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What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

nytimes.com

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Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#31

Post by sgift »

jamra wrote: post #20
jpatokal wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work at Google, or what are you basing these bold assertions on? FTR, I'm a manager at Google. I don't feel qualified to comment on the research or the specifics of this article, but I can assure you Google takes building effective teams pretty darn seriously.

Are you suggesting that working at google somehow impacts OP's ability to read the article and determine if the article cites data?

Point 2/ is the more interesting one - it's an accusation without any proof or hint, bordering on conspiracy theories.

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#32

Post by eulo__ »

lsmarigo wrote: post #30
stoev wrote: post #24

I read through the HN comments of this very same article from almost two years ago wondering whether the message of the article would have been interpreted any differently. It is really surprising how much negativity there is in today's comments as opposed to the older topic. In 2016 people were calling this article enjoyable and even "Their favorite Google-related article of the year". I found suggestions on how to…

> by the same group of people Don't think it's the same group of people, it feels like intelligent and mentally healthy individuals have been opting to abstain from online discussions in general over the last few years in droves after realizing their time and energy and better spent elsewhere. Especially with the trend of comments being taken out of context to attack individuals employers/livelihood. That leaves the…

This has been my view for a while too. Most internet forums I use are a shadow of their former selves.

When I first started browsing hn I was blown away with how smart and insightful the posts were. Ideas I had never thought of and quite a few I struggled to even comprehend.

It's very rare to see that now days.

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#33

Post by gaius »

Radim wrote: post #13

TL;DR: "…the good teams all had high ‘‘average social sensitivity’’ — a fancy way of saying they were skilled at intuiting how others felt based on their tone of voice, their expressions and other nonverbal cues. One of the easiest ways to gauge social sensitivity is to show someone photos of people’s eyes and ask him or her to describe what the people are thinking or feeling — an exam known as the Reading the Mind i…

which eventually turned into a cargo-cult dogma

It's very clearly culturally biased too. If you have ever done any training in this area you know that different cultures (even if they appear racially similar) do facial expressions, eye contact, and so on differently. Maybe all we are seeing here is that white people can read the facial expressions of white people...

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#34

Post by humanrebar »

lsmarigo wrote: post #30
stoev wrote: post #24

I read through the HN comments of this very same article from almost two years ago wondering whether the message of the article would have been interpreted any differently. It is really surprising how much negativity there is in today's comments as opposed to the older topic. In 2016 people were calling this article enjoyable and even "Their favorite Google-related article of the year". I found suggestions on how to…

> by the same group of people Don't think it's the same group of people, it feels like intelligent and mentally healthy individuals have been opting to abstain from online discussions in general over the last few years in droves after realizing their time and energy and better spent elsewhere. Especially with the trend of comments being taken out of context to attack individuals employers/livelihood. That leaves the…

> That leaves the young, socially broken and depressed (myself included).

But also the stubborn, the foolhardy, and the idealistic.

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#35

Post by tluyben2 »

lsmarigo wrote: post #30
stoev wrote: post #24

I read through the HN comments of this very same article from almost two years ago wondering whether the message of the article would have been interpreted any differently. It is really surprising how much negativity there is in today's comments as opposed to the older topic. In 2016 people were calling this article enjoyable and even "Their favorite Google-related article of the year". I found suggestions on how to…

> by the same group of people Don't think it's the same group of people, it feels like intelligent and mentally healthy individuals have been opting to abstain from online discussions in general over the last few years in droves after realizing their time and energy and better spent elsewhere. Especially with the trend of comments being taken out of context to attack individuals employers/livelihood. That leaves the…

Ah! I think you are onto something there. I noticed it as well; Reddit is the worst offender as even serious and well founded comments are butchered and lighthearted/funny ones are upvoted in the 10000s. If you have better stuff to do, you will just think; fuck it then I don't answer. I would love to have good discussions with new peers online, but doing that in open court seems to attract the weirdos so I just go do something else.

So that said; where do people go online who want to have serious (tech) discussions? Must be some secret place with a person like Linus kicking everyone out he doesn't like at first offense.

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#36

Post by izacus »

JepZ wrote: post #10
jxi wrote: post #4

That’s a really long read. Can anyone summarize?

Hey downvoters, I find that a reasonable request. The comments here and in the old thread do not seem to recommend to read it, so if someone already read it, please be so kind to summarize it for the rest of us.

Well... read it? Is expecting an intelligent person on HN to read what is essentially a two-page article really too much?

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#37

Post by draw_down »

stoev wrote: post #24

I read through the HN comments of this very same article from almost two years ago wondering whether the message of the article would have been interpreted any differently. It is really surprising how much negativity there is in today's comments as opposed to the older topic. In 2016 people were calling this article enjoyable and even "Their favorite Google-related article of the year". I found suggestions on how to…

> disdain of the amount of power big corporations have over their employees

Works for me. People should be disdainful of that.

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#38

Post by skj »

humanrebar wrote: post #34
lsmarigo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by the same group of people Don't think it's the same group of people, it feels like intelligent and mentally healthy individuals have been opting to abstain from online discussions in general over the last few years in droves after realizing their time and energy and better spent elsewhere. Especially with the trend of comments being taken out of context to attack individuals employers/livelihood. That leaves the…

> That leaves the young, socially broken and depressed (myself included). But also the stubborn, the foolhardy, and the idealistic.

Yes, that's what lsmarigo said.

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#39

Post by indubitable »

stoev wrote: post #24

I read through the HN comments of this very same article from almost two years ago wondering whether the message of the article would have been interpreted any differently. It is really surprising how much negativity there is in today's comments as opposed to the older topic. In 2016 people were calling this article enjoyable and even "Their favorite Google-related article of the year". I found suggestions on how to…

Google and Psychological Science play a key role in this article. Opinions of both have shifted sharply in the past couple of years. We should of course base our opinions of writings based on what is written instead of what is written about, but the vast majority of people do not do this. And it goes both ways. Is the response to this publication of the article unreasonably negative, or was the response to the original publication unreasonably positive? And of course as you aptly point out there's a much greater concern about bias in reporting now a days, and an article that is essentially a single sided puff piece for a company/individual/field/etc is something that is going to draw far more scrutiny than it might have not all that long ago.

Re: What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team (2016)

#40

Post by 110011 »

stoev wrote: post #24

I read through the HN comments of this very same article from almost two years ago wondering whether the message of the article would have been interpreted any differently. It is really surprising how much negativity there is in today's comments as opposed to the older topic. In 2016 people were calling this article enjoyable and even "Their favorite Google-related article of the year". I found suggestions on how to…

That's a good point. I noticed the spectacular bias in the comments on HN as well. Anything relating to Google is almost surely beaten down for no good reason at all.

One of the best examples of this was the new Google Calendar UI announcement. I thought it was a welcome an pleasing change and nothing but a good product getting better, can't we all appreciate that? But the comments on HN were very negative and people floated thoughts like "Oh! Look! Another bored product manager cooking up ways to make Google engineers working for their money etc."

While it's far-fetched it wouldn't come as a great surprise to me if there's some paid troll army going around posting these kind of comments early on a topic to attempt to bias the opinion of people who read stuff here.

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