Laid off Googlers begin to talk:

[Brett_Tabke]

Google laid me off today. If you know of any open positions for project managers or senior software engineers, let me know. I was the PM in charge of making the search ads look more and more like regular results.

[twitter.com...]

[superclown2]

I was the PM in charge of making the search ads look more and more like regular results.

They are not as bad as Bing, you need superhuman eyes to spot their 'ad' box. I'm sure they think they are being clever by getting more of their visitors to click on ads, but I'm also sure that an awful lot of people never visit their site because of such an underhand tactic - I know it's it the main reason that I avoid them.

Perhaps they should take on some of those 'googlers' - the ethical ones anyway. Bing could be a really good search engine if they redesigned it.

[nickZ]

In the coinforum a member stated:

Es gibt immer wieder Scammer, die Google-Anzeigen schalten, die zu ihren kompromittierten Electrumversionen führen. Da die Anzeigen oben stehen, klicken genügend Menschen drauf.

Which translates to:

There are enough scammers running Google ads that lead to their compromised Electrum versions. Since the ads are at the top, enough people click on them.

I think a reason why organic results have or will a better conversion than Ads. 5 Years ago Ads got 52% now its not that clear.

[rustybrick]

Are we sure that is a Googler?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

We're sure that Neeva was created by an ex-googler who said he did not like the "monetization and data collection first for everything" approach @Google. He even ran a poll recently to see if people preferred the Google results or the Neeva results, and Neeva won 9/10. The poll is posted right on the Neeva front page.

Neeva was founded by Sridhar Ramaswamy (ex-SVP of Ads at Google) and Vivek Raghunathan (ex-VP of Monetization at YouTube). They'd know. [neeva.com...]

Sure, they may have a chip against Google and only be two people. The thing is all the others talking about google, verified ex-googler or fake ex-googler, are saying almost the same things.

I don't think ANYONE likes the monetization and data collection first for everything @Google, besides perhaps the investors and those benefiting from having personal data.

On desktop, when I see an entire page of ads and more on the sidebar, covering the entire screen and I have to scroll to find a result... it's a bit much, and spam according to Google guidelines. Knowing the page also grabbed all data possible and got up into my cookies... why do people subject themselves to it when options exist that are becoming pretty darned good?

[robzilla]

Are we sure that is a Googler?

It's pretty obvious that they're not. I couldn't write a more baity tweet if you paid me to. Two later tweets:

if misinformation is so bad, then why is it so much fun to spread?

i dreamt i was offered 10k to post a sex-toy ad under my google baitpost; i should really log off

But apparently we have an Administrator here who is new to the internet.

[tangor]

Does anyone ever trust what ex-employees axed---for whatever reason---have to say?

[phranque]

does anyone remember f***edcompany.com?

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

The parody of fastcompany? I haven't heard that name in ages! They allowed anonymous rumors.

[phranque]

the name was parody - the site not so much.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Digging deep, that site has been gone a long time. Here's a link to TechCrunch having fun with it - [techcrunch.com...]

Just today, I watched a journalist say a demonstration was peaceful. The reporter was standing in front of a burning police car. Sometimes even trusted sources tell you what they want you to hear.

My point, sometimes you can verify what someone is saying without needing to know who he is. I did it above, I didn't claim to know if that guy was an ex-googler or not, I looked for other sources about his message and shared them, the message is legit... anonymous or not.

We could fact-check Techcrunch too but it was clearly an April Fools' joke, end of story. Look at the bottom of that techcrunch article at just how much splaining poor Micheal Arrington had to do to appease the fact-check mob... it's becoming really thick.

Can we get back to talking about the message, and not the messenger?

[superclown2]

Are we sure that is a Googler?

It could just as easily be some bored kid, or even an employee of another search engine.

However: there will be a lot of bitter ex-employees about soon, who have not only lost well paid jobs but who have also been labelled by Google as 'under-performers'. That won't look good on a CV so how will these people pay their bills and feed their kids once the severance pay runs out?

I wouldn't be surprised to see more claims like this; some true, some half true, and a lot completely fake.

[tangor]

I looked for other sources about his message and shared them, the message is legit... anonymous or not.

Okay ... why would I hire someone who intentionally changed ads to content-appearance to defraud the public (and hose advertisers as well)? If that is the direction I'm all on board.

Otherwise, the OP's post was pure humor, understated.

[Nutterum]

The fact that anyone where thinks that the people that left Google or were axed are not under a pile of NDA agreements is just delusional. It's all I'm going to say on the topic. I've spoken to a few high ranking employees at Google search (mainly working in Google Maps and Map search ) and all of them said the NDA's they are under are so thicc you can use them for house foundation.

[Beachboy]

I remember F***edCompany.com. I really enjoyed reading it. And then there was the post on 9/11 when the site operator woke up after the planes hit.... :-O

[Beachboy]

NEEVA, no tracking, no corporate influence.

Nice sentiment but that will change five minutes after it's sold.

[superclown2]

NEEVA, no tracking, no corporate influence. Nice sentiment but that will change five minutes after it's sold.

Absolutely right. When Google first launched it was the best thing to happen to the Internet. Then the money men moved in .....