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Comment by VirusNewbie | Hacker News Reader

> It’s just another large US tech company. Like Microsoft and IBM before it.

This is just a hyperbolic statement that should not be taken seriously at all.

Look, Google isn't some fantasy land that some people might have lauded it as once upon a time, and it isn't unique in terms of pay or talent, but it is certainly at the top echelon.

I did an interview loop for high level IC at both Azure and GCP simultaneously and the different in talent level (as well as pay) was astounding.

IBM has never a company where engineers could rise to the same ranks as directors and higher with a solid IC track.

Is Google special compared to Apple/Netflix/Meta? No. Is it special compared to Microsoft, IBM, and any non FAANG or a company that isn't a top deca-corn? Yes.

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Microsoft and IBM used to have a similar extremely talented teams. IBM ran research centers full of the world's top Ph.D. The innovation that happened at those places easily rivals Google's.

It's a similar trajectory is what people are saying. When Google was small and everyone wanted to work there they could take their pick of the top talent. When you run a huge company you inevitably end up with something around the average. I.e. all those huge companies that pay similar wages and do similar work basically end up having similar talent +/- and within that there are likely some great people and some less than great people.

>all those huge companies that pay similar wages and do similar work basically end up having similar talent

But IBM and Microsoft don't pay the same as the largest top tech companies.

> IBM has never a company where engineers could rise to the same ranks as directors and higher with a solid IC track.

Never? Maybe if you’re talking the last 15-20 years, but IBM has been around a lot longer than that…

I personally know people who moved up the ranks there to director and above, so I can say with confidence you’re absolutely wrong.

Yes! It’s sad how ignorant of IBM and US technology industry history some of these comments are. Then again, I suppose every generation does a lot of its own “this time we’re different” myth making. Not everyone has the wisdom to see the broader context.

Indeee. I think because for younger generation is physically impossible to have experienced it, while for the older generations it's complicated to get into a disruptive startup.

Obviously people could read about the past, but sometimes that's asking too much, they are busy creating "the future".

Also, you know, there probably aren't that many posters on HN who worked at AT&T in the 60s...

If you can’t be bothered to read up on why previously great companies fell from grace, you’re kind of begging to repeat their mistakes…

>I personally know people who moved up the ranks there to director and above,

I didn't mean that engineers can't become directors, I meant that IBM didn't have a track for top ICs to get paid more than directors and still not be on a manager track.

> ...both Azure and GCP simultaneously and the different in talent level (as well as pay) was astounding.

This is maybe the third time I've heard this mentioned here on HN, so now I'm curious: What specific kinds of differences?

I imagine there might be a certain kind of prejudice against Microsoft and its employees, especially for "using Windows" or whatever, which I've found often unfairly coloring the opinions of people from Silicon Valley that are used to Linux.

If you don't mind sharing, what specific differences did you notice that gave you a bad impression of the Microsoft team and such a good impression of the Google team?

> What specific kinds of differences?

Overall talent level. Almost everyone I've interviewed with at Google impressed me, as well as came across as thoughtful and kind.

I did interviews with many teams at Microsoft (9 technical interviews total) and the only person that impressed me is now at OpenAI.

Every single interview question I got at Microsoft was straight out of intro to CS /classic Leetcode.

They would straight up ask "find all anagrams", "string distance", "LCA of a tree".

Google instead disguises many classic CS questions, so it takes a lot more thinking. Microsoft seemed to just verify that you can quickly regurgitate classic algorithms in code.

I'm sure there are some great teams at Microsoft: but because each division/org is much more silo'd I think it's more likely a team has a lower overall bar.

Google makes everyone pass through a hiring committee and you're interviewed by people that have nothing to do with the team you might end up on. Meta is similar. Amazon has the team interview you, but they also have bar raisers come from other teams.

Microsoft seems the outlier here that someone can get on a team with only interviewing with people on said team.

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