Letters to the Editor
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that's pretty accurate
I haven't worked there at length but I've visited a couple times.
I think the poster didn't make quite as big a deal out of how the "non-hierarchical" structure actually works as they could have, but that's probably pretty NDA land. I was actually very impressed that Google has kind of made a dot-com micro-world, where you try to recruit people to the projects you think are good, and if you convince enough people it's a project.
But I agree about the offices (although I assume eXtreme programming style they have some offices available for use if you need really them), I was unimpressed by the cubicle arrangement -- you kind of share a big circular cubicle with a bunch of people who could be doing any kind of work. And I've seen a lot of people, especially women, who are unhappy with the passive-aggressiveness involved in having meritocracy allegedly combined with "flat hierarchies".
Still, so far, Google has done a lot less evil crap to our industry than Microsoft has, so I'd be a lot happier to work for them. Companies need to know their corporate ethics have consequences, and citizens / employees have to make that true. Microsoft *only* takes care of their own.
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The blog forgot one extremely important benefit
Google expects their employees to spend 20% of their time on their own pet project. You don't have to have a business reason for it, you just work on it.
The other benefit at Google is your fellow employees. Google has people in the top of their field who not only worked in the various programming languages and applications that abound on the Internet, but actually have managed those programs and written books about them.
In most of the tools I work with, I am "the expert". If I have a question, I have to search the Internet or find a user group and hope to find someone with more experience. At Google, I could simply turn to the person next to me and ask.
That's the big advantage of Google. It isn't the free food, the games, the health club, or any other bling they have at the Googleplex. It's their devotion to letting their users become better and more knowledgeable.
Microsoft's biggest problem is that it is a closed shop: Microsoft only. The world might play around with Apache, PHP, Subversion, and MySql, but at Microsoft, it is strictly, IIS, VisualBasic, TeamFoundation, and MS-SQL Server. Microsoft wouldn't let you choose for your desktop PC whether you wanted a Windows box, a Mac OS X box, or a Unix box of your choice (Linux, BSD, etc.), but Google does.
I doubt that Microsoft could become like Google just because of the difference in the way they work. Google encourages their employees to become knowledgeable in as many areas as possible while Microsoft basically has the attitude that if we didn't invent it, it is not worth knowing.
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...and Salon sinks a little lower...
You're now passing off unverified, gossipy e-mails as journalism? Everytime I think that Salon can't possibly keep getting worse, y'all find a way to surprise me.
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Work/Life Balance
Google was like all the other startups, only they had money and were lucky. I've bounced around the periphery of their crew for years and years. For the first few years, they seemed to work people 24/7 with a promise of big riches, like everyone else. They were very, very lucky. Lots of those folks did get money. One thing I found disturbing was that, as time went on, the option packages got smaller and the prices got higher. I did some math and calculated someone had to work 24/7 for 5 years to get about 100K. That didn't seem worth it. Another was that a lot of people got chewed up and spit out, like Brian Reid.
I went in to talk to them just before they went public and heard about all of these concierge services and free meals. They also said "no telecommuting" from my home an hour away. I won't talk about how they ran the place or their projects because I may have signed an NDA. So, I only brush on the culture, not the projects. I did not get in and was, quite frankly, relieved. In retrospect, I may have gotten about 60-80K from those options after the requisite years (making guesses on what I heard the offers were at the time.) My own time is worth more than that.
Now, they've wised up and have started offering jobs to people over 40. I get the impression the culture's changed for the better in some ways, but I still think it is way too homogenous and self-congratulatory. I cannot think of the Groucho Marx quote about clubs that would have him as a member, but you get the idea.
I'm very happy to be working in a company that is so diverse as to have people ranging from their late teens to their mid-70s and are very diverse in their outlook on life. I also have a normal work schedule (unless there's a big release), which allows me to do volunteer work to benefit my community.
I view free meals as one of nature's warning signs when it comes to employers. They're compensating for something.
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I suppose that's largely true of anywhere
Sometimes its formalized like in Google sometimes it's not. BTW I have free subsidized broadband and phone & I work for an old line tech company. One who's name never comes up when you talk about peppy 20-somethings all babbling at each other at light speed.
Also it simply does come down to youth. Sheer energy and a lack of other commitments that would keep you from work. I'm 48. I can work crazy hours but not for you and not on maybe. I want equity I want a share. I have options from companies you could wrap fish with as they are worthless and the strike price is north of 'Not Ever in Your Lifetime'. Young people you can sell on a maybe. Not me. If the CEO is getting a 767 then I want something more substantial than an option. I want a grant.
But it really speaks to what the company is moving toward. Google is still on an upward path. Microsoft is not. MS is a husk running on cruise control not really innovating or creating anything. It's leveraging it's position, its monopoly and its size. Vista was by their own admission 5 years late and underlivered about 50%. Redmond looks to manage its way through every problem and cut costs where it can't. Like most companies. Google has the luxury of making brilliant mistakes and educated failures. One innovates because that's where the best advantage lies. The other does not because it has so much cash it can buy a company that already risked everything.
So if you're mid career or late mid career you find a place in either firm. It depends on what you want out of it and whether you're willing to push your way in. And before any of you under 30's start snapping about how hard you work? Yeah we live out of suitcases travel every day and work as many hours as you do. But we have to do it dressed like a human being with a nominal complement of social skills sufficient to communicate with an executive.