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Google's Turn To Be The Villain
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Aug 24, 2005 11:36 AM
from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
caesar79 writes "The New York Times has an article titled "Relax, Bill Gates; It's Google's Turn as the Villain" (also evil but at least free registration required) According to the article, the "go-getting" attitude of Google is coming across as arrogance to many people in the Valley. More importantly, it draws attention to the fact that Google has drained the market of talent, caused a 25% to 50% hike in salaries and made it difficult for startups to get funding."
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Google's Turn To Be The Villain
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Damn you Google! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, Google is a villain for improving the wages of technologists, and also retroactively (circa 2000) making it harder for startups to get funding?
<emote=plea style=Jon Stewart> Oh Google, why must you be so evil?<
Mox
Re:You call yourself a geek? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.jazz-sax.com/)
Klink would be more like HOOOOOGAN!!!!
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/)
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:5, Interesting)
The startups are offering worse working conditions and so they have to pay more to tempt people away.
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 30 2004, @01:33AM)
Some of the benefits might be difficult to reproduce for smaller companies (such as the cafeteria), but there is no shortage of very nice office space in the valley nor is there any great difficulty in allowing engineers a certain amount of time and resources for their personal projects.
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:5, Interesting)
i think it's just stupidity. joel from joel on software has a good article about paying people in things "cheaper than money." and that in the end it's cheaper for the company, for example, to give away free drinks because employees value it more than it cost you. here's the article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
Re:I guess I'm just a money-grubber. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.alterpersanium.com/pictures/main.php | Last Journal: Sunday July 15, @08:20PM)
Re:I guess I'm just a money-grubber. (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.outpimp.com/?x=57020 | Last Journal: Wednesday September 12, @09:15PM)
With reference to your reply here to the post about him not giving a shit about group outings, and pizza parties...I do agree with you to a point. An outing on company expense can be fun, and team building. A happy employee does work harder and better. I worked at a place once, that had team outtings for us programmers in the business unit. I ranged from lunch and a day of bowling or laser tag....to a day at the lake where they rented wet bikes and a couple of ski boats for us. Was a blast...we even went 'tubing' down a river once...and got full days pay. It was a fun place to work. But, they started getting cheap and more corporate...and these things disappeared, especially when they didn't give raises enough to cover the loss of the perks.
Since I've gotten older...well, I tell ya, I can put up with a lot less perks...and would rather have cold hard cash. I generally can spend my time and money a lot more effectively to attain pleasure. But, a little group stuff is fun. You need a good balance...but, I lean more towards the cash thing as years go by.
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:5, Insightful)
I sure as hell wouldn't take a job there. My ideas are MINE, not some companies. I've turned down jobs before because they tried to shove this "all your ideas are belong to us" crap on me. I suggest you offer to refer them to a guy you knew in school who had a straight C average and tell them that he probably values his own ideas little enough to take the job, but you don't. It's not going to make you any new friends, but it's very amusing to watch.
This is all I could think about when I read about their "summer of code", a big company exploiting a bunch of kids who don't know any better and ripping off their best ideas. Do no evil indeed.
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:4, Interesting)
What turned me off was the interview process, the whole rediculous MS style crap; Im suprised I didnt get an ink blot test or have someone read the lumps on my skull. That tells me something very unflattering about a company, and any company that wants to hire me after one of those interviews just increased my cost 50% more than it would have been had they a more-sane interview approach.
The "google evil" index seems flawed (Score:5, Insightful)
In contrast to Microsoft's image of industry dominance at all cost, Google has cultivated a friendlier image with its adoption of open source technology and its philosophy of "do no evil"
'tis an amusing graph, but completely meaningless.
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Platform doesn't matter, as long as it's Window (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's certainly evil if you are an investor, they're behind the great outsourcing spree of Y2K. It's not evil to John Q. Public. (Now whether Google remains the free and helpful search engine we're used to, is still dubious)
But seriously, who in the hell seriously believes they've drained the market of talent? How many readers honestly do not know at least a dozen people who want to leave but cannot due to a poor job market or fear of a pay cut?
The job market still sucks, it's not as awful as it was a few years ago, but it's not good. People aren't going to float their resume's around until they're sure they won't put their existing job in jeopardy.
25-50% hike in salaries? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.welton.it/davidw/)
To me this seems like one of those times where someone just threw out a number and that number instantly becomes the focus of everyone's attention because they don't have any better numbers.
Let's inject some reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Google, Mr. Hoffman said, has caused "across the board a 25 to 50 percent salary inflation for engineers in Silicon Valley" - or at least those in a position to weigh competing offers.
First, Mr. Hoffman begins with a load of steaming hyperbole. Then the reporter appears to add some facts to the stew.
It appears that there has been salary inflation for those who have highly desirable skillsets. However, I can tell you for damn sure that there has not been across the board salary inflation. Ask any engineer in the valley how much his/her salary increased in the past two years.
Re:Let's inject some reality (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.nps.gov/c...reation/ohioerie.htm)
Wait, that's new? Isn't that in every field? Like, what does a top grad from a law school make his first year compared to one in the middle of his class, or even in the top 15%.
Isn't this true in pro sports- the guys who garner competing offers generally make a lot... and so on. and so on...
The only place this isn't true is with unionized places....
Re:Damn you Google! (Score:5, Insightful)
25-50% hike in salary (Score:5, Funny)
Re:25-50% hike in salary (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.triskele.com/actuary/)
I love the idea that talented people can make more money, especially in areas with ridiculously high costs of living.
However, consider the coder who comes up with an idea for the next killer app. If they can't get startup funding to hire a few extra sets of brains and typing-fingers domestically, what are their options? Seek assimilation by a corporation, or get in touch with the folks in Bangalore, it seems.
If the talent pool is drying up, be it from Google's quest for brainpower or from other reasons, then perhaps it's time to seek the means to increase the pool.
(Geeks ordered to reproduce; film at 11!)
Living off the air (Score:4, Informative)
(Last Journal: Sunday October 29 2006, @07:37PM)
That's what venture capital does. It puts food on your table as you develop your product. It seems like an awfully successful system for something that's supposedly a sham.
The alternative is to fund everything out of pocket. If you have no financial resources, well then you're just another talented designer working at McDonalds.
Re:25-50% hike in salary (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, the point is there. Startup company's over there hem and haw about not finding talent this, or talent that. Get a CLUE, most of us don't want to live in Overpriced-everything land, ok ?
So if that there aren't enough engineers in the valley is the excuse start ups are using to try to get in more H1B's then they deserve to crash and burn like they did during the DotBomb Boom. There is NOT a shortage of qualified engineers in the United States of America ( and Canada ). What there IS a shortage of, is legislators who will stop being namby-pamby's whenever someone like Bill G complains that it's costing him 2 Million more to drill out a new wing for his house, and his financials won't look right because he can't get the number of UNDERPAID H1B's and F1's that he wants.
There isn't a shortage of skilled engineers, it's not like we're picking tomatoes out of the ground people, it's that company's have come up with progressively sneakier and more loop-hole clinging ways to try to maintain the pay scales down.
Hence, why I've gone back to contracting. As long as you're going to think you're going to run your company with impunity, I'll charge you for the privilege of that false sense of power.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again,....more power to the company who is prepared to pay for a skill, they will keep that skill longer, and get more ROI dollar for dollar, out of that person, than the company who isn't. Sure, some of you younger guys are willing to work for "wheatgrass" drinks, but just wait until you have a family and have REAL bills, we'll see if that extra indoor basketball court is really worth that absense of a commensurate salary.
Or MOVE (Score:5, Insightful)
Well one option is to leave freaking California! There are a lot of talented programmers that for whatever reason do not want to live in CA. Find a place where a lot of them are and go there.
If you can't stand the heat then move somewhere cold.
Works to a point (Score:4, Insightful)
Google isn't the Borg... (Score:5, Funny)
I disagree. I think Microsoft earned their title, and I doubt it's gonna go away. I'd like to think that the Google invasion is going over more like the story in Doom3:
Or something to that effect, anyways.
Re:Google isn't the Borg... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.veriumsystems.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 06 2005, @11:17AM)
Us: What happened?
Us: Someone set up us the applications!
Google: Hello Gentlemen!
Google: All your searching are belong to us.
Google: You are on the way to destruction.!
Us: What you say?!
Google: You have no chance to survive make your time.!
Us: For great justice. !
Villainy will be temporary (Score:3, Interesting)
So really, it isn't Google's turn to be villain, it's Microsoft's turn to be the good guys.
Hrm, did I really just say that?
--
You didn't know. [tinyurl.com]
Re:Villainy will be temporary (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday October 20 2005, @07:58PM)
Wait a minute...
Re:Villainy will be temporary (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://paperlined.org/)
IBM is cool now because they're actively 1) paying for linux advertising (related to IBM, but still), 2) writing lots of Linux articles, 3) contributing to linux, etc etc.
Google Talk is cool because it uses an open, standardized protocol. You can't really go after Google under the Sherman Act for using the Jabber protocol.
It's still possible for Google's management to change, and for them to start leveraging their massive marketshare in a way that directly inhibits search engine competitors. Until they try something like this though, I'm going to sleep well.
(and note that MS is still, by far, the least likely to contribute to open source, or even seriously grok open standard protocols)
Search monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.cellfish.com/)
If Google has a monopoly on search engine services, it's a very fragile one.
Re:Search monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.cellfish.com/)
Doesn't using the word "gatekeeper" imply that without Google, the information wouldn't be available? That really isn't the case..
Google is the "gatekeeper" because it's the easiest, quickest way to find what you're looking for on the net. If Yahoo was markedly better, people would switch (back) in droves, and Yahoo would become the new "gatekeeper".
IMHO this whole Google paranoia meme is pretty laughable. Seems like people need to fret about some big corp threatening to take over, and the once-favorite whipping boy Microsoft is seemingly on the ropes so the paranoid venting gets pointed in Google's direction, mostly undeservedly.
If Google strongarmed ISPs into null routing competing search engines, it'd be comparable to the way Microsoft blocks OEMs from installing competing operating systems, but Google doesn't do that. Google's good at what they do, and they deserve to succeed as long as that's the case.
Re:Villainy will be temporary (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://ceejayoz.com/ | Last Journal: Monday June 05 2006, @06:14AM)
No, you have to abuse your monopoly power. MS didn't get in trouble for having one, they got in trouble for trying to keep it through nasty tactics.
As for "support for open source" wake when they have a Linux "Desktop Search", or Linux "google deskbar" or any of a number of other technologies they implement on Windows (and don't give source code away for).
So, what, OSS that doesn't work on Linux isn't OSS anymore?
Google releases useful code to the OSS community. They're basing Google Talk on the open Jabber format. They release useful services with public APIs.
They're "distributing" their software via a web server, but nobody gets to see the code behind the scenens, improve it, or fix bugs, or anything else.
Oh, honestly. If using a Linux server meant you have to release all code running on it, no one would use it.
Can the zealotry. If you don't like people being able to do what Google did, don't GPL it - write a more restrictive license for your code.
Re:Villainy will be temporary (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://paperlined.org/)
Um, Google-vs-MS is a canonical examples obvious example of this, but if you really need it to be explained...
Google naturally became the huge marketshare leader because its product was so damn good. This is a good thing for the little people.
Microsoft may have naturally come upon its OS leadership (there's no need to argue over that for this discussion). Microsoft then continued and tried to use its huge marketshare in the OS world to gain a majority marketshare in several other businesses: office suites, vsideo/audio player, ISP, internet browser, etc. Especially in the case of the browser, it seemes that if MS would not have had the OS dominance that it had, it wouldn't have been able to gain dominance in browsers. MS also got exclusive deals with computer manufacturers (and/or required them to pay for an MS Windows license even if windows was not sold on that machine) to try to maintain its marketshare in the OS market, and artificially supressed competitor OS's from doing very well in the market. (arguably, there are natural pressures that encourages the market to settle upon a single standard [slashdot.org], but in actively going beyond that, Microsoft was acting against the best interests of consumers).
Now, if a real competitor to Google pops up, and Google starts using its largess to hinder its competitors, then that's a problem. If, instead, Google decides to not be evil, and focuses on making the best search engine they know how, and allows the marketplace to choose whichever search product is the best, then google will have no problem, no matter how large its marketshare becomes.
Not even close (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Villainy will be temporary (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.dibona.com/)
As far as us violating the 'spirit' of the GPL. You have no clue what you are talking about. This kind of crap drives people away from using free software in the first place. What have you done to help open source?
Chris
Re:Villainy will be temporary (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.outshine.com/)
That's bizarre. Even the GPL doesn't have an "undermine your own business" clause. Where did this idea that open source means losing your competitive advantage come from?
I have a lot of code I give away on outshine.com, but I have a lot more that I don't. This is legal. The GPL states that you are not required to give back code if it remains internal. It's only when you begin distributing it that you must make sure it is available under a GPL license. Google has done nothing to violate the GPL as far as I know, and hasn't even violated the spirit of the GPL. Google allows employees to spend 20% of their work hours on open-source projects! They are so many times better than any other company here in the area that I am at a loss to see any justification for the critique.
Re:Awww... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.dibona.com/)
Yes, there are times when just watching people trash you is the best course, but this isn't one of them. Also, I don't really care about googles under/overdog status. We're doing a lot of work with open source and if we want people to take that seriously, we have to take credit os that future works will be taken seriously and not just a sops to curry favor.
I think that asking people what they've done is completely appropriate...if people want to stay on their high horses, I want to see thier credentials.
The criterion of "monopoly power" (Score:5, Insightful)
If you start sucking and you deliberately compromise the user's interests to make some money or crush some company, do those users have to bend over and take it, or do they have elsewhere to go?
I think in Google's case, it's pretty obvious they have somewhere else to go. Google doesn't have anyone locked in, not with Search, not with Maps, and definitely not with Gmail. If they turned evil, that would definitely compromise their quality of service, and there are many people including MS eagerly lining up to serve Google emigrees who only came to Google in the first place because Google's lack of evil made for a good user experience.
I think it's incredibly immature to equate the size and power, or even the ambition of a company, with evil. I guess there are some people who can't distinguish legitimate moral objections from mere sour grapes and envy. Remember that what makes Microsoft bad is the fact they deliberately screw their users (just because they can) and try to undermine open standards and install their own proprietary ones. This behavior should be condemned whether it's done by a big or a small company (remember Rambus?). And Google, big as they are, are not doing this. They are the sort of company we should cheer - a pro-user company with a bit of power. The alernative is that only the evil companies have the power, and I wouldn't like that.
Picking up patterns (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.stevenvansickle.com/)
Here's where everyone gets confused, though. Google isn't forcing its software onto nearly every computer manufactured. They aren't trying to force any sort of vendor lock-in or commit evil business practices so they can continue to give you "good enough" software either.
Forgive me for quoting people's gripes with Microsoft, but that's the difference between the services provided. To the end user, Google isn't costing us much of anything. People wanted a company to kill Microsoft, and now they might get it...and it scares them because the company they're tired of wanted to 'Think Big' and have big ambitions a long time ago too. People are trying to attribute the track history of MS to Google simply because of how quickly Google has taken off, and the fact that both companies were open about having great ambitions early-on.
Who hasn't? Can a company honestly succede without big goals to reach for? No.
On the other side of things, I was waiting for the day that Google would start getting bad press for anything and nothing. So far, every search engine that soared after it's IPO sunk not too long after and was quickly tossed to the wayside. Yahoo! actually survived surprisingly enough, but Google seems to be going another route: They're still worth money (and lots of it) but now some are turning from curious to suspicious about their former favorite. The little child with lots secrets can be seen as cute, the rich and powerful social elite with lots secrets must be hiding something malignant.
The only part about the negative press that annoys me is that nobody is giving Google the flexability to be a new company. They have to know how to behave like a giant from the start, and giants obviously must behave like monsters as far as the press is concerned.
you're partly right- and totally wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Friday June 17 2005, @07:27PM)
And: is the same reason applicable to Google?
Well, Both MS and IBM were perceived to be bullys. They used their overwhelming advantages in one market to extend control to other markets. Typically, they cut prices in the new markets in order to drive competitors out, even competitors with superior products. The investment community saw this, and feared investing in excellent products and technologies whenever Microsoft trumpeted that they were moving into a market. I can only think of two products that survived that onslaught: Oracle and Quicken. This is the fear, uncertainty, doubt (FUD) strategy.
The other bullying tactic which both used was to offer low ball buyouts to companies with promising technologies. They would, at the same time, threaten to buy similar technologies elsewhere, and then overwhelm their target company. In many cases, Microsoft seemed to steal technology outright, both from buyout targets, as well as from partner companies. In short, they were thugs, and were known as such.
IBM has changed over the last 20 years. Bill Gates still sings the same tune that he did 20 years ago. I haven't heard those notes from Google.
So they are bad because... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://justinblische.projekt30.com/)
Re:So they are bad because... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.lazylightning.org/)
"I've definitely been picking up on the resentment," said Max Levchin, a founder of PayPal, the online payment service now owned by eBay. "They're a big company now, doing things people didn't expect them to do."
Obviously hoarding engineers and paying them well is something that the rest of the industry isn't doing so why shouldn't they resent Google?
Especially when Google releases well-received products that are "free".
Kinda ruins the business model for everyone else.
Re:So they are bad because... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.pocketgamer.org/)
Re:So they are bad because... (Score:5, Insightful)
Salaries bad for the employ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Increased salaries is bad for business and the number of employ hired, but you can't quote a 25-50% hike in salaries as a bad thing... c'mon!
-M
Blah (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://databyss.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday May 06 2005, @07:22AM)
"How dare google make better offers for top quality programmers! Who am I gonna hire at 10$ an hour with no overtime for 80 hours a week?!? Google is Evil!"
Re:Blah (Score:5, Funny)
I know Google is now competing with MSFT, YHOO, and AOL. But when did they take on EA?
Re:Blah (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.wdfnews.com/)
I didn't know my manager read slashdot!!
Evil is as Evil does (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is doing more damage to innovation in the Valley right now than Microsoft ever did," said Reid Hoffman, the founder of two Internet ventures, including LinkedIn, a business networking Web site popular among Silicon Valley's digerati. "It's largely that they're hiring up so many talented people, and the fact they're working on so many different things. It's harder for start-ups to do interesting stuff right now.
I see, they are damaging innovation through creating so many products.
What?
What he really means is "I can't get top engineers so I can't innovate as much". But that doesn't mean innovation is not occuring. And how are we to be sure innovation at that company would have been as skillfully executed or as good for the industry as it might be at Google.
People complain about Google "hoarding" good engineers. But programmers are not slaves, to be bought as sold as property. Each person makes a choice and it just so happens people want to work at Google. If other companies want to hire the same calibur of people they either need to figure out how to attract programmers OR get the heck out of Dodge and go to a market where obtaining labour might be easier.
If only the heads of whiny companies consider Google evil, then I would say that slightly improves Googles rep with me. So far Google's behaviour has been far better than most other companies - and after all, Evil is as Evil Does. As long as Google continues to compete through excellence then I have no issue with them.
Re:Evil is as Evil does (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.speakeasy.net/~sbrinich)
Re:Evil is as Evil does (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.justgiving.com/underwatercycling)
Couldn't agree more.. Except I think he really means "I probably could get the engineers, except I don't want to pay them what Google does, and I'm not willing to match the working conditions whereby they have proven to be effective and creative.".
For some reason people seem to believe that the only people worth looking at are the 'names in lights'. Years ago, companies used to take people on, train them, educate them over years in apprenticeships until they fulfilled their full talents. Then they were looked after while they spent years producing works of art, and the company made back what they invested in the apprenticeship period.
For some reason, they now believe that highly skilled and trained people suddenly grow on trees, and should be available as and when they want them, whether colleges train them or not, or whether activities such as outsourcing mean that people just don't want to put their time into training for a job where they believe they'll spend two years designing something innovative, then have the foot work of incremental changes and maintenance shipped abroad while they get laid off until some company decides they need a highly trained innovative person for a while.
Perhaps this is a long awaited wakeup call.
Re:Evil is as Evil does (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not a company. Neither I nor my company compete with them. (Yet. I'm sure it's only a matter of time.) Yet I am wary and suspect them of being evil.
Consider their current power. They are the> primary search point online. People don't say "search for it" anymore, they say 'google it'. If it's not on google, for many people it doesn't exist. So if they want to control access to information, to a limited extent they are fully capable of doing so.
They have Gigabytes worth of private email at their fingertips. Sure, they say they won't ever publish or publicly index it. Now we have the same for IM.
Google desktop is supposedly secure. Yet what is our guarantee? Have any of you seen the source code? Even if it is now, can you guarantee that'll always be the case?
Companies change, owners change. As they continue to absorb large quantities of internet functionality and do it well the risk of them being corrupted by what they've accomplished becomes greater.
Obviously, from a different context, but it is an appropriate exposition on the nature of power generally and its effect upon people. While Google's power is limited by its being a corporation, and not a government, it is still something we should at least be aware of. I do not advocate some sort of wholesale rejection of google, they've done nothing to warrant that. Yet I certainly think caution and awareness are called for.To read this story without registering... (Score:5, Funny)
Irony? (Score:5, Funny)
ironic (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Monday July 18 2005, @06:18PM)
Yeah right... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.kickthebobo.com/erotech/index.html | Last Journal: Thursday November 15, @02:53PM)
take a few business classes (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://uptime.netcra.../?host=www.goatse.cx | Last Journal: Wednesday September 11 2002, @07:46PM)
If you think being an executive is easy, I seriously recommend you take a few accounting classes just as a starter. There's just as much complexity in C-level jobs as there are below, if not moreso, but it is complexity in different areas that are all too easy for gearheads to airly dismiss as trivial (just like it is all to easy for managers to dismiss our jobs as being Simple Matters of Programming). Complexity that if not handled well can completely sink the company, putting everyone on the street and potentially the executive in jail. Sure, large companies have people dedicated underneath the C-level people to the "dangerously complex" tasks like accounting, but your average startup CEO wears not just more than one hat, but pretty much EVERY hat.
Yes, executives make a lot of money. But they do that because of the risks and responsibilities they have. Imagine, for a second, that you're the CEO of Dell or Microsoft or IBM... Nice life, right? Now imagine looking out of your office and every person you see is able to feed their families because of your continued track record of not screwing up, and that companies you couldn't even name are also depending on you to not screw up. Bit more pressure, eh?
I've got a simple standard regarding listening to somebody's economic opinions: has the person ever held a job with a regular paycheck and had to pay rent/buy food/pay bills every month? If not, their opinions are borderline worthless. The same standard writ large applies to corporate management: if you haven't had to meet payroll every month, your opinions about the tasks and difficulty involved with running a company are basically shit.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of dumb managers and executives out there. I've worked for and hated several of them. But to blanket assert that the tasks of a worker bee equal or exceed the risks and responsibilities of an executive's is just absurd.
Industry whiners go "WAHHHHHH....." (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://timgray.blogspot.com/)
and the B.S. about it hurting startups is insane. No startups worth a damn started by hiring expensive people... you do not create a business by spending money like mad, that is something everyone learned from the 90's. Every sucessful startup started with self made people with others they knew or could talk into starting a business with them.
Re:Industry whiners go "WAHHHHHH....." (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.outshine.com/)
Tim, I'm going to use your post as a starting point for my post, but please don't consider this a rebuttal to your post.
Google isn't quite in my neighborhood, but close by. I know people working there, and I currently do contract work for a start-up populated by ex-Google and ex-Borland employees. As you might guess, the truth is more boring and less extreme than people are making it sound.
Google is cornering the market in a very limited sense -- they hire PhD's who can survive multiple rounds of interviews and tests. In other words, they're hiring exceptionally smart, high-end scholars who can survive a brutal vetting process. As you might guess, there are NOT a lot people like this. For Google to grow, it has to suck that niche dry.
This does affect start-ups. How? Well, most start-ups employ a few of these geniuses to help give them an edge and establish some technical leadership. When each company had a handful of PhD-level employees, everything was spread out evenly. Now that Google has pulled hundreds of them in, it is NOT spread out. A start-up looking to appear experienced, or to have some token high-end leadership figures, is hard-pressed. And that impacts the VC dollars coming in. That's a real problem.
Having said that, I'm contracting for a start-up that shares a building with the Mozilla team. Guess what? The start-up is fine. There are plenty. They may not all have evil geniuses as figureheads right now, but they're plugging along.
Even more than that, Google has left the MA/BA/MS/BS-level employees alone. Or at least, it hasn't made a dent. If you have a Batchelor's degree in Silicon Valley and you want a job, you're going to have to pursue it just as hard as in the rest of the country. The economy is slowly turning around, but it really is slow. Companies are not fighting over average joes, as they did during the Internet boom. It's still a bust, people still fight for jobs, and salaries are NOT sky-high.
So yes, Google is having an impact. But no, it is not affecting most engineers. Yes, other business leaders are complaining. No, their sentiment isn't shared by the rest of the local community.
Google Vs. Microsoft - No Bloody Battle Here. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.voip-university.com/)
The attitude of Google reminds me a lot of the early days of Apple Computer. Out to win big - yes, but villian - no. At least not yet.
PR at it's finest (Score:5, Interesting)
Paul Graham has an essay about this: The Submarine [paulgraham.com].
"Suits make a corporate comeback," says the New York Times. Why does this sound familiar? Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002.
Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to. One of the most surprising things I discovered during my brief business career was the existence of the PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms.
We have seen this before with anti-Linux campaigns. Nothing new.
NYT reg bypass (Score:5, Funny)
2. Paste into google search
3. click on link that appears on the google search page.
4. ???
5. Profit
Better story link? (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.animats.com)
Econominc Dawianism at Work! (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between how this applies to Microsoft and Google is in the end products and services each produces. Google's place in the market is the result of quality applications, a building of a trust relationship with its users, and a eye towards putting out the best software and services it can.
Microsoft on the other hand owes its place in the market to luck, the laissez-faire attitude of govt. during the early days of its development, and a focus on corporate marketing double-speak that focuses on the "message" rather than the quality of their products.
Google may be evolving into a corporate giant, but that doesn't equate with them being evil. They are far more similar to early Apple, but with better leadership.
Boo, fucking, hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Choicest quote (Score:5, Funny)
Geez, I wonder why the VC's always think of Google during our presentation for a search company named Oodle??
Terrorists! (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.derekmartin.ca/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 16 2004, @11:44AM)
So let's see here... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do we consider Microsoft evil? Is it equivalent to Google's evil? Well, no, it isn't. Stealing ideas, actively trying to destroy competition, lying in court, producing half-working crap and using a monopoly to force it down everybody's throat... is that morally equivalent to what Google is doing?
Didn't think so.
Since when... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.understandfinance.com/)
It is pretty frustrating to see people constantly complain about large, successful companies. What the article fails to mention is that Google likely hires the best of the best. So I would guess that the talent level of the employees dictates the pay, instead of the company name dictating the pay. Make sense?
Google to Monopolize Web Applications? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.vidiac.com/)
The problem is that their efforts do stiffle web entrepenuers who are trying to break into new areas such as hosted groupeware for email, file, photo and video sharing etc. (I know this from personal experience). Keep in mind that not all web application developers are looking for a "good Salary" from a benign giant like Google. Some of us actually want to be masters of our fate and make a living on our own. But now the real fear is "Will Google invade my market and make a free version of my Widget?"
That's becoming more real every day. I can't buy bandwidth at the same cost as Google, and I can't leverage massive Advertising revenues to give away my products for free either.
"Do no evil" doesn't mean "don't crush small start-ups".
-Adam
When evil is good -- life in a dynamic economy (Score:5, Interesting)
Although economies aren't zero-sum games (many activities do grow the pie, or raise the tide that floats all boats), some aspects do have a win-lose component to them. Successful companies can afford (and should afford) to pay their workers more than unsuccessful ones. This means that successful companies will inevitably harm less successful companies by "draining" the labor pool and seem "evil."
If Google is evil it is because change is evil (to some) and because competition (for money, workers, customers, etc.) can be evil -- at least in the eyes of the less successful.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Google shareholder (their stock seems very overpriced relative to the long-term risks of Google's business model and the high expected earning built into the current stock price), but they do seem to be very successful.
Google 'owns' too much information (Score:4, Interesting)
Business and Academia (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.evilsysadmin.net/)
Companies in Silicon Valley are a dime a dozen anymore. There's always some kid sitting in an apartment dreaming up The Next Big Thing. Some of them do come up with great stuff, but for whatever reason they just never get to the point where they're selling or distributing what they dreamed up. Those that do often do it on a limited basis because they lack the resources to go bigger. Those who really are onto something neat get bought out.
Google is hated by these guys now for the same reason academics look down their noses at their equivalents in the professional world. Because Google successful in ways others could only dream of. It's jealousy really. They claim it's because Google has lost its small-company spirit, that it's no longer doing what they do for the pure reasons of doing "cool" stuff or whatever. Google has taken the spirit and the drive of so many startups and they actually went somewhere with it.
We tend to hate, or at least target, those who do better than us.
Right... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, in the view of Mr. Kraus, "Microsoft is becoming I.B.M. and Google is becoming Microsoft." Mr. Kraus is the chief executive and a founder of JotSpot, a Silicon Valley start-up hoping to sell blogging and other self-publishing tools to corporations.
Step 1: Create start-up to compete against Google.
Step 2: Compare Google to MicroSoft in NYT.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Keep fingers crossed?
"Google is doing more damage to innovation in the Valley right now than Microsoft ever did," said Reid Hoffman, the founder of two Internet ventures, including LinkedIn, a business networking Web site popular among Silicon Valley's digerati. "It's largely that they're hiring up so many talented people, and the fact they're working on so many different things. It's harder for start-ups to do interesting stuff right now."
"When I meet with venture capitalists, or if I'm engaged in a conversation about going into partnership with someone, inevitably the question is, 'Why couldn't Google do what you're doing?' " said Craig Donato, the founder and chief executive of Oodle, a site for searching online classified listings more quickly.
"The answer is, 'They could, and they're probably thinking about it, but they can't do everything and do it well,' " Mr. Donato said. "Or at least I'm hoping they can't."
So, Google is evil and is hurting innovation because they have so many smart people working on so many projects that there's nothing else to work on?
It sounds more like Google is raising the bar rather than killing innovation. The bubble burst, ladies and gentlemen. You can't get new money for old ideas anymore. Get over it.
Leaked insider trading data (Score:5, Informative)
Once I read that I realized the article had an agenda. Or the reporter just really sucks at fact checking.
So outsourcing doesn't cut it eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So outsourcing doesn't cut it eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
What a freaking load. He's basically saying that Google is paying good engineers well and they can't compete because they don't want to pay well. Welcome to capitalism! You know.. it's that whole supply and demand thing. These guys want to have their cake and eat it too.
We're the same engineers that experienced a high drop in salary after the dot-com bust when there was a large glut of engineers. This guy makes it sound like its Google's responsibility to keep wages low and not hire the best talent they can.
Google's natural monopoly isn't as strong as MS's (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery | Last Journal: Tuesday September 19 2006, @10:20PM)
Microsoft, on the other hand, can pretty much hold the whole computer industry hostage by virtue of having the most deployed systems hence anyone who wants to buy or write software for a computer has to obtain the MS OS to transact business. This is worse than the classic "utility" type natural monopoly -- the better analogy would be if someone owned a perpetual patent on 60Hz AC.
Google - The Old Yahoo! (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://awesomeville.us/)
Then somewhere along the line, the free email accounts and home pages got so choked with ads and bloat that I couldn't stand using them anymore.
I like Google's stuff. Lots. I've just got this nagging feeling that I've been here before, and I hope I'm wrong.
Think about Google's business plan. (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://www.insurancegenius.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 22 2005, @07:26PM)
1. Get funding through at least one huge IPO
2. Hire all the top talent you can find
3. Give away your products for free, relying on advertising
4. You can figure this one out yourself
So for everyone sarcastically crying how Google is "so evil" because they're doing this, think about it for a second. How fair is it if you have a long-term business strategy to be run out of business by an upstart that is little more than a flash in the pan? For as good as Google is (and they are good), history shows their business model not to last the long haul.
Boo fricking hoo (Score:3)
(http://www.livejournal.com/users/maxomai)
There's a glut of talent in a lot of cities up and down the Coast. How about doing a start-up in Oregon or Nevada instead of the Bay? I'll bet you the salaries are way cheaper, too.
Innovate, then follow through, please. (Score:3)
(http://www.sonnetwriters.com/)
It seems like forever ago that I signed up for a gmail account and it is still in beta. I can't even get to my gmail account on my PDA (probably my fault, but I don't have any problems with Yahoo!)
As an independent publisher I was also excited to take part in their Google Print program (also still in beta). But its been over two months since I uploaded my PDF files (they didn't even have to scan my books) and they are still listed in "pending" status.
Okay, so that's my grousing for the day. Anyone else have similar experiences with Google's lack of follow-through?
It's not arrogance... (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday November 13 2003, @03:44PM)
Research labs like Xerox PARC back in the day were viewed as arrogant, in large part because of their technical success and lack of business success - "if you're so smart, home come you're not rich?"
Microsoft is viewed as arrogant because they're wildly successful commercially, but their technology is middle-of-the-road at best - from a purely geek point of view they don't deserve their success.
Google is an almost unheard-of beast that does truly technically innovative things and profits by doing so.
Compare and Contrast Micrsoft and Google... (Score:4, Insightful)
- Maintaining market dominance using closed standards. For example, the Microsoft Word file format.
- Embrace-and-extend. Adopting an open format, then corrupting the standard by deviating from the specification. For example Java and Kerberos.
- LONG latency in security patches and too many exploits.
- Devious scheming against competitors: the Halloween documents.
Well I could go on, but there is probably no need for that here... coals to Newcastle.
Some reasons why Google is earning a reputation for Evil:
- They have attracted many customers by providing a superior product.
- They attract star employees by providing better working conditions.
Others have made the point and I agree, Google hatred bowls down to jealousy, envy and anti-capitalism. The success of Google, much like the success of Apple's iPod, owes primarily to the superiority of the product, not to evil corporate machinations. They are winning market share fairly. Good for them. Good for their employees. Good for their investors. Good for their customers. GENUINE innovation makes everyone better off, except for those competing against it.
Is Google evil? Compared to MS??? Comon... (Score:5, Insightful)
What if Microsoft stopped patching Windows XP? I mean, if there's a vulnerability to Windows, and a BIG one that cripples businesses and users worldwide... Things in this world would HALT. Financial institutions that rely heavily on Excel would not trade. Banks that use SQL Server couldn't make transactions. Of course, this is a very 'doomsday' scenario, but it also can portray the stranglehold Microsoft has on the current business world.
Google on the other hand well... they don't have that kind of power. The resentment in the article comes from different Silicon Valley 'players'. One that I found amusing was the PayPal founder -- and the article later mentioned there may be a PayPal rival in the works. I wonder why he's bitter against Google?
Others complain about the talent Google is 'stealing'. Another post mentioned this but I feel it's worth reiterating -- you pay people what you feel they are worth. Trust me as much as I'd like to work for Google, if they don't pay me more than I make now... I don't think I'd make the move. There is a huge bonus to Google because of the way they treat their employees -- and people worldwide know it, and they want to be a part of the community that ENJOYS their jobs. If you work at a bank as a programmer, where you have to wear a dress shirt and tie, arrive promptly and work extra hours with no appreciation, then the wunder-stories of employees at Google are extremely appealing. If you are mad about not getting that 'talent' that Google is 'stealing' then start changing your work environment. Make employees ENJOY their work, give them freedoms -- it's software development after all! And yea, PAY THEM MORE! I find it amazing that computer programmers who LITERALLY have to study longer and harder than DOCTORS (due to the ever-changing atmosphere of technology, new languages, methods etc), get paid so little so many places in this country. When a computer programmer makes less than a garbageman it's indicative of a larger problem. So fix that problem you complainers -- don't blame Google because they saw past the problem and offered a solution.
I won't say Google is full of angels, but by in large when they express the "Do no evil" philosphy, they are pretty close to following up on it. They release an IM client, and show you, ON THEIR SITE, how to make it work with other 3rd party clients like Trillian or iChat. They release a web based email with a lot of free space, and to no addition revenue, offer free POP3 service for it. They release Google Earth free of advertising. They buy Picasa, update it, and release it better and ad free, even better (imho) than the Photoshop Gallery software or anything else. They release plugins for Internet Explorer, and follow by releasing similar plugins for Firefox. They create AJAX and allow royalty free use of it.
Evil huh? There may be examples of how Google is being 'evil', but at this point it's as laughable as the character with the same name in an Austin Powers movie.
Google... Good or Evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Since then, google seems to be positioning themselves to be the sole internet portal where everything will go through them, web searches, email, IM, your map searches. I mean, if google wanted to, it could know more about you than I think it should.
So far, their policy has been "do no evil." I for one hope that remains the case. Right now, my only real gripe is their lack of giving back to the open source community. They used linux to build their empire but give very little back to it other than being able to use it as an example of what linux can do. Ok, that's useful, but given how large they are, I think they could actually spend some resources to give back to the community.
But wait, they are using jabber for their IM servers. Well yes, I could use any IM client that uses jabber to connect to them, I think using an open standard like that is great, except you can't use the voice features that way, you have to use their program which isn't open source and currently only available for windows. So basically they are using an open source product to create a closed source program. Sure it's free, but that doesn't help me, the linux or mac user at all.
So unless you use windows, you can't use their IM client, you can't use google earth and I still haven't seen them release any source code. Is this evil of them? No, I don't think using open source products makes them evil, I think it's good in a way but I certainly wont consider them a friend until I'm running google earth on my linux box while talking to my friends over GIM.
Give me a break! (Score:3, Interesting)
If they can't compete in Google's market, innovate in another market. This is, at least used to be, the strength of start-ups. The ability to recognize an area that needed innovation and fill that need. Google has a stranglehold in Information Management right now. Find something else.
You guys are supposedly intelligent, right?
Let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://impact-technologies.com/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 07 2005, @06:34AM)
Hiring up a boat load of talent to cause a tech labor shortage is a bad thing too? I think there are a lot of unemployed and underemployed techies out there who would benefit greatly by this.
The perspective here seems to be from a corporate standpoint, one that doesn't want to pay it's people any more money and wants to be able to replace them easily at a whim. I would hardly call Google evil for that.
Google Evil? yeah and Microsoft is good now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft however destroys companies in ways to increase it's profit margin for inferior product, stifling the market for the consumer and forcing people to shell out a large amount of money for a product that is outdated, trying to keep it to be the only product in the market.
I don't see how one can even compare the two. Google is a website, and hasn't even tried to be the only one (well they wish to be but they don't push out others).
Personal story upcoming. I liked Yahoo Maps, I typed in my work address and searched how to go to a claim service for my insurance (got my stereo stolen and window broken) well Yahoo had me going all these ways that were SO inefficent, and the starting point didn't even match my location. So I went to Google Maps, not only did i get a perfect route (the one I pieced together out of a couple Yahoo maps and 10 minutes). I got perfect directions, exact locations, and every position was perfectly marked.
Yahoo Maps and Mapquest is STILL there, and they are available to you if you want, but Google takes the idea of driving directions and doesn't just do it, they mastered it. What is the Satellite Imagery do? not much but it's a nice feature if you want to use even more advanced stuff (and it looks better to some)
There's a difference between that and what Microsoft has done in the past. Comparing Google to Microsoft in this time frame is just a joke. Microsoft has been doing evil stuff for years, Google is just trying to get more users and it's success is evident, I haven't seen them as "evil" rather they are just proactive, in improving themselves. However it hasn't damaged the market to do so (and they make mistakes... Atom over RSS? heh)
Kudos Googles, Boo Microsoft, and WTF New York Times (also get rid of the damm registration, please or we'll keep use bugmenot.com
Google != Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.periphrastic.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday April 21 2002, @11:17AM)
Microsoft's products in the 1990's were essentially bloated foistware. Their software implemented critical functionality poorly and was outpeformed by other products, but they used marketing tactics bordering on extortion to ensure that they picked up a monopoly on end user operating systems. And they still made us pay for their crappy software.
Google's products in the 2000s are available for free. They compete with other free products for market share, and therefore are differentiated by performance and functionality.
In my opinion, Google is leading the way in good technology implementations, and they deserve to have an industry-leading position. Where they need to be careful is to remain competitive, and not stray into the realm of anticompetitive behavior.
My guess is that they are going to launch some initiatives in nontraditional (for them) categories of business, and maybe one or two will have some success. The rest will fizzle out because the company will not be able to translate its success on the internet to success in other media avenues. If they are smart about how much capital they risk on these projects, they will learn their lesson, and still keep the top spot in the internet-based free services.
It's not Google, it's the whole SF Bay Area (Score:3, Interesting)
People left the area in the dot.bomb, and changed professions, because they had to. But with the upswing, there's nobody here to hire anymore. So, duh, Google is interviewing nearly everyone who's on the market... the number of people on the market is way down.
Recruiting has gone from a job of filtering the stacks of resumes to really actively pursuing people again.
The funny thing about the Google accusations are that Google takes months to do an interview process and make an offer; the flip side of this whole story is Google being very frustrated that most of the people they make offers to have already accepted a position somewhere else by the time Google gets their offer in. Evil predator, which loses most of its candidates? I don't think so.
Google's a convenient entity to blame, but that's all it is. Until IT people start coming back to Silli Valli, it's going to be escalating difficulty of hiring talent and escalating salaries.
Difference between evil and side-effects (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://ronintech.com/)
Right (Score:3)
As it appears to me, Google is accused of being "evil" because 1) it pays employees more than its competitors would, 2) it is "arrogant" with symptoms of "hubris", 3) it doesn't talk to CNET reporters, and 4) it controls a vast quantity of information. That's pretty much the order the accusations come in. You got to wonder at the priorities (and thought processes) of a reporter when control of the kind and quantity of information that Google has is something mentioned halfway down the last page.
Oh where to begin... (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://drivemeinsane.com/)
The news last week that Google plans to sell an additional 14 million shares of stock, adding $4 billion to its current cash reserves of $3 billion, will only provide more reasons to gripe.
Because a tech company generating revenue and making stockholders comfortable, such that they might consider other tech companies as viable again.... is a bad thing.
"Microsoft is becoming I.B.M. and Google is becoming Microsoft."
This is how things happen in the real world. It will happen again.
"Google is doing more damage to innovation in the Valley right now than Microsoft ever did," said Reid Hoffman, the founder of two Internet ventures, including LinkedIn, a business networking Web site popular among Silicon Valley's digerati. "It's largely that they're hiring up so many talented people, and the fact they're working on so many different things. It's harder for start-ups to do interesting stuff right now."
Yes, because as we all know, everything worth inventing has already been invented, except for the relatively minute number of things that Google is currently working on. Darn them!
Google, Mr. Hoffman said, has caused "across the board a 25 to 50 percent salary inflation for engineers in Silicon Valley" - or at least those in a position to weigh competing offers. A sought-after computer programmer can now expect to make more than $150,000 a year.
And to think, a couple of years ago, we were whining that no qualified programmers could find jobs. Now we're whining that the qualfied programmers are getting snatched up so fast that we can't afford to pay their high salaries to compete. Bleed my heart does.
Why couldn't Google do what you're doing?' " said Craig Donato, the founder and chief executive of Oodle, a site for searching online classified listings more quickly.
Oh where shall I begin... A startup, with a name that is obviously intended to pick up some free indirect word of mouth advertising from Google because it's a likely offshoot of Google, has investors worried that someday Google will decide to do the same thing, only better. Imagine that.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people lined up to replace him. I doubt Google has suffered any bad press from a comment like that. Certainly can't see how it raises the "ire" of anyone. Can you imagine? "Man, this job sucks so much... they pay me too much, give me free meals and all sorts of onsite perks.. they challenge me and give me time to be creative. I love it so much that I don't want to leave at the end of the day. Woe is me."
To be fair, I can understand the concern of some people that a single company can be too powerful and disrupt the industry as a whole. After all, it has happened before. Microsoft is a perfect example. But if you must look for evil, search out the roots. Compare if you will, a company who's core principle is "Do no evil" and a company that broke into the PC market by selling a product it didn't even own yet. Compare a company that offers multiple perfectly useable and useful "beta" applications, to a company that couldn't get through a staged product demonstration without crashing the system. Worry about Google if you must, but keep your concerns in context.
-Restil
In recent news... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://databyss.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday May 06 2005, @07:22AM)
Re:Higher Salaries? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sorry to say it (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.intelligentblogger.com/ | Last Journal: Monday August 27, @11:47AM)
Uh, yeah. Did you read the story? It's not that Google is outright EVIL(TM), it's that the other tech corporations think Google is EVIL(TM) because Google is bigger and more powerful. Techies still love Google, because they raise the general salary and promote good working conditions.
Microsoft was once A Good Company.
No, Microsoft was once an upstart. i.e. "The Underdog." They were never a "good" company. Their primary product (Microsoft BASIC) was a complete ripoff of University code. That started a trend in Microsoft history where every product was either a stolen or bought-out design. (Which isn't to say that Microsoft employees don't work hard. It's just that Microsoft as a corporation doesn't have an honest or original bone in its metaphorical body.)
In more recent news . . . (Score:5, Funny)
According to highly credible sources, upset Google employees everywhere are demanding lower pay, citing heavy feelings of insult for the rediculous amount of money they are receiving for the minor, unimaginative work they are involved in.
Google has locked the doors of all their development houses from the inside, fearing massive defection to more reasonable companies that tell their employees exactly what to do and when, eliminating the stifling processes of having to be creative. Updates to follow soon.