Power to the engineers!

Who says you gotta be an entrepreneur to hit the jackpot, strike the mother load? No need to risk your money, reputation and marriage on a risky stressy startup. Check this. Google offered one of their engineers $ 3.5mln in restricted stock (meaning he can't sell until he met the requirements of the agreement) to not go work for Facebook. The unknown engineer probably put on his pokerface, faked a long thought process, hesitated a bit before "reluctantly" accepting the offer.

Clearly Google is getting really tired of people wanting to make a move to Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and has now resorted to some major muscle showing. This following a particular case where a Google engineer, earning $ 150.000 per year, declined a 15% salary raise and shares worth $ 500.000. So after that loss Google decided it was enough and made the next guy an offer he couldn't refuse.

So what's next? On Linked in someone raised the question whether Google was right to do this. Impulsive I wanted to react "Of course!" but when you think of the consequences.... We all agree that $ 3.5mln is a lot of money, enough to make people go crazy, to make people jealous and to change their agenda. As Arrington said: "such measures may be effective to retain staff, but may damage the moral atmosphere in the company."

Well, we say "Power to the engineers!" The guys that make it happen, your time has finally come! Credit where credit is due! Guys at Koprol and Kaskus, applying at Facebook here, Linked in here and Twitter here. Good luck!

To all our own much appreciated and valued engineers: Forget it. No way. NOT GON-NA HAP-PEN! Sweet dreams and be in at 9:00 or we cut your salary (Potong Gaji, mengerti?)!