inetsee writes with an article in the San Francisco Chronicle profiling seven early Googlers who have left the company, part of a cohort the article claims amounts to 100 out of the first 300 workers hired by Google. For these former employees, all the acclaimed perks of life at the Googleplex can't compete with calling the shots in their own lives. Google's chef is opening his own restaurant, Olana Khan has started a non-profit that makes micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries, and Aydin Senkut has become an angel investor. Others are simply enjoying retirement, making things in the garage shop or skydiving in South Africa.
Ask Slashdot: Does Google Make You Drool? An anonymous fanboy writes, "Why does POP mail still exist? Why do people still talk about Flickr and GARMIN maps? Should the Linux kernel be rewritten on a micro-google architecture? Nintendo was just copying Google when they came up with the idea of the Wiiiiiiimote. Elvis isn't dead, he's just not attending shareholder meetings anymore. The SEC and DOJ are investigating all the back-dating scandals using a secret new Google API."
How is this news? You must be new here. All you have to do is submit a story, ANY story, that mentions Google and the Slashdot editors start salivating....
Yes, BUT, way before the.com boom and bust and the web 2.0, a common tech dream was to join a groundbreaking company in its infancy. These technology companies were well funded by venture capital, but usually in the beginning still gave developers, programmers, and any EARLY employee huge stock grants, thousands of shares for prices like.50 each. This is h
This just in - the same seems to be true of successful retired employees of McDonalds, Saks 5th Avenue, K-Mart, the Long Island Railroad, AT&T, Mel's Diner, NASA, Frito-Lay, Ford, Mad Magazine, Slappy's Bait Shop, Paramount Pictures, Goya, the NSA, and Roy's Gerbil Grooming.
Valid responses are along the lines of "oh noes!! Google is dying, eleventyone!!! They are so kewl!!!" or "Har har! Serve them right for being evil! What goes around comes around."
If you made multi-million dollars in a start up tech company would you: 1. Leave to pursue your interests. 2. Continue to work at the company until retiremennt. 3. Burn the money in a huge trash barrel and join a Buddist monestary. 4. Hire private detectives to stalk CowboyNeal?
That blur you would see would be me leaving the building. There are few jobs worth actually staying at if you have the wealth to pursue your own course.
Hell, I could just sit around all day and post on slashdot. Oh, right.
While your attitude is quite common in the tech circles, I have yet to observe it in people who have managed to make repeated high achievements. Nearly all consistent high achievers do not red-shift the moment they can, they move away quietly after a time to do different things and usually succeed again in the new thing they do. So based on your attitude you are least likely to manage this even once. In fact I doubt the "even once". All I can say - good luck and all the best as you are least likely to say "
Well, duh. People who cash out at the first opportunity don't try again, so of course they don't replicate their success. You have to play again to win again!
I think I'll start a new web page entitled "please give me a million so I can set fire to it", each doner will get a little bit of the ash. It's sure to work!
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday January 11 2007, @09:24AM (#17555932)
If you are young, healthy, single, and debt-free, you dont need to be a millionaire to pursue your dream. Ramen noodles, a backpack, and a good attitude is all you need. I don't understand why people think they need to "pay their dues" before doing what they really want to do in life.
You live only once. You are young only once. So, you should do whatever it is you really want to do.
This, of course, is why it is so important to live frugaly and avoid debt -- it can rob you of your freedom. There's nothing worse than some student debt with a side dish of some credit cards, a long-term cell phone contract, and a car lease.
If you are young, healthy, single, and debt-free, you dont need to be a millionaire to pursue your dream. Ramen noodles, a backpack, and a good attitude is all you need. I don't understand why people think they need to "pay their dues" before doing what they really want to do in life.
Because if you don't, you can easily find yourself with your dream fulfilled - but years behind where you need to be in able to get a job, let alone fund your retirement. Fulfilled dreams don't put a roof over your head or fo
I've done about 10 interviews with them, they went OK (although they don't really seem to know what they are doing in their hiring process...) but after the "on-site" interviews 2 months ago they simply forgot to get back to me with feedback. I imagine this happens with a lot of people, they spend several months being interviewed with google and getting this sucky treatment. Google deals with the hiring process as an investment, and as it seems, so do the job applicants. Part of the people that get actually hired will spend some time in the company and get away for a "promotion" in another company just because they've worked for Google, partially motivated by the way the company dealt with them since the beginning.
they simply forgot to get back to me with feedback.
Forgot? As in, conveniently forgot?
Google can afford to treat people this way when they don't want to hire them because even if they tell bad stories lots of other people will still want to work for them.
When in school, I attended an Accenture (Andersen Consulting at that time) hiring event in which I was told that I could be VP in 5 years just because almost everyone just quit within the first 3 years (with some money and a breakdown). The funny thing is that they managed to tell this almost as something positive.
Me too. I thank the Lord that Andersen Consulting rejected me - several years later I met a couple of the guys that did get in and they were both depressed and on the verge of leaving. Some of their friends at the company had even had breakdowns.
I've seen the bumperstickers saying "The Worst Day Fishing is Better than the Best Day Working". That kind of sums it up. Even if it's the best place in the world to work, if you don't have to work and can be doing something else, there's a lot of fun things out there.
There are lots of people out there who "love their jobs", but in reality it's only relative. They love their jobs, when compared to other jobs. If you don't have to work, there are lots of other things to do out there.
if you are single with no family and want to work all your life and spend most of what you earn on outrageous housing costs, higher taxes, and urban sprawl then google is the place for you. Just like most of northern cali/simi valley/san fran the culture is also secluded and anti-social. how many couples walking on the sidewalks do you see? or people walking their dogs? heaven forbid i get a flat tire or run out of gas. i'll be walking to the gas station on my own.
if you have a family and they are first in your life above anything else(including work), want to save and not throw money away on outrageous housing costs and want privacy without having to drive one hour one way to work then google is not the place for you even if you could get a job there.
more people are figuring out that they dont want to work 50 or 60 hours a week because they want to do other things, stay healthy and just have a life outside of work. most people dont want to work where they feel like they live in China and Japan, where workers typically work 70 hour weeks, but of course their country works and thats all it does, yet where is the reward? It's hard to enjoy rewards in life that you earn if you are too busy working. Our culture has turned into the mindset slowly and on a different scale of china. that to be successful we have to work all the time and nothing else comes before it, including family. I am not sure where or when this trend started.
there is a reason why we have weekends and a reason why most people dont work more than 40 hours a week. its to take a breather from work so we can refresh. its also a reason that people have burnout and productivity decreases. In google's case there are enough people that want to work for them that have the mindset that google is their life and that is why google provides things like laundromats, bringing your pets to work, 3 gourmet meals and swimming pools. if people just wanted to go home for lunch and promptly go home after 5 or 6 pm then what would the need be to offer all these ameneties? think about that one for a moment.
I know that they have offices in NYC and Seattle as well as sporatic jobs here and there but NYC and Seattle is the same as Simi Valley/Mountain View -- that is heavy traffic, no privacy(unless you want to drive 1 hour one way to work), up to the sky housing costs and taxes and living in a culture where everyone wants to work their whole life and thus they think their employees should have the same attitude. Trying to not to sound too stereotypical i am sure there are other smaller places in these areas that at least offer stable working conditions.
In Seattle's case i dont know how in the world all these tech companies keep people in that area. Traffic is still heavy but most of all for me i just cant bear the thought of at most 3 months of sunshine and cold rainy winters. I was there in november 2 years ago and the sun did come out 2 days out of the week(the rest of the week it was raining) but you still couldnt see the sun because it was so overcast. Maybe theres a reason why it's the #1 suicidal city in the country.
if you have a family and they are first in your life above anything else(including work), want to save and not throw money away on outrageous housing costs and want privacy without having to drive one hour one way to work then google is not the place for you even if you could get a job there.
My wife's cousin and her husband from California came to our wedding in September of 2005. In November of 2005 they moved here to get away from California's housing market, traffic, and to give themselves a better chan
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday January 11 2007, @10:45AM (#17556960)
That's funny, I work for Google and work exactly 40-hour weeks. Not all of those 40 hours are spent working, either. My manager doesn't expect any more out of me. I have quite a good life and walk my dog all the time.
Try not to generalize so much. You simply make a fool of yourself.
Your rant really boils down to a simple question - and that is the age-old question that has worried humans since they changed over from hunter-gatherers (who "work" about 13-hrs a week to survive) to agrarian, and later to industrial and post-industrial (which are really just facets of the same asset-accumulation that began in agrarian societies):
Work to live?
Or Live to work?
Personally, I'm glad I don't live full-time in an animal skin tent with a life-expectancy of 30.
But you gotta draw the line somewhere. Unfortunately, everybody's got a different idea of where that line should be. Some people have no idea where their line should be. Some people are perfectly happy living to work, and working 70hr weeks as a result. It's not my place to criticise such people, but only as long as they don't criticise my line of 40hrs.
Google gives engineers amenities like laundry and dental and meals primarily because it frees the engineer from having to worry about dry cleaning or letting the dog out. Instead of "Gosh, I have to run this errand and that errand today", they can occupy themselves with doing cool stuff. We don't have to worry about getting to the barber on time, because they're right downstairs. I need something dry cleaned, I drop it off, and then it gets delivered to my cube. I don't have to think about any of that n
Leave Google behind? I don't think so. Google will always find you. Google knows everything. Does this make Google God. Maybe the ancients screwed up the spelling?
The real story isn't that 1/3 of the first 300 employees left Google... Its the fact that 2/3 of them STAYED even after having the wealth to do whatever they want. That is a pretty strong endorsement for Google that they can keep people working and happy, even when the people don't NEED the job!
Don't forget the other 600,000 starving programmers working in startups exactly like Google but who are never going to get the financial jackpot. It's so rare to hit the jackpot, you can't take it seriously.
What, all 100 of them are millionaires and set for life? I doubt that.
I hope you are being sarcastic. If you aren't, you obviously have no understanding of the financial markets. In that case, I have a friend in Nigeria that I'd like for you to meet.
Maybe the advertising collapse happened because one company owns the entire market? And they own the entire market by giving away so much stuff for free? I'm just pondering here notseriously implying anything, but that sounds similiar to something MS did with OS's and media players/browsers etc. I'm sure someone will come along and tell me why I'm wrong which is fine.
Maybe the advertising collapse happened because one company owns the entire market?
Yea, Google is the new Übersoft [ubersoft.net]..;)
"I'm just pondering here not seriously implying anything, but that sounds similiar to something MS did with OS's and media players/browsers etc"
Considering people have a choice as to what search engine to use and Google don't have a desktop monopoly I don't think it is at all similar. No doubt once Microsoft embed search directly in the apps that anomaly will soon be corre
You're not wrong exactly, but there was a lot more to what Microsoft did than just bundling and dumping. They carried out any number of anticompetitive practices from literally paying magazine review authors to write favorable reviews about their crap to putting delay loops into the published APIs that literally do nothing else but wrap around the internal APIs with which Microsoft developed software.
So far Google has been known to PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS - they are very much interested in supporting stan
So far Google has been known to PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS - they are very much interested in supporting standards and the like. They have been supporting Linux even for apps like google earth and the like. This is the primary difference between Google and Microsoft to my mind. May it last forever.
I'd like to point out that Google doesn't compete with Linux, or even Windows, for that matter. They compete with search engines and office software developers.
How does Google stay in business by offering so much of their stuff for free?
In addition to adverstising, they make their money selling their services to other providers and businesses. Google is not merely a link aggregator but more a service provider. Think Apple. Yes, they sell an operating system but they really make their money on the hardware.
Google is actually a very good business and your surprise at them still being in business, well, let's just say I wouldn't give you my money to invest.
Big companies spend about 15% of their budget on advertising, because that's what advertising consultants tell them that they need to spend. That hasn't changed. What happened was that they stopped spending too much of it on untargetted advertising. Google lets them spend it on targetted ads, which even if they don't get clickthroughs still buys them brand awareness among potential customers. Google does this very well indeed, and the question that you should be asking is: how does any other ad-supporte
Part of it is that they're not just posting adverts on their own sites, they're also posting ads on services and acting as an ad broker posting ads on other peoples' sites, with a simple, rather unobtrusive, and relevant method to boot. To compare them to past (Web 1.0?) companies, they're not just Yahoo!, they're DoubleClick as well. There are also other sources like licensing their search system to a number of other players (which I suppose makes them a bit "Inktomi" as well).
Even then, I agree that it's a bit odd that they're as high afloat as they are right now, but I think that if things start going sour, they do have respectable and consistently innovative search technologies that they could apply to any number of pay-for products or services (kind of like pre-AOL Netscape did, although not that well, when the browser wars made their flagship browser go freeware-- selling server software and other such things on the reputation of their free products).
Same way that NBC, CBS, and ABC has done for years. They don't give anything away. They sell advertising. Google sells you. They no more give away their products than a rancher gives away food to his herd.
Just because you leave a job doesn't doom you to a future of unemployment. I'm no HR guy, but being one of the early guys at Google probably doesn't look too bad on someone's resume. But besides that, these are likely talented and highly motivated people, and now that they've got some money in the bank, they can do their own thing and put their time and energy exactly where they want to. For some of those people, Google was still doing what they wanted to do, so they still work there. Others are using their money to try to start up their own businesses. Still others might be perfectly content to sit on a couch and play PS3 on a 80" TV all day.
I can promise you that a lot more than 100 people have made millions off of Google. Their stock has gone nuts, there's many billions of dollars to go around. Just one billion dollars divided by 100 people is 10 million each. A million dollars is a lot of money to an individual person, but for these big corporations, that is not an unsual amount of money at all.
Actually, they probably ARE all millionaires, or darn close. Microsoft minted millionaires out of thousands of early employees. Google stock has gone up by over 500%, it's pretty reasonable to assume the first 100 employees were given at least 2,000 shares over time in the $1-5 range... which would make each of them millionaires.
At the peak of the dotcom boom, I was a millionaire. (at least on paper). Yet I was a backline support technician, making a base salary of about $65k/yr.
Due to mistakes in judgment, bad investments (I invested in a construction company, and the guy ran it into the ground), and tax laws, I am no longer a millionaire (though I am in a nice house right now).
Let me tell you this: being a millionaire is nothing. You can lose it all overnight. And even when you have it, there's a great temptation to spend it, a
Sheesh. If they're poor, what am I? I make just under 28,000/yr (USD). My TV is a 25" and over about 6-8 years old. Oh, and my wife and I have 2 kids.
Money doesn't make you rich, perceived lack thereof makes you poor. I know many people with far more money than I that complain about money far more than I. If you can afford to put food on the table, a roof over your head and not live in fear for your life, health or well-being, it is hard to justify a claim of 'poor'.
No, I'm not the guy who sold his house and cars to live poor on purpose, we're just a young family starting out. A big problem, especially here in the States, seems to be that if you are not able to consume everything your heart desires that you are poor and living without. If that describes you, I strongly suggest you spend some time determining what really makes you happy and focus on that.
Sorry for the rant, but those of us that live a bit below the 'living wage' (here in Utah I'd have to make a few thousand more a year to be at it) are tired of hearing about how people that make a multiple of what we do are 'poor.':)
I define wealth as the ability to be completely free of other people and society while still being able to buy products and services from people who work.
Thus, a person living in the jungle alone is free and not dependent on society but is not rich because they still cannot buy anything that society produces.
A person is rich, however, if is able to escape a country in war although the currency has been devalued and become worthless, or is able to live quite well during a financial crisis when other peop
People getting tired and moving on (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You must be new here. All you have to do is submit a story, ANY story, that mentions Google and the Slashdot editors start salivating....
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Ask Slashdot: Does Google Make You Drool?
An anonymous fanboy writes, "Why does POP mail still exist? Why do people still talk about Flickr and GARMIN maps? Should the Linux kernel be rewritten on a micro-google architecture? Nintendo was just copying Google when they came up with the idea of the Wiiiiiiimote. Elvis isn't dead, he's just not attending shareholder meetings anymore. The SEC and DOJ are investigating all the back-dating scandals using a secret new Google API."
Re: (Score:2)
You must be new here. All you have to do is submit a story, ANY story, that mentions Google and the Slashdot editors start salivating....
Yes, BUT, way before the
These technology companies were well funded by venture capital, but usually in the beginning still gave developers, programmers, and any EARLY employee
huge stock grants, thousands of shares for prices like
Re:People getting tired and moving on (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Valid responses are along the lines of "oh noes!! Google is dying, eleventyone!!! They are so kewl!!!" or "Har har! Serve them right for being evil! What goes around comes around."
Quick Poll... (Score:5, Funny)
1. Leave to pursue your interests.
2. Continue to work at the company until retiremennt.
3. Burn the money in a huge trash barrel and join a Buddist monestary.
4. Hire private detectives to stalk CowboyNeal?
Re:Quick Poll... (Score:5, Funny)
Hell, I could just sit around all day and post on slashdot. Oh, right.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quick Poll... (Score:5, Funny)
I would sleep with two women at the same time.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Each to their own. I'd be wide awake and loving it
Re:Quick Poll... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Quick Poll... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Quick Poll... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the type of women that'd double up on a dude like me.
Thanks for the correction. I knew that I should have looked the quote up on IMDB first.
Re: (Score:2)
3. Burn the money in a huge trash barrel and join a Buddist monestary.
You mean like the K Foundation did? The K Foundation burn a million quid [wikipedia.org].
I think I'll start a new web page entitled "please give me a million so I can set fire to it", each doner will get a little bit of the ash. It's sure to work!
No need to be a millionaire to pursue your dream (Score:5, Insightful)
You live only once. You are young only once. So, you should do whatever it is you really want to do.
This, of course, is why it is so important to live frugaly and avoid debt -- it can rob you of your freedom. There's nothing worse than some student debt with a side dish of some credit cards, a long-term cell phone contract, and a car lease.
Re:No need to be a millionaire to pursue your drea (Score:3)
Because if you don't, you can easily find yourself with your dream fulfilled - but years behind where you need to be in able to get a job, let alone fund your retirement. Fulfilled dreams don't put a roof over your head or fo
In the meantime... (Score:4, Informative)
I've done about 10 interviews with them, they went OK (although they don't really seem to know what they are doing in their hiring process...) but after the "on-site" interviews 2 months ago they simply forgot to get back to me with feedback. I imagine this happens with a lot of people, they spend several months being interviewed with google and getting this sucky treatment. Google deals with the hiring process as an investment, and as it seems, so do the job applicants. Part of the people that get actually hired will spend some time in the company and get away for a "promotion" in another company just because they've worked for Google, partially motivated by the way the company dealt with them since the beginning.
Re: (Score:2)
Forgot? As in, conveniently forgot?
Google can afford to treat people this way when they don't want to hire them because even if they tell bad stories lots of other people will still want to work for them.
100 out of 300 in 6 years, not that bad actually (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:100 out of 300 in 6 years, not that bad actuall (Score:3, Informative)
Worst Day Fishing better than Best Day Working (Score:5, Insightful)
There are lots of people out there who "love their jobs", but in reality it's only relative. They love their jobs, when compared to other jobs. If you don't have to work, there are lots of other things to do out there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Do you want to work for Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
if you have a family and they are first in your life above anything else(including work), want to save and not throw money away on outrageous housing costs and want privacy without having to drive one hour one way to work then google is not the place for you even if you could get a job there.
more people are figuring out that they dont want to work 50 or 60 hours a week because they want to do other things, stay healthy and just have a life outside of work. most people dont want to work where they feel like they live in China and Japan, where workers typically work 70 hour weeks, but of course their country works and thats all it does, yet where is the reward? It's hard to enjoy rewards in life that you earn if you are too busy working. Our culture has turned into the mindset slowly and on a different scale of china. that to be successful we have to work all the time and nothing else comes before it, including family. I am not sure where or when this trend started.
there is a reason why we have weekends and a reason why most people dont work more than 40 hours a week. its to take a breather from work so we can refresh. its also a reason that people have burnout and productivity decreases. In google's case there are enough people that want to work for them that have the mindset that google is their life and that is why google provides things like laundromats, bringing your pets to work, 3 gourmet meals and swimming pools. if people just wanted to go home for lunch and promptly go home after 5 or 6 pm then what would the need be to offer all these ameneties? think about that one for a moment.
I know that they have offices in NYC and Seattle as well as sporatic jobs here and there but NYC and Seattle is the same as Simi Valley/Mountain View -- that is heavy traffic, no privacy(unless you want to drive 1 hour one way to work), up to the sky housing costs and taxes and living in a culture where everyone wants to work their whole life and thus they think their employees should have the same attitude. Trying to not to sound too stereotypical i am sure there are other smaller places in these areas that at least offer stable working conditions.
In Seattle's case i dont know how in the world all these tech companies keep people in that area. Traffic is still heavy but most of all for me i just cant bear the thought of at most 3 months of sunshine and cold rainy winters. I was there in november 2 years ago and the sun did come out 2 days out of the week(the rest of the week it was raining) but you still couldnt see the sun because it was so overcast. Maybe theres a reason why it's the #1 suicidal city in the country.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My wife's cousin and her husband from California came to our wedding in September of 2005. In November of 2005 they moved here to get away from California's housing market, traffic, and to give themselves a better chan
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you live to work, or do you work to live?
Sounds like the ex-Google employees in question have decided the latter. Good for them!
Re:Do you want to work for Google? (Score:5, Informative)
Try not to generalize so much. You simply make a fool of yourself.
Parent
Re:Do you want to work for Google? (Score:4, Insightful)
Work to live?
Or Live to work?
Personally, I'm glad I don't live full-time in an animal skin tent with a life-expectancy of 30.
But you gotta draw the line somewhere.
Unfortunately, everybody's got a different idea of where that line should be.
Some people have no idea where their line should be.
Some people are perfectly happy living to work, and working 70hr weeks as a result. It's not my place to criticise such people, but only as long as they don't criticise my line of 40hrs.
So the point is - find your line. And draw it.
Parent
You don't know what you're talking about (Score:3, Informative)
Google would make a good hitman (Score:2, Funny)
The real story.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the other 600,000 starving programmers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I hope you are being sarcastic. If you aren't, you obviously have no understanding of the financial markets. In that case, I have a friend in Nigeria that I'd like for you to meet.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Google is the new Übersoft .. (Score:2)
Yea, Google is the new Übersoft [ubersoft.net]
"I'm just pondering here not seriously implying anything, but that sounds similiar to something MS did with OS's and media players/browsers etc"
Considering people have a choice as to what search engine to use and Google don't have a desktop monopoly I don't think it is at all similar. No doubt once Microsoft embed search directly in the apps that anomaly will soon be corre
Re: (Score:2)
You're not wrong exactly, but there was a lot more to what Microsoft did than just bundling and dumping. They carried out any number of anticompetitive practices from literally paying magazine review authors to write favorable reviews about their crap to putting delay loops into the published APIs that literally do nothing else but wrap around the internal APIs with which Microsoft developed software.
So far Google has been known to PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS - they are very much interested in supporting stan
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Unemployment? (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition to adverstising, they make their money selling their services to other providers and businesses. Google is not merely a link aggregator but more a service provider. Think Apple. Yes, they sell an operating system but they really make their money on the hardware.
Google is actually a very good business and your surprise at them still being in business, well, let's just say I wouldn't give you my money to invest.
Parent
The advertising market didn't collapse per se (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Unemployment? (Score:4, Informative)
Even then, I agree that it's a bit odd that they're as high afloat as they are right now, but I think that if things start going sour, they do have respectable and consistently innovative search technologies that they could apply to any number of pay-for products or services (kind of like pre-AOL Netscape did, although not that well, when the browser wars made their flagship browser go freeware-- selling server software and other such things on the reputation of their free products).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How does Google stay in business by offering so much of their stuff for free?
They are in the business of selling eyeballs, not search results or email services or... The latter are simply the costs of acquiring eyeballs.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't give anything away. They sell advertising.
Google sells you. They no more give away their products than a rancher gives away food to his herd.
Re:Unemployment? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can promise you that a lot more than 100 people have made millions off of Google. Their stock has gone nuts, there's many billions of dollars to go around. Just one billion dollars divided by 100 people is 10 million each. A million dollars is a lot of money to an individual person, but for these big corporations, that is not an unsual amount of money at all.
Parent
Re:Unemployment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yet I was a backline support technician, making a base salary of about $65k/yr.
Due to mistakes in judgment, bad investments (I invested in a construction company, and the guy ran it into the ground), and tax laws, I am no longer a millionaire (though I am in a nice house right now).
Let me tell you this: being a millionaire is nothing. You can lose it all overnight. And even when you have it, there's a great temptation to spend it, a
Re:Unemployment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Money doesn't make you rich, perceived lack thereof makes you poor. I know many people with far more money than I that complain about money far more than I. If you can afford to put food on the table, a roof over your head and not live in fear for your life, health or well-being, it is hard to justify a claim of 'poor'.
No, I'm not the guy who sold his house and cars to live poor on purpose, we're just a young family starting out. A big problem, especially here in the States, seems to be that if you are not able to consume everything your heart desires that you are poor and living without. If that describes you, I strongly suggest you spend some time determining what really makes you happy and focus on that.
Sorry for the rant, but those of us that live a bit below the 'living wage' (here in Utah I'd have to make a few thousand more a year to be at it) are tired of hearing about how people that make a multiple of what we do are 'poor.'
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus, a person living in the jungle alone is free and not dependent on society but is not rich because they still cannot buy anything that society produces.
A person is rich, however, if is able to escape a country in war although the currency has been devalued and become worthless, or is able to live quite well during a financial crisis when other peop