walkman - 3:55 am on Jan 20, 2005 (gmt 0)

why Google is literally going down the slope:
1. many of it's current employees will eventually leave to retire or open their own firms. It happens with every company because they have the money, they're young and are ambitious. Why work for someone when you think you're just as smart?

2. The new hires will not make the money that they think they will. Make no mistake, stock options are a huge part of why people want to work there. Google is valued at $54 Billion right now. Let's just sit and think for a second. They have one product and one source of revenue that produces about $50-$100 million in profit a quarter. Which way is the stock eventually headed? For most employees to make money the stock has to go up from the day the started or the options were issued. Once they see that they missed the boat, it will be a sad day.

It's all a game of expectations. They hear the stories, they see the guy in the desk to theirs parking his Ferrari and jealousy and resentment sets in. It's human nature. Look what happened to Microsoft. Their stock hasn't moved in about 5 years. At least they had about 20 years of stock gains and many generations of employees profited, with Google it all happened in the first year.