For the past year, Google’s workforce has increasingly been under attack from a herd of unicorns.
The unicorns, a class of hot startups valued at US$1 billion or more, are all aggressively pursuing the best and brightest minds in Silicon Valley with promises of talked-about workplaces and eye-popping payouts. Amid a general scramble for talent, Google, the Internet search company, has undergone specific raids from unicorns for engineers who specialize in crucial technologies like mapping.
In particular, Uber — the largest unicorn, with a valuation of more than US$50 billion — has plundered Google’s mapping unit over the past 12 months, aiming to bolster its own map research. Airbnb, the popular short-term rental startup, has gone on a more general hiring spree, poaching more than 100 workers.
The recruiting is not confined to the best engineers; sometimes it spills over to nontechnical employees too. Two of the chefs who prepared meals for Googlers, Alvin San and Rafael Monfort, have been hired away by Uber and Airbnb in the past 18 months.
‘EMPLOYEE’S MARKET’
“It’s an employee’s market right now,” said Rodrigo Ipince, 28, a software engineer who recently left Google and was pursued by unicorns, but chose to join mobile gaming video startup Kamcord.
Ipince, who worked at Google for five years, said he received at least one to two e-mails from recruiters daily, asking if he was eager for a new job.
“It was fairly easy to get my foot in the door of whatever company I want,” he added.
Recruiting battles are a perennial tale in Silicon Valley, where technology companies wage war on one another for top prospects by doling out six-figure salaries and generous stock packages as if they were Halloween candy. The difference now is the scale of the talent clashes, with a large and growing number of young companies jumping into the fight, boasting fat war chests and claiming US$1 billion-plus valuations.
There are now more than 124 unicorn companies, said CB Insights, a research firm that tracks startups.
The competition is recognized at the very top. Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, in a memo written over the weekend in response to a New York Times article about the company’s workplace, referred to a “highly competitive tech hiring market” and how his employees “are recruited every day by other world-class companies.” He was not specific about which companies were after Amazon workers.
While the unicorns typically pick off small groups of engineers at a time, making little impression on a large company’s total employee numbers, the poaching attacks are often aimed at siphoning off the best talent in strategic technologies. That can sting the likes of a Google, where executives have said one skilled engineer can be worth many times the average.
To snag employees from large rivals, unicorns have a simple recruiting pitch: They are on a path to success, as illustrated by their rising valuations. Many offer generous equity packages of restricted stock units that can later translate to big paydays for employees if the unicorn goes public or is sold — a lure that neither Google nor any other public tech company can dangle. Also, the unicorns say they are far more fleet-footed and cutting-edge than large organizations.
“The things that excite young tech workers are high growth and fast execution,” said Dave Carvajal, founder of Dave Partners, a tech recruiting company. “It’s not that tough for the new unicorns to swing by these big, older tech companies and pick up busloads of talent.”
Apart from Google, the onetime Internet darlings Yelp and Twitter have become prime poaching targets, especially as their share prices have plummeted, reducing their employees’ potential for big gains from equity compensation. Over the past 18 months, Yelp’s stock price has fallen 73 percent from its peak, while Twitter shares are trading near a low.
Yelp chief operating officer Geoff Donaker acknowledged the unicorn poaching phenomenon in a conference call with analysts last month after the company reported disappointing earnings.
About what he called “the unicorn bubble question,” Donaker said: “We are certainly feeling those impacts.”
Among the most aggressive unicorn recruiters is Uber, the ride-hailing company based in San Francisco, which has expanded operations to 59 countries. Uber promises a fast-paced work environment and “world changing” ambitions, according to multiple people who have been approached by the company or work for it. Uber has more than 3,500 employees, up from about 1,300 a year ago, not counting its so-called driver partners, who are contract workers.
Uber does not shy away from dangling generous compensation packages to important hires, especially in engineering. In the case of some highly sought-after engineers from Yelp last year, Uber offered millions of dollars in restricted stock units, according to two people with knowledge of the recruiting practices, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
TARGET GOOGLE
One of Uber’s prime picking grounds is Google. Uber has systematically hired Google’s experts in mapping technology, a crucial component of Uber’s plans to reduce its reliance on outside companies for mapping. In June, Uber hired Brian McClendon, a Google vice president for engineering who now leads Uber’s driverless car and robotics research center. Uber has also raided Google’s Geo unit, people close to the company said, hiring at least a dozen mapping specialists over the past year.
McClendon declined to comment, as did an Uber spokeswoman. Google declined to comment for this article.
Google is not letting its staff go without a fight. Offers from a short list of companies — including Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest and Palantir — will often produce counteroffers, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The most senior Google employees may get a one-on-one meeting with Google cofounder Larry Page to try to persuade the executive to stay, one of these people said.
Google is often willing to go “over the top” to keep top talent, the two people said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his