> A suprisingly large fraction of the smartest programmers in the world do work here. In very large quantities. In fact, quantities so large that I wouldn't have thought that so many really smart people existed or could be centralized in one place, but trust me, they do and they can.
There are certainly other places with lots of smart programmers, but it seems every time I read something self-congratulatory like this, it's Google.
I am not sure if breadcrumbs means low compensation, but the comp at Google (especially for people succeeding) is high and low risk.
If you just want to write software (as opposed to run a business), being an engineer at Google is really nice. You get a ton of resources, work on projects that have millions of users, etc. Don't get me wrong, entrepreneurs are awesome. But it's a much, much broader skill set than what is required to be a successful software engineer.
As for academia, my personal problem with it is that it's too focused on elegant/complicated/clever solutions to problems that don't really exist. And the compensation is terrible.
> A suprisingly large fraction of the smartest programmers in the world do work here. In very large quantities. In fact, quantities so large that I wouldn't have thought that so many really smart people existed or could be centralized in one place, but trust me, they do and they can.
There are certainly other places with lots of smart programmers, but it seems every time I read something self-congratulatory like this, it's Google.