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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)

#41

Post by linkmotif »

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…

Interesting take! I’ve wondered this too. But have thought just recently HN is a place where ppl have good healthy conversations on the whole.

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

#42

Post by dageshi »

indubitable wrote: post #39
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 origin…

> Google and Psychological Science play a key role in this article. Opinions of both have shifted sharply in the past couple of years.

I would note perhaps that as someone outside the US, it appears like opinions of people in the US about large tech companies appears to have shifted very recently, within the past 6 months so it seems to me.

Personally I feel the same about Google/Amazon/Facebook as I ever did.

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

#43

Post by icantsayr »

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…

I love the articles and links here but absolutely hate the obnoxious arrogant pedantic audience.

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

#44

Post by caseymarquis »

mattmanser wrote: post #28
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…

It's Saturday, HN turns incredibly hostile at the weekends.

This is interesting. Has anyone else noticed this (I havn't)? Could probably do a word count on the top 30 articles over the course of a few months to find out.

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

#45

Post by koalaman »

110011 wrote: post #40
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…

I don't think that they do this anymore, but under Balmer this was a key part of their strategy to compete. https://www.aol.com/2009/08/28/microsofts-secret-screw-googl... http://techrights.org/2009/08/30/anti-google-astroturf-lawme...

I suspect that the campaign was ultimately quite successful at bootstrapping an army of unpaid trolls.

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

#46

Post by microcolonel »

gaius wrote: post #33
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...

> 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...

I'm under the impression that the cultural differences are largely in how much you let out, not in what the expression looks like when you do.

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

#47

Post by tyingq »

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…

I think a fair amount of it is a change in how some of the HN crowd feels about Google.

Any negative comment about Google used to be met with an instant swarm of downvotes here.

That's changed somewhat recently.

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

#48

Post by pault »

tluyben2 wrote: post #35
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…

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…

Here. It's the best we've got.

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

#49

Post by pault »

eulo__ wrote: post #32
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…

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.

Are you sure it's not because you're better educated and harder to impress? I thought the same thing until I did a deep dive on some old articles and the comments weren't noticably different.

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

#50

Post by pault »

dageshi wrote: post #42
indubitable wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 origin…

> Google and Psychological Science play a key role in this article. Opinions of both have shifted sharply in the past couple of years. I would note perhaps that as someone outside the US, it appears like opinions of people in the US about large tech companies appears to have shifted very recently, within the past 6 months so it seems to me. Personally I feel the same about Google/Amazon/Facebook as I ever did.

People are starting to realize that the productivity gains of automation aren't being shared by everyone, and they've decided to blame the automators instead of the politicians. I am slightly concerned that being a developer will become anathema in certain circles. (As usual, I blame Reagan)
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