Internal Microsoft Email about Life at Google 410
An anonymous reader wrote in to give us "An interesting perspective on Google, from an internal email sent around Microsoft. Basically an interview that provides analysis about how Google compares to Microsoft from an employee perspective. Included are suggestions for what Microsoft might copy in order to stay competitive in the job market and criticisms of Google's "college kid" atmosphere."
isn't this normal? (Score:5, Insightful)
"People are generally in the building between 10am and about 6pm every day, but nearly everyone is on e-mail 24/7 and most people spend most of their evenings working from home."
Wow - I dunno about the rest of the world, but for our company that's the norm and we're all in our 30s/40s working for a marketing company
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no problem with keeping an eye on email every time I walk by my computer, and responding or fixing a problem or 2 here and there. It keeps Everyone (including my co-workers) happy, and generally doesn't cost me much. There's only been a few times when I had to put something fairly important (to me) away, and almost never that I had to stop something -very- important. (Usually someone else will step in and do it, instead.)
One of my co-workers DOES spend a ton of time at home working, and I kick myself for lack of work ethic whenever I realize he's spent time working at home. I then realize that I already over-work anyhow, so no biggie.
I think a lot of the people that complain about these working conditions have never actually experienced them. I've been in the cube farm of a major OEM and a major telecommunications company, and I've done retails in different stores, and I -far- prefer to work a little harder here and know the people around me are doing the same, for the good of ourselves and the company. It's a completely different feeling and I don't ever think, 'Man, if I have to deal with that lazy bugger again today...' Every other job I've had, I've had to do someone else's work because they were too lazy. I'm not saying that'll never happen here, but it hasn't so far (near 2 years now).
My point: Don't judge a book by its cover. Just because 1 aspect of the job seems to suck doesn't mean there aren't 2 others that make up for it.
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to draw a line between work and life, before work takes over your life. If these guys have to stay in tune with what is going on at work all the time, they are setting themselves up for less enjoyment of life.
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, you have to set your limits, because many employers will be happy to take all they can get from you, without thought to the future.
Unfortunately, in an employment situation like we have now in the US, there is little-to-no disincentive for employers to put workers on the burnout track, as a matter of course.
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:4, Interesting)
In other words, you have to set your limits, because many employers will be happy to take all they can get from you, without thought to the future.
Unfortunately, in an employment situation like we have now in the US, there is little-to-no disincentive for employers to put workers on the burnout track, as a matter of course.
There seem to be plenty of places to go after google, or any other "burnout track" job. Although you are kinda like an abused foster kid at that point. It takes you a while to learn to behave in "normal" manner, at least that was my experience. Granted I didn't work at MS or Google, but a place that qualified as "not normal" in many regards. I think in the long run it was a beneficial experience, as it has made me better at what I do. I'll never be a manager, but I am happier that way.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Glad to see your post!! I was getting really amazed, and actually a bit scared by how many people are responding as if working over 8-9 hours a day, working on your own time at home, etc was the NORM!!!
I d
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is bad for a number of reasons. One of the major ones is that it doesn't just affect them. Their bosses start to look at everyone else who *doesn't* behave that way and try to push them to work 24/7 as well.
Personally, I think we should all spend some more time at the lake, relaxing and, while we're there, we should toss the blackberry out as far as we can.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of Google sounds similar to the structure of the place where I work. There's a bit of an unhealthy spin that makes it sound like it ends up being worse- for example, valuing "degrees" over "experience"- Well, for one, I've been in class with a graduate student who was refused an internship from Google, and this guy was actually extremely intelligent; their reasoning was that he ought to start at a lower-tier job first (he wanted to be a
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know so many people in IT that work more, 8 or 9am to 7pm, or more, and often work from home too...
I was approached by Google, got interviewed, and at the end declined because I wasn't technical enough to be the Director of Engineering (or something like that as a tittle). Which is utter bs. There was not a single question about management. It was 100% technical, which is fine, I am very technical and have always been, and in all my reviews at all my jobs was/am always told one of the most technically savy person. Their style of questions was grilling you more and more and going deeper and deeper into the questions and technicalities until you failed. Started as what is TCP and UDP to going down and down and down the stack, syncookies, handshakes, how it works, to how sequence numbers are generated and more to more obscure points... At one point I couldn't answer anymore.
I used to know but not anymore. I told them, and I told them a 2 minute search on google itself will turn up the results so there is no need to know that by heart. In all my previous jobs, and that is my way of thinking, initial knowledge is not what gets the job done. Ability to do research and learn quickly IS the most important thing.
In my opinion people there at google tend to be pretentious and full of themselves. But that is my personal opinion and I am glad I don't work there in fact, sure there are some nice benefits and all, but it isn't everything. I got a few job offers and work for one of the best company around, and in my mind a much better company than Google...
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the US had abolished slavery. Why on earth does anyone put up with that??? Is the job market really that bad?
I can accept a few days of overtime pending product launch, but if a company expected me to me available like that I would tell them to go f*** themselves.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because of the way health care is structured, you are free to not work-- and die or go bankrupt. You can no longer own property-- taxes are set so high that you have to work in order to pay rent to the government for "your" property. If they were set on sales tax or income tax- you could pass on wo
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't made the mistake because it is true.
The definition I am using is: a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. This is from dictionary.com . The closest definition I can find to the way you are using the word is: a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person . Even if we use the more generous second meaning; it simply does not apply, because one can simply be undominated by work by simply not showing up or doing it.
When the alternative is starving in the gutter, that's close enough to coercion for most people.
Let me ask you this: Imagine we are 8000 years in the past. An prehistoric farmer is carving out a meek farming existence. He carefully tills the soil with hand tools and scratches out a basic existence on what little he can cull from the soil. Is he then a slave to his farm? Is he a slave to the fact that he is an animal, and must, from time to time, feed his belly? What is coercing him to farm?
The answer is, he is not coerced. There is no force. He is free to starve. Just because men must provide for their own survival does not enslave them. If that were the case, using that definition, under no circumstances could a man *not* be a slave. And in which case, all men are slaves and then there's no such thing as slavery.
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate this. When did people become so obsessed with work? I've posted my feelings about doing work on "personal time" before and I'm going to restate it here: When you leave the office, you're done. Regardless of how the company decides to pay you and regardless of your own warped feelings about how you should operate, you should NOT work once you leave.
Leave work at work even if you LOVE your job. You should LOVE your personal time a ton more.
In my opinion people there at google tend to be pretentious and full of themselves.
I feel the same way about people that feel that they are so important that they must work from home... It's as if the world will stop turning if they take vacation or have personal time. I work with a woman like that and being that she spends most of her day taking personal phone calls and playing Hearts, I have a real problem with her telling everyone how important her job is to the institution.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and that's the problem. It degrades from there. One guy starts doing just a little extra to get noticed around the office. And indeed, others notice, like his coworkers, some of whom start doing a bit more too, so they don't look like slackers, or to show the guy up, or because they want to be the one gettin
Who died and made you boss? (Score:2)
If someone likes working all the time, why not respect that and move on with your life?
Re:Who died and made you boss? (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as it doesn't intrude on my life, I'm all for that. However, if you work 24/7 and our mutual boss wants to know why I'm not accomplishing 20 tasks a day, that gets annoying and your work habit is affecting me. If our mutual boss decides to make you the "norm" and expects everyone to follow suit, then you've created an environment for burnout and your work habit is affecting me. If you get in the habit of working 24/7 and you catch a cold and come in to work anyway, and I catch your cold, your work habit is affecting me. You infect me with a cold and I'm staying home, dammit. You infect other, saner, people and they'll stay home too.
Allowing someone to behave detrimentally in a work environment sets a dangerous precedent because nobody works in a bubble; it changes the work culture to one that benefits the organization unequally over the individual, it creates health risks, and combined, potentially skews a society's economy. That's why I care if *you* work yourself to the bone. You're not only my colleague but you're a barometer of the world around me.
Re:Who died and made you boss? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not if he dies before you get to know him.
Not being dramatic, just pointing out the flaw in the argument.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:isn't this normal? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing that really, really bothered me about the interview process was that if they are hiring for a "senior level" position (in my case they were), basing their hiring decision on whether you know which bit is flipped on or off in a TCP header is more likely to favor the recent college graduate who happened to memorize his textbook and has no real world experience, than the experienced career veteran that has probably forgotten more than the college grad ever knew. That's most likely why the workforce is "just like college" and "work experience doesn't matter." Like I said, Google has a lot of bright people, but they lack a lot of real world experience. Maybe that's a good thing (look at problems from a new perspective), but there's something to be said for experience.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Over here on the sane side of the Atlantic I work 9-5 and spend my evenings and weekends with my family and friends doing anything except working. Do you get paid extra for all those extra hours?
Marketing had their fun in college (Score:4, Funny)
From the perspective of someone on the outside... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:From the perspective of someone on the outside. (Score:3, Interesting)
five years later you still won't see any products based on them.
You will see patents making sure no-one else can implement products based on similar ideas and perhaps threaten microsoft's monopoly - the WHOLE POINT of microsoft "research" is to deny market entry to anyone else.
Now, you say "oh, but patents 'only' last 20 years". Well, I've got news for you: US diplomats have been pushing for 40 year patent terms abroad (asia, mainly). Once a country goes for that, then the USA will have a policy-laundered excuse to "harmonize" up to 40 years. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Th
Re:From the perspective of someone on the outside. (Score:2, Interesting)
Eventually, Google's employees will
Re:From the perspective of someone on the outside. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can argue it any way you like, Microsoft is a little more agressive in the industry and Google believes if you build a great product people will come(and with their name they believe everything they do is a great product whether it is or isn't because they get people just because of their name). Microsoft has given up on better/quicker and gone for "How to make this necessary?"
Re: (Score:2)
You may not like the few Microsoft products that you actually know about, but the idea that Google produce more products that hit the marketplace is simply fundamentally not true. Furthermore, while Microsoft's products may lack the "innovation" you're after, at least they have some that actually attempt to do useful things. Google, on the other hand, is focused on ways to monetize the Web through adverti
Re:From the perspective of someone on the outside. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft tries to, fails, buys it and ruins it
Re:From the perspective of someone on the outside. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd go a step further than that. I'd guess a lot of good ideas at Microsoft are thrown by the wayside not because communication is bad, but because the ideas are "dangerous." The company's massive revenue comes mostly from Office and Windows; many things that are new, shiny and have the potential to change the world, also have the potential to change the OS and productivity markets. The Web's history at Microsoft is the core example of this way of thinking - if Microsoft can control something and prevent
Lost me in the first para (Score:3, Insightful)
Ya, right.
Re:Lost me in the first para (Score:4, Informative)
Biased?
Re:Lost me in the first para (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I laughed out loud. (Score:2)
What amazing spin:
Microsoft is an amazingly transparent company.
People know about M$ because M$ has misbehaved not because M$ wants people to know things. M$ leaks like a sieve because their employees hate their company. This is how the rest of the world gets Halloween Documents [catb.org], and other fun outside of lawsuits. Lawsuits are the result of everyone else's outrage and reveal even more. Calling that kind of hate and animosity "transparency" is a brazen lie. Actual disclosure will get you fired [slashdot.org].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's it. You're a dead man, honestly, watch your back.
I'm taking like a man all the discussions about "evil" and all the posts talking about "you're forgetting, they're convicted monopolists!!!" people repeat like damn parrots on these forums with the cool and non-chalante expression of a Marlboro man going for his 156-th smoke this afternoon.
But I'm n
Re: (Score:2)
RTFA: Google offices have glass walls everywhere! What can be more transparent than that?
I heard... Over at Google (Score:5, Funny)
My guess is with an army of brain dead Steve Balmers...
Re:I heard... Over at Google (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, give me a Natalie Portman clone and im in! Who needs family time when you have Natalie Portman?!?!
the moment I heard... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, right. M$ will respect you. (Score:2)
Do you really think you will find privacy in Mr. Gates' empire? You could work in a vault, but every file on your computer, every email, phone call, and web site you visit will be monitored. You might even get fired for making a blog post at home [slashdot.org] that Mr. Gates did not like.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like shooting fish in a barrel.
Do you really think you will find privacy in Mr. Gates' empire? You could work in a vault, but every file on your computer, every email, phone call, and web site you visit will be monitored.
Why do you have to make me sound like a broken record? *exasperated sigh* Proof, please?
You might even get fired for making a blog post at home that Mr. Gates did not like.
As usual you're misrepresenting that situation. Work at any big company. They will fire you for taking photo
Why negative responses? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The "pathetic character" seem to come from a huge Google fan to me anyway, and the first "shouldn't have published this" seem to co
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They've got to do something (Score:3, Funny)
Laughable "Google is like my mommy" arguments (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Laughable "Google is like my mommy" arguments (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a family man. The idea of eating 3 meals per day at work doesn't fit at all. Dentistry at work? Interesting, but I'd prefer a traditional plan, because I personally am only 1/6 (less, actually) of the dental needs that I am responsible for. Am I making sense? It seems like the benefits are all based on the employee/company relationship, but most of those needs are already met by my other relationships, and maintaining those is a higher priority for me. Instead of a gourmet meal for myself at work, I'd rather have the cash towards some hamburgers I can eat at home with my family.
So that's it? We just believe this blog? Not me (Score:2, Interesting)
Admittedly, I am cynical, but isn't it common sense to take these things as false until proven true?
Personally, I give this kind of thing as much credence as forwarded-forwarded-forwarded email.
#1 Tip (Score:4, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
One thing I would advocate is getting decent (read:
Re: (Score:2)
My own experience at Google (Score:3, Informative)
Pay for food? (Score:2)
I'd say even with the less pay Google offers a better working environment, although career wise it sounds like Microsoft is the way to go(coming from a Microsoft memo, that's the way you would expect it to sound too).
I guess it's hard to demand stuff from th
Re: (Score:2)
this isn't the 'cafeteria' you might be thinking of...
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong about private office space (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to work in a team room environment, where all the developers sat together in one room (there were 10-15 of us or so), working on the same product. I loved working in that environment. You could talk to anyone just like that right away. Not having to walk for a minute or half a minute makes quite a difference, believe it or not. Since the barrier for asking someone for help or ideas is so low (lean over and speak), it's much easier to quickly bounce off ideas without having to interrupt your own flow. Also, you overhear others' problems and ideas, and pitch in with your own. Countless times I've heard someone lamenting some problem and was able to chip in with "oh I just solved the same issue."
Yes, you must have headphones in the team room, because sometimes you just need to concentrate and headphones are essential to drown out the noise.
Unfortunately, I am back to working in a cube and I miss the team room days.
It says volumes about Microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
"Dude you shouldn't have published this, why do you even work for microsoft."
and
"You should quit right away"
and
"this is horrible, man you ARE the reason microsoft is suffering!"
and
"What is wrong with you? Why would you publish this? This is internal only"
and
"I cannot believe you posted this. What is wrong with you? Makes me shudder to think what else your pathetic and bereft character would allow yourself to post"
and
"Idiot, idiot, you should quit. You should be ashamed. Hopefully HR will figure out who the hell you are and can your ***."
When I read the posting, my thought was that both Microsoft and Google sounded like interesting places to work, with different profiles of plusses and minuses.
When I read the responses, my thought was that Microsoft must be as full of paranoid conformists as the second circle of Hell. If these responses are typical of the environment, goodness knows what Microsoft does to people who post Dilbert cartoons on their office walls.
Evil Empire (Score:4, Insightful)
Finally, I'm not jealous! (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I got a job at a video game company. It was a smaller firm, but a lot of fun to work at. People were all young (I'm only 26), they had free food and lots of perks. You could go to work in shorts and a tshirt.
But then I started to see the down sides of it all. I worked long hours, and often worked from home. My health insurance wasn't anything special. Being on email till the wee hours of the night was an annoyance.
And then I found another job, and left.
Now I work for a place I have no real feeling of accomplishment, nor is it a place I yearned to work for. But I get in at 10am, I am out the door at the latest by 6pm. I don't work from home. I don't get on email after I leave work. Emergencies come up and then I take care of them, but I am able to separate my work life from my personal life with great distinction. My co-workers are in their 30s and 40s and 50s, all of them have families and leave on time to make sure that they are home to pick up their kids, play with them, and be at their soccer games. They encourage me to leave work and go out on a date, watch a movie, read a book, and do something constructive. They know that working isn't the point of life, but merely a part of it.
And now at the age of 26, I finally have a job that I yearned for, but didn't know I wanted.
Do yourselves a favor -- find a job that will let you live your life reasonably. You will be better at your job because you appreciate it, not because you are dying for it.
Re: (Score:3)
And now at the age of 26, I finally have a job that I yearned for, but didn't know I wanted.
Huh?
In any case, your post sounded kinda depressing to me...
I agree, but there's still a downside (Score:4, Interesting)
You see it more in larger companies, and especially as companies get closer and closer to government
The problem is, once you have a preponderance of people with that mindset on staff, it becomes difficult to act like the smaller company. When your whole staff is seeking security in their employment, it makes sense that the organization naturally becomes more and more risk-averse. You stop taking chances. There's nobody to rock the boat.
When that really starts to suck is when upper management starts looking at the numbers and they say, "Hey, it's a different market, your department isn't pulling its weight anymore. We need change." In a company full of ambitious over-achievers who have learned to be just a little bit afraid for their jobs, this situation is an opportunity. It's time for new ideas to surface, for the underdog to make his bid for success. New projects get launched. People move offices, start reporting to different bosses. You try stuff.
In a staid, safe, secure work environment, however, this is how it happens: Upper management says "we need change," and the head of your department says, "Yes sir, will do, sir"
And maybe you were at the same meeting that the head of your department was, and maybe you heard that upper management guy saying "we need change," and now you're just sitting there. Twiddling your thumbs. Waiting for the axe to fall. And you go to your boss and you say, "Shouldn't we really be doing this or that?" But he's thinking about his kid's braces and his car payment and his wife's last biopsy, and he doesn't want to rock the boat. So he sends you back to your desk. To wait.
Bitter much? Nah, not me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Tech stops (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I strictly work 7.75 hours per day mon-fri (Score:2, Insightful)
"college kid" atmosphere (Score:2)
Take if from the "last" great thing (Score:5, Insightful)
MS is probably just like that. A husk on cruise control that's driven by costs, bureaucracy and slack. A place where nothing new happens because the executives are paranoid rich blockheads.
Some MS insider should check to see what the average tenure with the company is now. I'm sure its dropping. If it's a really low number like mine is then that's a red flag for a company that just wants to operate on the lowest cost basis, probably out of the country and where innovation and quality are already dead.
The most important difference (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that this was a non-factor in the discussion perhaps indicates that this MS->Google->MS employee really is working where he belongs.
(Yes, I know that Google hasn't perfectly observed its "do no evil" rule, but it still seems a heck of a lot better than M$ in this regard.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Make your slogan, "Do no evil", and not only to you proclaim your own self-righteousness, but you imply that all of your competitors ARE evil. Wow, soo clever. Must've taken 50 of Google's 1000 PhDs to come up with that one.
Show me someone that constantly says, "I'm not a racist", and I'll show you a racist.
Show me someone that constantly says, "I'm not evil",
The softies are hatin on this guy (Score:4, Interesting)
Valley culture (Score:4, Interesting)
What makes the open plan office thing tolerable at Google is a very large number of modest-sized, well-equipped conference rooms.
Google does go overboard on on-site services designed to keep people at work. I'm surprised they didn't go all the way and build dorms. Some large Japanese companies do that. But the real feel of Google is "overfunded dot-com". Yes, they're profitable. But the profitable part, search, was built some time ago. Most of the technical people in Mountain View are working on Google's money-losing sidelines, like desktop apps. Those are the labor-intensive parts of the business.
Remember that Google is really an ad agency. That's how the money is made. Much of their newer hiring is sales reps for ads. The days when the ad sales just ran on autopilot are over; now Google has to push their ad products. In time, the ad agency people may take over. That will be an interesting culture change.
Google's campus used to be SGI's campus. Most Google buildings are former SGI buildings. So if you've been in the Valley for a while, there's always that reminder that a company can go from #1 to zero in just a few years.
Compare Intel in Santa Clara. Intel looks like Dilbertland. Intel is where cubicle culture began. Intel has built buildings from the ground up with single rooms covering about two acres, full of tiny cubicles. The cubicles are so small that only one chair will physically fit in them; they look like library study carrels. These aren't for call center employees; these are the people who design Intel CPUs.
Can there be a balance? (Score:4, Informative)
Here's an example: Most parents would love the idea of on-site daycare for their kids. It's the 2000s, and many women actually want to keep working after they have kids. Making the whole childcare thing easier would definitely keep good, more experienced workers in place and productive.
The problems come when this extra stuff is provided with the understanding that you will work tons of extra hours for it. The college campus atmosphere works for younger workers, but most older ones with families want a balance.
In your 20s, especially in the IT world, you don't have a whole lot of outside commitments. You can go to work, then go home to an empty apartment. This doesn't fly once you get married and you're expected to put time in outside of the office. This is another reason why Big 5 consulting is so attractive to the young. A job where you get to travel, drink in strange places, and make a lot of money is a really easy sell for a new grad.
I think companies (especially software/hardware/services houses) would be really surprised how much a few extra "grown up" perks add to productivity. If I have to make one less trip a day because something's provided, that's more time I can be contributing. One of these things would be an enclosed work space...cube life is annoying especially when you have loud neighbors.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So what's the solution, promote us? Not every techie is destined for management, nor should they be. When you hit your 30s, do you want to just be replaced by someone who can spend their entire life in the office? Heck, I'm worried about hittin
Private offices for devs at M$? Now I understand.. (Score:3, Insightful)
With team members probably not communicating with anything else than e-mail, no wonder why they can't make a single product without crashing all the others.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This type of knee-jerk Microsoft bashing is only good for a little karma-whoring but does not really add anything of much v
Re:Fun with FUD (Score:4, Interesting)
hmmm... a while back there was speculation that Microsoft had despaired of ever having its press releases taken seriously, and instead had started to release company PR disguised as "leaks" about which it would then pretend to get vary annoyed.
By doing so, instead of everyone going "ho-hum - more PR from Redmond" they'd take the leaked document very seriously. Then someone would pipe up with, "you know, if you think about it, Microsoft really don't sound too that bad in this", and everyone would take that seriously too. Because, you know, if it wasn't true, why would they be so angry?
So I suppose it's possible that Microsoft employees aren't the intended audience here...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
At the risk of getting marked troll or flamebait, it almost sounds like a pseudo communism. There are bins for them to have shirts, and free food... Google takes care of everything for them. Throw in the "you are all alike" attitude, especially evinced by the random desks and overcrowding.
Hmm... not convinced. Being cynical about it, it's more like if Google provide everything an employee needs (i.e. takes care of the immediate things that an employee would otherwise consider going home for), they spend more of their time at work, and even build their life around it.
That's arguably where the 20-something college-kid mentality (akin to supposedly "old" Microsoft) applies too.
If it doesn't remind me of communism, though, Google is certainly reminiscent of a cult in some respects. [slashdot.org] I'm not
Re: (Score:2)
Maintenance (Score:2)
Yep. I bet they've never had to do any maintenance at google. Everything they have is brand new (and admittedly, all of it is pretty awesome). The problem is that, take something like gmail for example. Gmail *has* to exist and be supported and updated and maintained for decades. What I'm getting at is, if you look at the big picture, you'll see that 90% of the time spent coding on gmail
Re: (Score:2)
You mean socialism, right? Communism implies that there are armed guards preventing you from leaving the Googleplex and propaganda everywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
The whole point of the article was about approaches to attracting and retaining the most talented individuals.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
1. People work too hard
2. There is little privacy
#2 is true and is unfortunate, although it matters less than you think because nobody expects you to be working all the time. #1 is just a load of crap. Some people work hard because they feel like it, but there is very little pressure to do so, and many people do not work hard at all. I average less than 8 hours a day and never work from home, and I have never been given crap about i
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I bet (Score:5, Funny)
In all fairness, when MS was born there was more gnashing of teeth, the boiling of the black blood of the earth, and child sacrifices.