[ThrowawayR2]

> "Did they hire talented and motivated people because of their hiring process, or for other reasons, such as that Google is a place where a lot of talented and motivated people really wanted to work?"

I might be misremembering but I seem to recall that Google's hiring bar in the early '00s, before they grew into a behemoth, was even higher than it is now. If you weren't from an elite CS program with near perfect grades, they wouldn't even look at you.

[_qulr]

> Google's hiring bar in the early '00s, before they grew into a behemoth, was even higher than it is now

My point was that why would any candidate put up with Google's hiring crap if they weren't already extremely motivated to work at Google? Especially if you had other choices.

No-Name-Company could have an equally high bar to hiring, but they wouldn't be able to fill any positions, because candidates would just tell them to get lost.

[ThrowawayR2]

My point is that Google wasn't special or a clear winner in the early '00s and there were plenty of other equally hot choices, like Yahoo, so Google's candidates weren't "highly motivated". Contrary to your assertion, their early hyper-selective hiring process worked just fine for them in getting them the highly talented engineers they needed.

[_qulr]

> there were plenty of other equally hot choices, like Yahoo

That's one. And if you admit Google was a "hot" choice at the time, that already makes my point.

> Google's candidates weren't "highly motivated"

No?

> Contrary to your assertion

I'm not sure what you take my assertion to be, but let me clarify. My assertion is that if a workplace is "hot" for whatever reason -- rapid growth, high compensation, world-changing product, number of users, prestige, etc. -- then a large number of good candidates will apply there, and almost any hiring method will probably work out for them.

When you talk about Google hiring only from elite CS programs, it's crucial to note that Larry and Sergey came from Stanford specifically, so of course they're going to hire people from Stanford. That's always how it goes, as I mentioned earlier with founders and early employees. Let's not pretend that's a "hiring process". It's a personal network. A number of other people from Stanford were also early Google employees. Scott Hassan, et al. They got seed money from the co-founder of Sun Microsystems. The next year, they got $25 million in VC. When I was in college in Wisconsin, there was nobody around to fund anything! Almost all of the big tech companies were built from informal personal networks, and they only institute a rigid hiring process after they're already somewhat successful. Again, any no-name company can have an ultra-high bar for hiring, but that doesn't magically attract candidates willing to apply and put themselves through hell to get hired.