I find this article misleading, Google certainly does not have problem retaining talents joining early stage startups. Those talents probably joined Google pre-IPO and funding their own startups now. The problem for the late Googlers is that they and their uncles all want to join the multi-billions dollar pre-IPO "company". And yes, their scale is big enough and affect millions, and the up side is, one day they can move on to be entrepreneurs.
Not everyone who participates in an IPO makes millions you know. Especially those who join in the later stages of a startup's lifecycle, the combined effects of (a) dilution, and (b) increasing stock valuation means the lottery payout diminishes very steeply. And in the case of Facebook, where there have been a lot more opportunities for stock to be sold pre-IPO, that means there are more opportunities for the stock valuation to be established. This has impacts for what the company can offer as far as stock options are concerned, which influences the upside opportunity.
Furthermore, given the huge amount of attention and hype about How Facebooks Success Is Assured, a lot of the "pop" in valuation that took place pre-IPO has probably already taken place. People who expect that Facebook will have its valuation (its market cap is currently estimated at $41 billion; Apple is $219 billion; IBM is $157 billion; Dell is $22 billion) "pop" by another 10x post-IPO will probably be sadly disappointed. And if you don't get that "pop", those stock options won't be worth all that much.
Which is one of the reasons I really don't believe the stories of $3.5m and $6m retention offers. It would simply be insane to make such offers, because the payout for someone jumping from Google to Facebook at this point, roughly a year before when people are guessing Facebook will IPO, are nowhere near that large (after stock reserved for the 5 stages of VC investment, and the founder's stock, and stock already issued to other employees, not to mention the shares that you know, need to actually be sold to the public, the number of options that could be granted per employee won't be that high). And, I'm pretty confident Google isn't insane. Furthermore, if Google was doing this, it would be bleedingly obvious on the quarterly 10Q statements it has to file with the SEC. So if you really think this is real, try doing some digging in the 10Q's 2-3 months from now.
I'm new to startup but I have been to some meetups and breakfasts. Few things I heard,
1. don't take VC money
2. raise VC money when you don't need it
3. if you really need the money by ... or else ..., then you should quit and get a real job
Google wave idea is good, but nobody really know what it is best for. For everything it does, there is something else that does it better and more focus. And I think part of the failure is mass adoption. They do not know what it is good for, but the launch only limits to a small amount of people. If they started day one for everyone to use it, someone some how might figure out what it is and how people should use it. By the time, I finally got an invite, after begging and begging, most people already moved on to something else.
Content is value, a lot of wall statuses are spontaneous, video links, cute articles, what is happening. That makes people come and stick around. The plan is useful, but not that sticky for people to see any changes.
People just need to know the techniques of pressure management. When I was raised, my parents taught me always to be humble. There are always people better, smarter than you. I got my PhD from UCLA and happened to know this guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao
He was a full professor at 24 and teaching people much older than him and he was the winner of fields medal.
So, if u have too much pressure, think twice that somewhere, someone is more intelligent. And I am sure just like all other records, someday, someone will break it.
There are a lot of quant funds that were started by professors. They hire a lot of PhDs in Math and Physics. And yes, a PhD in Math can make a lot of money if you end up working at a trading firm.
This is an interesting path to get a good software job. I agree that when it comes to software jobs, a good resume with a lot of techno buzz words does not mean anything. An interview that gives coding puzzle can easily tell a person if he's capable or not. But a non-tech hiring manager will not be able to carry one out, a few references of open source projects, bug fixes definitely boost up your scores quite a bit. I've hired some good people and some bad before, at the end of day, your project success is not based on how many PhDs there are on the team, but how many coders that can deliver.
Being an engineer, constantly learning is a given. Technologies change everyday. That happens from hardware all the way to the top. Don't bet on just one technology and think your career will end with it. Java, Python, Ruby, and many others are things people talk about, but I guarantee you, there will be more new languages, new technologies and new platforms pop up every now and then.
I think this is the biggest difference between programming language and OS/RBDMS. The changes happening around programming languages are much faster than that of the OS/RDBMS world.
People who know UNIX concepts are most likely employable whether the business is using HP-UX, Solaris, Linux, or BSD. You're a DBA? doesn't matter much how many years of experience you have between Oracle and SQL-Server (as long as each have at least 1 year).
Compare that to a developer who know OOP in Java and JEE is less likely employable in shops that use the equivalent technology in C#.NET (even if the concept and the language is the same).
My point here is that the changes in programming language/development tools are in a very unhealthy situation. People don't even have time to stabilize and learn other skills (communication, organization, networking, understanding business needs).
