Which Google Should Congress Believe?

theodp writes "In Congressional testimony last month, Google's VP of People Operations told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration that, due to limits on the number of H-1B visas, Google is regularly unable to pursue highly qualified candidates. But as Google stock tumbled in after hours trading Wednesday, Google's CEO blamed disappointing profits on a hiring binge and promised Wall Street analysts that the company would keep a careful eye on headcount in the future. So which Google should Congress believe?"

The One Without ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which Google Should Congress Believe?

The one without the mustache and shifty eyes. Trust me, I've seen enough movies to know these things.

Outsourcing?

[Renaissance 2K]

I didn't realize IT companies weren't allowed to hire American workers.

Re:Qualifications

[moderatorrater]

Actually, by "qualifications" they mean "people who have Ph.D.s"; they're similar to what you were saying, I know, but the difference is there.

Looks like

[Maxo-Texas]

Google spent oodles of boodle hiring the entire kit and caboodle while the managers went feudal.

If they think congress will buy both stories, they lost their noodles!

I know!

[Etrias]

The first one. Wait! No, that second guy. I don't know! Third base!

Obvious

[thegameiam]

The one that isn't evil, duh!

They should google it

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe use google fights?

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[eln]

Sure, but then you have all of the additional overhead costs associated with maintaining 9 babies instead of just one.

Re:Qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I knew a couple that had learned the "theory of programming" at some India tech school, but had never actually used a computer. Needless to say their work was fantastic....

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[PCM2]

Not if they're foreign babies! Clearly, the high cost of American babies is the problem here, not procreation in general.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[PCM2]

So what are you saying? I need to have sex with 9 women this month in order to optimize overall baby production?

Not exactly. The Mythical Man Month teaches us that when you're having woman problems, throwing more women at the problem is never the solution.

The formula is n(n-1)/2 ... that is, for each group of women n, the number of channels of communication in the group is equal to n times n-1 (where the 1 is you), divided by two.

Because of this, Fred Brooks recommends that you not engage any baby-producers until the overall system of women is well architected. Note that this process can take an incredibly long time. Another solution is to employ women with off-the-shelf babies, which often come with a third-party support contract.

Re:The two are not mutually exclusive

[Bobby Mahoney]

Or perhaps... It's the Microsoft-hive-brain itself writing the article!

Believe Both

[PPH]

Google was unable to hire sufficient numbers of qualified (i.e. third world minimum wage) programmers. As a result, they were forced to employ overpaid local talent who spent most of their day posting snotty remarks on /.

Re:Qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't program at all. "Well, it looks like on your resume you have 6 years programming industry experience in java. Could you please write on the board a program to swap two variables? ............um.....yeah, something like that...." (I did not make that example up, she literally did not know how to swap two variables).

Everybody should know how to swap 2 variables, if you don't learn NOW

a = a xor b
b = b xor a
a = a xor b

(modify to your language of choice, but best done in assembly or C)

Chances are your interviewer won't have a clue about what you are talking about and you can boast how you just saved the company 33% on memory consumption.

Tada!

-- cl