by thesanerguy on 10/12/17, 6:55 PM with 351 comments
by brudgers on 10/12/17, 9:40 PM
To put it in perspective, $1 Billion is 10,000 times $100,000. Or 1000 $100,000/year jobs for ten years before discounting for the time value of money. Instead, big chunks of the money will get siphoned off to administrators and technical instructors and computer manufacturers and lots of other areas that already have plenty of money.
A billion dollars is less than half the annual budget of University of Nebraska for serving ~50,000 students [1]. Back of envelope turns $1 Billion into ~22,000 student years which is in the same people-helped ballpark as the 10,000 worker years, with the difference being that those 10,000 worker years come with actual jobs at $100,000 a year. And the 10,000 worker years are offset by the current cost of contracting out the work and the value that work returns to Google's bottom line.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Nebraska_system
by WalterBright on 10/12/17, 9:29 PM
There's the Khan Academy, too.
by jorblumesea on 10/12/17, 9:32 PM
Just seems like Google out of all companies has a need for the best, not just blue collar code slingers. Many people with 4 years CS degrees from good schools do not get hired.
by afpx on 10/12/17, 11:54 PM
by TuringNYC on 10/12/17, 8:51 PM
Oh, and remember the mess Gradle was in 2015/2016? How much money could it possibly cost to better document some of the major tools?
by Klockan on 10/12/17, 7:32 PM
by thatonechad on 10/12/17, 8:01 PM
Programming / Networking / Hardware need a new type of University that is similar to Trade colleges but focus primarily on the skills and nothing more. The first 1-2 years could focus on the foundations while the next 2 years focus around solid design principles and actually developing projects (real or fake).
by synicalx on 10/12/17, 11:02 PM
There's popular opposition to Trump's promise to give people jobs by resurrecting industries that a lot of people (probably Google as well) would rather see stay dead. But there's no denying people need jobs, and formal education ain't cheap.
Now we've got a tech giant backing that up with cold hard cash. It would be great to see other companies getting on board and putting some dough in the ring or at least offering some kind of internship/work experience programs for people coming out of an education funded by these grants.
by Overtonwindow on 10/12/17, 7:30 PM
by dna_polymerase on 10/12/17, 8:02 PM
by Apocryphon on 10/12/17, 7:52 PM
by eatbitseveryday on 10/12/17, 10:34 PM
by IBM on 10/12/17, 7:31 PM
by bradleyjg on 10/12/17, 7:39 PM
by wavefunction on 10/12/17, 7:28 PM
All of humanity growing together towards a brighter future for everyone is truly our highest calling.
by thewhitetulip on 10/13/17, 7:16 AM
Degrees don't come for free, technical graduates don't come for free, students have to go to college for that and in US you need a LOT of money for that.
This is the chicken and egg problem where nobody wants to address the real problem an everyone is going around giving superficial solutions.
by 0xFFC on 10/12/17, 7:42 PM
by perpetualcrayon on 10/12/17, 8:40 PM
In a lot of cases these are probably viewed as the same thing but, for example, I would ask: When was the last time a Senior Java Developer was a candidate for a Senior FrontEnd Web Developer position?
I think the future is going to be a lot less about being hired for "jobs" with "companies". Instead it's going to be substantially more about "projects" being done by "groups / organizations". The groups / organizations being assembled / disassembled with high frequency.
by Chiba-City on 10/13/17, 2:22 PM
Some better nerds here can hardly imagine perfectly smart people who cannot yet touch type or turn a spreadsheet into a group calendar. Our miraculous simple decision support tools are still opaque to majorities of Americans. Only Americans far outside Google will create value to create jobs. That takes planning for any possible sweat equity or financial investment. We have generations of people to train with tools. The boy genius prizes for ever new tooling are not really separate concerns. Cultivating and harvest new boy geniuses from the field is expensive. They don't exactly grow on trees.
Google like Apple or Microsoft had to discover and rediscover their own relevance. They cultivate their markets now with intensive growth. This is a good move.
by swendoog on 10/12/17, 7:39 PM
I'm going to warn everyone of what's coming.
Software engineer jobs will be blue collar, $40-$60k a year jobs, by 2030.
The HUGE push from government, and private business, to fill the PERCEIVED lack of engineers, will come to fruition around that time.
Make no mistake about it - there is NOT a lack of skilled engineers right now. There is a disinterest among business to pay higher, and higher salaries.
If you are a SWE right now, save your money, and invest your time into improving YOURSELF. Have a backup plan, because I promise you, the good times are coming to an end sooner than you think.
by s73ver_ on 10/12/17, 9:38 PM
It's great that they're doing this, but unless they're going to be doing it in the places that are hurting, not much is going to change.
by polishTar on 10/12/17, 8:20 PM
by twoquestions on 10/12/17, 7:28 PM
The cynic in me can clearly see their interest in the effects of this grant, but thinking on it more that interest might serve us better in the long run. I just hope the community gains from that money before it makes it's way back to Google.
by wehere1 on 10/12/17, 7:27 PM
by Top19 on 10/12/17, 7:42 PM
There is no need to train more CS people. There is a need for recovering the “grand bargain” between employers and employees that began in the 1940’s and was slowly unwound beginning in the mid 1970’s.
The reason that business schools exist on university campuses in the first place is because they were supposed to train business leaders to aspire to the same ideals as a university: knowledge, development of character, the search for truth to create a better word, etc.
If people knew how much harder they work today for fractions of a chance at a reward that is now 3x expensive, gestures like this would be seen for what they are, a band-aid in place of a tourniquet.
BTW if you’re upper-middle class, know life is now pretty good, but your economic base is being slowly eroded as well and there will be a time when your economic fall will come.
*- - - -
EDIT: Keep in mind, this is the same company whose head of HR (Laszlo Bock) literally says he does not believe training helps at all develop people. This sounds like I am taking him out of context but I kid you not. I wish I was at home so I could find the physical page numbers, but he says it in his book “Work Rules!” from a couple of years ago. It’s at the beginning of the chapter where he talks about the New York Yankees.
by SadWebDeveloper on 10/12/17, 7:28 PM
by paxy on 10/12/17, 7:36 PM
by ehudla on 10/13/17, 7:07 AM
by slosh on 10/12/17, 9:34 PM
by nerpderp83 on 10/12/17, 9:43 PM
by Animats on 10/12/17, 7:30 PM
by Mc_Big_G on 10/12/17, 9:13 PM
by ovrdrv3 on 10/12/17, 11:30 PM
git add $1B
git commit -am "train US workers for high tech jobs"
git push
(please PR for a better git joke)
by leggomylibro on 10/12/17, 7:32 PM
Still, as nice as giving money to other organizations is, it would even better to see them actually training people from a diverse variety of backgrounds. They're not exactly taking any responsibility here.
by 2close4comfort on 10/12/17, 8:28 PM
by gaius on 10/12/17, 7:27 PM