Gawker
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cubicle culture
How MySpace Humiliates Fired Workers
MySpace's CEO purportedly keeps his body pretty tight. But he should lay off the weight obsession at work. Owen Van Natta said MySpace was "bloated" when he laid off 400 workers; now they're reportedly called "fat" to their faces. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by airvault: You can tell who the fat ones are. Their photos are black and white and taken from above. (Where did I... 2 Responses | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Facebook Heckling Rampage By Kara Swisher
As co-host of the Wall Street Journal's $5,000/head D conference, reporter Kara Swisher demands best behavior from her guests. Invite her to your startup, though, and she'll taunt your chef, heckle bizdev and mock your taste. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by babyjesus: who gives a fuck about kara swisher or anyones cafeteria? why don't you give us something juicy (intended) like why facebook... 2 Responses | Other threads
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the rich
Bill Gates in Cambridge Slob Shocker
Notice something about Bill Gates in the attached video? Shuffling along a procession at Cambridge University, the Microsoft founder is the only dignitary without a tie. And he looks plenty sheepish about it. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by uncle_wiggly: Thank god someone's putting a stop to this necktie madness. I've never understood the purpose of the necktie except to... 6 Responses | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Inside the Startup Office from Hell
Frank Addante, the Los Angeles tech entrepreneur, has helpfully consolidated pretty much every terrible office idea and Web 2.0 startup cliché into one place: This video tour of his online ad company, Rubicon Project. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Pope John Peeps II: First sentence: "We're a very metrics focused company." Are there companies that aren't? "Well, I'd really love to give you quarterly earnings... 7 Responses | Other threads
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toogle many googlers
No Company Vacations for Googlers This Year
To feel like a big, happy family, Google used to take everyone on an annual ski trip. The company grew so big it switched last year to Disneyland. This year, though, the All-Google trip is dead. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by momof3wildkids: Vacations are supposed to be a time away from your workmates. Why, oh why, would you want to vacation... 6 Responses | Other threads
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real estate
Facebook Tries to Cool-ify Fuddy-Duddy Office
Facebook's making the best of its move from downtown Palo Alto to an old Hewlett-Packard building in the suburbs. As if to prove the campus is sufficiently cool, one engineer shot a video in which he skateboards through the building. Someone else took pictures. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by Jackson West: If I'm not mistaken, I used to work in those buildings, which housed HPs Human Resources department among other things.... 1 Responses | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Jeering Googlers Bring Entitled Coworkers In Line
Google is reportedly flooded with Yahoo résumés. We'd recommend an overtly modest approach to anyone who scores an interview: Google has lately been brutal in handling presumptuous, entitled transplants. More »
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By Ryan TateComment by pepelicious: What the fuck? This sounds like the first half of Full Metal Jacket with it's balls cut off. more » | Other threads
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valleywag
Why Is Yahoo Laying People Off? The Answer Is on an Engineer's Desk
After thousands of layoffs last year, Yahoo's gearing up to cut more staff. Here's an idea: Why not trim outrageous spending first? One Yahoo engineer has helpfully, if unwittingly, shown where to start.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Stream Of Consciousness: Wow....that's a pretty sweet setup. Wish my workplace looked like that...my productivity would be nonexistent! 4 Responses | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Zappos.com Reveals Secret to Selling Overpriced Shoes
The dotcom dream is alive! Zappos, the Las Vegas online shoe retailer, has free food, on-site massages, and a life coach! Employees are even paid to Twitter. Just don't mention the November layoffs, okay?
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By Owen ThomasComment by probablynotcontagious: you're late to the party. zappos has been widely adored as an amazing place to work since its inception.... 2 Responses | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Indian man dies in pie-eating contest
Desperate to train employees in the way of their customers on the other end of the world, Indian tech outfits teach them American accents, the names of local football and baseball teams, and slang expressions. Nativists wring hands about this crushing local mores in favor of Western culture. But sometimes the importation of Western culture proves outright deadly. In Gurgaon, India, a suburb of New Delhi filled with offshore-tech outfits, police are investigating the death of a 22-year-old employee of Nokia-Siemens at the company's office. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by pooks: BhavBhavBhav: My impression of middle class India was always similar to how you describe it (i.e. they aren't much different... 3 Responses | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Facebook less like a college dorm than you'd think
One imagines Facebook as a geek utopia, where hackers who dropped out of college play Rock Band all day, then stay up all night coding. The reality: It's as depressingly Dilbertian as any other company — and COO Sheryl "No-Fun" Sandberg is making sure it keeps getting more boring every day. Take the latest tiff we happened to hear about — in the social network's business-development department, the home of glad-handing charmers who negotiate deals. You'd think they'd be experts at sucking up to each other. Tim Kendall (shown left), the company's director of monetization — Valleyspeak for "guy who comes up with ideas to make money" — was left fuming after his boss, VP Dan Rose, instructed him in the art of time management. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Shadowlayer: Whoa, a to-do list! nobody told me this contraption existed! Wait, actually my dad told me about it, when I was... more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Yahoos quietly cheer Yang's exit
In an attempt to boost morale at Yahoo, signs showing CEO Jerry Yang with cofounder David Filo went up around the Web giant's Sunnyvale campus recently. They had no measurable effect. News of Yang's resignation, pending a replacement, might do more to cheer up the troops. The signs have proved easily edited to accommodate the news. (Photo by docwho76)
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By Owen ThomasComment by Widget Economist: Michael Arrington on deck for next CEO. more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
As Yahoo stock plunges, a bull market for worry
Yahoos are worrying about today's stock price — and the market is not reassuring them, sending Yahoo down another 4 percent this morning. I'm told the price today sets some compensation formula; more details are welcome. To think: Yahoos are suffering financially along with investors. Isn't that what shareholder capitalism is about?
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By Owen ThomasComment by Tom44: Why don't you guys wait till the next MS bid, or at least till the next rumors about MS bid.... 3 Responses | Other threads
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Ramsey Allington
The rotten manager behind Google Book Search
A coalition of book publishers and authors have extracted $125 million from Google in settling a copyright lawsuit they filed in 2005. The agreement should make Google Book Search vastly more useful, as millions of books get added to Google's index. The team at Google which deals with publishers should be busier than ever. Too bad it's run by a sexist tyrant who's seen 7 of his 13-person team — all women — leave in a year's time. Googlers who formerly worked under Ramsey Allington, the head of Google's book operations, say he's a terrible manager who has actively discriminated against women in his employ. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by QADude: Is it just me, or does the woman next to him look really, really drunk? 2 Responses | Other threads
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layoffs
LinkedIn recommendation = you're fired
The old way to tell you're about to be fired: Your boss comes up to you, claps you on the shoulder, and acts all chummy. The new way to tell you're about to be fired: Your boss leaves a glowing recommendation for you. Revision3's Damon Berger got one from CEO Jim Louderback five days before he was laid off from the online-video startup. Damon, you should have gotten a clue when Louderback wrote that you could be "a great front-person for any organization."
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By Owen ThomasComment by Drunken Economist: Heh. Here's what LinkedIn recommendation numbers mean: 5 recommendations: Epilson. Put the blinders on this guy, he's 'dependable' but unimaginative. Probably... 1 Responses | Other threads
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stats
Triumph of the sysadmin's will
Wall Street Journal writer Ben Worthen's summary of a new survey of IT employees: "Forty-eight percent were confident in their ability to find a new job, even though they don't believe anyone is hiring." Of course, Ben: Tech workers are Ron Paul-voting, Ayn Rand-reading rugged-individualist übermenschen who believe they can create their own reality through sheer individual brilliance and force of will. Did you need to read a survey to know that?
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By Owen ThomasComment by OletheaEurystheus: I claim bullshit. The people being fired recently just happen to work for tech companies, but in no way would... 1 Responses | Other threads
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food fight
Financial apocalypse leads Google to lay off a cafe
Food is at the center of Google's corporate culture, a sign of the company's Pollyanna worldview and the outsized financial success which enables this largesse. So why is Google is closing a café? Off The Grid, one of Google's 18 in-house eateries at its headquarters, abruptly shut its doors this week. Employees are being told the cut is "temporary," but workers are removing the café's fixtures, which suggests a permanent closure. What this means: Despite CEO Eric Schmidt's protestations, Google is being hit by the recession. And the blows are harder than the company has admitted to shareholders or employees. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by TiddlyTwinks: Google closed Pacific Cafe over a year ago and replaced with an undoubtedly cheaper Andale franchise. Sushi prices >>... 4 Responses | Other threads
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meltdowns
Yahoo's state of delusion
When will Yahoos get real? The global economy is seizing up. Management is planning layoffs in the thousands. The stock sank below $12 this week, with only the prospect of a takeover lifting it. BusinessWeek, we're told, is preparing a devastating story on CEO Jerry Yang, calling for the board to fire him. Yet the mood at the Sunnyvale headquarters is perversely sunny. Thursday, Yahoo spent some of its shareholders' money to hire the Elvis impersonator pictured here. This is the sickness of Yahoo's purple-with-pride culture: It has emphasized self-celebration at the expense of having something to celebrate. "Funness" is prized above all — above excellence, focus, and achievement.
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By Owen ThomasComment by aychseven: amazing. yahoo has been practically useless in the states for years now, but here in japan it's very popular. especially... 3 Responses | Other threads
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irrational exuberance
Google throws a party for new Austin office
Google shareholders, here's something to watch as you wait for the company to announce its earnings: Your investment dollars at work throwing a party for the opening of Google's downtown Austin office. "The Googletinis were flowing and the buffet featured Hill Country rattlesnake cakes with pistachio nut crust and lobster risotto stuffed mushrooms," reports the Austin American-Statesman. Then again, it does house some engineers working on AdWords, the only thing at Google actually generating enough revenue to be worth mentioning in a quarterly earnings call.
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By Owen ThomasComment by LarinaNaso: Hey, Google had a free cash flow of $1.73 billion last quarter. They can afford a few stuffed mushrooms.... more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Flickr's community standards include workplace nudity
Yahoo's photo-sharing site is carefully policed by Heather Champ, the site's longtime community manager, Chris Colin reports in the San Francisco Chronicle. But who shall watch the watchmen? Colin reports an outrageous incident that would have been marked adults-only had it been photographed and posted on Flickr. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by EllaPirithous: Outrageous? Maybe in Kansas. Maybe. more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Everyone slacks off at work
In a survey, workers revealed that they spend a fourth of their time online on personal matters. Of the emails they sent at work, 80 percent were personal. Popular sites for goofing off are online trading sites, chatting services, and file-sharing sites. Scandalous! They should be reading blogs instead. [New Zealand Herald]
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Comment by goodstory77: Slacking is really 'potential' labor as opposed to 'kinectic' labor. Seriously. more » | Other threads
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food fight
Googlers' free-food privileges slashed
Food is part of the Google myth: All you can eat, three meals a day, with plenty of room for your friends and family. No more. Following the curtailment of dinner service, Google is now restricting employees to two guest meals a month. Contractors and temps will not be allowed any guests at all. Google HR chief Laszlo Bock announced this change in a memo obtained by Valleywag. Some Googlers, we've heard, treated their families to free dinner every night; others took large amounts of food home with them on Friday nights, to last the weekend. The move is consistent with Google management's war on abuse of the company's perks; cofounder Sergey Brin, especially, has complained about Googlers' sense of entitlement. Yet it's likely to spark grousing. Googlers outside engineering are often poorly paid, and sneaking food home amounts to part of their salary. Google seems caught in a vicious circle of worsening morale: Discontent sparks abuse of perks; crackdowns on perk abuse sparks discontent. Read the memo to see Google's latest schoolmarmish turn: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by LeviCachimba: Janitors at Google earn $11 an hour. They should be allowed to take home a truckload. 1 Responses | Other threads
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rumormonger
Microsoft minions made to punch in, punch out for lunch, meetings
A company tipster tells us Microsoft is cutting costs in its Online Services group, which sells businesses productivity and CRM software as well as exchange-hosted services. "We just learned today that the company is transitioning a decent chunk of the group (100+ ppl) to hourly compensation, from our current salaried gigs," writes our tipster. More »
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Comment by scaram0uche [can't get her act together]: From what I've heard, it has to do with a change in Californian pay regulations. It could possibly be affecting... 1 Responses | Other threads
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careers
What to know before Facebook recruiting comes to your campus
In the next year, Facebook plans to visit 20 universities and 5 business schools as it looks to staff up its already swelling operations. Students graduating from these institutions need to be prepared. In a post to announce the tour, Facebook recruiter Marcia Velencia writes that the company is "looking for people that are passionate," who, like Facebook, "value working hard, smart, and fast, and following that up with some good fun." Velencia and Facebook will almost certainly find these types of candidates and successfully lure them into the company. They will do so by allowing the candidates to believe — not explicitly promising them — that working at Facebook will make them rich, allow them to change the world, and put them on a fast track toward an exciting career in tech. Here's what graduating students entertaining a career at Facebook should actually expect. More » -
cubicle culture
Lehman Brothers IT guys still have to work Monday
158-year old investment bank Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy Sunday after banks Bank of America and Barclays refused to bail it out without government backing. But that doesn't mean anybody — including the IT guys — is getting the day off Monday. "We are counting on you to be at work on Monday and ready for business as usual," writes Lehman managing director Hari Gopalkrishan in an email obtained by Wall Street gossip blog Dealbreaker that we've copied below. In case your curious, popular lore has it that the last song Titanic's musicians played while the ship went down was "Nearer My God to Thee." More »
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Comment by sample032: Funny how most of the news about financials going under has come out after the market closes on Friday and... 4 Responses | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Microsoft goes Googley with its new offices in Seattle
Microsoft announced plans for new offices in Seattle's South Lake Union area a year ago. They're open now. According to photos from Microspotting — a PR blog for Microsoft human resources written by Ariel Meadow Stallings, who describes herself as "the person you thought would never work at MSFT" — they look pretty Googley. There's a red room and a blue room, for example. And the Microsofties have one trump card over the Googleplex: Minutes from downtown Seattle, South Lake Union is a much better location than an office park off 101. Check out the slide show below. More »
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Comment by SFJoe: Well, yeah but Tulsa is a better location than one of those soulless office parks off of 101. 1 Responses | Other threads
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Clive Wilikinson
Architect got rich from Google campus Eric Schmidt hates
Architect Clive Wilkinson just finished building his own home in southern California. In a profile, the New York Times calls it "the house that Google built." Wilkinson is best known for his $15 million renovation in 2006 of the company's Mountain View headquarters, which a curator Paola Antonelli at the Museum of Modern Art calls "not offices," but "memorable places for people to work in new ways.” If by "new ways" Antonelli means "grumpily," then it seems Googlers would agree. More » -
cubicle culture
Yahoo's new cost-cutting plan: Move operations to Nebraska
Yahoo is considering moving some of its operations to Omaha, Nebraska. Big Purple has "applied for the biggest slate of state tax breaks" reports the AP. The news has Nebraska state officials giddy. Yahoo told them it would invest $100 million in the area and create at least 50 jobs with an average salary of $68,700, which is quite a lot in Nebraska. Yahoo is specifically looking at a piece of property in an Omaha suburb, says the AP, confusing us. Doesn't there have to be an urban area for there to be a suburban area? We thought the city outskirts around Omaha had a simpler name: farmland.(Photo by andy54321)
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Comment by TheGunslinger: I am going with the data center idea too. Not sure where the 50 people come into it though? more » | Other threads
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food fight
Googleplex cafes staffed by illegal workers
One of our sources with Google's ready-to-boil kitchens, whom we've nicknamed "Deep Fried," tells us that the employee-coddling search giant has a much bigger food problem than cutbacks on dinner — and a much bigger labor problem than a lack of work visas for its programmers. More than half of the contract workers who prepare and serve Googler's vast quantities of free food, our source claims, lack documentation that proves they have a legal right to live and work in the United States. Are they illegal aliens? The point is that Bon Appétit, the management company which runs Google's cafes, has turned a blind eye — as has Google, until recently. A former chef tells us Google would frequently let workers who didn't have proper credentials return to work with fresh documents, under new names. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by weissadam: what happens when: a) you have the dumbshit idea to start a "silicon valley gossip blog" b) you know nothing about tech... 2 Responses | Other threads
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nerdspotting
Facebook holds toga party to celebrate 100 million users
To celebrate the company reaching 100 million users, Facebook employees are holding an impromptu toga party at a park near the company's office on Waverly in downtown Palo Alto, a tipster reports. (Dave Morin, Facebook's ubiquitous evangelist, also Twittered about the party, so it must be true!) Is this the last hurrah for the collegiate youth culture 24-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg created, before COO Sheryl "No Fun" Sandberg moves the company to an anonymous office complex next year? It's hard to imagine Facebookers donning sheets and running around the manicured lawns of the bland former Hewlett-Packard building. Here, Sheryl — somehow we can't picture you taking part in toga parties even when you were in college. For you, from eHow, some step-by-step instructions for holding a toga party. Bonus points to any reader who sends in a photo of Zuckerberg in a toga. (Photo by andyfitz)
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By Owen ThomasComment by kimbjo: Naked Nerds... yummy! Liability insurance for a toga party...ewwww! more » | Other threads
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googleplex
Google's food perks on the chopping block
There's no such thing as a free dinner. A worker at Google tells us the company is taking evening meals off the menu: "Google has drastically cut back their budget on the culinary program. How is it affecting campus? No more dinner. No more tea trolley. No more snack attack in the afternoon." The changes will be announced to Googlers on Monday. Workers at the Googleplex will remain amply fed, with free breakfast and lunch — dinner will be reserved for geeks only — but it's still a shocking cutback. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by stuckinthetrenches: Easy Haters... 1 - Meal time is typically spent with team members discussing work and promotes efficiencies and bonding 2 - You... more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Management to IT: We hate you, too
A Wall Street Journal blog post claims "information technology pros will go extinct if they don’t start thinking about their jobs differently." The item, sourced to a single analyst, is a flop as a trend report. But it's a wonderful snapshot of the resentment corporate workers feel toward bureaucratized IT departments. More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by chowderhead2: Unrelated tip for Owen:Salim Ismail formerly of Brickhouse has a bogus university degree listed on his site, salimismail.com. more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Business cards endangered by heedless new startup
Rmbr, a wireless-apps startup, has developed a service which exchanges business cards electronically via text message. What, and lose the vital ritual of ceremoniously discarding the cards of the unimportant in your hotel room after a conference? [VentureBeat]
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By Owen ThomasComment by Shadowlayer: WTF? you can do this already, big deal! more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Facebook's new home: HP's old office park
Facebook's new bosses don't let the peons throw drinking-game parties anymore, but at least the drones get to go to work in a pedestrian-friendly urban setting, right? Nope. Facebook plans to move "a substantial portion of its operations" in the first quarter of 2009 from downtown Palo Alto to one of HP's old office parks on to 1601 California Avenue, reports Palo Alto Online. The lot, about 8.5 acres in the Stanford Research Park, used to house HP's spun-off subsidiary Agilent, but by the looks of it, we would've guessed Dunder-Mifflin.
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Comment by pepelicious: Man, I'd be pissed if I was a Facebooker who had to schlep it from anywhere north of Palo Alto... more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
The fear and loathing never ends at Yahoo
Yahoo sources told BoomTown's Kara Swisher that there's a price to be paid for management's lofty promises to shareholders. Top executives are considering "cutting costs" in Yahoo's mobile operations and the Santa Monica-based Yahoo Media Group. A Yahoo executive tells us that he doesn't buy the layoff rumors, and he's "not overly worried." So who are Swisher's sources and why are they spreading so much doom and gloom? That's just life at Yahoo, our source said: More »
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Comment by Owen Thomas: @Hopeless: transparency will be supremely offended at being called a "Valleywag groupie." more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Former Apple employee sues because Steve Jobs made him work too hard
Former network engineer David Walsh worked at Apple from 1995 to 2007 before finally realizing that when the company tags "senior" on to the front of your title, it doesn't mean much except for more work. Now he's suing Apple for violating California's labor laws. In a complaint filed in the Southern District of California, Walsh alleges Apple requires employees to work more than 40 hours a week or eight hours a day, but refuses to pay overtime and instead just "promotes" employees to new overtime ineligible titles. Apparently Walsh also had to be on call for seven day stretches every six weeks. Weblogs Inc. and Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis would urge Walsh to drop the suit, get out of tech, and find work in a post office. We're just happy to report finding another job to add to our list of tech's very worst. (Photo by philentropist)
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Comment by Mazda Eric: My uncle, who has operated his own successful one-man business for decades, has a saying: "When you do good work your... more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Cuil shows the Irish how to spend it like Beckham
[UPDATE: Sarah Carey wrote to say that her post was removed temporarily because of traffic overload. It's back up now.] More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by Shadowlayer: @Passerby: I was just going to mention game programmers too. Anyway, didnt had an idea the irish had a counceling agency... more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Olympics video vs. office networks: We know who'll win
Nearly every chief information officer on the planet is worried the Olympics will take down his or her network next week, says network management tool maker Blue Coat Systems. The Wall Street Journal profiles Cathy McClain, CIO for a division of Brunswick, the maker of bowling balls and boats. It only takes 15 employees watching videos at once to affect her network. I like her solution: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by tawni: @colonelpanic: [www.bowl.com] for the US bowling team of course more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
How pissed off are Yahoos? Ask their janitors, who'd like them to stop peeing in the sink
"PLEASE STOP PEEING IN THE SINK More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by CharBo: Well let's see now, there's an ever increasing number of FOBs coming over to work at Yahoo...replacing the former civilized... more » | Other threads
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hubris
How did Google's daycare debacle happen?
John Sterlicchi, writing for the U.K.'s Guardian, just emailed me asking for my thoughts on "this Google daycare fiasco." (The short version: Google closed an outsourced daycare facility in favor of one run in-house, and hiked prices 70 percent, far above market rates; Googlers with kids in the facility, and those on the waitlist, are furious.) He asked: "If someone outside the environs of Google and Silicon valley was looking at this, what should they think? Is Google moving away from 'do no evil'?" Good questions. Here's what I just wrote him: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Shadowlayer: 10 years of now with google gone, hollywood will put this kinder crap at the beginning of their "epic fail"... more » | Other threads
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Transformers blows up this weekend. Need to know more? io9 gets down and dirty with the superbots.
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Gizmodo's just reviewed two great smartphones, the Palm Pre and the iPhone 3GS. Here's a guide to help you decide which is better for you.
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The Life of Steve Jobs - So far.
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