[Fej]

Microsoft already has released Office Online. It's lite versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. They're quite good. They get certain enhancements when you buy an Office 365 subscription (in addition to the full applications).

IMHO there's nothing wrong with wanting to work for Google/Facebook/any of the big 4/5. Get one of those on your resume and you are set for life, even if the work isn't all it's cracked up to be.

[kakarot]

I didn't know about Office Online. Glad to hear Microsoft is doing that.

The problem with Google and Facebook is that I've come to realize our ethics are extremely misaligned.

I'm not interested in building exploitable systems filled with damaging metadata that can be abused by totalitarian states or vengeful employees.

I'm not interested in forcing Africa into a world where Facebook and Google are synonymous with the internet.

I'm not interested in running an echo chamber that 1/4 of the world's population uses, subjecting others to political influence and carefully syndicated information that influences their thoughts and behavior, while providing massive quantities of foreign user data to three-letter agencies interested in squashing social uprisings in third-world countries.

And I'm not interested in shutting down my moral compass by accepting corporate propaganda that tells me what I am doing is right and for the benefit of mankind.

Only reason I ever wanted to work for either was the prestige, the badass lunch buffets, and the feeling that I'm doing something important, positive and ground-breaking. But those are all selfish desires and the last one isn't true.

[yazan94]

Many of those reasons you wanted to work for them are very subjective. While you mentioned that the last one is not true, I find that the Google Deep Mind project to build a Starcraft AI is extremely interesting.

[kakarot]

I'll agree, they are in some ways subjective, but I have to work with the assumptions and motivations I have when it comes to choosing my employer.

Now Deep Mind... I would work for Deep Mind. Or even just intern. I would love to work with some of the ML pioneers even if just for a few months and just soak in everything I can.