Has Google Lost Its Mojo?

CWmike writes "Google looks as if it's on top of the world right now, holding an ever-increasing lion's share of the search market. So why do I think it's lost its mojo? Let's start with the way it treats its employees, writes Preston Gralla. Another example: Google employees, such as Sergey Solyanik, have started deserting the company. And its share price is down double that of the Dow or Nasdaq since November 2007. Even if Google has lost its mojo, why should you care? It won't make your searches any less effective, will it? Nope. But Google has its eyes on bigger things than search, notably your IT department. It's looking to displace Microsoft with hosted services like Google Apps, Gmail and Google Docs. Solyanik warns that Google's engineers care more about the 'coolness' of a service than about the service's effectiveness." Of course Google employees version of being mistreated is often laughable, and quite a shock when they look for their massage therapist at wherever they end up next.

Yes.

Google has lost some of it's Mojo. But the good news is that they still have plenty of Mo-Nay. They are also high on the "X does not suck as bad as Y" matrix.

Re:Yes.

Well as Google matures so do its employees. As they get older they find the Google culture no longer fits their needs. The projects get boring, working long hours on projects that may or may not give any fruit gets redundant and unappealing. Having to prove to the new Whippersnappers that that crazy way of doing things will not work just as they didn't work when you started working a decade ago. Things like code purity, open source, trying a new windows manager every week... start to see more trivial and has lost its spark or interest, you are happy to use a Mac, even if you are running windows your cool with that to. You focus on your job and doing a good job, but at the end of the day you want to go home with your family.
Over the years you got a lot better at your job you are 3 times more productive then those whippersnappers and when you were a whippersnapper, but the company culture reprimands you for leaving work on time. Younger managers come in straight out of business school trying to prove themselves by trying to change everything even what currently works, just because it worked for FedEx, or SAS.

Re:Yes.

Google has lost some of it's Mojo

Speaking as a Googler, "some" is an understatement. The best and brightest have been exiting Google at the earliest for months, leaving behind the political climbers, backbiters and the just plain incompetent. Now Google mainly runs on interns, everybody else is too "smart" to do the grunt work like coding, debugging, or much at all beyond getting face time. The reason for this is simple: narcissistic managers whose main talent is claiming credit for the work of their subordinates while punishing anyone who shows initiative, and thus possibly could get promoted. These days at Google, showing skill and dedication is a great way to get a bad review from your manager. Eric and friends seem blissfully unaware of the developing train wreck.

Re:Yes.

I can't believe you wouldn't ever, ever, ever, ever claim that a person with no dependents gets off better with a company's medical plan...People with zero dependents get screwed royally. In most companies, you have two or three payment tiers. 1 person, 2 people, 3 or more people. The cost increase from 1 to 2 doesn't even come close to covering the extra costs. The costs from 2 to 3 are the same. Don't forget to add in for if someone (gasp) has a large family. Do you have 5 kids? Guess what, you pay the same exact premium as someone with 1 kid. The no-dependents person will end up bearing a portion of the cost of other people's dependents.

I don't like the system, I understand why it has to be, but I will NOT stand and let someone try to make it look like people with no dependents are getting away with something. Even in your situation, the only difference is that the single people have been grossly overpaying for years and years, and now they are getting a slight reprieve from being over charged.

Re:Wait a minute

such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them

Because, as we all know it is impossible to raise children if one of the parents doesn't stay at home.

Other than that, I'd say your argument is pretty solid. Employers aren't responsible for an employee's children.

Re:Wait a minute

such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them

Because, as we all know it is impossible to raise children if one of the parents doesn't stay at home.

Other than that, I'd say your argument is pretty solid. Employers aren't responsible for an employee's children.

Yeah, technically all of you are right. What has been found is that having childcare greatly reduces the stress of workers: they don't have to worry about working late, they can visit their kid on lunch breaks if the daycare is on site, company care is just one trip, it's usually cheaper, etc...

Having company sponsored childcare doesn't mean other employees are getting paid less, is just means the stockholders are not seeing as big of a profit as they could have. If Google really had to pay less because of childcare then they wouldn't be able to get anyone good, especially the childless - they'd all go to higher paying companies, wouldn't they?

As for me, I like in house childcare because you don't get the BS (most of the time) of folks with kids having to run home every time their kid is sick; which makes my life less stressful because then I don't have to make up for them.

Why pick on one benefit?

All these benefits are just there to attract and retain staff. It is ridiculous to pick on just one or two because they don't apply to you.

What about their laundry service? Why should they provide that? What about the people who have their own washers at home?

What about the car servicing thing? What about the people that don't have cars?

What about the bus service with Wifi? What about people who live close and don't need the bus?

By your logic all these are discrimination against people who don't need these services.

Re:Wait a minute

Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for (such as *gasp* having Mom stay home and actually raise them), have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?

Because life isn't fair.

Because our society has determined that providing child care to working mothers benefits society as a whole and Google is simply conforming to social pressure.

Because Google wishes to attract working mothers as employees and are offering child care as an incentive. Young single workers are attracted by Google's "coolness" and don't need additional incentives.

BTW, Using child care provided by your employer is "make[ing] arrangements for [children] to be cared for".

Re:Wait a minute

Why in blazes should people who don't have kids, or who responsibly make arrangements for them to be cared for ... have to pay in the form of a lower salary for yours?

Yeah! And while we're at it, why should I have to pay taxes that go to old, sick and young people I don't even know! It's unjust!

Re:Wait a minute

If they're quiet and polite, then yes, I have no problem with them being in the office. If they're running around and yelling and, ya know, being children then that is not appropriate to an office setting.. people are trying to work.

As for spending time in the office.. no.. I'm not a big fan. I don't expect people to stay late just because everyone else is. But, in modern software engineering, its a team effort. If someone goes home because they need to pick up their kids or whatever, then either someone else is going to have to do their work - and that means it won't get done to the same level of quality - or it means that everyone will be stalled until that person is available again to work. I believe it is a failure of management to require people to work late but, frankly, it does happen and if people are not available to work when it does, then it happens more and more.

Re:Yes.

Subsidized child care and similar benefits reward parents at the expense of other employees.

Only if there is not a compensating benefit that rewards non-parents but is of no use to parents. It really depends a lot on how the benefit package is constructed.

The interesting metric is whether a business has policies that allow its employees to "grow up". If they do not, then eventually as people get older, they will be forced at some point to say that in order to merely accommodate the ordinary and anticipatable life events, they must go to a different company or face a pay cut because the benefits they used to like are now no longer benefits.

For example, why should an employee who has a family at home shopping and fixing food be penalized because of the availability of free food at work that surely must be paid for somehow. Google has an open cafeteria, and tons of free junk food in the hallways, which people who have a life do not need. But it has been said of Google (and I am trying to be neutral about expressing an opinion myself, only observing that it's a topic worthy of discussion) that it prefers employees who are willing to work long hours and sleep under their desks to employees who want to have families and lives outside of work. Now if this were true, you might not see it as age discrimination. And it might really not be. But it's a reasonable observation to make or question to ask, given that the set of people who don't mind this kind of lifestyle is probably unevenly distributed agewise.

So if Google is offering both the daycare and the cafeteria, then maybe it's balanced. But if it's giving up the daycare expenses to focus on cafeteria expenses, then maybe there are questions to ask. Just as one example for conversation--if I knew their benefit policy, maybe something else better would present itself.

In fact, I bet whether you think this is an age issue varies by age, suggesting at least the possibility that some people who thought it wasn't an age issue changed their mind with experience, as well as the possibility that some who are quite sure it's not will eventually come to decide they were wrong.

Google offers itself as an ethical company. Here's my definition of ethical: Ethical means you continue to ask yourself hard questions and to not quite be sure you're ethical. So people will evaluate the answer to these questions differently, but the day Google thinks the questions are inappropriate to ask is the day it's lost its ethics. Ethics are an exercise in continuous choice, and everything about intent. Once choice is sacrificed, you're at best coincidentally aligned with those whose outcomes are the same, but as the result of an actual thoughtful choice. If outcome without choice can be deemed ethical, then there are rocks that may be more ethical than some people...

evil?

One of the "benefits" for working at google is they'll give you up to $5000 to adopt a kid.

Clearly google is paving their own way to cheap underage chinese laborers in a few years.

That's a bullshit story, Sergey!

Sergey Solyanik just left because the colleagues never referred to him as the cool Sergey.

Migrating flock

This actually reminds me of a story of the wandering engineer. They'd work for google, then move to MS because they lack quality control. The engineer would then transfer to Yahoo because MS isn't doing anything interesting. They'd then move to Google and start the cycle anew because Yahoo wasn't on the cutting edge. Maybe the novelty of working at Google, or any other place for that matter, wears off once you've been there for quite a few months and you have the qualifications to change things up. Engineers can be a fickle lot where the interesting aspects of a project outweigh how much it pays.

Re:Migrating flock

This actually reminds me of a story of the wandering engineer. They'd work for google, then move to MS because they lack quality control.

And because MS offered a 10% higher salary than they were making at Google.

The engineer would then transfer to Yahoo because MS isn't doing anything interesting.

And because Yahoo offered a 10% higher salary than they were making at MS.

They'd then move to Google and start the cycle anew because Yahoo wasn't on the cutting edge.

And because Google offered a 10% higher salary than they were making at Yahoo.

Re:Migrating flock

I've lived this cycle, having worked for Yahoo!, then Google, then back to Yahoo!, and now PayPal. Personally, I don't think my migrations and wanting to change things up every now and then particularly makes me fickle. I'd rather be engaged in my work than eternally loyal to my employer. Too much loyalty isn't a good thing anyway.

So all this article has to go on...

...is one guy who returned to Microsoft, the price of an employee service was raised, and the stock price is lower than it was at a point in the past.

I don't think that's enough to declare that Google has lost its mojo. Think of how many times Apple was "dying" according to the press. I think this author is just bored with Google and wants to cause a stir.

Not to worry

All they have to do is find Dr. Evil's secret volcano layer and get it back. They're frickin' Google. If they can't do it no one can.

Vacation...

Interesting. Looks like it starts at 15 days, and moves up to 25 days after 6 years. Their 6 year level has reached the mandatory minimum number of paid vacation days in many EU countries.

Is that mistreatment? If you've come from Eurpoe, then it may feel that way.

infant care

Quoting: "Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500"... WTF? How much do people in the US earn? This amount of money per month, is what is almost the total monthly salary in Europe is for many people! How could you give that for just infant care?? Renting an apartment is like 400 euros per month, much cheaper than this infant care (even the so called cheap $1425 one)! How do you pay for rent, survival costs, and saving, if you have a baby and use that infant care?

Re:infant care

In Europe, you work to live. In America, we live to work.

There are good and bad aspects to both. Choose your poison.

Food

It's always all downhill once startups start cutting back on the food perks [valleywag.com].

From the linked Valleywag article:

"
Google's food perks on the chopping block

There's no such thing as a free dinner. A worker at Google tells us the company is taking evening meals off the menu: "Google has drastically cut back their budget on the culinary program. How is it affecting campus? No more dinner. No more tea trolley. No more snack attack in the afternoon." The changes will be announced to Googlers on Monday. Workers at the Googleplex will remain amply fed, with free breakfast and lunch -- dinner will be reserved for geeks only -- but it's still a shocking cutback.

Last year, when we aired the mildest speculation about Google cutting back on free food, commenters were outraged. Google has long milked its cafeterias for their publicity value; company executives have crowed about the company's resistance to recessions and its commitment to coddling its employees. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin even promised shareholders they'd add perks, rather than cut them.

In 2004, they wrote:

        We provide many unusual benefits for our employees, including meals free of charge ... We are careful to consider the long term advantages to the company of these benefits. Expect us to add benefits rather than pare them down over time. We believe it is easy to be penny wise and pound foolish with respect to benefits that can save employees considerable time and improve their health and productivity.

What went wrong? ...
"

--Q

Re:Food

"What went wrong? ..."

Share holders are penny wise and pound foolish. It isn't about the longterm investment but the quarterly or annual review. Eventually, when the stock starts to lose value, you simply have to make changes (drop operating costs) to make revenues reflect a larger profit.

The good news is most companies just fire a bunch of people. Google just happens to be taking away free dinner.

What I'd like Google to do

While I understand that Google must increase shareholder value at all cost, I would like to see Google do the following:

Respond to Yahoo Mail's new web mail's interface. I find Yahoo Mail's scrolling calender events found at the bottom while composing email really sweet. The whole [new] interface is quite impressive.

Google should put more efforts into getting KDE 4.1 up to "standards". Right now, KDE 4.1 really needs lots of work. The Summer of Code efforts leave the situation still wanting.

Get GMail out of beta. Heck, it's been over 2 years!

Google should walk the walk...that is make ODF documents, .ogg streams searcheable from www.google.com.

What do you think?

Re:Mistreated? You want mistreated?

That was a great write up man. BTW, you will find that this is the norm. You, as a software engineer, have to learn to manage your manager. You need to correct their expectations by giving them constant feedback. You need to say to them that you're having trouble and won't be achieving the timeline they have proscribed.. and if they casually don't proscribe a timeline, you have to make one up yourself.

Good luck in the future.