And here, my friends, we have a wonderful example of something which statisticians call a "biased sample". Of course the people who (a) were offered a job by Google, (b) accepted said offer from Google, and (c) haven't quit, are happy about having interviewed at Google.

If Steve Yegge had (a) gone to Facebook and interviewed ex-googlers, (b) phoned people who were offered jobs but decided not to accept them (yes, we do exist), or (c) talked to people who flew across the country to interview at Google but weren't offered jobs, he would probably hear a rather more complicated story.

It doesn't matter super much what language you learn initially. So if you have some friend who is an expert in another language, you might be better off learning that, then switching to Javascript once you know the basics of programming.

Yes.

If so, would you tell us why?

Several reasons, in no particular order: 1. The interview process was completely and utterly broken; among other things, Google changed their mind about which position I was applying for 3 times without consulting me. 2. The job offer (for a position which would have required that I move from Canada to the US) arrived shortly after the US Senate voted away the right of Habeas Corpus. 3. I was interested in developing a system for online encrypted backups, and I was talking to someone who told me that his boss would be interested in licensing some of my work (the licensing didn't end up happening -- a draft MOU ended up arriving two months late which was completely different to what had been discussed in person -- but I decided to go ahead with my work anyway). 4. While I was told that my suggested choice of research projects "would be ok" (I was offered a research position), there was a clear lack of enthusiasm for it; and similarly I had no enthusiasm for the fields of research Google's director of research mentioned.

In short, they screwed up the recruiting process; the job location wasn't ideal; I had another interesting option; and our interests didn't fit very well.

Say you have a contract for $10000 USD due 6 months from now and the EUR/USD rate is $1.40 when you signed the contract. If the USD falls to 1.5 in those 6 months, you've lost ~7% on that contract, but if it stregthens to 1.3, then you've made a free ~7.5%.

Since you just want to make the contract and not play on the forex market, what you do is you open up a currency trading account and take the exact opposite position to the one in your contract. In your contract you lose money if the USD falls, so in your hedge, you open up a short position on the USD, such that you make the exact same money that you lost on the contract.

So once you've signed the contract, take a $10000 short position on the EUR/USD pair. If the USD weakens, you lose from the hedge, but gain from the contract, if the USD strengthens, you lose from the contract but profit from the hedge, so there is no risk to you no matter where the currencies go.

The downside is that you need the same amount of money to hedge as the amount you're expecting. One way to get around this is to use a leveraged trading account, however this restricts the amount of fluctuation your hedge can handle before getting a margin call - for example if you use a 5:1 leveraged account (that is, use $2000 to trade a $10000 position), your hedge will protect you against swings of close to 20 cents. So depending on how much money you have available to hedge and the amount of fluctuation you want to be protected against, you can choose how much leverage you want. (here's a tool to estimate it: http://www.fxtrade.com/tools/fxcalculators/margin_call_calcu...)

The good news is that with today's forex platforms, this is perfectly accessible/doable for any sized business/personal transactions.

Note: I do work for OANDA, but I'm just a developer there. I posted since I really do think currency hedging is neat. :)

I also turned down Google's offer. And as others have mentioned, various Google recruiters still send me email at least three times a month.

Someone asked why I didn't accept a job at Google; I answered.

I don't come here to debate politics, but I don't think politics are automatically off-topic here -- particularly when they influence questions like "should I move to Silicon Valley?" or "should I launch a startup company?".

Build something new.

Easier said than done, no?

Not to mention that if you think that no one is able to produce interesting work in a company like Google, than I'd say that you'd need to get out of the HN groupthink.

This is never true. The impact of dress on perception is well studied and it is large. If you're not dressing well, you are foolishly giving up an easy edge.

A somewhat overlooked subject is coworker dress as a workplace quality issue. A lot of geeks don't notice dress, but most other people are sensitive to the aesthetic presentation of the people they have to spend many hours a day with. Going to work with very well presented people is a job perk, and having to interact with slobs is undesirable. Realize that even if you don't care about dress, other very competent people you may work with will care. Tacky clothing and pasty physiques can be like second hand smoke.