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Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

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Re: Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

#11

Post by stretchwithme »

arethuza wrote: post #10
stcredzero wrote: post #2

The question should be: Is cluelessness in "soft skills" worse than technical cluelessness? Really, both are bad. (Example: Cuil)

Google's success wasn't so much coming up with the best web search technology but finding a way of converting that to billions of dollars in revenues and profits. To me Google have excelled at both the technology and the marketing - which is why they are so successful. Having said that, if you can't manage to be good at both technology and marketing, I suspect that you are better off being weak at technology than mar…

Agreed. Anyone that tries big things often enough will have both successes and failures.

And I do seem to recall an overwhelming success like Windows starting off as somewhat of a failure.

Re: Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

#12

Post by thefool »

Maven911 wrote: post #8
rbranson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The Nexus One is a working, production, reference implementation of what an Android phone SHOULD be, not something Google expected to make them rich.

Well that makes the point of focusing too much on the engineering side...corporations are for-profit entities and they are not there to make the "perfect" product but rather a marketable product that will generate them net positive cash flows...after all, if you are a shareholder of Google, you expect them to MAXIMIZE their earnings, not just make things for the fun of it, or cause its interesting (example: the free…

Honestly, why is it such a bad thing when a company with absurdly high profit margins delegates some of the income back into improving the general standard of living for everyone.

Call it what you like. Write it off as them improving their image with the public, or as getting more users into the ecosystem, or becoming more vertically integrated.

But fundamentally, why is doing something that is good for people looked at as such a bad thing. From what I understand the public don't even have the majority stake in the company, and don't really have to get a say in how it is run. If they don't like that they can buy other companies stock.

If ones goal is to maximize happiness (or some other equivalent metric), there will be times at which the decision to maximize profit will diverge from this goal, and the ethical decision will be to spend money (which you have from profits in other sectors) to develop something at a net loss because you think its right.

(I'm not affiliated with google, this is just a broader point that irritates me).

Re: Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

#14

Post by Maven911 »

thefool wrote: post #12
Maven911 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that makes the point of focusing too much on the engineering side...corporations are for-profit entities and they are not there to make the "perfect" product but rather a marketable product that will generate them net positive cash flows...after all, if you are a shareholder of Google, you expect them to MAXIMIZE their earnings, not just make things for the fun of it, or cause its interesting (example: the free…

Honestly, why is it such a bad thing when a company with absurdly high profit margins delegates some of the income back into improving the general standard of living for everyone. Call it what you like. Write it off as them improving their image with the public, or as getting more users into the ecosystem, or becoming more vertically integrated. But fundamentally, why is doing something that is good for people looked…

Most companies try to show they are ethical by donating or being a corporate sponsor for a charity or event. I like Google's concept of just giving things out for free since I am a great benefactor of that.

Google can make some of the money back through increased ads, but its not always clear how they do it for some products where there isn't any visible ads at all.

Re: Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

#15

Post by shod »

> Do complex interview questions really test your educational achievement? ...

When interviewing prospective software engineer employees, a Google interviewer asks software engineering related questions, to test the interviewee's knowledge of software engineering. Questions like these:

http://jpaint.drizzlehosting.com/google.html

That's a nice illustration of the balance of creativity, lateral thinking, logical thinking, and technical competence Google expects from the engineers it interviews. Note that the interview questions aren't in the form of, "Where did you complete your expected MSc in Computer Science?" Instead, the interviewee is expected to demonstrate real achievement from their education; i.e., knowledge and thinking ability.

But Google hires non-engineer craftsmen, too. Catering staff, to steal the article author's example. Just a hunch: Google conducts more than one type of interview: catering staff are not expected to design class libraries or database tables as part of their interview process.

Re: Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

#16

Post by nexneo »

kwantam wrote: post #5

The author of this article backs up his argument with little substance. No decision-making process is perfect; pointing out the warts in Google's isn't much of an indictment. Really, to my mind the whole thing comes across as a bit whiny.

  The author of this article backs up his argument with little substance.
Engineering mind need real facts :)

Re: Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

#17

Post by eitally »

kwantam wrote: post #5

The author of this article backs up his argument with little substance. No decision-making process is perfect; pointing out the warts in Google's isn't much of an indictment. Really, to my mind the whole thing comes across as a bit whiny.

Here's a personal beef describing how Google places too much emphasis on engineering and too little on the experience paying customers have with its services: Google Apps. Support is almost nonexistent for nearly anything that isn't already on their roadmap, the roadmap is set by engineering and not based on customer feedback, the deployment schedule is completely closed and updates frequently surprise domain admins & their users, billing for various services (GSAs, GAPE, Postini) is non consolidated, and various features break at regular intervals. It doesn't help that a lot of their engineering showcases in Gmail -- Labs features -- they pitch and great improvements to Gmail, but offer zero support for. This included Offline when it was in Labs.

Google is a great engineering company, but it still doesn't "get" the enterprise.

Re: Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

#18

Post by scotty79 »

Maven911 wrote: post #8
rbranson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. The Nexus One is a working, production, reference implementation of what an Android phone SHOULD be, not something Google expected to make them rich.

Well that makes the point of focusing too much on the engineering side...corporations are for-profit entities and they are not there to make the "perfect" product but rather a marketable product that will generate them net positive cash flows...after all, if you are a shareholder of Google, you expect them to MAXIMIZE their earnings, not just make things for the fun of it, or cause its interesting (example: the free…

Why companies even care about what their shareholders think?

It's not like they gonna show up with their shares and ask for their money back.

Only things that I can think of is that members of the board might care because they can be sacked by shareholders, also company might want to pat shareholders on their heads because it is planning to sell more of its stock to gather some more free cash and wants it to be as much as possible.

I don't think you can sack google founders and I don't think google cares about money from selling shares anymore, so why anyone at google should care about what shareholders think?

Re: Is Google far too much in love with engineering?

#19

Post by cglee »

eitally wrote: post #17
kwantam wrote: post #5

The author of this article backs up his argument with little substance. No decision-making process is perfect; pointing out the warts in Google's isn't much of an indictment. Really, to my mind the whole thing comes across as a bit whiny.

Here's a personal beef describing how Google places too much emphasis on engineering and too little on the experience paying customers have with its services: Google Apps. Support is almost nonexistent for nearly anything that isn't already on their roadmap, the roadmap is set by engineering and not based on customer feedback, the deployment schedule is completely closed and updates frequently surprise domain admins…

I paid for the Premium Google Apps for one of my domains. When it was about to expire, I got emails almost daily reminding me to renew. The day before it was to expire, someone from Google Apps actually called my cell about renewing.

For a different domain that I was using regular Google Apps on, I couldn't get an email response to a support question I sent several months prior.

Whatever their focus, it's not on customer service.

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