We could lament them shutting it down, but why not thank them for doing this for 20 years? That's a LONG time to do anything, and despite what Google has become, it absolutely defined tech culture.
Now it's obvious and commonplace, but an employee-centric company was revolutionary at the time. Things like this changed the lives of every single person here, either directly or indirectly.
And best yet, it's a chance for other companies to take up the mantle. Rather than wishing Google kept playing their same old hits over and over for 2 decades, there's more oxygen for new companies to take the lead.
I can't help but think that in a meeting somewhere someone mentioned that the coding competitions have run forever in response to people complaining how quickly everything dies -- and someone decided to fix the glitch.
> despite what Google has become, it absolutely defined tech culture.
Real talk: What companies are filling this role now?
I work at a FAANG, and it just does something to the soul. I can't describe what that thing is... but I routinely look at early-retirement calculators to cope with it.
Google is still loads better than eg Amazon but its days are numbered. I’ve heard msft wlb is improving a lot.
I think the next gen of employee- first companies will be wfh centric (or something new and flexible) and 4 day work weeks. People realized slides and food wasn’t as good as free time and flexibility. I expect maxing their employees 401ks and generous cultural WLB.
Companies that are advancing technology and gaining a rep as tech first? Look at blog posts that gain lots of traction here: Fly.io, Cloudflare, and many others. etc. Avoid anything too trendy ( AI, blockchain) because they might not last the hype cycles.
Fifteen years ago at Microsoft, most people worked ~40 hour weeks, there were shuttles between Seattle and Redmond, a good gym on campus, and (mostly) private offices.
You'd come into work at 9, wander off campus to a nearby restaurant with coworkers for a relaxing lunch at noon (granted, because the food in the cafeterias sucked and cost money), and after a bit of exercise or a nice game of racquetball at the gym, you'd go home at 6. Or if you were single and it was a weeknight, you might stay late in the office watching movies in a conference room and doing a bit of coding.
Of course, fifteen years ago, Google paid more and had a reputation as a place where the really smart people came to grow their careers, whereas Microsoft was sleepier and more middle-aged.
I don’t think any companies are. The industry is in a very stable, mature state right now and the culture is kind of defined. The last big disruption was probably the smartphone and App Store and that was what, 15 years ago now? Google managed to last that one out.
We were told Web3 would be the next disruption. Now we’re told it’s AI. The mere suggestion of Google messing that up tanked its stock price, maybe it’ll be real this time and OpenAI will define tech culture? I’m sceptical but hey, maybe.
Wow! What a joy to click on the comments and find a positive comment at the top. Thanks for writing this and thanks HN upvoters for expressing your gratitude.
They were never the poster child for "employee centric" companies; they were just young, successful, made an awful lot of money and spent it. From this timeframe Fog Creek was the defacto "developer first" company.
I dont know of any good reason to have gratitude for a corporation for anything. Having gratitude of the workers and academics that made it happen on the other hand? Sure, that's fair. But gratitude for a corporation, especially one that is dystopian and anti-consumer in everything they do? No can do.
You’re getting grayed out, probably for not jumping on the praise the corp bandwagon, but yeah you have a solid point.
We mustn’t confuse the people who make a corp great for the corp itself. The people are (or can be) awesome, while the corp which is a profit-driven institution that won’t hesitate turning against the people that make it great if it has to increase profitability a couple of quarters down the line.
Wake up, folks, they’re in it for themselves, they don’t (want to) care about you either as employees or as consumers if they don’t have to.
I'm not so sure that truck drivers haven't benefited from Google maps and the ability to search for things while on the road. Do you think they avoid the internet?
Line cooks: they don't use the internet when they go home? They don't watch Youtube? They don't use Google maps to get where they're going sometimes?
I used to drive a box truck at work and I can definitely confirm that google maps is used heavily. I used Google maps during almost every trip!
Finding random addresses in places you aren't familiar with can be difficult and waste a lot of time, with the maps app it would let us go straight to the destination.
I can only recall one time that Google maps lead us astray too! It's very accurate even in rural areas and on random tiny back roads in the middle of nowhere.
> It's very accurate even in rural areas and on random tiny back roads in the middle of nowhere.
… which is how we would end up with a semi stuck on our old street a couple times a year, blocking all traffic for everyone. “Oh, Google said to take this road!”
Well to be fair, I think this is less of an issue of maps being inaccurate and more people blindly following it without considering whether or not their truck can fit down the roads.
Maps does not have a "truck mode" that refuses to lead you down small roads but I always thought that would be a useful feature.
I have a friend who's actually a line cook. He has absolutely been touched by these types of code competitions - in his case, because of the interest it fostered in his kids. He's working hard to support them to follow their dream of being a SWE and he has a pretty darn good understanding of their interest in these types of competitions.
The reach of these programs isn't limited to people who work in an office. The impact is broad and includes many people across different industries and different economic/cultural divides -- because it's a program for their kids.
Charlie was not a "line cook." That's someone who takes prepped ingredients and combines them into a dish according to directions, and may in fact have zero ability to choose and create dishes himself.
I don't know if he'd call himself "executive chef" but that's more like his job description.
Aye. This guy was a pro chef hired to cater to a cash-rich start up.
Not a college dropout working the prep line, or, like many of the kitchens in the US, a Hispanic guy with semi-passable English skills and who may-or-may not be here legally.
It's not that surprising to me. Ships with a crew of 8 will have a cook to feed everyone. Eating is pretty essential, and I think they were working pretty hard at the office back in those days.
When you're on a ship you don't have the option to walk into town or call for takeout so having a chef is essential. As a software company, food is a very nice perk but it is a perk. In my personal experience lots of companies outside of tech work equivalently hard but almost never have food provided.
Don't get me wrong, I really like food as a perk - it fosters cohesion and encourages people to form social bonds that help your company make it through difficult times etc, but it's far from the norm in other industries (except for media and entertainment where on-set catering is absolutely expected it seems).
No, I didn't. Whatever labor benefits accrued to these jobs and others are below the threshold of detection, so I don't consider them. The fact that they can use google now instead of not using google is certainly a change, but not one I consider relevant to the claim being made.
I've had many conversations with line cooks and servers at tech company kitchens. They were previously at restaurants and other food service industry gigs. The consistency and wages provided as a direct result of the benefits that Google gives its engineers made a huge difference to them.
It also gave them and their friends a real tangible alternative and bargaining chip when considering other jobs in the industry.
Sorry, in context I meant people in tech. I updated it to make that slightly more clear.
I do think you could easily argue Google has affected every single person indirectly (although not necessarily positively), but I did specifically mean people who work on a tech product day to day.
> Tip outs are better in bougie joints frequented by tech workers.
This sounds a little trickle-downy. Why not strive for an economy where people doing important work like feeding their communities just... Don't need to be tipped?
I know it sounds crazy in today-terms, but if it makes any sense, it makes tipping culture look like more of a problem than a boon to anyone receiving the tips.
"Trickle-down" is meaningless. Getting tipped can enter you into the entertainer class, like a musician or an onlyfans owner.
On the high end that means you get paid a lot more, because each of your individual customers is paying you and none of them are looking at your total income and deciding you already made enough.
> Servers love tip out. They can make hundreds a night and possibly even what a junior SWE can (pro rata) if they’re good.
Bollocks. Maybe at the fanciest, high-end locations, and only on busy days, i.e. Fridays or Saturdays.
Maybe a Jr SWE in, like Mississippi, but there is no way even the top 10% of servers are pushing tech hub SWE salaries. And even if the pure-cash gets kind-of close, there is often no healthcare, no 401k, no bennies, no bonus; the TC wouldn't be close at all.
Many states only pay $2.18 per hour for tipped jobs; 15/hr would be utterly amazing and 25 would be great. No server I know would ever push back on that, save for the tiny, tiny handful working at high-end locations. Yeah the dude working at the trendy bar in NYC with $33 highballs might be able to pull near six-figures while handling a cocaine habit, but I'd bet my hat that a majority of servers would make more money if they 25/hr.
That servers love tip outs today doesn't necessarily mean it's an absolutely good model, or that they will be grateful for it in say 20 years when they can no longer succeed in these types of jobs.
I'm not claiming it should never be a thing. I just wonder if we should collectively accept it and want it to be part of our economy and how our communities function. I have had many friends who do well as servers (and indeed, one earning more than I did was a junior SWE), but it doesn't seem typical, nor does it seem sustainable.
The restaurant industry certainly can't be responsible for fixing any issues with this; it's a symptom of something greater. I just don't think we should accept it as okay. Primarily due to the variability of tipping... I will always need to pay enough to cover the cost of the food and kitchen, so the restaurant is okay. But how can I be certain that the person serving me is taken care of? My individual tip isn't enough, and I know many servers do terribly depending on time and location.
I've worked shitty jobs, but I always got paid the same amount by my employer and there were legal frameworks to protect me. Servers don't get the same from us, and I don't think that's alright. We can point to when it works out well for servers, but again, I don't think that's typical.
I think the result of this survey would differ considerably at the pub/cafe in Prineville Oregon vs a steakhouse in downtown San Francisco, and across the country there's a lot more Prinevilles than San Franciscos.
I know of no other country where tipping is such a major part of sustainable wages. In all other countries I know of, tips are a supplement to the wage - a nice-to-have, a perk of the job. Sometimes needed to make the job worthwhile, because it isn't worth doing at minimum wage. But nowhere near the extent the US has lifted it to. Basically: industrialised begging for change.
So: no, it doesn't sound crazy at all in today-terms.
The exact mechanism of employee compensation here doesn't matter. Either the tech worker pays $30+6 tip for a meal and the server makes $10, or the tech worker pays $36 with no tip for a meal and the server is paid more and still makes $10, it doesn't matter. The point is that a restaurant needs a large number of rich clientele in order for the restaurants' employees to make a lot of money.
My problem is primarily when the restaurants use tipping as variable compensation where the minimum compensation is arguably lower than it should be. There should always be a sane minimum wage, and it seems absurd to me that there are places where 1. the minimum wage is not substantial enough to live on and 2. servers aren't entitled to it, and rely on tips to attain a wage they can survive on.
As such I really do prefer the model where the food covers all wages with no employees being deprived of minimum wages. If tipping is provided on top, great – it's nice to say thanks if it's culturally acceptable. On the other hand, it's not okay to have to depend on those tips.
This is an opinion, but even major cities with high living expenses where minimum wages are provided seem problematic. In my city we had a brief period where more than minimum wage was offered due to worker shortages, but those days are over. Now servers are being hired back at $15.50 per hour which is an insanely small amount to live on. Shifts are provided such that you can never be considered full-time, depriving you of various benefits many would consider essential.
Do tips _really_ make up for that? No health benefits, not enough hours to work in order to earn a reliable minimum income, no regular hours, etc. What a shitty deal.
Sure, it could motivate people to "do better", but that's not always an option and it means we've essentially got a meat-grinder of an occupation that churns out people in a cycle of exploitation. Why not do better?
My shittiest jobs were miserable but at least I was compensated well. And I could be pretty brain-dead to do it. Stacking wood for kilns, pushing it through machines, bundling it, etc. I made way more than today's minimum wage, got vacation time, health benefits, etc. doing that stuff, but I did it 15 years ago.
I get that margins are slim in the food industry so that isn't possible today. My point is more like, maybe we should collectively work towards rectifying that and consider what we've got today to be a problem.
Of course I'm open to being totally wrong. There are a lot of forces at work, I'm not all that smart, and I just don't like the idea of being a server and having that experience. I'd personally prefer to pay a little more to alleviate that, but I know many would prefer to pay even less still.
> There should always be a sane minimum wage, and it seems absurd to me that there are places where 1. the minimum wage is not substantial enough to live on and 2. servers aren't entitled to it, and rely on tips to attain a wage they can survive on.
If you look into the details of those minimum wage laws that have lower minimums for tipped workers, it usually turns out that if their wage + tips turn out to be less than the ordinary minimum wage, they’re still entitled to the ordinary minimum wage.
Tips create both performance incentives and price flexibility. In Europe, where tips are not customary, attitude from service workers is much worse than US. On the other hand, it's nice for someone of modest means to treat themselves to a restaurant or hotel at a lower price. Those are pro-consumer considerations, but service workers are also consumers of many other things.
> Tips create both performance incentives and price flexibility. In Europe, where tips are not customary, attitude from service workers is much worse than US.
In Japan, where tips are prohibited, attitude from service workers is much better than US.
> In Europe, where tips are not customary, attitude from service workers is much worse than US.
There are cultural differences between the US and Europe, also concerning how service workers interact with and towards those they provide service.
Thus, Europeans and USA'ians could observe the same set of behaviours from EU/US service workers, and both would praise "their" worker and be appalled by the "other" worker's behaviour.
I find it bizarre that we expect good attitude from service workers when, generally speaking, they are not working a particularly enjoyable job nor earning much for doing it. I know there are exceptions, but the bulk of service workers I encounter are probably not making bank by any means. I can't bring myself to expect them to deliver a specific attitude with my food or coffee or whatever.
The worst customer service I can ever remember observing was in the US (LA specifically). But I've had indifferent, sloppy and excellent customer service in every country I spent long enough in to observe it, and the US was the only one where not tipping is considered some sort of faux-pas by the customer.
Let me say it: HN would be a better place without the obligatory downvotes for MS-critical posts. The other large companies' employees somehow avoid doing this, why can't you? Are you really that insecure?
('you' here not meaning the poster I just commented, but, well, you know who.)
I also generally distrust and dislike Microsoft and have no affiliation with them but I just don't see how you made the leap to introducing Microsoft to the conversation in the first place. It just sounds like you have an axe to grind and are wedging it into the conversation. How is Microsoft connected to Google and/or coding competitions or the contents of the top level comment you replied under?
Microsoft (as another giant monster of a company) at least has the decency to contain terrible parts (Windows, parts of Azure & and consumer goods) and amazing parts (Programming, parts of Azure and developer tools). Google is just uniformly bad.
This doesn't benefit users. Quite the opposite. This is all about Google placating the activist hedge fund investors. I think employees typically want users to have better user experiences.
I think employees generally want to get good performance reviews, which comes from demonstrating impact and good numbers on charts. Satisfying users doesn't do that because it doesn't scale.
Now it's obvious and commonplace, but an employee-centric company was revolutionary at the time. Things like this changed the lives of every single person here, either directly or indirectly.
And best yet, it's a chance for other companies to take up the mantle. Rather than wishing Google kept playing their same old hits over and over for 2 decades, there's more oxygen for new companies to take the lead.