Comment Re:Nope they are clever (Score 1) 336
Wow, a post on
Hehe, with so many people on here, it's bound to happen someday!
I also agree they're arrogant (in a different way from how Apple is also arrogant). Not sure why. I'd guess they're used to being the darling of the tech industry when they still believed in "don't be evil."
Anecdote when working on a Chromecast app:
One of the Google "support" engineers (i.e. no one actually BUILDING the product, he was glorified QA) came to our office to "help" with integration/certification. On taking a lunch break with us he was shocked we wouldn't pay for his meal, and said "well, next time we should do this at at my office, we get free food!" (emphasis not added, that was his actual tone). All the while he's saying this to people who have worked for *real* startups and can tell he was probably Google employee number 30,000 (and this of course was just one example - he was unbelievably arrogant in every interaction...)
Can I reiterate enough how little shit I give about free lunch? Free lunch at a company of 50,000 employees is not a "perk", it's part of a "compensation package." But as you said, Google still tries to preserve their image of "the world's biggest startup". In some areas that is still serving them well, and in others it REALLY isn't.
That support engineer deserves to be the annoying character of a Valley made-for-tv drama or something. That's amazingly delusional for him to expect a free lunch everywhere he goes. I mean, sure, there's a number of startups who do the free lunch thing. But really?
Perhaps it's simply anecdotal, but the other company making a run for "world's biggest startup" (Facebook) doesn't seem to be arrogant. Naive, perhaps, but that's a whole nother can of worms. Most employees I've met from there also mention free food and doing fun random stuff at work, but I haven't had one rub it in my face before.