[eterno]

This is an amazing writeup. Incredibly honest.

It would be great if you could do an as honest writeup after some time(possible a couple of months). I would be interested in thoughts along two lines:

1. Maybe working Google will not be that great. They sure do have very smart ppl - but I guess you know by now that startups are a different beast. There was a reason you went into the startup world - maybe because you found more meaning in the complete responsibility a startup endows you, and probably that wont exist in Google - nor the adrenaline. Maybe you need to balance that 'meaning' in your job with having fun - your starup was all about meaning and probably too hard to be fun so a stint at Google looks exciting. Maybe you will crave meaning very soon, in which case Google might not be the best option.

2. "And I have no cofounder, so I'd be doing everything myself until I could afford employees, and then I'd have to build a company culture. That will be no 'fun'" Maybe you can still find a cofounder(maybe in Google). I am not sure, but I think there should be a way to do startups while keeping the fun intact. One thing that I have seen is that big companies afford you a default(big) social circle which a lot of times is the source of the fun you have. (Also startups typicall dont have cute HR's ;)). But maybe you can still create a big enough social group by just hanging out with other startup folks and have as much fun.

Just some random thoughts. Feel free to (not) reply.

[nostrademons]

1.) It's possible, though if that happens, I probably wouldn't write about it because I don't want to bad-mouth my employer. I also got the impression that there's a lot of cool, meaningful stuff going on in the Googleplex, but we just don't see most of it because products typically take a few years to mature. Think of all the stealth-mode startups that are out there building things you've never heard of, then imagine that going on inside one organization.

2.) Similarly, one of my reasons for choosing Google was indeed to meet potential new cofounders, but I wouldn't recruit them directly away from work (I don't think I legally can - I'm guessing that Google will have a no-solicit agreement like every other tech place I've worked at). It's more to get to know them as friends, so that if 5-10 years down the line, we're both getting really bored with everything going on at the Googleplex, there's a big pool of people that I'd like to work with.

[ivankirigin]

People leaving at the same time to start a company isn't solicitation