41–50 of 93 posts
Grab must have absolutely incredible internal comms and leadership.
Surprised that a programmer quitting is covered by the financial press.
Steve Yegge is a widely respected programmer who is also a bit known for making big predictions about the future of tech and generally being (directionally) correct about them.
I have a lot of good stories saved up that I’d love to share. Google corporate didn’t much care for my blogging, and even though they never outright forbade it, I received a lot of indirect pressure from various VPs. So eventually I stopped. Sad.
But that’s not where my mind’s at today. Those stories will have to wait for my book.
I can completely relate with this. I used to work at S2 games on Dota 2, and at Matasano as a pentester. Both cases led to a lot of interesting stories, and I have often thought of writing a book collecting these into a single work from the perspective of a programmer, simply putting thoughts to paper.
There is a book, With the Old Breed https://www.amazon.com/Old-Breed-At-Peleliu-Okinawa/dp/08914...
It's the perspective of a WW2 solider, and simply chronicles events one after another with very little personal flair. Simply a linear sequence of events. The end result is fascinating, and works like this seem rarely published.
My question is, how can I do this without ruining my career prospects? Is that a valid concern?
All of my stories are generally positive, and I don't think any of them would cause drama. I just want to reminisce about the good times, and collate the perspective of fellow devs and pentesters.
Obviously, sharing specific details that were covered under NDA is out. That's not what this is about. But I do want to be careful not to gain a reputation as someone who will reveal company secrets if you hire me.
Any tips? It's a scary prospect, but it seems worth doing.
The question is, where IS the innovation? Which big companies are doing an impressive job of innovating? Remember when Tim Cook was criticised for not constantly bringing out new product lines? Yo don't hear that any more - people seem to have forgotten about the idea that Apple might be a company that actually comes up with entirely new product categories. Indeed Apple hardly even releases updates to its computers a…
I also wholly disagree with the viewpoint that Apple's pace of innovation has slowed. I strongly believe that the best products in Apple's entire lineup right now are the Watch and AirPods; what they are doing in these two categories are 10x ahead of competitors. iPhone X? They were the first to release IR-based face detection and authentication. They took what MS did with the Kinect and made it 100x smaller. The A10 and A11 are 2-3x more performant than any competition. They lead the industry in productizing consumer security. These are all innovations.
I simply don't think its fair to judge everything any company does to the iPhone then say "they're not innovating". The iPhone is, without a doubt, a once in a lifetime thing. I compare it to the discovery and application of electricity, oil, or the integrated circuit. It was a core insight into human behavior and the world which marked a dramatic change in all of humanity. Just calling it an "innovation" is a disservice.
The question is, where IS the innovation? Which big companies are doing an impressive job of innovating? Remember when Tim Cook was criticised for not constantly bringing out new product lines? Yo don't hear that any more - people seem to have forgotten about the idea that Apple might be a company that actually comes up with entirely new product categories. Indeed Apple hardly even releases updates to its computers a…
I think the Google Maps analysis ("Google Maps's Moat"), a month ago, showed some pretty innovative work happening at Google! But more generally, I think this highlights a fundamental problem with how systems are built and sold. JWZ once described a "Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers" model of software development, where you get bored with the old codebase and just throw it out, only to make just as many mistake…
It's something the market wants. It would increase productivity. It might even increase happiness. The world, indeed, would be a much better place.
Hey. A guy can dream, can't he?
I’m afraid his comments on not because my customer focussed enough jibe with my experience of Google. Google has done great UX, but two examples of dreadful customer apps are Google Groups and the Google Admin interface. I have to daily make routine changes to accounts and Google Admin is so unbelievably slow that I curse it every time I have to login to it (which is incredibly frequently). The UI is slow, non-intuit…
For things involving open source or standards processes, it's really transparent when this has happened - Web Audio is the most notable one I've had the misfortune of interacting with, but there are some other cases where a pet project or prototype was kicked out the door and handed off to someone else (or no one).
The question is, where IS the innovation? Which big companies are doing an impressive job of innovating? Remember when Tim Cook was criticised for not constantly bringing out new product lines? Yo don't hear that any more - people seem to have forgotten about the idea that Apple might be a company that actually comes up with entirely new product categories. Indeed Apple hardly even releases updates to its computers a…
What on earth gave you the impression that big companies innovate?
Small companies innovate. Big companies eat the small companies, absorbing their IP, or duplicating it. Or the small company survives and becomes the big company.
Why was he still there, after 13 years? He should have been able to retire ages ago, or if he wants to keep working, should have gone somewhere innovative half a decade ago.
The question is, where IS the innovation? Which big companies are doing an impressive job of innovating? Remember when Tim Cook was criticised for not constantly bringing out new product lines? Yo don't hear that any more - people seem to have forgotten about the idea that Apple might be a company that actually comes up with entirely new product categories. Indeed Apple hardly even releases updates to its computers a…