 years ago, most of us would want to work for google because of their whole "not being evil" schtick, as well as the amazing campus and all the money. But with every little thing that happens, when you realise that Google (like a lot of companies, granted) is in it for the money, one might become a bit less excited.
I think a decent amount of good software engineers has a fairly strong ethical code, and would rather not make deals with the devil. Some companies (Google was one of them) seemed to make their deal about making the best services in the long term, and not about making things about money.
I remember watching a talk about the history of OpenSolaris. Including the absolutely mythical phrase "Don't make the mistake of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison."(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc#t=2298)
But after that comment he goes into the very sad details of how OpenSolaris ended up becoming closed source by Oracle. After this , many many very competent engineers left Oracle almost immediately(within 90 days). The talk is worth listening to (it's about 3 minutes after the Ellison jab), and the guy giving the talk gets extremely emotional about it. The power of the social contract with the OSS community was extremely strong.
No matter how much money you can give, a lot of people end up following ethical and moral rules. I'd think Corporate culture is about 75% of software engineer's decision of where to work.
As usual the media is about 3-4 years late in reporting. Startups have been the primary draw from Google since at least 2010, and the trend seems to be waning now. At the time the media was reporting that all Googlers were leaving for Facebook, which presumably is where they were all going in 2007. Among folks I know, the biggest exodus toward Dropbox was in late 2011 and early 2012.
While an interesting observation, and good to be backed up with fact/analysis, it's not particularly surprising - as companies grow and mature, their character changes and attract a different sort of employee. Gone, perhaps, are the younger, more risk-taking employees and in come the older, more risk-averse employees.
I doubt that "start-up culture" is what is required - I'm sure that the variety of work that comes with a smaller number of employees is a huge factor. Maybe they employ too many workers, or perhaps there isn't the ability to cross teams/functions.
What would be more interesting would be if those "tech giants" dropped in average talent as a result (though good luck in measuring that!) or even in total employee terms.
In a stagnant company which is laying off people, probability that you will be laid off increases with seniority (and your salary). And decision to be laid off is completely outside your control: the entire project can be just closed. So if you are less risk-averse you better move to growing company from stagnant one.
But I would love to see some facts numbers behind this.
Why correlate age to risk taking? And in this context, what is the risk of going to a twitter/Dropbox/box, which all have major funding and major revenue streams?
Dropbox may have been a startup 5 years ago, but it seems like just a tech company to me nowadays. One that may stay independent, might sell to someone else later, who knows, but not really a "startup".
Twitter was never a small start up. It saw a pattern and invested millions in following and overtaking. The internet would be a better place without it.
I don't understand how the internet would be a better place without Twitter, please explain. I don't see them doing any harm. And if they are doing harm, could you please tell me what harm they are causing?
The Post you're replying to would arguably be more impactful if it were short enough for a tweet- as it is, the point is restated two or three times. The first sentence is certainly enough to convey the message (and its subtext).
There are nuances in the other two sentences not conveyed in the first - "better without X" is not the same as "X is not doing harm". The way it's currently phrased is a better, more rounded request, giving the respondee a better anchor to work from.
You've actually highlighted how some nuance and context is lost by cutting things down to a 'soundbite'.
Side note, my company had to drop jobvite recently because they are actually terrible. Their job search interface is just as hard to use as taleo or brassring with a slightly nicer stylesheet.
There's a wonderful book that an HN'er recommended a while back on a thread similar to this one called "Exit, Voice, and Loyalty" which is in essence precisely about this: what makes members of an organization (be it a company, country, or other) leave or stay.
That over-localizes the issue. IBM only downsizes in the USA, but for every American they fire, they hire about three from India and two from China. Obviously those numbers vary from quarter to quarter. From what I've heard, ditto Intel.
They're pulling out of the US while expanding dramatically overseas. Rats abandoning a sinking ship or whatever.
I'm a former Cisco Systems employee. Since they started laying people off, from what I understand, this complicates green card application issues, so employees there, while not at risk of getting laid off, have their residency status put into jeopardy.
So, they need to go somewhere they can get the clock started again.
Also, there's a sentiment that places like the big tech giants have had their day and there's no bright future days ahead.