9 ms·

Hi, It’s Google Corporate Development

1227 points by maxidog 12y ago

MindTwister 12y ago
Does anyone have similar experiences with Google?
- anon1385 12y ago
  See this story and the similar tales in the comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6243627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6243627
- jlarocco 12y ago
  The few times I've interviewed with Google (plain old job interviews, not as an acquisition or acqui-hire), they've always been pretty arrogant. Enough so that I wouldn't interview with them again if they contacted me. The attitude is clearly, "You're going to jump through our hoops and do what we say, because we're Google and we're totally awesome and we can take you or leave you." I don't know if the guy in this story is really as bad ass and worth as much as he thinks he is, but the interaction with Google sounds spot on.
  - birdmanjeremy 12y ago
    I actually really enjoyed the interview process with Google. It was expeditious and respectful. It was, however, clear they are not used to taking "No" for an answer, and that's when things got a little uncomfortable.
    - nostrademons 12y ago
      My own interview process was pretty delightful (which is a good part of why I ended up working there), but when I have referred friends or even been an interviewer, I've seen stuff that's so sloppy and disrespectful that I started adopting a "friends don't refer friends to work at Google" policy. I suspect it may've been because I was hired at the bottom of the 2009 recession, right around when they fired all the temps and all the permanent recruiters were fearful of their jobs and there were virtually no other candidates in the pipeline, while folks who applied in 2007 or 2011-2012 when it was much busier got a terrible experience.
      - divegeek 12y ago
        I interviewed in late 2010 and was hired in early 2011. I had a great experience. Other than the long delay between interview and offer, of course. It may be relevant that I didn't interview in MTV.
  - balls187 12y ago
    > "You're going to jump through our hoops and do what we say, because we're Google and we're totally awesome and we can take you or leave you." I've met more than my fair share of the Googlers that exhibit an air of arrogance, but are you sure their hoops aren't just Google's standard interview process? Google has stated their interview process is designed to produce very few false positives, accepting that false negatives are a necessary by-product.
  - csirac2 12y ago
    I was invited to interview with Google in Sydney (site reliability engineer), but the salary range was less than I was already making in a much cheaper town (Canberra). Arrogance is the right word... I got the impression they would prefer candidates who were bending over backwards to get in the door, and by asking about salary and relocation costs I clearly wasn't. Edit: Then about 6 months later I took a job in Sydney anyway, at a 20% higher salary... Then took another paycut to go back to Canberra (Sydney is expensive!)
- gargarplex 12y ago
  I had a product launch that went extremely successful, and then someone from Google approached me via an email with an ambiguous messaging; i.e., "We're from Google and we want to talk to you". I thought they wanted to buy me out, but instead they just wanted to convince me to apply for a job interview.
- mindcrime 12y ago
  My only experience with Google went like this: 1. Google recruiter emails me, says my name was recommended to her by somebody inside Google. I'm still not sure who the "somebody" was as I don't have any close friends inside Google and nobody mentioned anything to me. I suspect it may have been a HN'er actually, somebody who doesn't know me IRL, but liked something he/she saw in my posts here or some of my open source work. 2. I politely declined to pursue anything, explaining that I am knee deep in a startup of my own, and that my ambition is to run my own company, not work for anybody else - even Google. 3. Recruiter replied, expressed that they understood, and asked if they could contact me again in the future to see where things stood. I said "sure". 4. About a year later a different Google recruiter pinged me, mentioned the earlier dialogue, and asked me if my situation had changed. I answered that it had not. They replied and said "thanks for the update". 5. I haven't heard anything from them since. All in all, everybody was polite and cordial, but then again, we never got into any detailed discussions because I just wasn't interested. YMMV. shrug
LunaSea 12y ago
If this is all there is to the story it's quite disgusting from Google.
- Perdition 12y ago
  They are a huge publicly traded corporation and you expected different?
mcv 12y ago
Fits in nicely with Paul Graham's story not to talk to corp dev at all. Still, I find myself hoping that someone did turn up on April 9.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - bbayer 12y ago
    What IP rights are you talking about?
    - chris_wot 12y ago
      That's what he wants to know!
- jtreitz 12y ago
  http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
- maxidog 12y ago
  Nope, that really was the end of the story.
- ars 12y ago
  > Fits in nicely with Paul Graham's story not to talk to corp dev at all That's not what he said though. He said not to talk to them till you are ready to sell. That's quite different from what you said.
samsolomon 12y ago
What's the best course of action in this case? Surely, it isn't to ignore the email.
- mcv 12y ago
  According to Paul Graham, a polite but short refusal: http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html . Well, unless you know you're ready to sell.
  - falcolas 12y ago
    This person seemed ready to sell, and was interested in having discussions to that end, so that advice isn't of much assistance there, unfortunately.
    - iopq 12y ago
      He shouldn't be, because his business is growing and about to achieve success, but is not yet worth much. There is no way he gets a fair evaluation based on being popular for a few days.
      - ceejayoz 12y ago
        Some people are happy to take a $1M payout over the chance there'll be a $1B payout in a decade.
- junto 12y ago
  You first need to identify if you are in this position, which the "experienced" author previously had some experience of. Personally I'd use social engineering to get the information I would need to prove this and dig our all the information I needed about Googler #1 and #2. First you need the real contact details. More appropriately you need to make sure that the numbers quoted in the emails aren't throwaways. Ideally you need access to a corporate phone directory, which these days are harder to come by as a physical book. Years ago you could easily approach the right person (smokers outside are good because it is easy to start a conversation with a smoker especially if you smoke as well) and offer them a couple of hundred dollars for the internal corporate directory phone book). Cleaners are also a good target as they have access to lots of areas. You'd be surprised how many people will give that book over for a small amount of cash. As a secondary bonus, once you are finished with the phone book you can sell it on to a headhunter. They pay big money for such a useful item. These days that kind of stuff is harder but not impossible. Social networking has made it easier to get information about people and what they do, who their friends are and where they hang out. People are lazy about their privacy and that is useful if you are trying to dig up information on someone, especially easy if they have an uncommon name. Fight dirty tricks with dirty tricks is my opinion.
davidgerard 12y ago
Google recruiters are lying weasels? SAY IT AIN'T SO!
Kiro 12y ago
I don't understand the problem. Was he expecting a $100m acquisition and was upset it was only $2m? Feels like an overly aggressive reaction to something most people would only dream of.
- brown9-2 12y ago
  Did you miss the part about misrepresenting who was who and the purpose of their contact?
  - Kiro 12y ago
    I read it as if he was speculating and drew conclusions based on that. I also fail to see how they masked the purpose. Again, what was he expecting exactly?
    - deong 12y ago
      Exactly. It sounds to me like Google was possibly interested in purchasing the company, put out feelers, got a way-too-high asking price, and then lost interest. I'm not sure I buy the whole "faked identities" thing, but even if it's true, I fail to see why it's such an outrage. It doesn't seem any more harmful than me telling them, "I need to check with my family" as a way of buying time to consider a relocation. People hide things or offer misdirections to improve their standing in a negotiation. That's just the way things work. It sounds like, at worst, the Google people were pretty straightforward once they'd gotten past the initial information gathering bit.
      - gress 12y ago
        Why would you feel the need to lie and say 'I need to check with my family', rather than just tell the truth with something like 'I need time to consider whether that suits me."?
- twelvechairs 12y ago
  Honesty seems like it would be a good start
CmonDev 12y ago
In addition to that their corporate culture became too intense and naturally it resulted in some staff becoming deluded. Many people want to work for Google, but not everyone. Maybe not even the majority of engineers.
jschuur 12y ago
The story ends with an awful lot of assumptions.
- d357r0y3r 12y ago
  I read the end a couple of times to see if I missed something, but I agree with your assessment. The author sounds a bit paranoid.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
robmcm 12y ago
I take it the application is RoomScan (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floor/id571436618?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floo...). It's bugging me that I can't understand how it works, at least not in a way that would produce accurate results in most environments (i.e. No GPS). http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/roomscan-app-iphone-floor-plans/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/roomscan-app-iphone-floor-... Anyone have any ideas?
- davidb_ 12y ago
  The page you linked seems to do a reasonable job of answering that: "Using on your phone’s built-in GPS, Wi-Fi, and gyroscope to determine distances and the orientation of walls, RoomScan can reliably estimate measurements to within about half a foot, which should be adequate if all you need is a rough floor plan. If, you need more precise measurements, you can opt for the $5 Pro version, which allows you to specify exact distances, and will automatically correct the entire room if you adjust a couple dimensions." Combining GPS, wifi-positioning, and the gyroscope should be fairly accurate for a floor plan. It's a very clever idea.
  - robmcm 12y ago
    I was suggesting GPS wouldn't work with most rooms having ceilings. Wifi positioning I would imagine is highly inaccurate, which leaves the gyroscope. Judging by some screenshots and appstore comments I assume its only roughly accurate, and requires you to move your phone slowly between walls in straight lines (not via your pocket or around furniture for example). I think I would have immediately dismissed an idea like this because I would have perceived the end result to be inaccurate and inadequate. Yet it's a popular app, so I guess I have learnt something.
    - jlarocco 12y ago
      Ceilings usually aren't problematic for GPS. They do better out side, but if you get cell service through the ceiling, you'll get GPS signal through it. What I'm curious about is that GPS is only accurate to within a few meters. If I turn on my GPS and set it on my desk for an hour, the resulting track will look like it's bouncing around the room. My guess is this app averages a bunch of readings from each wall to correct for the noise, but I'm still surprised that works well enough to give accurate results.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
abalone 12y ago
This is actually a good example of how to fumble a decent exit for a struggling app. This was written in April 2014 so we have the benefit of hindsight for evaluating this claim: "I’ve already built an £X million company in this area that was limited to the UK & Ireland; this time it’s global and I can easily get to twice £X million" Based on the number of reviews for roomscan I'm going to guess that getting to "twice £X million" has not in fact been that easy. The app does show creative thinking though and you can see what Google may have spotted potential in him. $2M would have been an incredible exit for him. I suppose there is something good in entrepreneurs having outsized, seemingly delusional expectations for their startups. However, it's important to be self aware and not take deep, personal offense at what are reasonable market offers for your work. You can just say no thanks, $2M is too low of a max offer. What you do definitely not do is have a paranoid meltdown on a blog post and start wildly speculating about deceptive practices like using fake identities and fake meeting requests with zero support. Also probably not a good idea to send over paperwork from your last company's sale to prove how awesome your current company is. It may be hard to accept the reality of how your project is really doing but don't slip into a bad mental place like this. You may just end up passing on a million dollar outcome.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Was there an actual offer made, even for an aqui-hire?
- borski 12y ago
  $2M isn't really $2M. Spread it out over 4 years as $300k the first year, $400k the second, $500k the third, $800k the fourth. This is what's called 'golden handcuffs.' If he truly believed RoomScan could be a massive success and the market was showing adoption, his expected value is much higher for sticking with RoomScan, especially as he had sold his last company and didn't /need/ a few extra hundred thousand dollars that year or the next year in order to be happy.
  - wuliwong 12y ago
    I'm not sure how this still isn't two million dollars? I guess if you subtract the salary this person could be making if they paid him $2M up front and let him walk away?
tzz 12y ago
Does Google ever access your Google Analytics or other Google tools you are using to get more insight info about your website or app? Would they ever do such thing?
- poopsintub 12y ago
  Surely.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  I wonder if they read your personal Gmail account to see if you're considering other offers? Or if you've corresponded with other people about their proposal?
  - sumedh 12y ago
    My heart says they won't do that but my mind says they probably would.
  - gedrap 12y ago
    I don't think anyone at Google can read anyone's emails willy nilly just like that.
    - inerte 12y ago
      There are people who can, every company has them. Usually there are levels, as in "can read number of emails", "can read subjects", up to "can impersonate accounts". Most of the time the mechanism is there for legal reasons. Sometimes people do bad stuff with it. See https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=google%20David%20Barksdale https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=google%20David%2...
      - walshemj 12y ago
        Normally very very restricted and these days probably requiring security clearance certainly Team leaders on some projects (and not secret squirrel ones) in BT where vetted to TS (Developed Vetting) Level. Back when I worked in the early days of email (pre internet) on dialcom systems. I had level 6 (SYSAD) on all of Telecom Golds prime's plus Level 7 on the Billing systems and even the BT Security had mandated removal of some of the interesting commands There where probably 15 or so people in the country that had that level of access
MCRed 12y ago
For a period I was heavily recruited by google. Their recruiters tried a great many variations of attempts to trick me into interviewing for a job. It seems weird that they would do this, because pretty soon, it would become obvious that it was a job interview and nothing more. Maybe there are a lot of talented engineers out there who are doing startups but aren't really committed to them and google manages via the fame of its name and wearing them down to convince them to give up and become employees. I agree with this article's characterization of it as a scam, as they are pretending to be something they are not. This is manipulative and dishonest. What I experienced was less heinous but had the same elements- misrepresentation, name dropping, attempts at emotional manipulation with tone and timing (the first call being so dead, then enthusiastic in the second- very "HR recruiter", not corp dev.) Worse, once I'd eventually figure out what was going on, and put one of them off of me, a few weeks later another would show up, with another variation.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  I don't see why it's a scam. Isn't an "aqui-hire" pretty standard practice these days?
  - piqufoh 12y ago
    It's a scam because the author didn't believe there was any 'acqui' part of the 'acqui-hire'. He believed the proposition of an acquisition was a fabrication intended to lure him in for an interview.
    - SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
      $2M as part of a signing bonus seems like an "acqui" to me. It just wasn't enough for the author. Which is fine, but not exactly as much of a scam as he implied. This article just seems to be a real world example of PG's essay this month about "don't talk to corp dev." [1] [1] http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
      - 12y ago
api 12y ago
"It’s a ridiculous idea — touch your phone against each wall and get a floor plan." Uhh... no it's not. Make that actually work and show it to some architects, interior designers, and real estate people. Be sure to have a mop on hand for drool.
- graycat 12y ago
  Do something with audio: The iPhone has speakers, right? And software can send a signal to the speakers? Or if not speakers, then a female plug can use to drive speakers? And the thing has a microphone, right? And might add on some tubes or some such to make the speaker and microphone directional? For the signal to make the signal to noise ratio better and to make the sound more directional, use high frequency. Or just build a little ultrasonic attachment that sends out the signal and get back the reflected signal. Distance to the wall? Sure, the first and strongest part of the reflected signal will be from the line from the iPhone to the wall that is perpendicular to the wall (that's the shortest distance), and that's what is wanted. But as I recall, there are laser distance measuring devices available for carpenters, surveyors, etc.
  - ay 12y ago
    https://iqtainment.wordpress.com/acoustic-ruler/ https://iqtainment.wordpress.com/acoustic-ruler/ I've played with it - with some calibration, it seems to work. But YMMV, and I got it mostly just in an appreciation of the author's clever idea.
    - graycat 12y ago
      Fantastic! I was just guessing and didn't know someone had already done it! Thanks!
- mathattack 12y ago
  Great for moving too. I could have used this when apartment hunting to show floor plans to my spouse. (Much better than just pictures)
- deleted 12y ago
hharnisch 12y ago
Can Google remove "Don't Be Evil" from their core values yet?
anon7933 12y ago
So????
known 12y ago
quiz != interview
cromwellian 12y ago
I think there's an either-or fallacy here, it could have been an attempt at an acqui-hire, but when the people talking to him tried to push it through, other people reviewed the situation and decided just to offer a generous employment package. Consider, a single-engineer company with an interesting app and talented engineer, just how much do you expect to be acquired for? Recognize that a $1M-2M offer is about what you could make in 4 years at Google at the appropriate level and with the appropriate amount of restricted stock units. So, if the amount of compensation would be approximately the same, but the one pathway (acquisition) requires a lot more legal groundwork and expense, and the other doesn't (just extend an offer of employment with generous signing bonus) I think there's a little bit of ego involved here. It's easy to believe you have a winning app that's going to be huge, and be insulted when other people don't see the potential. ("A mere engineer!? Me?! I'm an entrepreneur who should have more respect!"), but the reality is, very few apps on the app store take off like rocketships, most fail, and so unless you have unique very valuable IP, or have built up a lot of valuable data, chances are, most companies are going to view it as an acqui-hire. Paul Graham was right, you talk to Corp Dev if you're very successful, or nor very successful (probably going to die). As Kenny Rogers said you've got to know when to fold 'em, and this could have been a situation to negotiate a nice big fat signing bonus.
- declan 12y ago
  Well put. Also as <abalone> suggested nearby, the author of the linked article, Max Christian, fumbled the exchange and instead of a million-dollar exit ended up with... what? Instead of the claim of "I can easily get to twice £X million" -- in revenue? profit? valuation? -- it looks like the author's RoomScan app is near-moribund. RoomScan Pro, which sells for $4.99, hasn't been updated in over half a year and is listed as "optimized for iPhone 5." It's been mentioned in only two articles indexed by Google News in the last eight months. The Roomscan Twitter account hasn't been updated since November. The free version of the app has been updated more recently, but free in this context isn't exactly going to pay the bills. These are not the signs of an app that is getting to "twice £X million" anytime soon. I do think it's an innovative idea and a good implementation, but as we see on HN all too frequently, not all innovative ideas and good implementations amount to a "twice £X million" valuation. Any company (or product) is only worth what the market will pay. As for Google, I don't know how their corpdev team works, but my rule of thumb after working at some very large companies is: don't attribute to malice what can be explained by bureaucracy. It's not unusual for different teams not to know what the other is doing, even when they should. I don't see anything that justifies speculating about nonexistent employees named Maxine, and that kind of bizarre speculation likely poisoned the discussion. Whoops.
mathattack 12y ago
Seems like a strange scam, in that the only outcome is an offer for employment which one can refuse if they want.
idealform01 12y ago
It would be great to have a site that compiled recruiting scams that companies do. I have been taken by a couple and really would love to have a site that said, "if you are thinking about working for CompanyX, be sure to look out for the following tactics: Z,Y,Z"
- gravedave 12y ago
  What about http://www.glassdoor.com/ http://www.glassdoor.com/ ? It features company reviews that you can read.
ogler 12y ago
I would recommend you to seek for some adequate specialist in the fields of internet addiction, desocialization with paranoid kind of psychosis. Please remember these terms and seek a professional therapist, to resolve these issues. It's obvious by your writings, that you're not a bad guy, capable of aggressiveness and bad feelings towards the Google's "requiters, as you see them... So, you deserve to get it all back, as it is right and accurate in your mind! It happens often to every of us, whom intelect and all the imagination, that a good developer has by default, are so dedicated to this more and more sofisticated and always, like it feels, it's immense, with all the billions interactors giving The Internet their energy and constructive or distructive powers :) I think the result is brilliant, but some of us, like a sacrifice to the whole process, are loosing sometimes our clear vision on the human aspect of everything... I wish you good luck, brother, make that step - to get a professional opinion, if you do not believe me... Best regards! Miro Avramoff apexengine@gmail.com Call me an email, you are welcome! (:
api 12y ago
I get the impression there's an epidemic of big companies trying to "poach startup founders from themselves." I posted this to the other thread, and I now see that my experience is perhaps tame compared to others. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8876561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8876561 Like someone else quipped: "oh no! seems like you can't walk down the street today without being aggressively offered a job!" There are worse problems to have. :P
jaysonelliot 12y ago
I'm having an incredibly hard time mustering up sympathy or concern for someone who feels they were "scammed" into interviewing for a job that could come with a $2 million signing bonus. Even if it were the "golden handcuffs" situation someone posited in this thread, where the money would come over three or four years, it's a situation most people would be pleased as Punch to find themselves in. Naturally, everyone thinks they're Tom Brady, and they're going to be the ones to be the next golden boy getting courted by M&A and feted by TechCrunch and all the rest. But most of us are really just the Danny Aikens of the world, working hard, in the game, happy to be paid for what we love to do. The author wrote an app. By all accounts, it's a good idea, reasonably well-executed. Not world-changing, not something that's going to build a new industry and launch dozens of careers, or a service that will transform people's lives, or disrupt a market. A nice app. For that, he's indignant that he might get a multi-million dollar signing bonus and a secure job at one of the largest and most influential corporations on the planet. If there were ever an example of the arrogance and entitlement outsiders pin on Silicon Valley and the startup / tech community, this would be it. Work because you are passionate about it, because you want to build great things and meet great challenges. Be grateful that you have a good life. Life isn't a lottery.
- unreal37 12y ago
  I think you read a lot of things into this article that aren't there. This isn't about some entitlement to more money. The article is about deceptive recruiting practices at Google. Phone calls and emails filled with lies. Why would Google even need to lie about a potential acquisition (and name drop the founder) when they aren't even looking for one? The OP just wants the Google person to say, "Hi, I'm from Google HR. Interested in talking about a job?" versus the smoke and mirrors they represented.
  - jaysonelliot 12y ago
    The author himself says right in the article that he felt entitled to much more than $2 million. I explain again that I’ve already built an £X million company in this area that was limited to the UK & Ireland; this time it’s global and I can easily get to twice £X million. I don’t know what Silicon Valley numbers are like, I say, but surely even there acqui-hire numbers don’t go as high as twice £X million? She replies that it’s usually a maximum of 2 million. I guess that’s dollars. If he was unhappy with the way Google approached him with their generous rock-star offer, he could simply turn them down and move on. A lengthy blow-by-blow essay seems like pointless complaining about a problem 99% of the world would give their eyeteeth to have.
chetanahuja 12y ago
I'd love to see a googler from the appropriate side respond here and present their side of the story. That seems to be the difference between the engineering and business sides of google... if this was a critique of one of google's technical products, there would be multiple googlers here responding in this thread by now.
kaitari 12y ago
A less popular takeaway from this article, albeit anecdotal, is that Twitter ads work really well when targeted appropriately.
kkotak 12y ago
I really don't see how Google or any other company would be so interested in hiring OP or acquiring the product based on what it does. Even in Silicon Valley there are some standards by which valuations are done. This seems like a scam from the other end to gain attention.
omega_rythm 12y ago
Was there a followup to that story? It seems like the author made a lot of assumptions (I read PG article about Corp devs).
tlrobinson 12y ago
Googler #1 doesn’t do M&A for [Famous Named Googler]. She’s just a recruiter for Googler #2, whom she knew from the outset. This seems like a risky tactic. [Famous Named Googler] probably doesn't like [low level recruiters] misrepresenting their relationship with him/her.
- Kiro 12y ago
  Yes, which is why I don't think it's true.
- peteretep 12y ago
  > Googler #1 doesn’t do M&A for [Famous Named Googler]. Surprised it doesn't say on her LinkedIn profile what she does
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
winston84 12y ago
You know, if the devil says "I don't do evil", I wouldn't believe him for a second.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bambax 12y ago
Recruiting is a lot like dating. Companies are only interested in candidates that won't work for them and people would prefer to work for firms that won't hire them. For all the talk about "competence" or "love" or even attractiveness or education, the only thing that really matters is social status. All people ever want is trade up. There are tricks to make this work; you can fool the other party (difficult and dangerous), you can fool yourself (easy and efficient, but kind of sad), or you can use different scales and engage in some kind of status exchange. The recruiter needs to be a part of this trade by having some inherent tangible value themselves, to make the whole thing believable; I bet if Larry Page had made the call himself the whole thing might have worked, maybe even without any serious money offered. But if the person on the other end of the line is a nobody the process is doomed from the start, because it signals there is no status on offer. On the other hand, sending a copy of a former deal sounds needy and insecure, like a guy a party bragging that he used to date a model once -- something George Costanza would say. Why should anyone care? Are you dating a model right now is what we want to know.
- enneff 12y ago
  If that's your take on dating then I feel very sorry for you.
  - bambax 12y ago
    I don't date.
    - enneff 12y ago
      Does that matter? That you take such a dim, cynical view of human relationships is what saddens me.
      - bambax 12y ago
        No, it doesn't. I'm surprised you care how I view human nature. Saying my views are cynical, though, is a little like saying it's sad the reason the earth rotates around the sun isn't because the earth loves the sun so much, it wants to curl around it. What matters isn't whether I'm cynical or dry or cold, etc.; what matters is whether I'm right, and if not, why not.
dannywee 12y ago
wow
dannywee 12y ago
whoa
blazespin 12y ago
Downvote me, but jeesuz christ, talk about first world problem...

1227 points by maxidog 12y ago

MindTwister 12y ago

Does anyone have similar experiences with Google?

anon1385 12y ago
See this story and the similar tales in the comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6243627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6243627
jlarocco 12y ago
The few times I've interviewed with Google (plain old job interviews, not as an acquisition or acqui-hire), they've always been pretty arrogant. Enough so that I wouldn't interview with them again if they contacted me. The attitude is clearly, "You're going to jump through our hoops and do what we say, because we're Google and we're totally awesome and we can take you or leave you." I don't know if the guy in this story is really as bad ass and worth as much as he thinks he is, but the interaction with Google sounds spot on.
- birdmanjeremy 12y ago
  I actually really enjoyed the interview process with Google. It was expeditious and respectful. It was, however, clear they are not used to taking "No" for an answer, and that's when things got a little uncomfortable.
  - nostrademons 12y ago
    My own interview process was pretty delightful (which is a good part of why I ended up working there), but when I have referred friends or even been an interviewer, I've seen stuff that's so sloppy and disrespectful that I started adopting a "friends don't refer friends to work at Google" policy. I suspect it may've been because I was hired at the bottom of the 2009 recession, right around when they fired all the temps and all the permanent recruiters were fearful of their jobs and there were virtually no other candidates in the pipeline, while folks who applied in 2007 or 2011-2012 when it was much busier got a terrible experience.
    - divegeek 12y ago
      I interviewed in late 2010 and was hired in early 2011. I had a great experience. Other than the long delay between interview and offer, of course. It may be relevant that I didn't interview in MTV.
- balls187 12y ago
  > "You're going to jump through our hoops and do what we say, because we're Google and we're totally awesome and we can take you or leave you." I've met more than my fair share of the Googlers that exhibit an air of arrogance, but are you sure their hoops aren't just Google's standard interview process? Google has stated their interview process is designed to produce very few false positives, accepting that false negatives are a necessary by-product.
- csirac2 12y ago
  I was invited to interview with Google in Sydney (site reliability engineer), but the salary range was less than I was already making in a much cheaper town (Canberra). Arrogance is the right word... I got the impression they would prefer candidates who were bending over backwards to get in the door, and by asking about salary and relocation costs I clearly wasn't. Edit: Then about 6 months later I took a job in Sydney anyway, at a 20% higher salary... Then took another paycut to go back to Canberra (Sydney is expensive!)
gargarplex 12y ago
I had a product launch that went extremely successful, and then someone from Google approached me via an email with an ambiguous messaging; i.e., "We're from Google and we want to talk to you". I thought they wanted to buy me out, but instead they just wanted to convince me to apply for a job interview.
mindcrime 12y ago
My only experience with Google went like this: 1. Google recruiter emails me, says my name was recommended to her by somebody inside Google. I'm still not sure who the "somebody" was as I don't have any close friends inside Google and nobody mentioned anything to me. I suspect it may have been a HN'er actually, somebody who doesn't know me IRL, but liked something he/she saw in my posts here or some of my open source work. 2. I politely declined to pursue anything, explaining that I am knee deep in a startup of my own, and that my ambition is to run my own company, not work for anybody else - even Google. 3. Recruiter replied, expressed that they understood, and asked if they could contact me again in the future to see where things stood. I said "sure". 4. About a year later a different Google recruiter pinged me, mentioned the earlier dialogue, and asked me if my situation had changed. I answered that it had not. They replied and said "thanks for the update". 5. I haven't heard anything from them since. All in all, everybody was polite and cordial, but then again, we never got into any detailed discussions because I just wasn't interested. YMMV. shrug

LunaSea 12y ago

If this is all there is to the story it's quite disgusting from Google.

Perdition 12y ago
They are a huge publicly traded corporation and you expected different?

mcv 12y ago

Fits in nicely with Paul Graham's story not to talk to corp dev at all. Still, I find myself hoping that someone did turn up on April 9.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- bbayer 12y ago
  What IP rights are you talking about?
  - chris_wot 12y ago
    That's what he wants to know!
jtreitz 12y ago
http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
maxidog 12y ago
Nope, that really was the end of the story.
ars 12y ago
> Fits in nicely with Paul Graham's story not to talk to corp dev at all That's not what he said though. He said not to talk to them till you are ready to sell. That's quite different from what you said.

samsolomon 12y ago

What's the best course of action in this case? Surely, it isn't to ignore the email.

mcv 12y ago
According to Paul Graham, a polite but short refusal: http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html . Well, unless you know you're ready to sell.
- falcolas 12y ago
  This person seemed ready to sell, and was interested in having discussions to that end, so that advice isn't of much assistance there, unfortunately.
  - iopq 12y ago
    He shouldn't be, because his business is growing and about to achieve success, but is not yet worth much. There is no way he gets a fair evaluation based on being popular for a few days.
    - ceejayoz 12y ago
      Some people are happy to take a $1M payout over the chance there'll be a $1B payout in a decade.
junto 12y ago
You first need to identify if you are in this position, which the "experienced" author previously had some experience of. Personally I'd use social engineering to get the information I would need to prove this and dig our all the information I needed about Googler #1 and #2. First you need the real contact details. More appropriately you need to make sure that the numbers quoted in the emails aren't throwaways. Ideally you need access to a corporate phone directory, which these days are harder to come by as a physical book. Years ago you could easily approach the right person (smokers outside are good because it is easy to start a conversation with a smoker especially if you smoke as well) and offer them a couple of hundred dollars for the internal corporate directory phone book). Cleaners are also a good target as they have access to lots of areas. You'd be surprised how many people will give that book over for a small amount of cash. As a secondary bonus, once you are finished with the phone book you can sell it on to a headhunter. They pay big money for such a useful item. These days that kind of stuff is harder but not impossible. Social networking has made it easier to get information about people and what they do, who their friends are and where they hang out. People are lazy about their privacy and that is useful if you are trying to dig up information on someone, especially easy if they have an uncommon name. Fight dirty tricks with dirty tricks is my opinion.

davidgerard 12y ago

Google recruiters are lying weasels? SAY IT AIN'T SO!

Kiro 12y ago

I don't understand the problem. Was he expecting a $100m acquisition and was upset it was only $2m? Feels like an overly aggressive reaction to something most people would only dream of.

brown9-2 12y ago
Did you miss the part about misrepresenting who was who and the purpose of their contact?
- Kiro 12y ago
  I read it as if he was speculating and drew conclusions based on that. I also fail to see how they masked the purpose. Again, what was he expecting exactly?
  - deong 12y ago
    Exactly. It sounds to me like Google was possibly interested in purchasing the company, put out feelers, got a way-too-high asking price, and then lost interest. I'm not sure I buy the whole "faked identities" thing, but even if it's true, I fail to see why it's such an outrage. It doesn't seem any more harmful than me telling them, "I need to check with my family" as a way of buying time to consider a relocation. People hide things or offer misdirections to improve their standing in a negotiation. That's just the way things work. It sounds like, at worst, the Google people were pretty straightforward once they'd gotten past the initial information gathering bit.
    - gress 12y ago
      Why would you feel the need to lie and say 'I need to check with my family', rather than just tell the truth with something like 'I need time to consider whether that suits me."?
twelvechairs 12y ago
Honesty seems like it would be a good start

CmonDev 12y ago

In addition to that their corporate culture became too intense and naturally it resulted in some staff becoming deluded. Many people want to work for Google, but not everyone. Maybe not even the majority of engineers.

jschuur 12y ago

The story ends with an awful lot of assumptions.

d357r0y3r 12y ago
I read the end a couple of times to see if I missed something, but I agree with your assessment. The author sounds a bit paranoid.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

robmcm 12y ago

I take it the application is RoomScan (https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floor/id571436618?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/roomscan-app-that-draws-floo...). It's bugging me that I can't understand how it works, at least not in a way that would produce accurate results in most environments (i.e. No GPS). http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/roomscan-app-iphone-floor-plans/ http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/roomscan-app-iphone-floor-... Anyone have any ideas?

davidb_ 12y ago
The page you linked seems to do a reasonable job of answering that: "Using on your phone’s built-in GPS, Wi-Fi, and gyroscope to determine distances and the orientation of walls, RoomScan can reliably estimate measurements to within about half a foot, which should be adequate if all you need is a rough floor plan. If, you need more precise measurements, you can opt for the $5 Pro version, which allows you to specify exact distances, and will automatically correct the entire room if you adjust a couple dimensions." Combining GPS, wifi-positioning, and the gyroscope should be fairly accurate for a floor plan. It's a very clever idea.
- robmcm 12y ago
  I was suggesting GPS wouldn't work with most rooms having ceilings. Wifi positioning I would imagine is highly inaccurate, which leaves the gyroscope. Judging by some screenshots and appstore comments I assume its only roughly accurate, and requires you to move your phone slowly between walls in straight lines (not via your pocket or around furniture for example). I think I would have immediately dismissed an idea like this because I would have perceived the end result to be inaccurate and inadequate. Yet it's a popular app, so I guess I have learnt something.
  - jlarocco 12y ago
    Ceilings usually aren't problematic for GPS. They do better out side, but if you get cell service through the ceiling, you'll get GPS signal through it. What I'm curious about is that GPS is only accurate to within a few meters. If I turn on my GPS and set it on my desk for an hour, the resulting track will look like it's bouncing around the room. My guess is this app averages a bunch of readings from each wall to correct for the noise, but I'm still surprised that works well enough to give accurate results.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

abalone 12y ago

This is actually a good example of how to fumble a decent exit for a struggling app. This was written in April 2014 so we have the benefit of hindsight for evaluating this claim: "I’ve already built an £X million company in this area that was limited to the UK & Ireland; this time it’s global and I can easily get to twice £X million" Based on the number of reviews for roomscan I'm going to guess that getting to "twice £X million" has not in fact been that easy. The app does show creative thinking though and you can see what Google may have spotted potential in him. $2M would have been an incredible exit for him. I suppose there is something good in entrepreneurs having outsized, seemingly delusional expectations for their startups. However, it's important to be self aware and not take deep, personal offense at what are reasonable market offers for your work. You can just say no thanks, $2M is too low of a max offer. What you do definitely not do is have a paranoid meltdown on a blog post and start wildly speculating about deceptive practices like using fake identities and fake meeting requests with zero support. Also probably not a good idea to send over paperwork from your last company's sale to prove how awesome your current company is. It may be hard to accept the reality of how your project is really doing but don't slip into a bad mental place like this. You may just end up passing on a million dollar outcome.

walterbell 12y ago
Was there an actual offer made, even for an aqui-hire?
borski 12y ago
$2M isn't really $2M. Spread it out over 4 years as $300k the first year, $400k the second, $500k the third, $800k the fourth. This is what's called 'golden handcuffs.' If he truly believed RoomScan could be a massive success and the market was showing adoption, his expected value is much higher for sticking with RoomScan, especially as he had sold his last company and didn't /need/ a few extra hundred thousand dollars that year or the next year in order to be happy.
- wuliwong 12y ago
  I'm not sure how this still isn't two million dollars? I guess if you subtract the salary this person could be making if they paid him $2M up front and let him walk away?

tzz 12y ago

Does Google ever access your Google Analytics or other Google tools you are using to get more insight info about your website or app? Would they ever do such thing?

poopsintub 12y ago
Surely.
ForHackernews 12y ago
I wonder if they read your personal Gmail account to see if you're considering other offers? Or if you've corresponded with other people about their proposal?
- sumedh 12y ago
  My heart says they won't do that but my mind says they probably would.
- gedrap 12y ago
  I don't think anyone at Google can read anyone's emails willy nilly just like that.
  - inerte 12y ago
    There are people who can, every company has them. Usually there are levels, as in "can read number of emails", "can read subjects", up to "can impersonate accounts". Most of the time the mechanism is there for legal reasons. Sometimes people do bad stuff with it. See https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=google%20David%20Barksdale https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=google%20David%2...
    - walshemj 12y ago
      Normally very very restricted and these days probably requiring security clearance certainly Team leaders on some projects (and not secret squirrel ones) in BT where vetted to TS (Developed Vetting) Level. Back when I worked in the early days of email (pre internet) on dialcom systems. I had level 6 (SYSAD) on all of Telecom Golds prime's plus Level 7 on the Billing systems and even the BT Security had mandated removal of some of the interesting commands There where probably 15 or so people in the country that had that level of access

MCRed 12y ago

For a period I was heavily recruited by google. Their recruiters tried a great many variations of attempts to trick me into interviewing for a job. It seems weird that they would do this, because pretty soon, it would become obvious that it was a job interview and nothing more. Maybe there are a lot of talented engineers out there who are doing startups but aren't really committed to them and google manages via the fame of its name and wearing them down to convince them to give up and become employees. I agree with this article's characterization of it as a scam, as they are pretending to be something they are not. This is manipulative and dishonest. What I experienced was less heinous but had the same elements- misrepresentation, name dropping, attempts at emotional manipulation with tone and timing (the first call being so dead, then enthusiastic in the second- very "HR recruiter", not corp dev.) Worse, once I'd eventually figure out what was going on, and put one of them off of me, a few weeks later another would show up, with another variation.

ForHackernews 12y ago
I don't see why it's a scam. Isn't an "aqui-hire" pretty standard practice these days?
- piqufoh 12y ago
  It's a scam because the author didn't believe there was any 'acqui' part of the 'acqui-hire'. He believed the proposition of an acquisition was a fabrication intended to lure him in for an interview.
  - SomeCallMeTim 12y ago
    $2M as part of a signing bonus seems like an "acqui" to me. It just wasn't enough for the author. Which is fine, but not exactly as much of a scam as he implied. This article just seems to be a real world example of PG's essay this month about "don't talk to corp dev." [1] [1] http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html http://paulgraham.com/corpdev.html
    - 12y ago

api 12y ago

"It’s a ridiculous idea — touch your phone against each wall and get a floor plan." Uhh... no it's not. Make that actually work and show it to some architects, interior designers, and real estate people. Be sure to have a mop on hand for drool.

graycat 12y ago
Do something with audio: The iPhone has speakers, right? And software can send a signal to the speakers? Or if not speakers, then a female plug can use to drive speakers? And the thing has a microphone, right? And might add on some tubes or some such to make the speaker and microphone directional? For the signal to make the signal to noise ratio better and to make the sound more directional, use high frequency. Or just build a little ultrasonic attachment that sends out the signal and get back the reflected signal. Distance to the wall? Sure, the first and strongest part of the reflected signal will be from the line from the iPhone to the wall that is perpendicular to the wall (that's the shortest distance), and that's what is wanted. But as I recall, there are laser distance measuring devices available for carpenters, surveyors, etc.
- ay 12y ago
  https://iqtainment.wordpress.com/acoustic-ruler/ https://iqtainment.wordpress.com/acoustic-ruler/ I've played with it - with some calibration, it seems to work. But YMMV, and I got it mostly just in an appreciation of the author's clever idea.
  - graycat 12y ago
    Fantastic! I was just guessing and didn't know someone had already done it! Thanks!
mathattack 12y ago
Great for moving too. I could have used this when apartment hunting to show floor plans to my spouse. (Much better than just pictures)
deleted 12y ago

hharnisch 12y ago

Can Google remove "Don't Be Evil" from their core values yet?

anon7933 12y ago

So????

known 12y ago

quiz != interview

cromwellian 12y ago

I think there's an either-or fallacy here, it could have been an attempt at an acqui-hire, but when the people talking to him tried to push it through, other people reviewed the situation and decided just to offer a generous employment package. Consider, a single-engineer company with an interesting app and talented engineer, just how much do you expect to be acquired for? Recognize that a $1M-2M offer is about what you could make in 4 years at Google at the appropriate level and with the appropriate amount of restricted stock units. So, if the amount of compensation would be approximately the same, but the one pathway (acquisition) requires a lot more legal groundwork and expense, and the other doesn't (just extend an offer of employment with generous signing bonus) I think there's a little bit of ego involved here. It's easy to believe you have a winning app that's going to be huge, and be insulted when other people don't see the potential. ("A mere engineer!? Me?! I'm an entrepreneur who should have more respect!"), but the reality is, very few apps on the app store take off like rocketships, most fail, and so unless you have unique very valuable IP, or have built up a lot of valuable data, chances are, most companies are going to view it as an acqui-hire. Paul Graham was right, you talk to Corp Dev if you're very successful, or nor very successful (probably going to die). As Kenny Rogers said you've got to know when to fold 'em, and this could have been a situation to negotiate a nice big fat signing bonus.

declan 12y ago
Well put. Also as <abalone> suggested nearby, the author of the linked article, Max Christian, fumbled the exchange and instead of a million-dollar exit ended up with... what? Instead of the claim of "I can easily get to twice £X million" -- in revenue? profit? valuation? -- it looks like the author's RoomScan app is near-moribund. RoomScan Pro, which sells for $4.99, hasn't been updated in over half a year and is listed as "optimized for iPhone 5." It's been mentioned in only two articles indexed by Google News in the last eight months. The Roomscan Twitter account hasn't been updated since November. The free version of the app has been updated more recently, but free in this context isn't exactly going to pay the bills. These are not the signs of an app that is getting to "twice £X million" anytime soon. I do think it's an innovative idea and a good implementation, but as we see on HN all too frequently, not all innovative ideas and good implementations amount to a "twice £X million" valuation. Any company (or product) is only worth what the market will pay. As for Google, I don't know how their corpdev team works, but my rule of thumb after working at some very large companies is: don't attribute to malice what can be explained by bureaucracy. It's not unusual for different teams not to know what the other is doing, even when they should. I don't see anything that justifies speculating about nonexistent employees named Maxine, and that kind of bizarre speculation likely poisoned the discussion. Whoops.

mathattack 12y ago

Seems like a strange scam, in that the only outcome is an offer for employment which one can refuse if they want.

idealform01 12y ago

It would be great to have a site that compiled recruiting scams that companies do. I have been taken by a couple and really would love to have a site that said, "if you are thinking about working for CompanyX, be sure to look out for the following tactics: Z,Y,Z"

gravedave 12y ago
What about http://www.glassdoor.com/ http://www.glassdoor.com/ ? It features company reviews that you can read.

ogler 12y ago

I would recommend you to seek for some adequate specialist in the fields of internet addiction, desocialization with paranoid kind of psychosis. Please remember these terms and seek a professional therapist, to resolve these issues. It's obvious by your writings, that you're not a bad guy, capable of aggressiveness and bad feelings towards the Google's "requiters, as you see them... So, you deserve to get it all back, as it is right and accurate in your mind! It happens often to every of us, whom intelect and all the imagination, that a good developer has by default, are so dedicated to this more and more sofisticated and always, like it feels, it's immense, with all the billions interactors giving The Internet their energy and constructive or distructive powers :) I think the result is brilliant, but some of us, like a sacrifice to the whole process, are loosing sometimes our clear vision on the human aspect of everything... I wish you good luck, brother, make that step - to get a professional opinion, if you do not believe me... Best regards! Miro Avramoff apexengine@gmail.com Call me an email, you are welcome! (:

api 12y ago

I get the impression there's an epidemic of big companies trying to "poach startup founders from themselves." I posted this to the other thread, and I now see that my experience is perhaps tame compared to others. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8876561 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8876561 Like someone else quipped: "oh no! seems like you can't walk down the street today without being aggressively offered a job!" There are worse problems to have. :P

jaysonelliot 12y ago

I'm having an incredibly hard time mustering up sympathy or concern for someone who feels they were "scammed" into interviewing for a job that could come with a $2 million signing bonus. Even if it were the "golden handcuffs" situation someone posited in this thread, where the money would come over three or four years, it's a situation most people would be pleased as Punch to find themselves in. Naturally, everyone thinks they're Tom Brady, and they're going to be the ones to be the next golden boy getting courted by M&A and feted by TechCrunch and all the rest. But most of us are really just the Danny Aikens of the world, working hard, in the game, happy to be paid for what we love to do. The author wrote an app. By all accounts, it's a good idea, reasonably well-executed. Not world-changing, not something that's going to build a new industry and launch dozens of careers, or a service that will transform people's lives, or disrupt a market. A nice app. For that, he's indignant that he might get a multi-million dollar signing bonus and a secure job at one of the largest and most influential corporations on the planet. If there were ever an example of the arrogance and entitlement outsiders pin on Silicon Valley and the startup / tech community, this would be it. Work because you are passionate about it, because you want to build great things and meet great challenges. Be grateful that you have a good life. Life isn't a lottery.

unreal37 12y ago
I think you read a lot of things into this article that aren't there. This isn't about some entitlement to more money. The article is about deceptive recruiting practices at Google. Phone calls and emails filled with lies. Why would Google even need to lie about a potential acquisition (and name drop the founder) when they aren't even looking for one? The OP just wants the Google person to say, "Hi, I'm from Google HR. Interested in talking about a job?" versus the smoke and mirrors they represented.
- jaysonelliot 12y ago
  The author himself says right in the article that he felt entitled to much more than $2 million. I explain again that I’ve already built an £X million company in this area that was limited to the UK & Ireland; this time it’s global and I can easily get to twice £X million. I don’t know what Silicon Valley numbers are like, I say, but surely even there acqui-hire numbers don’t go as high as twice £X million? She replies that it’s usually a maximum of 2 million. I guess that’s dollars. If he was unhappy with the way Google approached him with their generous rock-star offer, he could simply turn them down and move on. A lengthy blow-by-blow essay seems like pointless complaining about a problem 99% of the world would give their eyeteeth to have.

chetanahuja 12y ago

I'd love to see a googler from the appropriate side respond here and present their side of the story. That seems to be the difference between the engineering and business sides of google... if this was a critique of one of google's technical products, there would be multiple googlers here responding in this thread by now.

kaitari 12y ago

A less popular takeaway from this article, albeit anecdotal, is that Twitter ads work really well when targeted appropriately.

kkotak 12y ago

I really don't see how Google or any other company would be so interested in hiring OP or acquiring the product based on what it does. Even in Silicon Valley there are some standards by which valuations are done. This seems like a scam from the other end to gain attention.

omega_rythm 12y ago

Was there a followup to that story? It seems like the author made a lot of assumptions (I read PG article about Corp devs).

tlrobinson 12y ago

Googler #1 doesn’t do M&A for [Famous Named Googler]. She’s just a recruiter for Googler #2, whom she knew from the outset. This seems like a risky tactic. [Famous Named Googler] probably doesn't like [low level recruiters] misrepresenting their relationship with him/her.

Kiro 12y ago
Yes, which is why I don't think it's true.
peteretep 12y ago
> Googler #1 doesn’t do M&A for [Famous Named Googler]. Surprised it doesn't say on her LinkedIn profile what she does
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

winston84 12y ago

You know, if the devil says "I don't do evil", I wouldn't believe him for a second.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

bambax 12y ago

Recruiting is a lot like dating. Companies are only interested in candidates that won't work for them and people would prefer to work for firms that won't hire them. For all the talk about "competence" or "love" or even attractiveness or education, the only thing that really matters is social status. All people ever want is trade up. There are tricks to make this work; you can fool the other party (difficult and dangerous), you can fool yourself (easy and efficient, but kind of sad), or you can use different scales and engage in some kind of status exchange. The recruiter needs to be a part of this trade by having some inherent tangible value themselves, to make the whole thing believable; I bet if Larry Page had made the call himself the whole thing might have worked, maybe even without any serious money offered. But if the person on the other end of the line is a nobody the process is doomed from the start, because it signals there is no status on offer. On the other hand, sending a copy of a former deal sounds needy and insecure, like a guy a party bragging that he used to date a model once -- something George Costanza would say. Why should anyone care? Are you dating a model right now is what we want to know.

enneff 12y ago
If that's your take on dating then I feel very sorry for you.
- bambax 12y ago
  I don't date.
  - enneff 12y ago
    Does that matter? That you take such a dim, cynical view of human relationships is what saddens me.
    - bambax 12y ago
      No, it doesn't. I'm surprised you care how I view human nature. Saying my views are cynical, though, is a little like saying it's sad the reason the earth rotates around the sun isn't because the earth loves the sun so much, it wants to curl around it. What matters isn't whether I'm cynical or dry or cold, etc.; what matters is whether I'm right, and if not, why not.

dannywee 12y ago

wow

dannywee 12y ago

whoa

blazespin 12y ago

Downvote me, but jeesuz christ, talk about first world problem...