I Used to Want to Work for Google

I also used to want to work for Google, but for a different reason. Early in college, I had read the original Google whitepaper from the 90's, and I had a view of google doing lots of cool tech work and lots of open, beneficial research. I viewed them as a positive force on the industry.

Then, senior year, I ended up flying out to California for an onsite interview. The all day event included meeting many people for interviews, tours, and discussions. Not a single one was doing open research, or Android development, or anything similar.

They were all directly, or at least moderately involved, with Building and targeting ads "better".

That shattered my world view. I had always viewed working for large companies as a positive thing, a protective and supportive environment that could afford to invest in employees and their future and work with them to improve lives.

Nope, every member of google was a cog to either squeeze more ad revenue out of the world, or burn money to push their ad infrastructure into other markets.

The amount of money Google makes is mind numbing, and it nearly all comes from selling space on infrastructure for programs and software whose core design is to convince you to spend money, no exception.

The amount of money spent all around me every day just to attempt to bend my will, to convince me to spend my hard earned dollars on this or that, utterly terrifies me.

"I quit right before Windows 10 came out because I knew it was going to be a disaster."

What? This does not make much sense. The post, as a whole, reads immaturely. Microsoft also may have missed market opportunities, but to call the entire company and its employees incompetent is quite the claim to make. If he truly believes that, I fear there is no company that is moral, ethical, or full of enough smart employees to be deemed worthy of his talent. I hope he is working on being a capable entrepreneur, in this case.

"The problem is that there aren't many other options. Google is evil, Facebook is evil, Apple is evil if you care about open hardware, Microsoft is too stupid to be evil but might at some point become evil again, and Amazon is probably evil and may or may not treat it's employees like shit depending on who you ask. At some point, you have to put food on the table."

He is speaking as if there were only 4 or 5 technology companies working for in the whole world.

> Apple is evil if you care about open hardware

This seems like a really weird stretch, included to justify the narrative of the "big 5" being evil. Apple not caring about open hardware isn't evil. That's kind of like saying Starbucks is evil because they don't care about non-coffee-based energy drinks.

> Microsoft is too stupid to be evil but might at some point become evil again

This is less of a stretch, but still pretty weak.

Power once gained tends to be used. Google makes a lot of money, that translates into a lot of power, and that is going to be used to the advantage of Google's stakeholders, whether in soft ways or hard. That's not to say that all big and powerful companies do really obnoxious things. There are definitely differences between the morally compromised and the truly evil. But the tendency is toward worse, not better.

If you have a problem with that, you need to find an employer that is on the smaller side or in a market where there are lots of competitors. That way, the company just can't push around others all that much. But a company like that is probably running on very lean margins, so it can't afford to be generous to its employees.

During the nineties, plenty of people thought Microsoft did plenty of evil things. Truly evil things, so I'm not sure the argument that Microsoft is incompetent, instead of evil, is very persusasive.

An outsider often sees evil where an insider sees good reasons.

Well they can take you for a one month long intensive recruitment ride only to dismiss you with a false negative (they can afford it on all fronts). At the end of the day Google is just an ad company. Everyone hates ads. I don't claim to be above it and if I had a serious offer from Google I would consider it, but it ceased to be my dream or even a goal long time ago.

BTW The corporate promotion of multiculturalism and sexual minorities has very primitive motivation. It just happens that most of the cheap workforce is mostly male, from various south Asian regions, plus there is justified black guilt in the Anglosphere. The cheap workforce has to be agreeable and inner fights or conflicts are undesired.

Agree or disagree with his reasoning, but this is the crux:

> This is the kind of stuff Microsoft did in the 90s that made everyone hate it so much they still have to fight against the repercussions of decisions made two decades ago...

The grumblings that, only a year ago, were reserved for the hardliners have now started to gain steam amongst the general in-the-know developer population.

Soon, technologists will start thinking of alternates to Google when choosing what products and APIs to use. Eventually whole companies will sprout up just to provide competitive products that only serve the need of not being in the Google ecosystem.

It's the circle of life.

> This is evil. (...) This is the kind of stuff Microsoft did in the 90s

and

> at no point did I think Microsoft was doing something evil

It honestly seems like the author is lacking empathy and looking for a way to justify going back to Microsoft.

I sympathize with his point that Google seems to be doing many things that aren't "good" but outright calling the entire company "evil" is not productive.

And I also turned down an offer from them, in part from the increased focus on share value, but I don't consider them outright evil. Companies are complex and should never just be reduced to "evil".

Why work for a big evil company when you can work for a small evil startup?

I share some reservations with the author of this post but this reads like a rambling rant more than a coherent piece of thought.

I don't want to work for companies where the toxicity permeates through the culture, and I assume that that feeling is close to how the author feels when he mentions now wanting to work for "evil" companies.

But the fact is that whole institutions aren't really evil or good - they are merely reflections of the people who are incharge of them at that moment. You can see that in any company that has gone through massive managerial changes - the company's culture & outlook has changed with them. Microsoft is the most prominent example of that.

So is Google evil or is it just that its policies as dictated by the current managerial top layer contradicts with your morality?

I guess any sufficiently large company will quickly start pushing the boundaries of ethics just by the virtue of being powerful enough to influence other people.

To avoid working at such companies you can always choose to work at the second fiddle tech shops - which provide just as much of an engineering competence (if that is what you care about primarily) without the power of influencing policies. Then you can be sufficiently happy.

Also it is hilarious to talk about putting food on the table at this day and age - yes compensation between companies can heavily vary but even a moderately competent software developer today makes more than they need just to make ends meet.

Google used to want me to work for them, but some years ago, the fairly frequent recruiting attempts became less frequent and then dried up.

All those companies named there can be considered "evil"(operating with their interest in mind) in one way or the other and yes Amazon is. They stopped selling the Chromecast and Apple TV because it competed with its own product, the FireTV.

If Google decided to pull all Amazon's apps that competed with its own in the Play Store people would have been running around with their pitch fork at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway.

People sometimes also dont care to work for a company because of the company's altruistic nature but for "selfish" reasons like, the prestige, paycheck and perks. There are non profits for those who care solely for this kind of thing.

I am not condoning or criticizing people for working wherever they please but not everyone wants the same thing.

Why was this post flagged? Yes it's a bit of a rant, but overall the topic is definitely valid. And most of the author's basic observations (if not his overly charged moral characterizations) seem reasonably valid, also.

So don't. Isn't it that simple?

It's an advertising company. Those tend to be bad.

isn't blogspot.com a google owned product?

This is all so hyperbolic it's hard to do anything but laugh.

Google has made mistakes and will continue to make mistakes. Evil? Nah.

What even Erik is talking about? Why is it wrong? Can someone explain if you have a view?

At this point, the large compensation package offered at these places is starting to look like hush money to keep your mouth shut and to turn a blind eye towards anything that looks from the outside like some kind of systematic manipulation (e.g. of public opinion, suppression of disconcerting viewpoints).

"flagged" Gooooooooooglllllllerrrrrrsssssss Time to find a website that isn't infected by a virus.

I love this. Posted at 1:04 in the AM. Seemingly a drunken rant (kudos if it isn't). I love the internet =)

Gay rights aren't stupid