Class, here is an organizational issue that we will be discussing this semester. How can economics help explain individual behavior suggest as hiring or resigning. In particular, we will talk about incentives and informational asymmetries.

The article is from TechCrunch, one of my favorite tech sites. Given the importance of this topic for class, I have reproduced a good portion of the article below. For the complete article, you must go here.

In 2008 Google HR set up a private Google Group to ask former employees why they left the company. We’ve been forwarded what appears to be authentic posts to the thread by a number of ex-Googlers, which we reprint below minus identifying information other than their first names.

The thread shows a brutal honesty about what it’s like to work at Google, at least from the point of view of employees who were unhappy enough to resign. Top amongst the complaints is low pay relative to what they could earn elsewhere, and disappearing fringe benefits seemed to elevate the concern. Other popular gripes - too much bureaucracy, poor management, poor mentoring, and a hiring process that took months.

A few of the posts are more positive, and frankly there isn’t a whole lot here that you don’t see in other big companies.

One message stands out though in most of the posts - employees thought they were entering the promised land when they joined Google, and most of them were disappointed. Some of them wondered if it meant they were somehow lacking. One person sums it all up nicely:

Those of us who failed to thrive at Google are faced with some pretty serious questions about ourselves. Just seeing that other people ran into the same issues is a huge relief. Google is supposed to be some kind of Nirvana, so if you can’t be happy there how will you ever be happy? It’s supposed to be the ultimate font of technical resources, so if you can’t be productive there how will you ever be productive?

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