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Why I left Google

288 pointsby chauzeralmost 12 years ago

47 comments

primigenusalmost 12 years ago
If you&#x27;re having trouble with the idea that there is a real human behind this article, someone with feelings and motivations for writing what she did and not just some anonymous internet commenter who &quot;takes a long time to get to the point&quot; or &quot;has a boring writing style&quot;, I recommend watching this video she published on Youtube in which she responds to questions people had about her article:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeyt2Mw4sK4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=Qeyt2Mw4sK4</a><p>Like the article, it&#x27;s very honest and personal. It takes guts to broadcast or publish something like that about yourself on the internet and face the music, as is apparent by some of the responses here and on Youtube. Consider thinking about it next time you decide to post a snarky comment or a TL;DR.
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neilkalmost 12 years ago
HN is a pretty negative place these days. Ellen Huerta, if you&#x27;re reading this, I applaud that you decided not to accept the path that was laid out for you.<p>Also, I suspect that most HN readers won&#x27;t understand the maturity &amp; security in one&#x27;s own self-worth it takes to walk away from that level of career success, and particularly a company like Google.
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untogalmost 12 years ago
TL;DR: it wasn&#x27;t fulfilling<p>I don&#x27;t really feel like I ought be a critic of anyone&#x27;s writing (given that I am not one myself) but college boyfriends, wandering away from the campfire to look at the stars... it seems like the author takes a really long route to get to the point.
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nahnamealmost 12 years ago
&gt;...breaking up with my college boyfriend. He was brilliant, good looking, respected, and everyone loved him — I even loved him — but he wasn’t the one.<p>I&#x27;m not even thirty yet, but I feel like most people within my generation are just spoiled children. It&#x27;s like we need another world war so people can learn to properly appreciate what they have, again.
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lancewiggsalmost 12 years ago
It feels like she has made the first genuine choice about her life. Most people seldom, if ever, make a genuine choice, but follow the obvious path in front of them. In this case, top of class, great college, fantastic job then career and so forth.<p>This site is rightly focussed around people who have made or are thinking about making genuine choices, founding or being part of a start-up.<p>It took me until I was 29 to make my first real choice, and then, and ever since then, I&#x27;ve gone about in the same way.<p>The key is to create real options that are all desirable, and to make a real choice that is for yourself, your family, and for the societal right reasons, not (just) for others&#x27; expectations.<p>So what I did, and advise people to do, is to prioritise three completely different options areas, such as travel, starting a company and going corporate. Next, work on each of them as hard as you can to make them as compelling as possible.<p>If you&#x27;ve done a great job, then the three options will be equally good, yet very different, and the choice will be incredibly hard. At this stage it&#x27;s about refining your criteria and choosing the one that opens the most doors and leaves the least closed.<p>Set a date to decide by, maximize the value of each option by pushing hard, and then pick one.<p>And I recommend always having a plan B and C, no matter what you are doing.
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jamesaguilaralmost 12 years ago
I&#x27;m all for personal fulfillment, but this seems like it could apply to anyone working any job they don&#x27;t like&#x2F;love. There is nothing specific to Google in this. Actually, there&#x27;s very little specific in this at all. I guess somebody found it helpful though because it&#x27;s at thirty points right now and it was at three ten minutes ago.
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iandanforthalmost 12 years ago
This is the definition of angst. Quite a good example in fact. The most important line though is:<p>&quot;The caveat here is that studying hard my whole life and saving for almost 5 years afforded me the opportunity to have this time completely off payroll[.]&quot;
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ryanobjcalmost 12 years ago
Great write up, I really want to learn what the next chapter brings.<p>Ultimately, living an authentic life is the only thing that ends up mattering. There are many ways to do this, and you don&#x27;t have to make grand moves to get there, although it can certainly help.<p>A think a lot of academically gifted folks ultimately can have this problem... you become so focused on what you DO you forget that you&#x27;re a Human BEING not a Human DOING. (props to my friend who gave me that one)
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jusben1369almost 12 years ago
This is a fairly standard story with a modern twist. Taking the story at face value she seems as though she was academically very bright from an early age. With that comes a full set of expectations. &quot;Oh, she&#x27;ll be really successful at whatever she does because she&#x27;s so bright!&quot; comes in a bunch of variations from teachers, family and friends. Many children want to please their parents and so follow that path and get oddles of social approval. (good grades&#x2F;schools&#x2F;careers) Google is the West Coast flavor but it could be a great law firm, Goldman Sachs, medical field etc. At around 30 the majority of these folks don&#x27;t have too many more hurdles to clear and they start to question the &quot;Why&quot; of what they&#x27;re doing for the first time.<p>The modern twist is the fact that the author is a little self absorbed and many people are reacting to that. 8 minute YouTube follow up videos etc. A very long winded story that could be tightened up.<p>What&#x27;s most interesting is how little she&#x27;s really challenging herself by changing her environment. Same field (tech) and same state (SoCal vs NorCal) She saw how a single weekend with people not from her field impacted her life. Why not take that weekend and stretch it into a year! Imagine what could happen then? Right now with this path I&#x27;d say 50%+ chance &quot;relative&quot; poverty will set it in 12 - 18 months and she&#x27;ll be back in the womb of a large technology company again.
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onedevalmost 12 years ago
I don&#x27;t understand all the negative people. I truly don&#x27;t.<p>You weren&#x27;t forced to read about her problems. You weren&#x27;t forced to upvote this post to the front page. Yet all you people do is complain.<p>The post made it to the frontpage because maybe it hit home for a lot of people here? Perhaps people are fascinated by her very personal story? There could be a number of reasons.<p>HN gets very tiring very fast because of all the negativity. It&#x27;s terrible. Stop and reflect and realize that HUMAN BEINGS are on the other side of the words written here.
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khalidmbajwaalmost 12 years ago
I rarely comment on HN or post stuff here and the response to this post is a reminder of exactly why. The negativity is mind boggling. Here is someone with an exceptionally told, brilliantly written, truly moving story of why she left a secure, outwardly perfect life to pursue something she personally found actually fulfilling.For everyone sitting pretty on their comfy couches, know this is not easy. Staring at your bank account and seeing it getting close zero to everyday, while dealing with the all the shit that comes with pursuing your dreams is truly gut wrenching.You know the lights are about to go off, and you are giving up everything for it, and you are desperately trying to keep going. THAT is not easy. It takes guts.<p>I honestly think HN needs a &#x27;Be Nice&#x27; Policy like Quora. I love writing, sharing and commenting on Quora because people are genuinely warm, cordial, friendly and very very constructive in their feedback. On HN however it seems there is a race to see who can post a more Snarky comment. Sad !
pcunitealmost 12 years ago
I appreciate the author&#x27;s transparency. The past 200 years of innovation have created a world that is hard to <i>connect</i> with sometimes. You used to wake up every day looking for food ... hand to mouth ... build a fire or freeze to death. The most joyous times were found simply being with friends and family with no presumptions of <i>better-ness</i> because you knew how much their horse cost. There were times to be alone too.<p>Today its hyper-information, hyper-jobs, hyper-success, hyper-sugary foods.<p>And what is success? What is living? Why is there <i>one</i> ice-cream stop in every town instead of every town having its own ice-cream shop? This new generation wants to understand themselves and how they fit within the spaces they frequent. They don&#x27;t want to <i>live</i> inside a commercial anymore.
pvdmalmost 12 years ago
Are googlers all narcissists ? I read that article and I only heard &quot;I&quot; or &quot;me&quot;.
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dylangs1030almost 12 years ago
Finally, a &quot;Why I Left Google&quot; post that doesn&#x27;t focus on the company. A lot of people are saying, &quot;This girl has a lot of angst&quot;...well, at least for once she talks about herself and her reasons for leaving, rather than the reasons a company failed her. It&#x27;s a nice change.
imsofuturealmost 12 years ago
Did you just discover you aren&#x27;t your GPA or your job title? Gimme a break.
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_pfopalmost 12 years ago
I left Salesforce.com last year with very similar feelings.<p>In other words, it&#x27;s called being a twenty-something.
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ardit33almost 12 years ago
That was good writing. The people that complain about it being too long are probably young and don&#x27;t appreciate a good personal story. This is not about google, but about author&#x27;s personal choice to leave something seemingly good behind in order to do something more meaningful&#x2F;fulfilling; and how she made that choice.
chuhnkalmost 12 years ago
I love this post, I really do and it&#x27;s because it resonates so deeply with me. Ellen is really able to put into words what I could only babble on about in nonsensical conversations with people over the past 6 months. I left Google this year too as have many others (if only you could see the internal epitaph). There were many reasons why I left but none are noteworthy. Many have found themselves in similar situations, facing adversity in their lives, achieving the dream and then wondering what next, the quarter life crisis. Google is the dream but what happens when the dream becomes a reality? Does the reality live up to what you had imagined it to be? Now what? Do you spend 10 years at Google trying to level up? Do you work on complex problems at Google scale? Do you even get that opportunity?
ajainyalmost 12 years ago
I kind of saved myself lots of frustration, by not reading this article. As soon as I read, &quot;i will have to leave my boyfriend&quot; and I assume, this is one narcissistic article, trying to get people listen her babbling because she has used &quot;google&quot;.
AznHisokaalmost 12 years ago
Sometimes it&#x27;s a blessing to be in a job that you can&#x27;t tolerate, or even despise, as opposed to a job that feels prestigious, but still doesn&#x27;t feel right.<p>With the former, at least you don&#x27;t feel the pressure to stay because everyone wants to work there.
pearjuicealmost 12 years ago
Am I the only one who somewhere along the article expected the feminism bomb to go off? &quot;Right after this sentence! Camp fire, this is a trigger! High school boyfriend, oh boy here we go!&quot;<p>Quite surprising it wasn&#x27;t even remotely refered to at least once.
oth3ralmost 12 years ago
This is the most annoying, cringe-inducing post I&#x27;ve ever read on Hacker News.
wyclifalmost 12 years ago
Congratulations, this is possibly the most effing boring and self-indulgent thing I&#x27;ve ever read on HN.
mynameisherealmost 12 years ago
For the good of the world, let us pray this woman never has any real problems. Let&#x27;s examine her &quot;problems&quot; thus far:<p>-- Left her wonderful boyfriend. <i>Boo hoo hoo</i><p>-- Left her wonderful job <i>Boo hoo hoo</i><p>Jesus Christ. The insulation is a thousand miles thick around this person. Is she <i>really</i> not aware that the universe is full of genuine horrors that don&#x27;t involve her silly quest towards self-actualization or what-the-fuck-ever she&#x27;s trying to express? Absolutely pathetic.
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gummydudealmost 12 years ago
To sum it up, she wants a freedom in every aspect of her life. A business owner suits her well.
fcholletalmost 12 years ago
That was like a perfect storm of self-obsession, self-indulgence, self-aggrandizement and self-pity.<p>Then again, kudos to her for making a tough decision that made her life better. Now I sincerely hope that her increased freedom will allow her to develop a less unhealthy perspective on life than what transpires from her blog post.<p>(Not sure why I&#x27;m taking the time to react in what is obviously not a constructive way; maybe I&#x27;m just trying to make the nausea go away.)
marvinalmost 12 years ago
This link now has 200 comments. 49 of them are pure, vitriolic negativity of the sort I expect to see when my local small-town newspaper posts an online story about first-year students getting drunk. Apparently it was flagged off the front page. Get the fuck over yourselves. If it hurts so much to read a story about a life crisis, you should probably take a few steps back and examine your own life.
D9ualmost 12 years ago
I commend the author on her decision to strike out on her own, as there&#x27;s nothing better than being your own boss, being responsible for your own failures &amp; successes.<p>Congratulations, and I wish you all the best!<p>The comment regarding a recurring dream was something I also experienced.<p><pre><code> &quot;recurring dream that I was being chased, jumping through windows and doors, but never getting further away from my chaser&quot; </code></pre> After quite some time having this dream, one night the dream ended with my realization that my pursuer was none other than myself!<p>I had been running from myself.<p>This realization had the effect of me going into business for myself, leaving a high paying job, and struggling for quite awhile before I began to be successful.<p>Today I work longer hours than I ever did for that high paying employer, but the difference is that I enjoy what I do, and I get to choose the projects that I pour my efforts into.<p>Too many are content to remain in their respective comfort zones, and this stifles innovation...<p>You go, girl!
6cxs2hd6almost 12 years ago
&gt; when I walk along the beach alone on a warm summer night and watch the sunset behind the Santa Monica mountains ...<p>The sun sets in the East?
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weboalmost 12 years ago
She made a video response: <a href="http://youtu.be/Qeyt2Mw4sK4" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;Qeyt2Mw4sK4</a>
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cromwellianalmost 12 years ago
My takeaway, a mid-life crisis at a young age. I&#x27;d also like to ad, #firstworldproblems ;-)
john_calmost 12 years ago
Reading that makes me angry. As a former ditch-digger, construction laborer, retail associate, airline baggage handler, and furniture mover, I had to scratch and claw my way for 10 years to finally get an engineering position at Google.<p>This woman seems to have every life opportunity handed to her in a silver plate since the day she was born that all she had to do is work hard and not fuck it up. I know people who are brilliant and work immensely hard but just do not have the socioeconomic status and&#x2F;or luck to even get an interview.<p>She just threw away something that millions of people would literally kill for. Something that I, as recently as 4 years ago, would literally kill for.
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ksmith107almost 12 years ago
it seems like she never took the time to find herself. It sounds like she was always involved in something and she was able to shoot strait too the top without thinking about it much. I think a lot of people people just need some time to get it figured out and sometimes some fun years at college isn&#x27;t enough. I know that was super involved as a undergrad and i thought I had life figured out by the time i was done, but it wasn&#x27;t until i was an unemployed, relatively unknown person in a different area for my graduate studies that I was able to find out how i wanted i really wanted to do with my own life.
marvinalmost 12 years ago
This really hits home for me, and I haven&#x27;t even finished my degree yet. I should probably delete this comment so my prospective employers won&#x27;t find it when they start trawling through my social networking history.
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frabbitalmost 12 years ago
&quot; I could hear old school hip hop from our camp in the distance, but I was surrounded by absolutely nothing and no one, and I felt free in the universe.&quot;<p>Please stay away from Joshua Tree and other wilderness areas.
theflubbaalmost 12 years ago
&quot;It also meant making a physical move to Venice (the one in CA, not Italy) so that I could fulfill my dreams of a spacious 1br apartment to myself (which I couldn’t shell out $3k for in SF),&quot;<p>are you fucking kidding me? rich princess complaining about something most people would kill to have - a comfortable life.
omonraalmost 12 years ago
Title can easily substitute &#x27;Google&#x27; with &#x27;a large &amp; successful company&#x27;. This would not change anything about the story but the title would be more honest (as most who clicked on it here likely expected something Google-specific).<p>The post is not about Google but author&#x27;s personal life.
ricardobeatalmost 12 years ago
I wish HN would stop talking about itself, and I could participate in discussion on the linked article for once.<p>Paradox.
ulisesrmzrochealmost 12 years ago
Is this the startup? <a href="http://mend.co/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mend.co&#x2F;</a> I know the guys who did that site, but I&#x27;m not sure if it&#x27;s Helen&#x27;s or not.
realrockeralmost 12 years ago
The point of the article is the pursuit of epiphany and not the epiphany itself.In my opinion she is not there yet.
lgrcyannyalmost 12 years ago
I appreciate her choice,live for yourself,live for your heart. It needs great courage to quit a high salary job.
talleyrandalmost 12 years ago
Remember that old poster &quot;Poverty Sucks&quot;? Some thoughts are better left unexpressed.
groundCodealmost 12 years ago
I don&#x27;t believe it! cummings using capitals and punctuation. :)
guynamedlorenalmost 12 years ago
I can relate.
snambialmost 12 years ago
but why did she leave? what is the reason?
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dude3almost 12 years ago
too many words
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benchedalmost 12 years ago
<i>&quot;It was that moment that I realized I was truly free to do whatever I wanted in this world&quot;</i><p>I&#x27;ve been there. One tends to have such &#x27;realizations&#x27; after working at a job like hers and banking 100k or 2. This type of freedom is not the general condition for human beings, is usually fleeting, and is almost always bought with a lot of money.