Thursday, December 22, 2005

Work Hard Play Hard at Google

A few weeks ago I blogged about Work Hard-Play Hard vs. Work-Life Balance.

Here's what it's like at Google. Yes, it's anecdotal, but I've heard similar things from Scoble upon his return from the GooglePlex, and from my buddy who just finished interning there (the same one who interned with, and initially convinced me to apply for a job at Microsoft).

Look at folks starting to respond in Mini's comments:

That is completely idiotic. Putting in code at 4:00 AM is all about testosterone. If this is what Google is all about then ride the stock wave while you can, bubba. Where I come from this is called bragging.

Classic. Does MarkL have a family? You can get off working like that when you're in your 20's, not getting laid on a regular basis, and wanting nothing more than to be coding. We've all done that. But at some point, life gets to you and you have kids, and other things going on. Is it worth not seeing your kids so some geek out there can have 1GB of free email? Not in my world.

I hope they aren't Microsofties.

1 comment:

markjen said...

Sigh, the responses in Mini-MSFT's post lambasting MarkL for his comment are exactly the problem at MSFT :(

I wonder if MSFT could create two tracks, one for WLB and one for WHPH and let people choose. That might be interesting; at least that would recognize that people operate differently and set up a system to compensate them accordingly.

In general though, when you've got a competitor like Google (who's got people that are just as smart, but are willing to put in that extra mile) and you're mostly a WLB shop... well... we'll see what happens.