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Things I've learned at Google so far

bentilly.blogspot.com

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Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#61

Post by JesseAldridge »

gyardley wrote: post #41

While I enjoyed the article, and I appreciate you posting it, one quibble: it's off-putting whenever anyone mentions a number they got on a test as evidence for intelligence. If you write intelligently, I'll happily consider you intelligent.

Why should that be off-putting? Standardized tests are pretty much the only way to objectively measure intelligence. Writing ability doesn't capture stuff like mathematical skill.

Yes, yes, tests are imperfect. Everyone understands this. But they're the best measurement we have -- short of getting to know someone over the course of a few months or years.

Also, tests, because of the way they establish some people as "better" than others, can be very bad for maintaining social harmony. But social harmony isn't a good reason to beat around the bush when one's intelligence is essential to the conversation. People should accept reality.

Edit: And, no, I'm saying this because I have a super-genius level iq. I don't.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#62

Post by RK »

elblanco wrote: post #56
btilly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I normally don't do that. However for perspective I really wanted to give an idea of how intelligent I consider myself to be, and giving that relatively objective number sounded like the least assholish way I had to convey that to people who don't know me. You'll note that immediately upon giving the number I pointed out that there are issues with that method of measurement and gave an honest self-assessment whose up…

I'm surprised you don't know your own IQ score. I couldn't even make it to middle-school without having undergone a battery of at least a half-dozen IQ and aptitude evaluations. By the time I made it out of High School I knew probably more than any person should know about their own intelligence and had a pretty clear idea of the range my IQ would fall into as well as my learning styles, cognitive strengths and weakn…

Or maybe because you went to public school.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#63

Post by btilly »

neilk wrote: post #27

Hi there. I was a Noogler in 2005 or so, but it sounds like things haven't changed much, at least on that side. Regarding the stuff you're not supposed to talk about, there are three stages: 1. Amazement at how it all works; wanting to go run and tell all your friends. 2. Fear that talking about Google's advantages would undermine the company (or your position in it) 3. Recognition that nobody would believe you anywa…

#1 sounds very familiar to me. :-)

I hope I never reach #3. That sounds like I'd become a kind of person I don't like being.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#64

Post by jodrellblank »

gritzko wrote: post #34
jodrellblank wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Blah-blah, Google is so cool, nothing worth reading, actually.* Bit like your comment. Hence the downvote. It is interesting that someone from the outside has now joined Google and found a lot that they would like to say, but can't. I've also seen anecdotal evidence that the 20% time is largely ignored and up to the employee to push for, but he comments that it's both used a lot and you are marked on it. I guess th…

Sorry, but I can't lie to you. I heard all that Google campus stories a zillion times, except probably for j-k buttons, which are hinted at the bottom of the GMail page, right? Downvote at will.

You don't have to lie to me/us and pretend you love the post, but HN doesn't need "blah blah zzzz" anymore than you need "another google campus story".

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#65

Post by btilly »

elblanco wrote: post #56
btilly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I normally don't do that. However for perspective I really wanted to give an idea of how intelligent I consider myself to be, and giving that relatively objective number sounded like the least assholish way I had to convey that to people who don't know me. You'll note that immediately upon giving the number I pointed out that there are issues with that method of measurement and gave an honest self-assessment whose up…

I'm surprised you don't know your own IQ score. I couldn't even make it to middle-school without having undergone a battery of at least a half-dozen IQ and aptitude evaluations. By the time I made it out of High School I knew probably more than any person should know about their own intelligence and had a pretty clear idea of the range my IQ would fall into as well as my learning styles, cognitive strengths and weakn…

Where I grew up in Canada we didn't bother with all of that.

The SATs and GREs are the only standardized tests I've taken. And I only took those because I was considering going to US schools.

If you're curious, on the SATs I got 1300. (For the younger people in the audience, the SATs were rescaled, that score was a lot better then than it would be now.) I believe that I'd have done better if I wasn't sick that day. Having to get up between sections to go vomit in the bathroom is not exactly good for your concentration...

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#66

Post by johnyzee »

elblanco wrote: post #57
johnyzee wrote: post #8

I am blown away by some of the stuff Google puts out, I can only imagine what their internal technologies and tools must look like. To me, that more than anything validates their approach to hiring, development and business strategy, of which I would otherwise be very sceptical. I'd never get hired at Google, and rightly so; I look at some of their stuff and know that I could never do that. I used to think (not witho…

I think that you can. To date, Google really only has one successful product (success meaning "makes money for Google") and that's Ad-sense. Sure it's wildly successful. But if that stopped making money for Google tomorrow (for example, I automatically mentally filter out all advertisements in my search results, how long before everybody does that), what would their revenue and profitability picture look like? In alm…

Although I mentioned business strategy, by 'blown away' I mostly mean engineering enginuity.

But as far as business is concerned, they are still in a good spot, what with basically owning the internet, even though they haven't monetized it much.

It is fairly obvious that they care more about engineering solutions, with monetization as an afterthought. This means their solutions are extremely dominant in many fields (maps anyone?) - turning that into revenue at some point seems inevitable.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#67

Post by btilly »

jlees wrote: post #50
btilly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I normally don't do that. However for perspective I really wanted to give an idea of how intelligent I consider myself to be, and giving that relatively objective number sounded like the least assholish way I had to convey that to people who don't know me. You'll note that immediately upon giving the number I pointed out that there are issues with that method of measurement and gave an honest self-assessment whose up…

That's a fairly common thing to do though. "My IQ is 200, but I don't believe in IQ tests. By the way did I mention my IQ was 200?" (Joking aside, I think you conveyed it pretty well, though I have no real clue what a GRE score of nearly 20 years ago means relatively speaking, or how you can convert it into a measure of intelligence at all...)

I don't see the site I used to estimate my IQ before.

But http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/psychology/iq-conversion.html presents a calculator. And if you google around you can find other conversion charts that vary slightly from each other.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#68

Post by dschobel »

neilk wrote: post #27

Hi there. I was a Noogler in 2005 or so, but it sounds like things haven't changed much, at least on that side. Regarding the stuff you're not supposed to talk about, there are three stages: 1. Amazement at how it all works; wanting to go run and tell all your friends. 2. Fear that talking about Google's advantages would undermine the company (or your position in it) 3. Recognition that nobody would believe you anywa…

Alright, I'll bite. We've all worked with really bright individuals before.

What magically transformative thing happens when they become the average that would be so incredible and unbelievable to non-googlers?

I would describe CS grad school as having "really bright people" as the norm, but while pretty cool, I would never deign to think it as incomprehensible to outsiders or that "nobody would believe [me] anyway".

Are you guys just enjoying some hyperbolic kool-aid or is there really some new breed of uber-man filling the halls of Google?

What's the big deal (sincerely, not sarcastically)?

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#69

Post by dschobel »

btilly wrote: post #67
jlees wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fairly common thing to do though. "My IQ is 200, but I don't believe in IQ tests. By the way did I mention my IQ was 200?" (Joking aside, I think you conveyed it pretty well, though I have no real clue what a GRE score of nearly 20 years ago means relatively speaking, or how you can convert it into a measure of intelligence at all...)

I don't see the site I used to estimate my IQ before. But http://www.davidpbrown.co.uk/psychology/iq-conversion.html presents a calculator. And if you google around you can find other conversion charts that vary slightly from each other.

Again... why worry about converting to/from a figure most people are skeptical of as representative of anything meaningful?

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#70

Post by _delirium »

neilk wrote: post #28
petercooper wrote: post #13

Google has amazing people. It is often said that engineers find working at Google a humbling experience. This is absolutely true. It took me less than a day to realize that the guy sitting next to me is clearly much smarter than I am [..] without false modesty I wouldn't be surprised to find that I'm as high as being in the top 0.1% in general intelligence (however that could be measured). This strikes me as a proble…

Google believes in data only . Designers are not used to justifying their ideas with data. While no one comes out and says it, the implication is that most of what constitutes the design profession is mere flimflammery. You don't need a designer to tell you what shade of blue to pick when you can just A/B test a few hundred shades. That's why a lot of designers quit.

I agree sorta, but only for the more tweaky visual design aspects, rather than interaction design.

If anything, I see Google as actually less data-driven in its design than many areas. Industrial psychology and HCI are traditionally very big on data-driven design for interaction design, with a big focus on Methodologies, quantitative measurement of task performance improvement, and various other statistical evaluation metrics. But the main downside of that is that you can't really answer open-ended design questions: you can A/B test between two specific proposed interfaces, and determine A causes N% of users X quantity less hassle than B does (or whatever your metric is), but if you want to invent an entire new interface, you're basically doing a random walk in design space, which will take a really long time to get anywhere. I mean, imagine how many A/B questions you'd have to ask to invent the Gmail interface, using, say, the Hotmail interface as your starting point, and having to justify every change you make from that starting point using data.

I suppose it depends on your norm, though--- Google is very data-driven by the web-design standard, but sort of loosey-goosey, anything-goes compared to the much more statistics-and-methodology-heavy design practices that go on in traditional engineering and HCI.

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