Gawker
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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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martha stewart
Boss Martha Fears the Spread of Googley Perks
Three New York City Googlers went on Martha Stewart to show off a scallops recipe today. How fun! But Martha was far more interested in their employer's lavish perks. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by RubyCeto: I'd much rather run around and do my own errands, if it gets me an hour earlier out of googleland... 1 Responses | Other threads
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geeks gone wild
Who's Saying 'Fly Me' to Eric Schmidt?
How does Eric Schmidt do it? The computer nerd runs Google, has Obama's ear, parks his jet fleet in a NASA hangar, and has a rocking girlfriend. Is she the reason he flies so much? More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by MisterHippity: Owen, I don't know if it was intentional or not, but your headline recalls this 1970s advertising campaign for National... 4 Responses | Other threads
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googleplex
Google Serving Up Hubris at Shuttered Café
Since Valleywag broke the news that Google was closing two of its free cafés this week, they've been busier than ever as hyperentitled Googlers race to get one last taste. And complain about the lines. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by The Evil Beet: "Can you believe this? They make 50 highly paid engineers wait in line for one lowly paid chef." I don't understand... 11 Responses | Other threads
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Stupid cost-cutting tricks
Google Buys American for Friday Beer Bash
International trade is what powers the modern, global economy! But Google's bean-counters have taken a horrid protectionist turn by insisting on domestic beer for the search engine's Friday "TGIF" events. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Exclamation Mark Violation: Bud is Belgian Miller is South African Coors is Canadian So much for buy American 5 Responses | Other threads
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cutbacks
Fear and Loathing on the Google Shuttle
Googlers, used to being coddled by the luxuries of the Googleplex, now worry they'll have to pay to ride the company shuttle bus. It's the latest sign of the giant search engine's nervous breakdown. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by pepelicious: So companies like Google are forced to devote an unreasonable amount of engergy figuring out how to trim costs to... 3 Responses | Other threads
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perks
Cisco, the Best Lousy Place to Work
How did Fortune decide Cisco was near the top of its "Best Places to Work" list? An unhappy tipster at the networking-equipment maker leaked this report from a company meeting happening now: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Pope John Peeps II: You know, water's a free drink. Quit being such a pussy. 11 Responses | Other threads
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perks
Top Yahoo Exec Asks Company for a Loan
It's hard to think of a worse time to get into the home-loan business. But, according to upset finance staffers, Yahoo backed a senior executive's mortgage to move into a neighborhood of $3 million houses. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by TangledWebWatcher: 1. Executives are entitled to get loans. That's why they are executives. It's a loan. not additional compensation. So... 2 Responses | Other threads
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perks
Google Launches "School of Spiritual Growth"
How soul-draining it must be to work at the world's best company! Hence the introduction of Google's School of Spiritual Growth, an arm of the search engine's in-house university. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Auntie_Meme is outta here: Chade-Meng Tan is also known for this: "When it's 'normal' that every workplace offers massage, meditation, three organic meals... 6 Responses | Other threads
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cutbacks
Yahoo Retreats from Hollywood
Two years after he left, the ghost of TV executive Lloyd Braun still haunts Yahoo. Which is why a report of lost perks in Yahoo's L.A. office turned into an evisceration of the ex-exec.
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By Owen ThomasComment by kevinarnoldkilleddjtanner: Serenity now, insanity later 3 Responses | Other threads
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mahalo
Jason Calacanis makes Disneyland the saddest place on earth
After laying off most of his staff, how is Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis watching his pennies? By spending some of the Web directory's $21 million in funding to take nine remaining employees to Disneyland.
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By Owen ThomasComment by JasonCalacanis: That's the worst photoshop you guys have done of me to date--did the Valleywag's cuts include the illustration team?! I... 11 Responses | Other threads
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meltdowns
Facebook employee unloads company gear on eBay
Times are tough at what was Silicon Valley's hottest startup last year. So tough that one Facebooker is auctioning off a company-issued Jack Spade laptop bag.
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By Owen ThomasComment by ShashirekhaBabalon: No self-respecting hipster would be caught with a bag like that. Who the hell is Jack Spade anyway? ... 1 Responses | Other threads
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perks
Filet mignon on menu at Google's NYC holiday party
Google is throwing not one, not two, but three holiday parties for its New York employees this year. Such is the cash-flush search engine's definition of austerity.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Beausoleil: Lemme guess...the Yahoo holiday party will serve Salisbury steak? 1 Responses | Other threads
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perks
Google's austerity campaign
The best place to work in America is becoming like every other big corporation. Google, at its heart an overgrown advertising agency, is most famous for its lavish perks. Now those are disappearing.
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By Owen ThomasComment by its_a_feature: And so it begins! I'll be curious to see the fallout when googlers realize their perks have fallen back... 3 Responses | Other threads
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meltdowns
Cisco kills Christmas
"There should be no Business Group, Technology Group or Business Unit-funded holiday parties." That's the extra bullet through the heart in an email being sent around Cisco. I've screencapped only part of it, because I promised not to provide any pointers to my leaker. Here's the ASCII text version: More »
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By Paul BoutinComment by GarthSatyr: Cisco has a lot of fat and redundancies .... the financial crisis and economic crash has led to entire segments... more » | Other threads
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commenter of the day
sunnyvalesteve
The employee stock purchase plan seems like one of the few ways left for Yahoos to make money off their employer. Should it be eliminated because of short-term stock-flipping? sunnyvalesteve doesn't see the downside: "Hurt morale?? Like there's any left!" -
perks
Facebook cafe scores 5 stars on Yelp
The Underground at Facebook has four reviews: 5 stars, 5 stars, 5 stars, and one guy who dares ask what's up with reracking the dishes? The secret to success seems to be executive chef Josef Desimone, a steal from Google who brought several of his buddies over. Valleywag scored spy photos of the place in August. I confess I'm eyeing that plate of sushi and my résumé right now. Sheryl Sandberg can't be all that bad to work for, especially right after lunch. (Photo by donn l.) -
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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perks
Facebook buying Jack Spade computer bags for employees
A tipster reports overhearing two Facebook employees bragging about the Jack Spade computer bags bought for them by their employers. Facebook has some 700 employees; the Spade bags retail at the Apple Store for $99.95. If you figure Facebook got them for about half that price, it still shelled out $35,000 unnecessarily. Is this the kind of spending CFO Gideon Yu is trying to persuade Middle Eastern investors to underwrite?
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By Owen ThomasComment by Mike Malone: Wow you're way behind Owen. They've been giving these bags to employees for at least 18 months. More interesting though... 1 Responses | Other threads
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cutbacks
Yahoo purple with rage over lunch price hike
Yahoo has spent millions on consulting fees with Bain & Co. to come up with cost-cutting schemes — bold ones like hiking cafeteria prices. A tipster blames President Sue Decker and CFO Blake Jorgensen for upping his lunch bill by three bucks: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by PeggyRhesus: does Yahoo really pay for Sue Decker to be driven to work in a private car more » | Other threads
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perks
In-house gym Cisco's new profit center
Cisco, the San Jose-based networking-equipment giant, is closing its free campus gyms — and replacing them with a new, larger one for which employees will have to pay $20 a month. In explaining the change, Cisco's HR team has claimed it's subsidizing the price of the gym, as well as other health facilities at the same site by 90 percent. So, what, the gym would actually cost $200/mo. at market rates? Must be some gym. Check it out in this video a Cisco source smuggled off-campus, and read Cisco's memo, which touts the loss of free gyms as bringing a "positive return on investment for Cisco." If you're feeling brave, crash the gym's grand opening on Monday. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Churchill: The video didn't show the gym!!! 1 Responses | Other threads
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food fight
Snack the vote? Googlers should say no
A cautionary tale for New York Googlers, who have been asked to vote on which snacks will be offered in its shrunken larders: New York magazine tried a similar approach, and found that people voted for much healthier snacks than they actually were willing to consume. [NYMag.com]
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By Owen ThomasComment by PaoloEumaeus: Similar...except the snacks in question at New York magazine were in a $vending machine$, not free like at Google NYC. more » | Other threads
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food fight
Google New York hit by cost cuts
Google's offices in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood are the latest to feel the pinch, with hours curtailed and snack service cut back, according to an internal memo. To understand what a shock to the system this is, remember how, when Google went public four years ago, cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin swore they would increase employee perks over time. Since then, Google PR has built the company's great-place-to-work reputation largely on its free meals. How fast things change: Just a year ago, the luxe perks of Google's New York office were a selling point, as the search engine courted the city's fashionistas. Now the food is just another cost to cut. Starving artists, don't count on mooching off free meals courtesy of your Googler friends: Google New York is also cracking down on guests. Here's the memo New York Googlers received Tuesday around lunchtime: More » -
caption contest
How many more rounds of layoffs are planned at Mahalo?
What was Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis doing in the weeks running up to this company's layoffs? Traveling around the world, to destinations like the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, Korea. In his how-to-lay-people-off memo, Calacanis also promised to cut back on his travel budget — which struck me as an admission that his trips to speak at conferences, often on subjects unrelated to his work at his Sequoia-funded Web directory, were being paid for by his investors. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments. The best one will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: Ted Dziuba, for "Traffic is the new profit." (Photo by JoopDorresteijn)
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By Owen ThomasComment by kgbeat: Hey Jason, how many more rounds of layoffs are planned at Mahalo? 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 party culture
We haven't yet heard who will be the entertainment at Yahoo's Christmas party, scheduled for December 6, four days before the company proceeds with mass layoffs. Yet again, it's being held at a convention center by a racetrack — this year, with a Vegas theme. 2007's party featured a Neil Diamond cover band. For this year, how about Money For Nothing, the Dire Straits tributaries? We're sure they're cheap. Good thing, because a tipster familiar with Yahoo's budget says the company will spend $8 million to $10 million this year on holiday parties alone. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by Triborough: If I am a stockholder, would they let me in? 1 Responses | 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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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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food fight
How Google's cafes turned into hell's kitchens
Live by the fork, die by the fork. Now that Google is cutting back on its free food, where will its flacks woo journalists? Morale in Google's kitchens is rock-bottom, as leaderless workers try to keep understaffed cafes running, even as Google management insists they open new eateries. The last place Google's PR staff should want to entertain a reporter is in their cafes. The tragedy of it all: As we learn more about how the Googleplex's food operations fell apart, it sounds like Google executives' ego got in the way of thinking about the needs of employees — or the workers who keep them fed. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by dodgit: Bon Appetit ruined Stanford University's dining halls and cafes during the late 90s. High prices, crappy food. I would never... more » | Other threads
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perks
Dinner saved for Google's geeks
Google's food cutbacks are more targeted than we'd first heard. Dinner will still be served in buildings which house engineers, according to a former Google chef who's made his own inquiries about the changes at the Googleplex cafeterias. Google's only eliminating the evening meal in cafes frequented by nontechnical employees. Somehow, this strikes us as worse for morale. If there were any doubt that Google's non-engineers were second-class citizens, consider it erased. No comp-sci degree? No dinner for you. (Photo by brettlider)
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By Owen ThomasComment by SangitaRaphman: This decision only makes sense: people aren't eating dinner in certain buildings; so dinner will not be offered there. ... 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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perks
Echelon fuels up CEO's private jet
Network appliance manufacturer Echelon will now cover half the cost of CEO Ken Oshman's travel on his private jet after a vote by the company's board. Previously, the company only reimbursed up to the equivalent expense of first-class commercial airfare for Oshman and any employees travelling on company business. Based on Oshman's travel so far this year, the new perk will cost the company an extra $370,000 a year. [Mercury News]
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By Jackson WestComment by giddieup: must be good to have your buddies sit at your board and you sit on theirs so you can scratch... 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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perks
Solving Google's childcare crisis, the Microsoft way
Google cofounder Sergey Brin has explained his company's childcare fiasco thusly: It's an experiment in economics. And yet there's very little that's scientific about Google's approach to childcare, which has been to hand Susan Wojcicki, Brin's sister-in-law, a blank check, and then accuse parents of feeling entitled when the result comes in with sky-high costs. Raising the price well above market rates was the only way, Brin argued in meeting with parents, to reduce a long waitlist. Gosh, how can a large software company fairly handle childcare benefits? If Google weren't so determined to do things differently — wild ono and adzuki beans for lunch! Stanford grads with 3.5 GPAs as instructors! — it might look to Microsoft's example. The software giant offers employees 20 percent discounts on childcare from a number of providers — and its executives are smart enough to realize that they know how to write code, not take care of infants.
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By Owen ThomasComment by ScalaWag: @on-technology: Power play by Wojcicki! She is angling to make history as America's first Chief Daycare Officer (CDO). more » | Other threads
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leaks
Google's daycare debacle: the Kinderplex memos
Google no longer advertises subsidized daycare as a benefit to its employees. So why is the company building luxuriously unaffordable child-care centers at the behest of Susan Wojcicki, the sister-in-law of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and closing down Kinderplex, a more affordable center operated by an experienced Silicon Valley daycare provider, CCLC? If you can answer that one, you're probably clever enough at solving puzzles to qualify for a job at the Googleplex. According to internal memos obtained by Valleywag, Google executives promised in May that its new centers would not see a price hike of 75 percent. Instead, Google management hiked rates 68.34 percent — at the cost of reducing hours and increasing the ratio of children to teachers. Google is phasing in the hikes for currently enrolled children, and offering a scholarship program for the least well-off, writes Laszlo Bock, Google's top HR executive. What Bock never addresses: Why is Google spending shareholder money on a perk that it is now so ashamed of that it doesn't market it to its potential recruits as a reason to work at Google? The memos: More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by skinnyme: This is sad for Googlers. Anyone who has children can understand what they are going through when the rug is... more » | Other threads
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perks
Google daycare now a luxury for Larry and Sergey's inner circle
Life inside the Googleplex already resembles a daycare center, with its primary colors, bouncy exercise balls, and free food. But if you're a parent working at Google, daycare has become a nightmare. As recently as last July, Google advertised its Kinderplex child-care center as a perk, though the rates it charged weren't much below the market price. The reality: Googlers haven't been able to get their kids into the Kinderplex, thanks to a long waiting list, and the facility is now closing, being replaced by overpriced facilities designed at the behest of Susan Wojcicki, the multimillionaire sister-in-law of Google cofounder Sergey Brin and mother of four. Google employee-parents are up in arms — not over the price hike itself, but over the way the decision came down from on high. More » -
perks
Comcast CEO's family gets $300 million if he croaks in office
Had Comcast CEO Brian Roberts died during 2007, the company would have had to pay his heirs $60 million for five years of salary and bonus, a $223 million life-insurance payout and another $14 million in stock awards and other payments. Add it up and Roberts's heirs get a $298.1 million "golden coffin" if the Comcast CEO croaks in office. Roberts's 88-year-old father — Ralph Roberts, chairman of Comcast's executive committee — earns his family $87 millionifwhen he goes, too. Such "golden coffins," much like "golden parachutes" have been around as estate-planning tax dodges for years, reports the Wall Street Journal in an exposé, but until a new law 18 months ago, it was easy for companies to bury how much they would pay families after executive deaths "in the fog of proxy-statement language." No longer. (Photo by Bruno Girin)
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Comment by TaintEpithelials: I wonder if Twitter user @comcastcares could tell us how much of our monthly bill goes toward golden coffins, golden... more » | Other threads
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cubicle culture
Google's ever-shrinking 20 percent time
Google has introduced Gmail Labs, a digital playground for Googlers to develop new features for Gmail in their spare time. It's a well-staged PR event, a timely effort to remind the press — and through them, potential hires — that Google lets engineers spend 20 percent of their time on side projects. Gmail Labs, though, is a sign of how 20 percent time as early Googlers knew it is vanishing from the Googleplex. More » -
google i/o
Google misspells binary message — or does it?
Google's developer conference in San Francisco, Google I/O, is a temporary geek paradise, a replication of the Googleplex's lavish perks. Flight of the Conchords played last night. Google also provided puzzles. TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington noticed that a binary code sequence on Google's T-shirt for the event spells "GOOGLE KO". A mistake? Or a test to see if readers are clever enough to notice that the top half of a "K" looks like an "I" and a slash?
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By Owen ThomasComment by null: Would have been cooler with a real slash in there anyway (/ = 00101111) more » | Other threads
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