<story><title>Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?</title><url>https://paygo.media/p/25171</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JohnCarmack</author><text>I can certainly see a lot of parallels with Oculus &amp;#x2F; Facebook.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps unusually, I actually wanted FB to impress itself more strongly on Oculus post acquisition because, frankly, Oculus was a bit of a mess.  Instead, Oculus was given an enormous amount of freedom for many years.&lt;p&gt;Personally, nobody ever told me what to do, even though I was willing to &amp;quot;shut up and soldier&amp;quot; if necessary -- they bought that capability! Conversely, I couldn&amp;#x27;t tell anyone what to do from my position; the important shots were always called when I wasn&amp;#x27;t around. Some of that was on me for not being willing to relocate to HQ, but a lot of it was built into early Oculus DNA.&lt;p&gt;I could only lead by example and argument, and the arguments only took on weight after years of evidence accumulated.  I could have taken a more traditional management position, but I would have hated it, so that&amp;#x27;s also on me.  The political dynamics never quite aligned with an optimal set of leadership personalities and beliefs where I would have had the best leverage, but there was progress, and I am reasonably happy and effective as a part time consultant today, seven years later.&lt;p&gt;Talking about &amp;quot;entitled workers&amp;quot; almost certainly derails the conversation.  Perhaps a less charged framing that still captures some of the matter is the mixing of people who Really Care about their work with the Just A Job crowd.  The wealth of the mega corps does allow most goals to be accomplished, at great expense, with Just A Job workers, but people that have experienced being embedded with Really Care workers are going to be appalled at the relative effectiveness.&lt;p&gt;The communication culture does tend a bit passive-aggressive for my taste, but I can see why it evolves that way in large organizations.  I&amp;#x27;ve only been officially dinged by HR once for insensitive language in a post, but a few people have reached out privately with some gentle suggestions about better communication.&lt;p&gt;All in all, not a perfect fairy tale outcome, but I still consider taking the acquisition offer as the correct thing for the company in hindsight.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yks</author><text>Often workers are perfectly capable and eager of Really Caring but then the company incentives and politics force them into Just A Job category. Especially when joining Big Tech not via acquihire.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why did I leave Google or, why did I stay so long?</title><url>https://paygo.media/p/25171</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>JohnCarmack</author><text>I can certainly see a lot of parallels with Oculus &amp;#x2F; Facebook.&lt;p&gt;Perhaps unusually, I actually wanted FB to impress itself more strongly on Oculus post acquisition because, frankly, Oculus was a bit of a mess.  Instead, Oculus was given an enormous amount of freedom for many years.&lt;p&gt;Personally, nobody ever told me what to do, even though I was willing to &amp;quot;shut up and soldier&amp;quot; if necessary -- they bought that capability! Conversely, I couldn&amp;#x27;t tell anyone what to do from my position; the important shots were always called when I wasn&amp;#x27;t around. Some of that was on me for not being willing to relocate to HQ, but a lot of it was built into early Oculus DNA.&lt;p&gt;I could only lead by example and argument, and the arguments only took on weight after years of evidence accumulated.  I could have taken a more traditional management position, but I would have hated it, so that&amp;#x27;s also on me.  The political dynamics never quite aligned with an optimal set of leadership personalities and beliefs where I would have had the best leverage, but there was progress, and I am reasonably happy and effective as a part time consultant today, seven years later.&lt;p&gt;Talking about &amp;quot;entitled workers&amp;quot; almost certainly derails the conversation.  Perhaps a less charged framing that still captures some of the matter is the mixing of people who Really Care about their work with the Just A Job crowd.  The wealth of the mega corps does allow most goals to be accomplished, at great expense, with Just A Job workers, but people that have experienced being embedded with Really Care workers are going to be appalled at the relative effectiveness.&lt;p&gt;The communication culture does tend a bit passive-aggressive for my taste, but I can see why it evolves that way in large organizations.  I&amp;#x27;ve only been officially dinged by HR once for insensitive language in a post, but a few people have reached out privately with some gentle suggestions about better communication.&lt;p&gt;All in all, not a perfect fairy tale outcome, but I still consider taking the acquisition offer as the correct thing for the company in hindsight.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>allenu</author><text>Thanks for sharing this. It just goes to show that even the best of us can find it difficult to effect change in a big company. The nature of a large organization is it requires lots of communication, alignment, and on-the-ground politics to make things happen, which is definitely a challenge for those of us who just want to get shit done.</text></comment>