[michaelochurch]

When I left, an excellent programmer and a personal friend of mine had to crack his 401(k) because the company didn't have the money to cover what taxes he owed on the small amount it had paid him in 2010.

Perhaps it's still on life support and E is still funding H's lifestyle, but I'll stand by "failed for nontechnical reasons".

[palish]

I can't believe that HN is blatantly calling you liar. I can't believe you're calmly responding to it.

Guys, whether or not someone might or might not be lying about their own personal life is strictly their business, and not yours -- and certainly not a public matter!

[jrockway]

Nobody is calling him a liar, they are just pointing out that his story may not be as factual as he portrays it to be. If he's choosing to air his dirty laundry in public, it's expected that people are going to comment on it. Those without inside information may not know what is true and what is not true. Those with inside information may feel that it's inappropriate to disclose the exact details which may discredit the argument. This makes the process very difficult. There's really no way anyone can say "everything michaelochurch says is wrong".

[palish]

Nobody is calling him a liar.

Whalliburton directly called him a liar.

Those without inside information may not know what is true and what is not true.

Then email him.

There's really no way anyone can say "everything michaelochurch says is wrong".

It's incredibly creepy that HN is fact-checking a personal anecdote about a nameless company; an anecdote which he clearly wanted to share with us in order to simply chill with us and be happy with us. He wasn't even hurting anyone or saying anything about anyone. You all chose to dig for no reason at all.

Let me put it another way. His original story did not whistleblow anything. It was just a story without a particular purpose. It doesn't matter why he wrote it, nor does it matter whether it was true. He wrote it in order to feel happy. HN went out of its way to check whether it could ruin that happiness, for no reason whatsoever.

[plinkplonk]

The same people come out of the woodwork anytime michaelochurch says anything about Google, and sometimes even when he doesn't say anything about Google. It is getting a little tiresome.

As someone with no stake in either condemning or defending Google, I'll just say that while I admire Google as a company, and have many friends who work there, this kind of reflexive attacking of anyone who criticizes Google's internal heirarchy, or thinks some of its decisions were wrong etc, and constant defense and glorification of everything it does, is grating. And people talk about Apple fanboys.

It doesn't matter if everything m_o_c says is exactly true or not. It doesn't matter if what went down when he was at Google is entirely his fault. Just give it a rest already.

My 2 cents.

[jrockway]

His stories are just so far removed from reality we can't help it. It's like a programming language debate where someone says "Perl has no OO" and complaining that "Perl programmers come out of the woodwork to correct me every time I say that." Well yeah. It's the Internet. That's what we do.

More seriously, this affects my ability to hire people I want to work with. When I have to start by explaining away random falsehoods about Google, that wastes time I could have spent talking about projects or programming or something. You only get one first impression. It's better if the first impression is reality instead of a contrived fantasy world.

Also, I take exception with the statement that I'm "coming out of the woodwork" to post. I am in the top 10 highest reputation users here. I'm already out of the woodwork :)

[plinkplonk]

I suspect what really affects your ability to hire people you want to work with is your posts on HN and what they convey about you (vs michealochurch's posts and what they convey about him).

Right now (and please take this as constructive feed back, because that is the intention) in your posts here you come across as someone who has totally drunk the Google koolaid and can see no wrong in anything Google does, and attacks anyone who says anything negative about Google or any of its products, with a special grudge against michaelochurch.[1]

I am not sure that helps you hire the right kind of people. But hey, you know better.

[1] please note: I am not saying you are a fanatic. just saying you come across as someone who sees Google as some kind of Immaculate Workplace, that can never do wrong. Just feedback. I could be totally wrong.

[jrockway]

Noted. It is hard to dislike Google when you previously worked for Bank of America. Like I imply in another comment, one's previous experiences can easily taint one's future experiences.

Even with a little bias, I I really think I get it mostly right. Here's another perspective:

https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/UgCL6YRw...

Steve writes: ``One day I started getting jealous of this digital piano that people were playing every day. So I sent a nice email to someone in facilities asking if there was any chance we might be able to get a guitar. She said it sounded like a good idea and she promised to look into it.

A month went by, and I started to get a little sad, because I thought they were just not interested. But I sent her a little email and asked if there was any update. Just hoping, you know, against hope.

She told me: "Oh yeah, I'm sorry -- I forgot to tell you. We talked it over with the directors, and we all decided the best thing to do was to build a music studio."

So now we have Soundgarden over in Building A. It has two rooms: one with soundproofing and two electric guitars and a bass and a keyboard and a drum set and a jam hub and amps and all kinds of other crap that I can't identify except to say that it's really popular. The other room has a ukulele and some sort of musical drum and a jazz guitar and some other classical instruments.''

My experience is the same. Any opportunity that Google has to spend a lot of money on me, they take. And yup, that makes me pretty darn happy, especially coming from Bank of America!

[jamesaguilar]

I suspect you would feel differently if you had an internal view of the things he said. I am, you might say, the least fanatical of all googlers, and am quite pessimistic about the company in a lot of ways. Even with that I feel a twinge of lol every time I see an m_o_c post on anything having to do with ethics, employers, and what not. What he "blew the whistle" on had nothing to do with ethical management by any sane person's definition. I am highly inclined to doubt his new foray into workplace controversy as well, considering how quickly it has followed on the heels of the last.

Personally, I'm happy to call him a liar, although I typically refrain because I can't really provide any evidence of it externally.

[waterlesscloud]

It's very clear that he had a different experience working at the company that you did. Leave it at that and let it go.

The way people pile on him every time he sticks up his head does far more harm to Google than it does good.

If he's "wrong", then he's wrong. You would hope than anyone capable of working for Google would be capable of sorting through conflicting evidence on their own. Trust them and leave them to it.

[joe_the_user]

Wow...

M-o-C may or may not be posting stuff that people in the know can parse as a lie. But you, my friend, are saying stuff that anyone with the "scroll up" skill can see is a lie.

Saying an unnamed thing failed for the vague "non-technical reason" is enough for one person to, indeed, really, call him a liar and another person to feel strongly enough about situation to blatantly-lie-about-the-liar-calling-situation...

Yeah Wow, he must have really gotten under some group's collective skin...

[bootload]

"... If he's choosing to air his dirty laundry in public, it's expected that people are going to comment on it. ..."

These comments on this topic are disturbing.

Google is a public company. It's first priority is to shareholders. Google is also hierarchical despite what anyone claims. So it's more than likely that employees like @michaelochurch claim, are minced up in the bureaucracy. Start here, "Why Google Employees Quit" (2009) ~ http://techcrunch.com/2009/01/18/why-google-employees-quit/

[jrockway]

I read your link. It just doesn't seem like the same Google that I'm working at. I guess you need to have a certain personality to work at Google; if you don't have it, it won't work for you.

There are a lot of people that I encounter who have never worked anywhere but Google. I feel sorry for them because one day some tiny thing is going to annoy them (oh noes, only two types of M&Ms in the microkitchens!), and then they'll leave. Only then will they realize how fucking miserable the rest of the world is.

Another problem is that people want to work for Google so badly that they accept crap offers, at least people writing to TechCrunch to complain, anyway.

(Also, FWIW, of all the offers I had for jobs in NYC, Google gave me the most money, not to mention benefits, bonus, and stock. And my other offer was an investment bank's on the core software architecture team.)

[michaelochurch]

It just doesn't seem like the same Google that I'm working at. I guess you need to have a certain personality to work at Google; if you don't have it, it won't work for you.

As I said in another comment, I think this is a "blind man and the elephant" situation.

Your rank, age, and political success (measured in Perf) determine the type of Google you get. If you're Peter Norvig, Google is an awesome place to work. I can imagine few better jobs than Director of Research at Google.

If you're already great, Google is a fine place to work. If you're good and trying to become great, it's not. It's stifling, frustrating, and slow. At least, that's what I saw, but I was only there for 6 months and had already run afoul of multiple seriously unethical people (people who should have been fired). Google's a huge place. I far from got a sense of "the whole thing", but what I saw on the cultural front (7/20 all-hands) was certainly not encouraging.

I feel sorry for them because one day some tiny thing is going to annoy them (oh noes, only two types of M&Ms in the microkitchens!), and then they'll leave.

Yeah, see: I don't care about that stuff either way. The perks are nice, I guess, but I go to work for the work, not for the Xbox.

Google has perks down. Providing interesting work for even half the talent it takes in is an "area for development".

Another problem is that people want to work for Google so badly that they accept crap offers, at least people writing to TechCrunch to complain, anyway.

Actually, I think it goes the other way. Google pays very well, so people look at the numbers and expect more of the job than what they're actually going to get.

[dpritchett]

I'm not sure it's possible for a single company to provide advancement opportunities for most of its ambitious mid-level contributors. Mathematically speaking it makes at least as much sense to play the wider job market looking for a succession of "perfect fit" jobs for yourself every few years rather than sticking with Google and continually trying to win a shot at a series of slightly more prestigious positions.

Obviously if you were part owner of the business things would change considerably, but not everyone has the risk tolerance for that - it helps to be single with cash in the bank.

[djmdjm]

Except he wasn't lying about his own personal life, he was accused of lying about previous employers, places that employ others who may have an interest in not seeing their companies' names dragged through mud.