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Comment by Timothee | Hacker News Reader

An interesting part of this story is that Google knows full well who that person is (unless they've been giving out $3.5M to a lot of people...), and leaking that story to TechCrunch makes Google look desperate and less interesting than Facebook.

Especially knowing that they just fired the person that leaked a positive (though confidential) memo that was addressed to 23,000 people. (that is, not super private to begin with)

It feels a bit like biting the hand that just fed you a huge amount of money.

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I'm sure that person (again, assuming that there was only one) wasn't the only one to know about the money.

It's probably more likely that a manager, someone in HR, etc leaked the info.

You're right, of course. Overall, it just feels that the person who did leak this story would have more reasons to be fired that the one about the memo... Especially if it's someone in HR who are clearly not supposed to divulge any information like that.

If I was that employee, I would think I've now reached the most awkward point of my career. And the most dangerous.

Yeah, but you just scored $3.5 million. I think most people can deal with a bit of awkwardness and danger for that kind of cash.

Or this is just a misinformed rumor.

Does it matter now, with no way to confirm or deny the story?

As a software engineer, I'm willing to say no, not beyond reasonable doubt.

Especially knowing that they just fired the person that leaked a positive (though confidential) memo that was addressed to 23,000 people.

Really? Wow. I missed that --- link?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1892550

I can guarantee you that in the eyes of top young grads Google has looked less interesting than Facebook for several years now. Google is where you go if you aren't good enough for Facebook. It's a safe, stale, big corp that is the dream job of every mediocre, middle-aged programmer out there.

Seriously? I have a bit of background on research, and Google always looked the more attractive choice, still does. I'd pick Facebook in anticipation of a massive IPO, honestly; I wouldn't expect to be equally appreciated in Google.

Are you implying that it is easy for mediocre, middle-aged programmers to join Google, and consider that as the plan B for their career? I'd say the opposite.

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