Amazon doesn't pretend to care about its employees, Google does (pretend, that is). Working for Amazon right out of college, I honestly kind of appreciated the fact that they never tried to make it feel like your work was your "family", which always came off as incredibly creepy. Interviewing for Facebook and Google and seeing their offices and culture always gave me the heebie jeebies for that reason, and I'm glad I didn't choose them. I'm also glad I left Amazon quickly.
In the end, it's just two different types of cults. You're a fool to show loyalty to Amazon when it shows none back, and Google is in some ways creepier for pretending to care about you and suck in all facets of yourself into a corporation.
The straightforward solution is to work for neither, and show that we won't tolerate creepy corporate culture taking over the technology world that we love.
Yes, the difference is visible. I use AWS day in and day out with nary a complaint, whereas the GCP and other Google stuff that I have to interact with, as someone whose enterprise relies on Google, is just a f*cking nightmare. For enterprises, AWS is the clear winner over GCP/Google OAuth/Other APIs.
I feel like there is this giant chasm between the AWS engineers and the actual Amazon engineers. I swear that some of the Amazon apps/services are some of the worst things I use on a regular basis.
It feels sometimes like amazon proper doesn't want my money, vs AWS side where its like... oh, you wanna spend like $500 spinning up services to test, sounds good, knock yourself out!
Oh, c'mon. I haven't worked at either but I have interviewed several engineers from both, and honestly nobody at Google seems to do anything. I met someone who spent three months just fixing some minor CSS issues on youtube.com
Sorry, but whatever tool Google brings up in the future, it won't attract me anymore. It will be buried anytime soon or it's a pain to work with. Engineering excellence my a*.
I am curious do you think if he disclosed that at the start of the article you'd feel differently? I think the issue is that after reading and thinking the purpose was to give genuine advice you (and I agree btw) feel cheated knowing that there is some ulterior motive. Having an ulterior motive is fine but generally less of an issue if put upfront.
To be honest I think its more the content with this one. Check his medium profile. Guy gets in to Google then writes 9 different articles about it with clickbait titles. It's obvious the point of these articles are not to actually help anyone but exploit them.
I think if goal was to write an honest informative article and then plug their product thats fine by me.
And the articles itself isn't really saying anything. It's just a surface level description of some loosely related things that are different between the two companies and then a statement thats says that Google's way is better.
The answers are short because of course how much can you give in this type of AMA when an attorney is involved?
People seem to love it. I see it as just a way to troll for business by keeping your name in front of a potential audience.
I mean the law is the law and details and specifics matter. As such the amount that you can convey by answering a question seems so limited to almost be of no help unless you then go forward and hire the attorney and get into specifics.
Also he has no FAQ on his website because of course that would open him up to liability for offering legal advice but he could easily take his years of AMA's and answers and offer that info (and build an audience that way).
Adding: He does not have a presence in Mountain View it's what appears to be a Regus Virtual office. He is actually in Wilton Connecticut.
Amazon makes Walmart look like saintly. Amazon has no free perks like food for employees. Google is surprisingly generous while Meta/Facebook comes in a close 2nd. Meta has lactation rooms, prayer/meditation rooms, and quiet rooms.
In the end, it's just two different types of cults. You're a fool to show loyalty to Amazon when it shows none back, and Google is in some ways creepier for pretending to care about you and suck in all facets of yourself into a corporation.
The straightforward solution is to work for neither, and show that we won't tolerate creepy corporate culture taking over the technology world that we love.