What if Google Employees Swapped with Microsoft Employees?
An alternate way to evaluate your goals and choices!
“Whenever I open Linkedin, one of my connections gets into Google or Microsoft.”
While discussing something on similar lines over lunch with my friends, I came across a thought of how people are evaluated basis the job they are doing on a daily basis and how everyone is filled with some sort of unhappiness especially in corporate. It seems a bit unfair to me to make assumptions about a person basis the job they have chosen, but the bigger question to ask is, why (and how) can we avoid these biases?
According to the famous industrial-organizational psychologist and data scientist, Andrew Naber,
“One-third of your life is spent at work and hence the work really affects people’s general habits, happiness, and also the approach to lead the life.”
That made me think, “What if Google Employees Swapped with Microsoft Employees?” Will the company be changed, and will the results would be different?
Great Question, let’s figure it out.
Apparently, David Seidman, ex-Program Manager at both Google and Microsoft is having a very interesting Quora thread on this. It goes like this…
This is such a great “what if” that I couldn’t pass it by, having worked for both companies.
In the beginning…
Google employees waking up at Microsoft: Hey, none of these tools work together! And our codebases are all fragmented and in different styles. This is going to take forever to fix! Let’s get started. Wait, where are the snacks?
Microsoft employees waking up at Google: Wow, everything here just works! I’ll freeze my little bit so our team can achieve our goals. <repeated across the company> Wait, where’s my office?
Weeks later…
At Microsoft: Windows is now open source. Office has DeepMind Clippy that writes your documents for you. It doesn’t really work but it’s a cool idea. XBox games run on Android, if your phone is the right model (it isn’t).
At Google: GMail has been rebranded to Google Mail Inbox for Enterprise Cloud Live.
Google.com keeps going down but they’ve figured out how to put up an ad for Google Cloud in its place, and 7 Fortune 100 companies have closed Cloud deals, possibly as a result.
Months later…
At Microsoft: DeepMind Clippy is now deprecated. DeepMind Messenger, Microsoft Chat, and an app named CallMe have all launched and are mutually incompatible.
Several Googlers have starved to death due to the lack of snacks.
The postmortem has conclusively identified the root cause and a program created to deliver snacks by unicycle when a Googler appears on the verge of starvation.
At Google: Android has been rebranded to Windows for Phones. It’s 20% slower but nothing else has changed (and never will).
All of the GBikes have been locked inside the building that houses the most influential VP. Absolutely no product decisions have been made. Google Cloud now has 60% of the Fortune 500 as customers.
Shortly thereafter…
Microsoft changes its name to Google. Google changes its name to Microsoft.
And balance is restored to the universe!
Okay okay, I understand it to be a little far-fetched but the underlying idea behind the article was that even if the employees of two big tech firms would be swapped, humans would be using their superpower of adapting and evolving to compete in the new surroundings. There would be no difference after a while because it’s about the people and the common mission, not the company.
For example, Google is THE GOOGLE today because of the strong vision of providing access to the world's information in one click. Google employees are equally motivated and passionate about the vision (and not just about being a part of Google) and hence they are working at Google.
P.s: I am sorry to quote Google so many times but I am a big fan too xD
Therefore, a workplace or a job title cannot (and should not) practically define anyone’s lifestyle. It’s the common vision and zeal to solve a particular problem that creates an inventory of similar habits or ways of leading life (which Google calls Googlyness).
Someone else’s habits or lifestyle will start affecting yours when the comparison spiral comes into the picture. Slate has even called LinkedIn to be the best social media for self-loathing for similar reasons as mentioned below.
Life hacks \o/
Here are some of the hacks to keep your mind (and work) on track:
Set the end goals, not the mean goals - Be passionate about a vision or a problem but never about a job title or a company or a person at a particular company because all of these are the means to reach your end goal. Let the mean goals unfold themselves.
With good reason, the second habit in Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is “begin with the end in mind.” Notice it doesn’t say, “begin with the means in mind.”
Consume content with a lens: Be Aware (at all times) that every social media platform is having a one-sided on-stage part of the story, just because you can’t see the backstage, it’s not that it does not exist.
Time is Money - You can spend the rest of the day on a watchlist on “How to crack Google” and feel bad (or envy) but at one point you’ll realize that the only way to “crack” anything is when your vision is aligned with someone to work together towards the problem-solving process.
I know it’s way easier said than done but it is worth it. Prioritize your life areas where you want to improve and set healthy boundaries for yourself. Also, in the process, do not forget to have fun because, at the end of the day, it’s just a job!