Valleywag
Ramsey Allington
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real estate
Google's shrinking NYC office pampers the Lego-and-scooter set
The immense former Port Authority building where Google now does business in Manhattan has an impressive history. Truck drivers once drove onto elevators and motored around the building's upper floors. Today, the place has been Googlefied with snacks, ping-pong tables, and a jillion Legos. Free scooters let staffers zip one part of the supersize building to another. But the best thing about this video? Google Docs manager Jonathan Rochelle talks up his office for 2 minutes and 42 seconds without once using the word "cool." We just wish The Big Money's camera crew had shown us the 50,000 sq. ft. Google is emptying out for sublease, too. -
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food fight
Google New York hit by cost cuts
Google's offices in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood are the latest to feel the pinch, with hours curtailed and snack service cut back, according to an internal memo. To understand what a shock to the system this is, remember how, when Google went public four years ago, cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin swore they would increase employee perks over time. Since then, Google PR has built the company's great-place-to-work reputation largely on its free meals. How fast things change: Just a year ago, the luxe perks of Google's New York office were a selling point, as the search engine courted the city's fashionistas. Now the food is just another cost to cut. Starving artists, don't count on mooching off free meals courtesy of your Googler friends: Google New York is also cracking down on guests. Here's the memo New York Googlers received Tuesday around lunchtime: More » -
Ramsey Allington
The rotten manager behind Google Book Search
A coalition of book publishers and authors have extracted $125 million from Google in settling a copyright lawsuit they filed in 2005. The agreement should make Google Book Search vastly more useful, as millions of books get added to Google's index. The team at Google which deals with publishers should be busier than ever. Too bad it's run by a sexist tyrant who's seen 7 of his 13-person team — all women — leave in a year's time. Googlers who formerly worked under Ramsey Allington, the head of Google's book operations, say he's a terrible manager who has actively discriminated against women in his employ. More » -
toogle many googlers
Google waffling ahead on monster office building
"A space-age structure that could be the greenest office building of all time." "A living building that has no carbon footprint." That's the spin. So is this: Google spokespeople are telling reporters that plans are on hold. Charleston East, site of Google's planned superplex, used to be a parking lot for Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheater, just up the road from Google's main campus Now the lot is idle, pending a bunch of paperwork by the city. But here's the truth: The building was planned when Google was growing by more than 100 employees per week worldwide. Last quarter, it added 500 Googlers to its ranks — about 40 a week. That's why Google has shuttered a café. There's green, and then there's green. Eric Schmidt, America's CTO, is not thinking about the tree-hugging kind right now. -
commenter of the day
random_play
Google's changes in the seclusion and segregation of its workers tempt us to invoke Godwin's Law — or at least Martin Niemöller's. Will cutting perks and benefits and firing people help push Googlers to wake up in Larry and Sergey's geek playland? Today's featured commenter is random_play, who waxes poetic about the pain of Google's cost-cutting: More » -
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layoffs
Google herds contractors into "zones"
Life has been good on the Googleplex, even for contractors; the search engine's legendary perks, spread across its luxuriously infantilizing office parks, have been enjoyed by all. Next month, that changes, a tipster tells us: Contractors will have to stick to designated "zones" based on the building they work in. The main object is to cut the cost of offering foods and other perks by preventing contractors from visiting cafés meant for employees, or using gyms and other facilities on the main campus. But the "zones" have another benefit for management, as Google girds for deeper cuts. More » -
food fight
Financial apocalypse leads Google to lay off a cafe
Food is at the center of Google's corporate culture, a sign of the company's Pollyanna worldview and the outsized financial success which enables this largesse. So why is Google is closing a café? Off The Grid, one of Google's 18 in-house eateries at its headquarters, abruptly shut its doors this week. Employees are being told the cut is "temporary," but workers are removing the café's fixtures, which suggests a permanent closure. What this means: Despite CEO Eric Schmidt's protestations, Google is being hit by the recession. And the blows are harder than the company has admitted to shareholders or employees. More » -
food fight
Googlers' free-food privileges slashed
Food is part of the Google myth: All you can eat, three meals a day, with plenty of room for your friends and family. No more. Following the curtailment of dinner service, Google is now restricting employees to two guest meals a month. Contractors and temps will not be allowed any guests at all. Google HR chief Laszlo Bock announced this change in a memo obtained by Valleywag. Some Googlers, we've heard, treated their families to free dinner every night; others took large amounts of food home with them on Friday nights, to last the weekend. The move is consistent with Google management's war on abuse of the company's perks; cofounder Sergey Brin, especially, has complained about Googlers' sense of entitlement. Yet it's likely to spark grousing. Googlers outside engineering are often poorly paid, and sneaking food home amounts to part of their salary. Google seems caught in a vicious circle of worsening morale: Discontent sparks abuse of perks; crackdowns on perk abuse sparks discontent. Read the memo to see Google's latest schoolmarmish turn: More » -
food fight
Google food manager charged with double-dealing
The brouhaha over Google's once-legendary, now troubled free-meals perk has bubbled up more charges of wrongdoing in the search engine's kitchens. An anonymous poster has taken to Craigslist to air charges against Google's former global food manager, John Dickman. (The post refers to him as "Dick," but it's obviously Dickman being discussed.) The Craigslist poster claims Dickman, left, who is married to Lisa McEuen, right, an executive at the parent company of food-service operator Bon Appétit, with leaking inside information which helped Bon Appétit win a contract to run Google's in-house meal service. More »
