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Comment by themitigating | Hacker News Reader

"but Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and ves"

Is that a fact or just your perception?

Certainly is public opinion.

I remember people trying to make the claim that Google paying smart people to not work was a good strategy because it prevented those workers from creating start-ups that would compete with Google.

The Blind app is an interesting place.

Idk if I would call blind public opinion

> I remember people trying to make the claim that Google paying smart people to not work was a good strategy because it prevented those workers from creating start-ups that would compete with Google.

That's from Silicon Valley, the parody show

_Silicon Valley_ is well-known to an extrmely accurate portrayal of SV culture. It is a hit parody because it's accruate.

That's what people there tell me. I'm sure it depends a lot on what part of Google people work for, but yeah, come in late, leave early, long lunches, work-outs, meetings to discuss meetings... I don't know how they got things done. In plenty of companies things that took a team of seven with a manager could be accomplished by two. So, yeah, the reputation has some known basis but may not reflect all of Google.

They don't get things done. They buy companies that got those things done: YouTube, Google Docs, Android, etc.

Are you enjoying using Writely and Cupcake, which haven't changed in 15 years?

> meetings to discuss meetings

Thats not chill, that's exhausting and common at many dorectionless organisations with poor leadership. As an IC its not something yoy can fix

Obviously it is impossible to measure this sort of thing objectively, but if you know enough people that bounce around in FAANGs or check Blind, this is pretty widely the opinion.

Blind turns into the worst version of a company pretty quickly. It would have you believe that both anyone can get a job at certain companies and that others fire their entire staff.

My understanding is that google historically simply didn’t give raises or approve projects for under performers. As long as someone didn’t rock the boat or put up low quality CRs, or stop working entirely, they would be left alone - and maybe google wouldn’t bother to give them any new stocks when their grant expired.

While I was at Google, I witnessed several people be put on "performance improvement plans" for three perf rounds, and then get fired.

Everyone in the Bay knows that Google is the retirement home. I knew people who worked there who left because no one on their team would write anything. Show up at 11, lunch at 1, leave at 4 after meetings.

And you know that when people call it "best WLB" they're talking about something specific.

I heard the same about Ericsson in Europe. Any other known retirement places?

LinkedIn also has that reputation.

Linkedin and Salesforce PM's tend to be the stereotypical answer (products that haven't changed for years).

When I was in college years ago, I knew a guy whose plan was to turn his Amazon internship into a FTE offer, work there a couple years, and then go to Google and quote "sit."

It worked. Not a bad plan in the early/mid 2010s ;)

When I started 10 years earlier just being able to get paid to program was amazing. My first job in 2001 was for minimum wage. I wonder how many developers exist who wouldn't if pay wasn't so high.

We are likely about to find out. In the end this could be a good thing, shake out a lot the bootcampers and leave the people who like to code. On the downside, people like me like to code and also rest n' vest. :/

You're assuming that management can and does differentiate between the two and only fires the sitters.

Life experience tells me this is highly unlikely.

If that is true (managers cannot filter for sitters), then I know which wins: random layoffs vs. surgical firings at scale

I think neither? Or rather, it's a function of 1) the accuracy of managers knowing who is a sitter and 2) the percentage of your company is sitters. If the percentage is, say, 20% and the manager hit rate is, say, 20%..I'd say both moves end up firing more useful people than sitters.

Even if you take it to say managers cannot figure it out and always get it wrong (0% hit rate). Random layoffs are still a net negative even if they outperform managers picking the firings.

It's pretty funny how even without unions, companies have no recourse to me barely working and collecting a quarter mil a year.

Remember when people used to say this kind of behavior is why the Soviet Union fell behind the capitalist world?

The layoffs are the capitalism part coming into play now

Living and working in tech in Bay Area 2010-2020, rest & vest google perception started circa 2013-2014.

It's a fact that it is the collective perception. Whether people actually get to chill is team dependent but from my understanding you can't really do 30 hour weeks at Facebook, Amazon or Netflix, but it's more possible at Google.

And I think almost no one really works 30 hours productively at any company.

"Collective perception" is not meaningful evidence

The statement you challenged was "Google has long been known as the FAANG to go to if you want to chill, coast, and vest". Additional people chiming in saying they, too had this perception is evidence that that is something Google is known for, and not just by OP.

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