<holds envelope to forehead> Because you made enough money that it was an affordable risk?
Yes, perf is garbage and management is chaos, but let's be honest with ourselves. Four years' worth of GSUs oughta be enough for anybody.
"Devoted employee" followed by "expert at gaming the perf system" followed by "project cancelled and adrift" is, sadly, the normal progression for a Googler, from what I've seen.
The compensation made it both easier and harder to leave. Easier because I had a giant safety net squirreled away, harder because they kept offering more.
"Four years' worth of GSUs oughta be enough for anybody."
No. Not even close. There's a reason it's called golden handcuffs. It all depends on where you are in life. If you have a mortgage, it won't be enough depending on the house you have. If you don't have a house, you will have a lot of FOMO. Big time.
It's all about pscyhology - you need exactly 0$ if you are dedicated and don't have dependencies. Ok, let's say just couple thousand for a room and food.
I thought "oughta be enough for anybody" was an obvious "640KB" joke, but maybe I'm just old. Anyway, it certainly is enough money to appropriately cushion an attempt at freelancing.
And the best thing to do after leaving a job at Google is to move somewhere cheaper!
Whenever anybody pays you good salary or even adds stock shares to it, doesn't mean they can wipe their feet on your personal attitude or consider your job efforts as garbage.
If author wanted to express this opinion I completely agree.
How is four years of GSUs enough? Four years is in the low six digits. Being financially secure in the Bay Area requires an order of magnitude more than that.
Yes, perf is garbage and management is chaos, but let's be honest with ourselves. Four years' worth of GSUs oughta be enough for anybody.
"Devoted employee" followed by "expert at gaming the perf system" followed by "project cancelled and adrift" is, sadly, the normal progression for a Googler, from what I've seen.