A Coveted Landing Strip for Google's Founders 427
An anonymous reader writes "The NYT reports, "In the annals of perks enjoyed by America's corporate executives, the founders of Google may have set a new standard: an uncrowded, federally managed runway for their private jet that is only a few minutes' drive from their offices. For $1.3 million a year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin get to park their customized wide-body Boeing 767-200, as well as two other jets used by top Google executives, on Moffett Field, an airport run by NASA that is generally closed to private aircraft."
not evil? how about global warming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
Why have we as a society become so filled with entitlement and laziness? If you have the money, you can get it. If you don't have the money, work for it. These guys were nobody's once upon a time as well... it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead.
Nice one, NASA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyhow, good on NASA for earning another $1.3mil per year using something that they already had. I'm sure they have all kinds of stuff in the contract that prohibits Google execs from using the strip when NASA projects are actively going on, which probably happens pretty seldom. I'm sure someone will say 'drop in the bucket', but that's $1.3mil that didn't come from taxes... And that's a lot of taxes.
Yeah! You kick em out! (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, this is exactly how visionary market creating companies turn into, well, HP. I suppose it's inevitable, they decided to float on the markets, you have to expect those results.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:1, Insightful)
not really the first (Score:5, Insightful)
The actor, according to a local newspaper, "can walk out his door, under a canopied walkway and into the cockpit [of his Boeing], open the long mechanized gate [giving on to the runway] and be airborne in minutes."
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:0, Insightful)
Why have we as a society become so filled with entitlement and laziness? If you have the money, you can get it. If you don't have the money, work for it.
To an European, this aspect of the American way of thinking is one of the more astonishing of all. To see why, let us analyze the logic carefully:
- Google funder's got rich after working hard.
- Therefore if I work hard, I will become rich.
Up to now it may seem ok, but now let's do the parallel:The problem is that "working hard" is not the key and only ingredient of success ; just like playing lottery is not the key ingredient of success. To win at the lottery, you need sheer luck. To really succeed in business, you need luck, money, talent in about every possible domain (vision, scientific and accounting ability, human management, human relations, manipulation, greed, ... and so on), and a lot of other things...
Most of the time, not just working hard.
There is no way, you take J.Random.Guy and make it work hard, and make him become a top football player, basketball, pianist, scientist, or whatever; although of course you will improve his performance by training.
The same applies to professionnal life: the average schmuck will not become the highly successful entrepreneur or professional, even if he works like a madman - on average. Of course, there is a chance, just like the lottery, or like sports.
But most of us won't get a chance... of course we could get some small success, at the expense of some work. It's a cost/benefit analysis - do you want to play this lottery, and sacrifice your free time. Every one of us will have a limited time on Earth - our time is our most precious ressource, it should be spent very carefully.
These guys were nobody's once upon a time as well... it's not like the American dream is dead, it's the American dreamer that's dead.
For one reason, my friend: that was just a dream. Reality is catching back.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the taxpayer has been paying to maintain a perfectly usable, but practically unused airstrip because of your typical Bay Area NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).
The peninsula has many resources that can't be used because certain people, and forgive my generalization, who are often paying negligible property taxes thanks to California's brilliant (NOT) Prop 13, want to keep things the way they were 50 fucking years ago. That's great when other people are paying for the facilities and infrastructure that those assholes enjoy on a daily basis.
At the same time tons of people with an otherwise considered extremely well paying job (that bring in the actual tax $$$) will only be able to rent or perhaps if they have dual income they can get a $800K condo with $400/mo HOA fees. Interestingly enough I never hear those people complain about stuff like this.
I'd like to see how people that pay tax as if their property was worth $200K would like to live in a place in California that _actually_ is worth $200K. See how much they would object to some rich dudes parking a plane somewhere if that also meant that finally electricity would come to town.
If this is the beginning of the erosion of the out of balance power of the NIMBYs, then that is excellent news. Unless of course you'd prefer the bay area to become a Route 66 (See also: Cars).
Anyways, I'm glad to see that Anna Eshoo had a healthy response to this.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
Where's the problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
They get to park the Gulfstreams AND the wide-body Boeing 767-200 right next door for an extra million or so. NASA makes a nice pile and gets to run some experiments. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody works their way to becoming multi-billionaires... There's absolutely nothing one man could do that could possibly be worth that kind of compensation.
They, like many others, hit the stock-market lottery. There's enough stupid people that will buy stocks for millions of times what they're actually worth, that early buyers can become billionaires just because they happen to be there.
No amount of (legal) work can guarantee you that level of riches. You can only hope to be in the right place, at the right time. You'd do just as well to buy a $1 "Power-Ball" lottery ticket as to invest many thousands of dollars (of cash, or your time/service) in some start-up, hopping it'll be the next ridiculously overhyped and unbelievably overpriced stock-market darling.
That's crap. There are more American entrepreneurs making themselves rich right now than there ever have been before. Few or none are naive enough to believe they can work enough to make themselves billionaires on merit.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
Google making money out of the idea was a result in being able to talk to the right people at the right time. They didn't have any magic technology at hand but they were unique compared to their competition in that they had enough resources to demo their early work. They could pull that off because they had been in the right place at the right time a bit before they where in the right place earlier. Most what is now considered their innovation was all discussed on usenet news groups long before their research was done. You can even look it up in google groups if you want.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is a an economic driver, not a load.
Re:misuse of a public resource (Score:1, Insightful)
Moffett has much less air traffic now than it ever has, and much more quiet at that. It was traditionally surround by dumps and sewerage treatment, swamp land, rail road, farms, and more recently, industry. Yet the wealthy local (and not so local) home owners still complain about a 767, a modern, relatively quiet jet, on a field that has been (and could be better) utilized for the heaviest of industrial and military airfield operations.
Welcome to urban living. You moved there; Moffett has been there longer than you have - unless you own a farm. And given that there are zero farms are left in town, that's quite doubtful.
SFO and SJC - two other substantial nearby air operations - continue to grow. Clearly, another two examples of the price you pay for living in a wealthy, thriving urban area.
So although Moffett certainly isn't growing, and it perhaps 10% of what it was in the 1970's - the whiners still manage to whine about "the growing issues at Moffett". Weird.
Re:misuse of a public resource (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people are a waste of oxygen.
Ridiculous. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Oh boy! Look at us! We have a private runway we can land on because we are *so* important and special!"
It is far more impressive to see people who don't take themselves so seriously. Obviously, this s a rare trait, given the human condition of thinking oneself is at the center of the universe.
Re:not evil? how about global warming? (Score:1, Insightful)
You are aware that breathing produces a couple Kilos a day of CO2, right? Say, a fair fraction of a ton of CO2 a year just to keep you alive. (figures vary, depending on source, between just under 1 and a bit over 2 Kg per day for an average human)
So unless YOUR needs consist of laying in the sun and photosynthesizing like a plant, you're basically pulling numbers out of your ass.
We can all dig being kind to the environment, but at least try and think before you speak, mmmkay?
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
Original poster didn't deny this, but simply pointed out that, for every rich person that "worked like crazy for years before they made it," there's 99 people who worked just as hard for just as long (if not moreso) that didn't.
It's not that they don't work hard, but that working hard isn't the deciding factor.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt it, at least for now, considering the scrutiny applied to corporate books these days. If you assume they aren't then they wouldn't be doing their jobs if they didn't take advantage of every possible avenue to minimize Google's taxes. So whether they have 10 tax accountants or 10,000 they are likely paying all the tax they are legally required to pay in the face of 'breaks' specifically designed to enourage business.
It is also notable that corporate taxes are little more than proxy taxes on individuals. They are part of the cost of doing business, like the price of landing strips, and are passed on to customers through the price of goods and services.
Re:not evil? how about global warming? (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait -- that's under the assumption that you're actually interested in protecting the earth, and not merely coming up with the most plausible pretense for banning behaviors you don't like.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
All the very rich people I know worked about as hard as most of my successful friends.
A ditch digger works hard. It's not just about working "hard", it's about working on the right things.
They didn't have any magic technology at hand but they were unique compared to their competition in that they had enough resources to demo their early work.
Almost everything looks obvious after the fact. The wheel is "obvious", yet very few cultures actually invented it.
The fact that Google is *still* the best search engine ought to tell you something about the difficulty.
Most what is now considered their innovation was all discussed on usenet news groups long before their research was done.
Talk is cheap, and ideas are cheaper. The devil is in the details.
I know lots of others others who worked hard and had it all destroyed by bad luck.
There's no such thing as bad luck. *Everybody* encounters bad luck. There is only lack of preparation for disaster and lack for foresight for consequences.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
But I think what people are reacting to is the excess seen in executive compensation. When the execs are getting obscene bonuses even after being only marginally effect or worse (Home Depot comes to mind), people have a right to be upset. The reason for their frustration is that more costs are being transferred to the employees while the execs get bigger perks. Most employees are contributing to a company's success every day, yet they are getting less and less by comparison. This is bad form.
Another component of the 'American Dream' is the idea of sharing success. Everyone that contributes should benefit in some way. And NOT the old 'you're lucky you still got a job' garbage.
A company cannot exist for the success of a few. It must exist for the success of all employed by that company. Otherwise, it's just another Enron, Tyco, GE, etc. These organizations or morally bankrupt (if not literally bankrupt) [Note re GE: It sounds like Immelt is trying to change that if the board doesn't jerk him around.]
The REAL question to be asked is, "How much money do you need to live comfortably?" At some point the pursuit of money is all about greed. It is not a positive, constructive effort. The more one person gets, the less someone else can have. Instead of taking huge bonuses, the execs should be plowing that money back into the organization to offset increases in medical insurance, etc. Take care of the employees and the company will have long-term success.
Don't misunderstand me. I detest the entitlement attitude as much as you. Maybe even more. That attitude is every bit as destructive as greed. But my experience as a manager has been that most people make a sincere effort at contributing to the success of an organization. They should share in it, too.
But again, without knowing more details, this airstrip thing doesn't sound that bad to me.
Re:Government Runway? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody works their way to becoming multi-billionaires... There's absolutely nothing one man could do that could possibly be worth that kind of compensation.
They, like many others, hit the stock-market lottery. There's enough stupid people that will buy stocks for millions of times what they're actually worth, that early buyers can become billionaires just because they happen to be there.
The jetstream is always moving fast, but you can't catch the jetstream if you don't fill the balloon and cut the tethers.
Brin and Page did "hit the stock-market lottery." I agree with that. But they would not have been able to get there without actually doing some interesting stuff and telling people about it. Yes, there are a lot of people who are doing interesting stuff and telling people about it, yet don't hit the stock-market lottery. But the fact that all this interesting stuff gets done is what advances society.
I think that's what the other posters were referring by the "American Dreamer is dead" sentiment. A dream without action is a fantasy of entitlement and resentment. A dream with action is a goal.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
So in short, we stopped following the dream when we realized it's just a dream, and the waking world is run by different rules.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:1, Insightful)
This is ridiculous... In other words, I should have predicted that drunken bus driver go off a cliff while carrying my two children to school. Shucks, because then when the owners of my company stole my pension, bankrupted the company and I lost my job I'd be prepared to pay for the respirators that feed O2 to my brain dead children! Poop on me for not diversifying my investment portfolio while simultaneously saving 2x my annual income in the child coma savings account!
Your kind of absurd anti-social notion is a good reason why individualist societies are festering pits of despair.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:3, Insightful)
Purely anecdotal evidence but... I know _three_ millionaires who did the equivalent of working up from being a dishwasher - and no lottery winners. My best friend from high school run an advertising/media company he built from scratch over the last five years and after five years is now pssing into the low six figures in revenue. (With no college education and no starting capital beyond his final unemployment check.)
The American Dream is alive and well. But the trick, as always, is to work like hell. Sitting and whining on Slashdot doesn't cut it. (The high school friend I spoke of? He took his first vacation when I flew across the continent, marched into his office, and physically drug him out of it.)
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
Search engines were not only obvious, they were old hat, the battles already fought and decided, when Google appeared on the scene.
Indeed... which makes their success and utter domination all the more remarkable.
Google's "breakthrough" was being fast through distributed search, which is something that all the search engines were working on for some time.
What? I used a lot of search engines prior to Google, in fact, I still have them bookmarked: AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, MSN, Northern Light, Yahoo, etc. I used to search a variety of them because each one seemed to do better at various results. After Google appeared, I gradually stopped using them all, because Google consistently gave better results.
I don't recall Google being any faster than any of them. They all gave pretty much instantaneous results.
But the difference between "quite successful" and "super-rich" is luck, not hard work.
I might agree that the difference between "rich" and "super-rich" is mostly luck. And certainly some people get rich by attaching themselves to the right people (e.g., become one of the first 10 employees of an eventually huge IPO). But by and large, to be rich, you have to want to be rich and dedicate your thinking to that goal, and take the appropriate risks, and try again when you fail.
The google founders weren't smarter or harder-working than a hundred other people.
The issue isn't necessarily raw intelligence or level of hard work. Take 100 smart people and put them in the same situation as the Google guys. Would they fall into the same riches? I'd say "no". Technology isn't everything! You have to be able to work with people, give up control where necessary, take control when necessary, on and on. For example, Theo de Raadt is a smart, hard-working guy. Assuming he was motivated to do it, could he have created Google? Not just the search engine, the whole enchilada. Not a chance in hell, because he's an abrasive psycho.
Creating a successful company takes a lot of broad skills. There's a reason that 90% of start-ups fail.
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:4, Insightful)
Gates surrounded himself with guys like Allen who were excellent coders and geeks, but Gates was always the one with the vision. He was an expert coder and involved himself with everything from writing legal documents to writing bootstraps and Altair emulators, and later on to giving taxing interviews to all the big project leaders to ensure they knew what they were doing as well as he knew what they were doing.
Gates saw the first computer come out and decided to get out of school and into the PC industry, the very moment it was created.
If Jobs hadn't run into Woz you can be sure we would never have heard of Jobs. Gates depended far less on chance bumping into others; he was far more determined and aggressive (for better or for worse) in carving out Microsoft's niche, and he played much more than the marketing&managerial role that Jobs has played.
If you're not familiar with the story of Gates' success I recommend "Hard Drive", which documents it (it's independent of Microsoft and Gates).
Re:Larry's had that for a while (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's not evil... except if you are a sharehol (Score:3, Insightful)
Last I heard, Larry and Sergey bought the plane with their own personal money and the AP story, http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gbqVOej9Cr2S_GYOFg6m6_PUn4jw [google.com] makes it sound like they are paying for parking out of their own personal money as well. Therefore there's no direct impact to Google shareholders -- Google is not paying for the parking or the jet. If Larry and Sergey want to buy nice toys (and a place to put their toys) with their fortune then that's all up to them.
Re:Ridiculous. (Score:2, Insightful)
this is about where american science is headed (Score:2, Insightful)