I went to Penn's career fair yesterday representing Google and that seemed to be the popular question there as well. I guess most people just assumed that I'd go back to Microsoft.
So what happened?
It wasn't a clear cut decision. My offers at Microsoft were from Mobile Devices and Windows Media Player, and I was really excited about Mobile Devices. At Google, I didn't know what I would be working on, and I'm not that interested in server-side or web programming.
But, there were lots of little things that made me lean away from Microsoft:
- I wanted to do some feature design work, and Google lets developers help drive the product. At Microsoft, while developers can be "in the feedback loop," they're not driving the product - they're just giving occasional feedback. No, it's not the same thing. The PMs at Microsoft do all the design. Yes, there are some group that are very technical (aka, compilers) that are more dev driven, but those aren't groups I'm interested in.
- I'd been getting this vibe from people that Microsoft's culture was changing... for the worse
- Microsoft, in my experience, seemed to take a "good enough" approach rather than truly driving for excellence. I didn't really recognize this until I went to Apple and I saw the contrast between the two attitudes. Apple really seemed driven towards perfection, where Microsoft would shrug its shoulders and say "eh, good enough." Google's attitude, although I had never worked there, seemed more similar to Apple's.
- Microsoft was cutting back on benefits whereas Google seemed to be expanding their benefits. Sure, maybe Google will change, but there's nothing holding me to stay at Google forever if it does.
- My last summer at Microsoft just wasn't much fun. I didn't exactly have the best manager, and I just wasn't that into the product I was working on. While that may not have been representative of Microsoft, I can't say that didn't make Microsoft a little less glamorous in my eyes.
- Microsoft didn't really seem to work together as a company; instead, it seemed to have a "not my team, not my problem attitude."
- How many products are Microsoft do people say are just "awesome?" Not that every product is bad - I'm not one of those people that sits and complains about Windows. But really, how many products are customers really excited about? Xbox, maybe. What else? If your customers aren't excited about what you're doing, will you be?
- And finally, let's face it: it's nice not working for the "evil" empire. Microsoft is a monopoly - maybe not in the technical sense of the word (it's debatable), but in the sense of it making it damn tough for anyone to enter the industry because Microsoft can always bundle software. It's nice working for a company that you can really feel good about - and that actively remembers to not be "evil."
So those were all the little things that were going on in my head when I was debating the offers. I guess what it comes down to is that once I spent sometime at Apple, I realized that Microsoft is not as great as it seems.
Meanwhile, Google had these great things about it: the 20% time projects (engineers are encouraged to spend 20% of their time on a different project), free lunch, different locations, etc.
For some reason though, it still wasn't clear cut. I really was seriously considering the Mobile Devices offer. In the end though, I realized that I was simply more excited about Google, and nothing Microsoft could offer me could make up for being excited about your job.
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3 comments:
I think wat u say maybe true when Google was in late 90s to early part of this decade. With so much growth rate, its just another company and all the goodies like free lunch,20% stuff are "percieved" to be "great" but not really(atleast in my opinion). Google does like to treat its employees good, but in the end its just a profit making company. The part of monopoly and "evil" is (no longer) true. Google IS a monopoly and Google is not non-evil.
Google is a great company, agreed, but MS is too. All that bashing abt MS is mostly baseless and ppl do for the heck of it. If MS is successfull and makes money, its for a reason , that its products are good enough for ppl to consider them worthy of buying. Simple.
Sure, they suck in Web, but has Google succeeded beyond search?
Just my personal opinion
PS:I neither work(ed) for MS nor Google.
Perhaps it's too old an article but I found it interesting. And nice comment from anonymous.
I also wondered why Gayle did not think worthwhile responding/defending against the comment.
Ok, I'll bite.
Google Search's marketshare looks something like this:
Worldwide: 50%
US: 75%
China (you know, that country with 1/5th of the world's population): 2%
Microsoft Windows' Worldwide Marketshare: 95%
Microsoft Office: Unsure. 95% maybe?
By the numbers, Microsoft is far, far more of a monopoly than Google.
Furthermore, compare the leverage that Microsoft vs Google has. What if you want to switch from Microsoft Windows to Apple OS X? Better buy a new computer, new software, potentially new devices, and learn a completely new system. What if you want to switch from Microsoft Office to, say, Google Docs or OpenOffice? Better get your friends and colleagues to switch if you want to send them docs (exporting/importing isn't reliable). And, of course, learn a new system.
Now, consider switching from Google search to Yahoo search? Change your homepage (if that) and you're probably done. You probably don't have to learn anything new.
Even if Google had the marketshare that Microsoft has in Windows, it'd hardly be able to leverage that power for evil. The switching costs are too low.
Microsoft, on the other, has monopolistic marketshare and the switching costs force consumers to buy Microsoft even when they might prefer Apple / Google / OpenSource software.
Other areas that Google has succeeded in: Gmail, Orkut (very successful in Brazil and India), AdSense, Maps, Blogger.
As for Google being "evil", well, what does that mean? I can tell you that in my experience working at Google (I left 2 - 3 months ago) it has made decisions that I would classify as "evil", and it's also chosen not to do things because they're "evil."
But is the company evil? That's like asking if someone is a bad person. Everyone makes good decisions and bad decisions. At what point do say someone is "good" or "bad"? Same goes for companies. In my personal opinion, Google's less evil than many, many other companies.
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