Google should start hiring former Microsoft HR and development people. They need to start defining "pathways" for people to advance, even if it involves the creation of bullshit titles, because they've lost the two things most cool companies have to offer--equity, and the feeling that you're creating something exciting with other poor people.

In five years they'll have lost some of the scene idiots that work for them (who all wear glasses and graphic t-shirts and will turn to blogging about software) and make ads like that DoubleClick thing, and intelligent college graduates will recognize that they're just another company. This has been a pretty long honeymoon, I can't see it lasting much longer.

To that end, it can't be any worse than working at DoubleClick.

I was a DoubleClick employee for three insufferable months after they had bought out my previous company. I quit in just that time, foresaking my sign-on bonus, because I hated working there so much.

Google seems poised for an epic correction in values, both stock-wise and culturally. Them being more worried about whether someone is up to "Google standards" versus having headcount, vital tribal knowledge, and IP walk out the door just because the people don't fit the stepford employee mold seems self defeating. These are the people who built the systems and accounts they bought- if they want it to be done in the pure "google way", shouldn't they build their own solution and spend the cost of acquisition on capturing the marketshare? Wouldn't that be easier?

So yeah, I bet anyone with a clue at DClick is looking elsewhere if they have any marketable skills. I'd do it now rather than six months down the road when the trifecta of Google layoffs(inevitable if the stock continues to sink?), ecomomic downturn fear ripple effects, and typical summer job market slow-down occur.

This is literally the FIFTH reference to the now-dubbed "piggy post," complete with photo, in the past week. Come on Valleywag.

@westphalia: And imagine, we have another 5 whole days ahead of us this week

The coming market crash this week should coincide nicely with these announcements and the GOOG value correction.

I was asked to reapply for my job at my first company when we were bought. We all had to interview with the head bitch from HR and justify our existence. It was one of the most degrading and humiliating experiences I've ever had working. I left that company within a couple of months, anyway.

My advice to anyone in this scenario - get the fuck out!

This seems like business as usual for an acquisition this size.

However, if google management and underlings are so hung up on paper credentials I believe a stroll through the history of Doubleclick is probably worthwhile.

I'd like to point out that the company was, for the most part, managed by top school mba types and essentially through a series of bad acqusitions and missteps, led to a 4 dollar share price, an acquisition by a private equity firm, only to be bought by google for 3.1 billion dollars less than two years later. All the while, their biggest competitors stock prices were performing pretty well.

Now, this is either a high stakes 3 card monty game that was beautifully engineered, or a shining example that sometimes a business will make bad decisions no matter who is running them.

I dont think you can discount what top school credentials can bring to the table, but do believe there is also a lot of value in the scrappy street smart guy/gal that may not have attended the best school or had the best grades.

I'm getting tired of hearing about the google attitude. It's fucking ad words and ad sense gang! You didn't cure cancer or daibetes, get over yourselves.

Come on Hatebook! give Google a little credit. For Earth Hour yesterday they changed their homepage style to background-color:black. They're saving the earth, specially with their new server center:
[harpers.org]

while that is indeed a photo from doubleclick's ad exchange launch party at ad:tech 2007, at least three of the four faces featured in the photo are decidedly not doubleclick employees; i dont know who the guy in the green shirt is, but i can tell you that the other three are employed by an interactive agency and two different ad networks.

if youre going to post an article about doubleclick employees, maybe you should make sure that the photo you use [and credit as such] is actually of doubleclick employees.

b_d_solis posted it as a general crowd photo (in flickr as well as in the original article it was supporting), so it looks like quite a bit of presumption on valleywag's part. nice reporting work ... par for the course, though, right?

@black_patent: Didn't know it was so embarrassing to be associated with DoubleClick.

@Nicholas Carlson: nothing about my post indicated as much; i know and hold in high regard many doubleclick employees. im just pointing out that valleywag likes to be presumptuous... although i suppose any semi-frequent reader would know as much.

@Jory: Insufferable because maybe you were asked to do work? That's what I remember of the situation.

@ArroganceIsSin: Actually the problem was I was bored out of my mind most of the time, and they don't pay well, and my managers were all douchebags, and the HR department is a disaster and run like a cult.

I could go on. Ultimately my life is so much better after quitting DoubleClick.

@Jory: I'm sure we are all better off.