Internal Microsoft Email about Life at Google

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?

"These kids don't have a life yet so they spend all of their time at work."

"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?

I just like the combination of "they spend all their time at work" and "generally in the building between 10am and 6pm." Isn't that eight hours per day right there? Then there's the part about how it changes as the employees get older, but he doesn't exactly give a shining example of that supposed change.

Re:isn't this normal?

*shrug* If they get to count time spent in the cafeteria as "time at work," they're getting a better deal that I ever have. Not to mention the excellent meal prices.

Re:isn't this normal?

With the exception of the 'almost always work at home' (doesn't happen a lot) and the hours (they vary according to individual's preference), sounds like here, too.

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?

Staying plugged in to work 24/7 is putting yourself on the fast track to burnout. Most people where I work (procurement for major engine company) work from home occasionally, but management constantly warns about making it a habit. They are aware that it's unhealthy to devote 9 hours in the office and another 5-6 hours out of the office to work each day. Of course, at certain times they expect long days to get a project done.

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?

If workers are "interchangeable parts," as the article seems to suggest, then from the company's point of view, it's best if your work IS your life. So what if you burn out early, there's a class-load of graduates every year, plus stragglers or over-achievers at mid-year.

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?

If workers are "interchangeable parts," as the article seems to suggest, then from the company's point of view, it's best if your work IS your life. So what if you burn out early, there's a class-load of graduates every year, plus stragglers or over-achievers at mid-year.

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:isn't this normal?

10am to 6pm? Damn, that IS relaxed for an IT job.... 24/7 checking email with blackberry doesn't really mean working... maybe the feeling of working? we all have a couple of minutes in our evenings sometimes to answer an email here and there...

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?

Holy crap!

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:isn't this normal?

You've made the mistake of thinking the only way to be a slave is to be physically coerced.

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?

24/7 checking email with blackberry doesn't really mean working... maybe the feeling of working? we all have a couple of minutes in our evenings sometimes to answer an email here and there...

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:Who died and made you boss?

If someone likes working all the time, why not respect that and move on with your life?

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?

Not if he dies before you get to know him.

Not being dramatic, just pointing out the flaw in the argument.

Re:isn't this normal?

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.

That was exactly how my third and fourth Google interviews went. I did extremely well because I tend to be the type of person that remembers those obscure details about TCP/IP packets that nobody needs to know in the "real world." But I couldn't help feeling that the entire interview was just about a pissing contest between 2 techies to see who knew more. Google has a lot of brilliant people working there, but it did seem extremely elitist and not a very good way to determine how smart a potential candidate is. If they push you long and far enough they will get to a point where you don't know any more.

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.

Marketing had their fun in college

Now they are not supposed to have a life. Techies didnt have a life in college. They need to get their kicks in sometime. Retirement is a nono as with all the soda few will live to see retirement

From the perspective of someone on the outside...

The biggest difference between Google and Microsoft is that Google turns research ideas into products. Microsoft spends something like five billion dollars on research a year, and pretty much any conference has a few interesting papers by Microsoft Research, but five years later you still won't see any products based on them. Google have a good track record of turning employees '20% time' into products. I think the difference here is that Microsoft have a research arm, and a products arm, and are not good at passing ideas between the two, while Google have people doing product work 80% of the time and research 20% of the time, so there is no disconnect.

Re:From the perspective of someone on the outside.

Google is about making a better, quicker, more effective product or filling a need that wasn't filled before. Microsoft's policy has typically been "How do we control the market?" "How do we make this product necessary to the industry?" etc... Not building a better/quicker product but making a product in demand. Kind of like requiring vista to run certain games(while my railroad tycoon 3 causes vista to coredump on my laptop, I'm not touching it on my desktop, which means no shadowrun... damnit).

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?"

Lost me in the first para

"Microsoft is an amazingly transparent company. Google is not. "

Ya, right.

Re:Lost me in the first para

And the name of this new blog: Just Say "No" To Google

Biased?

Re:Lost me in the first para

Just say no to Google! Oh, but here's how we can try to be exactly like them!

College Kid Atmosphere

I find that very amusing. Bill gates ran Microsoft as just such a company for many years.

I heard... Over at Google

I heard, that over at google, they have vat grown clones of Natalie Portman for use by all employee's. How is Microsoft ever going to counter that?

My guess is with an army of brain dead Steve Balmers...

Re:I heard... Over at Google

You know, I have never once considered working at google. The free gourmet lunch thing... yeah, thats great. All of the perks and status attached, thats great too. Yet, at the end of the day, im really more interested in family time then I am work time. I work to live, not the other way around.

That said, give me a Natalie Portman clone and im in! Who needs family time when you have Natalie Portman?!?!

the moment I heard...

... that google abhors private offices and loves open-space plans, was the moment any temptation to go work for them evaporated for me. Now if only there was a company like MS (work-environment wise) that worked in the unix-linux-lamp-python-etc space...

Why negative responses?

Can someone explain to this naive college student why that post is getting responses like

Dude you shouldn't have published this, why do you even work for microsoft. you should quit right away.

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. No house is perfect, we're all a little dysfunctional. Assuming you have a significant other or children, how would you feel if one of them decided to post something that highlighted your imperfections..? Wait, they wouldn't have to, your lack of integrity has been sufficiently demonstrated here.

The entire post sounded reasonable, and was an interesting peek into the sort of corporate environments I may / may not be hired into in the next few years.

New Communism?

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.

Since most of this sounds a bit non-standard with companies, it will be interesting to see how well it ends up working in the long run.

They've got to do something

Would the last person to leave Redmond for Mountain View please remember to turn off the lights.

Laughable "Google is like my mommy" arguments

Somehow, the author interprets the great perks like free T-shirts, meals, health care, and facilities as Google playing your parent and running your life. That's a hell of a spin job on what I'd consider a dream environment.

Re:Laughable "Google is like my mommy" arguments

Do you, by any chance, fit the "college kid" demographic referred to in the article?

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

I'm amazed to see discussions, not just here but elsewhere, based on blog posts which supposedly give "an insider's look" or "confessions from a former...." and are taken as the gospel truth.

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

#1 Tip for MS employees: tell people you work at Google.

I've got to have an office.

I've tried to write code in a cubicle, and it sucks, big time. I can share an office, but two-up in a 10x20 is about my limit.

So, if I find myself competing with Google for a candidate, I can see the main lever to apply. Besides matching their salaries, I've got to provide a private office, and make sure that the work is as interesting as whatever they'd be doing at Google.

-jcr

My own experience at Google

I blogged about my own experience at Googleplex [demodulated.com] in Mountain View. I concur that Google is very hush hush in general. My most surprising observation was that the security guards were rather laid-back while some engineers were very solemn and confrontational. This is not indicative of the overall feel of the place though - it's like a cruise ship party where people do work.

Pay for food?

Wow. I'm self employed so I pay for all my lunches anyways, but I wouldn't work somewhere where they make you pay for food in the cafeteria unless they give you 1 1/2 hrs for lunch. Sounds like my corporate brothers are having a shitty time right now. :(

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 the "corporate overlords" but crappy food for $15 isn't going to win me over. They say that I say 1 1/2 hrs for lunch so I have time to get out and get back. I love the ideas of a "tech stop" at google. That sounds just awesome.

Wrong about private office space

The memo is wrong about private office space. Microsofties are used to it because they all have private offices (with doors and all), which is far better than cubes, but his dismissal of shared working spaces comes with no backup arguments (other than a link to a JoelOnSoftware article that talks about them expanding space--how is that a backup argument?)

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.

is Google doomed?

As many have pointed out, many successful companies have started off similarly.

So is Google doomed? Doomed to be a bureaucratic mess with 800 levels between me and, say, Bill Gates with the only people who can really profit off of my work being closer to the top of the pyramid. I've interned a lot of places, but haven't actually had a job. Friends who have tell me such horror stories. Are the creme of the crop CS people destined to either pinball around the tech companies as the are founded and inevitably turn crappy hoping that once they'll get in early enough to ride the wave for the rest of their lives? Or is there a better way? :)

It says volumes about Microsoft...

...that there are so many replies along the lines of

"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

Just wait another 5 years and Google will be the new evil empire, they are almost already there with all of the privacy concerns.

Finally, I'm not jealous!

I spent time working up my resume to get noticed at Google or Microsoft to get a job. I really wanted to work in a field that was 'techie' and that I was working for a company I believed in.

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.

I agree, but there's still a downside

I agree with what you're saying for the most part, but I, too, have worked in both types of environments. You've captured the downsides of the start-up type company pretty accurately. The downside of the other type of environment is a tendency toward under-achieving.

You see it more in larger companies, and especially as companies get closer and closer to government ... i.e. big HMOs, university staffs ... any job where it's really difficult to get fired or laid off once you're in. These jobs attract people who have families, outside lives, want the healthcare and the work/life balance, precisely because they offer so much security.

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 the buck stops there. Your manager diddles the numbers a bit. Everybody's told they need to "work a little harder." And that's it.

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.

Tech stops

This idea is just too awesome to leave it gathering dust in TFA.

Google has the concept of "Tech Stops." Each floor of each building has one. They handle all of the IT stuff for employees in the building including troubleshooting networks, machines, etc. If you're having a problem you just walk into a Tech Stop and someone will fix it. They also have a variety of keyboards, mice, cables, etc. They're the ones who order equipment, etc. In many ways the Tech Stop does some of what our admins do. If your laptop breaks you bring it to a Tech Stop and they fix it or give you another one (they move your data for you). If one of your test machines is old and crusty you bring it to the Tech Stop and they give you a new one. They track everything by swiping your ID when you "check out" an item. If you need more equipment than your job description allows, your manager just needs to approve the action.

The Tech Stop idea is genius because:

1. You establish a relationship with your IT guy so technical problems stop being a big deal - you don't waste a couple of hours trying to fix something before calling IT to find out it wasn't your fault. You just drop in and say, "My network is down."

2. Most IT problems are trivial when you're in a room together ("oh that Ethernet cable is in the wrong port")

3. The model of repair or replace within an hour is incredible for productivity.

4. It encourages a more flexible model for employees to define their OWN equipment needs. E.g. a "Developer" gets a workstation, a second workstation or a laptop, and a test machine. You're free to visit the Tech Stop to swap any of the machines for any of the others in those categories. For example, I could stop by and swap my second workstation for a laptop because I'm working remotely a lot more now. In the Tech Stop system, this takes 5 minutes to walk down and tell the Tech Stop guy. If a machine is available, I get it right away. Otherwise they order it and drop it off when it arrives. In our current set up, I have to go convince my manager that I need a laptop, he needs to budget for it because it's an additional machine, an admin has to order it, and in the end developers always end up with a growing collection of mostly useless "old" machines instead of a steady state of about 3 mostly up-to-date machines.

I strictly work 7.75 hours per day mon-fri

I strictly work 7.75 hours per day mon-fri; no blackberry, no work at home, no email checking at home. Heck no work contact at home at all. This is EXACTLY how I want it - my family is much more important to me.

"college kid" atmosphere

The criticisms of Google's "college kid" atmosphere remind me of the apple "flashback" ad [apple.com] from the "get a mac" campaign where PC is always calculating how much time Mac is wasting doing "fun" things like creating something in iPhoto. iLife really does imitate art I suppose.

Take if from the "last" great thing

I work for the last tech generation's great and most favorite company. A big three letter place. It's a tomb. It's a company that sees its future as merely saving and cost cutting its way to prosperity as it develops nothing and creates nothing. And the only new things to come out of it anymore is via acquisition.

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.

I bet

I bet when MS is born, it looked like what Google looks like know. Wait another 5-10 years (or until next big thing) and Google will be an old and (possibly) evil company for many.

Re:I bet

"I bet when MS is born, it looked like what Google looks like know."
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.

The most important difference

Notice that the M$ guy never mentioned "do no evil" as a factor.

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.)

The softies are hatin on this guy

The comments on that blog are quite funny actually:

What is wrong with you? Why would you publish this? This is internal only. Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us.

this is horrible, man you ARE the reason microsoft is suffering!

WHen I refreshed this page, it shows your e-mail and all. You better be careful too

And the best one:

Idiot, idiot, you should quit. You should be ashamed. Hopefully HR will figure out who the hell you are and can your ***.

I wouldn't want to work at a company if these were my coworkers.

Valley culture

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.

some highlights

"College kids tend to like it because it's just like college - all of their basic needs are taken care of. In fact, even most of your personal-life can get tied up in Google benefits. Google provides free or subsidized broadband to every employee. Google runs its own, private, bus lines in the Bay Area for employees. Google provides free or subsidized mobile phones. A college kid can literally join Google and, like they did as freshman at university, let Google take care of everything. Of course, if Google handles everything for you, it's hard to think about leaving because of all the "stuff" you'll need to transition and then manage for yourself."
Perks are bad? If Microsoft is hiring people that can't feed themselves if they have to then they got real problems.

"Google has no facility for career growth. Microsoft has more, but could do better. Continuing Microsoft-specific education for things like project management, managing people, communication skills, etc. should be promoted. A structured career plan for each discipline would be great - e.g. training, experiences, milestones, etc. Paths like "Developer to Development Manager" "Developer to Technical Architect" which show what courses and experiences (e.g. being a mentor) are encouraged for the different paths."
This is a philosophical difference, as is Google's lack of structure. Google throws a lot of smart people together and trusts them to work things out without some overpaid consultant giving management tips and designing hierarchical organizational charts.

"Take a cue from Google and loosen up a little about offices. Let people call facilities and have their office painted any color they want. Have the standard office come with a guest chair and a brightly colored Microsoft branded bean-bag chair."
I guess they wouldn't appreciate the Che Guevara poster hanging on my office wall, but bean bag chairs for everyone!

"Most IT problems are trivial when you're in a room together ("oh that Ethernet cable is in the wrong port")"
Oh, so that's why Windows Task Manager crashed on me yesterday, they employ the mildly retarded.

Microsoft spin

Like most Microsoft "internal emails" that are "leaked", likely as not this is thinly disguised Microsoft PR. As far as I can tell it's a collection of mostly true facts with very very heavy Microsoft spin on them.

Life at any company...

Well it's not like this was an internal Microsoft e-mail from the VP telling its employees not to work at Google. However, regardless of whom the e-mail was from, if you have to resort to saying "Don't work for XYZ because they suck..." instead of saying "Work for us, we're great! Here are the reasons why..." then there are issues that need to be worked out within the company.

Personally, I'd rather have people pick my company to work for because it's a great company and not because the competition is labeled as being worse.

"what Microsoft might copy"

You mean "what Microsoft might innovate!"

Can there be a balance?

Here's an idea for us older types with families...I think IT companies would have fewer retention problems if they balanced this "take care of everything" approach with some reasonable limits.

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.

The overtime thing is blown out of proportion.

I currently work at Google, and people aren't expected to work overtime, they choose to. Keep in mind the types of people Google hires - very intelligent overachievers. These are the types of people who want to keep working after they go home.

If you don't want to, like me, you can put in your 40 hours a week and be done with it. I work my 8 hours a day and that's that. Nobody asks or expects me to do more.

In fact, even the founders actively encourage people to have a better work-life balance. They've come out and specifically said that if we feel pressured to work overtime then something is wrong.

Private offices for devs at M$? Now I understand..

So, Microsoft is trying every single (quite pathetic I have to say) thing to avoid employee leaking to competitors or better places, including having developers in their own private office?
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.

No social life

Tons of perks at the cost of a social life, I'd say!!!

what can Microsoft do?

"Please provide any additional information that you believe will help in our battle for talent against Google?"

Here are some suggestions:

- stop trying to win in the market through sleazy business practices

- stop trying to kill open source through FUD; either deliver something that's obviously paying money for, or join open source

- stop delivering products many years late

- stop having your executives perform monkey dances (and fire any that have the bad taste to do it)

- fire the old-timer multi-zillionaires; they make any newcomer feel like a peasant, and they have far too much influence

- stop filing patents on inventions others have made decades earlier

- start making products that matter, as opposed to useless variants of outdated products and "me too" versions of Google and Apple products

Personally, I don't give a damn whether I work in a cubicle or a private office, or whether my company gives me free food or not, but I do care whether I have to be embarrassed mentioning who I'm working for.

Close perspective of Google life

I have plenty of friends who've interned at Google (though I haven't myself yet), and so I have a good idea of what working at Google is like. One of my friends is a very academically passionate guy. He's at work on average 12-15hrs per day (He's at work until 5am on many occasions). He doesn't always "work" per se of course. He goes to the gym or plays one of the other recreational activities there. He goes to research seminars and does independent (but related) research to his job. I guess it's a part of his 20% independent time. I've visited the Google campus (Googleplex I guess they call it), and it's fabulous. It has a unique university feel to it. Plenty of lounges and open seating areas. People just sit around doing work wherever with their feet up and some Naked juice (ohh how I love the Naked juice). Yes, Google cares about where your degree is from, but Stanford is not the only school they hire from by any means. The University of Waterloo (where I'm from) in Canada has the #1 co-op program in the world and so Google hires plenty of interns from there (many of whom become full time employees presumably). I can't make any claims about the Microsoft life style though because I only have one close friend working there, and I haven't been to the Redmond campus yet (though I may be going up for a visit in a few weeks). So yes, the young eager ones do not have a social life, but you're free to be as academic and research oriented as you want to be. If you think you have a brilliant idea, the company gives you the flexibility to explore the idea. There are plenty of young inventors out there with ideas that never make it commercially because they weren't willing to take the chance to start up a company and their employer didn't give them the time to explore it. At Google, you have that time, and I've heard if you come up with an idea that ultimately is released, they'll reward you handsomely making starting up a company less appealing.

Are these people insane?

Jeez, I don't wanna work that hard.

From what I read on Wikipedia Google salaries are on the low side. I work as a sysadmin for the federal government - I don't carry a corporate cell phone, work 40 hours a week (16 of those from home) in an environment where working overtime is strongly discouraged because of budget cuts and I make more than twice what Google's entry-level sysadmin does - and live in a considerably lower-cost area than the Bay Area.

I don't get free food but do get a free gym, 10 federal holidays, 13 sick days and 26 vacation days a year - on top of the 104 personal days I already get - and I go home at 3pm every single day. I don't understand why someone would want to work in that kind of a sweatshop. For me, a job is necessary to be able to do the fun stuff - not my reason for existence.

Something i'd Love to See Companies Do

This idea comes in two forms: One out of ten work days, each employee can take that day to do volunteer work. The other model is 1/10th of a company's output is given away. Plan A Examples - Joe Bob spends every other Friday teaching inner city kids how to use computers. The Canard Noir cooks for free for 8 hrs every other Tuesday. Everybody at Big Boys Heating and Plumbing does a Habitat for Humanity project every other Monday. Gold Gym in Herndon could run a bi-weekly fitness day camp for fat kids. Lisa Anne saves up his 10% over a few months and then spends two weeks to teach an art class. Plan B Examples - Every tenth copy of Vista off the line goes to a charity pile for schools, shelters and the poor. Every tenth pint of blood donated is frozen and shipped off to where it is needed. Allow companies to write off the "losses" and to tout how much good they do. THE POINT - To move away from MONEY. It is far more meaningful and helpful to have people donate time and sweat. Plus, unlike writing a check to an orphanage, volunteer WORK creates a sense of community and responsibility, fosters a real human connection. /worries this might be modded "Funny"

Google's Perks

As Google's employees grow up and exploit their perks, the perks will disappear. A few years will pass before Google's culture is comparable to Microsoft's. I'm surprised they've been able to maintain it for this long though.

Life is good at Google

I've been at Google a month now, and I am finding it very satisfying,
even more so than I hoped for. A great deal of the corporate culture
is simply about removing barriers that might keep you from doing your
work. The Tech Stops are a perfect example of that - if you have a
problem, they usually just fix it right then and there.

Before I joined up, I assumed that the meals were basically a strategy
to extract the most hours of work from employees. Now that I'm here,
I'm finding that it doesn't feel like "work late and we'll feed you"
at all. Rather, it's an opportunity to get to know people better, make
friends, build and strengthen those connections. And range and depth
of talent of the people is truly incredible.

There's a lot more to the food than it being free, too. It's not just
that it's "gourmet" either. Amazingly, the people who make and serve
the food are as passionate about it as the engineers are about
software. There's a garden inside the main campus where they grow
veggies, and they use local sources as much as possible. Today, for a
snack I had strawberries that were every bit as good as the wild ones
I picked from patches when I was a boy. Turns out, they were grown
right next to where the barista in my building's coffee bar lives.
Earlier this week, there was pizza for the open source tech talk, and
the guy who made it brought it himself, and chatted with the guests.
That kind of quality and connection is something that I think
everybody should aspire to in their lives, in food and in other areas.

I can see that not everybody would have a good experience working for
Google, especially people who need their hand held all the time, or
who have difficulty balancing the demands of work, life, family, etc.
I personally like being treated like a grown-up, and appreciate being
able to treat other people the same. But the culture there probably
isn't for everybody.

Re:HR at work

Hehe, that was funny... or really lame.

Re:HR at work

I bet they do a lot of TPS reports.

Re:Fun with FUD

FUD is also blaming Microsoft of FUD at the drop of a hat...

Re:Fun with FUD

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:I always knew

I work at Google. It really is a dream job. The main criticisms he had were:

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 it.

Re:I always knew

Where did you get that out of the memo? Many companies ask for more from their employees, with NO perks.