Ex-Googler: 'Tons of Engineers' Want to Leave Google | Hacker News Reader

Ex-Googler: 'Tons of Engineers' Want to Leave Google

businessinsider.com

22 pointsjrs2359 comments

"During a trip to Palo Alto earlier this week, we spoke with another high-profile venture capitalist who said he also expected talent to flee Google in increased numbers during 2015 — but only if the company is unable to get its stock growing again"

So the alternative to a sorta comfy job with lots of free perks is to slog insane hours in a startup with absolutely no guarantee of a payout? I'd love to know who this VC is; in any case, this is shoddy journalism. It makes sweeping generalization of all employees being after money, which some might be true for some, but I'm sure many of the ones leaving love to challenge themselves to work in unexplored areas, something which no big company provides (exception: GoogleX and other skunk works outfits which let's face it, you gotta know the right people to get in).

I've heard this story before, but I don't remember a mass exodus from "da goog" as the article hideously calls it. I wonder what the motive is.

The stock ticker is GOOG and everyone who works there knows it; "the goog" and the more anagrammatic "el goog" are common slang.

Reads like FUD, also it is from January 2015.

I'm pretty sure this exact story made it to HN when it was published as well - I remember reading this then.

It's funny to click on the linked Tweet and see the person they're quoting say:

"Or the part where my dumb tweet became a scandal on BI?"

Meh. Google has what, 20,000 engineers? So even a normal turnover rate is thousands every year. This is a "dog bites man" story.

It's about the trend and the environment not the numbers.

They're 5 years late. 2009/2010, the trend was ex-Googlers leaving for startups. When I left in 2014, the trend was ex-Googlers leaving for public-sector service or academia, which we'll probably hear about in another year or two, and who knows where it is now?

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