81–90 of 280 posts
Just curious why "Leaving Google" posts is put on the front page by HN.
It's not just anyone, it's Brad Fitzpatrick. He created LiveJournal and is the author of many free software projects such as memcached, PubSubHubbub, OpenID, gearman, and Perkeep.
I first learned of him from a post on Slashdot about a cool remote controlled door hack in a college dorm. His roommate posted and basically said, "this guy is brilliant, it's just the tip of the iceberg - he posts what he's working on at bradfitz.com, check it out." This was in...1998? 1999?
Seeing him start to post a daily journal, get frustrated, then write LiveJournal was fascinating. Posts on the problems he faced scaling it, open discussions on caching architecture (leading to a LiveJournal user suggesting he investigate slab allocation technique that led to memcached), identity (leading to OpenID), moderation, etc. were always illuminating. Moving to Go because he understood what problems needed solving just made sense. Rewriting Google's downloader because it sucked? Well, of course he would.
I don't know Brad other than occasional comments/responses from the early livejournal days (user number ~10K, after procrastinating actually joining for too long), but it's clear that he draws inspiration from overcoming roadblocks.
Taken in that context, leaving Google is completely understandable - having a trillion dollar organization there to remove roadblocks would subvert a key driver for his personal innovation and inspiration.
Good for him that he recognized this and is taking the leap into the unknown. Can't wait to see what he comes up with next, but I'm guessing the real treasures will be found in the process and not the final outcome.
In my eyes, Brad is one of the proverbial 10X engineers. I think Google/Go was lucky to land him and keep him around for this long. Best of luck in your next step, Brad!
10x engineers make other 10x engineers, most of the time. Just look at mathematicians and their mentors and people they mentored, famous names everywhere! It's not a coincidence.
Many probably already looking forward to what your "building something new" will be! :)
> 12 years, 5 months at Google > many Google-internal CLs ("change lists" == commits == PRs) > 3,064 Android CLs > 10,787 Go CLs This is at least an average of 3 commits a day (4 if he didn't work weekends). How is that possible?
It’s amazing how this is the first time I have heard his name. Great people basically disappear under the Google name.
I'm wondering if they will be able to sustain this now that the Google brand-name is not specifically being seen as a good thing anymore.
bradfitz’s career is inspirational because he has succeeded in prioritizing curiosity. never would have guessed a perl guy who wrote memcached to solve livejournal problems would move on to go - only to walk away for something more interesting. can’t wait to see what comes next.
I've followed Brad Fitz over the years because I also started in Perl and ended up in Go. His intellectual curiosity and interest in doing cool things well shines through. He is a great example of the leader-by-example category.
He was once Chief Architect at Six Apart, developers of the Perl-based Movable Type blogging platform which once rivaled Wordpress.
Good luck to Brad. It sounds like the last twelve years of his life were pure Google, it's a big change. > I don't want to get stuck in a comfortable rut. (And Google certainly is comfortable, except for open floor plans.) It's oddly comforting that even programmers of Brad's caliber are forced to cope with open offices. When can this fad end.
I hate it so much.
It's been great fun to follow bradfitz's career. I first learned of him from a post on Slashdot about a cool remote controlled door hack in a college dorm. His roommate posted and basically said, "this guy is brilliant, it's just the tip of the iceberg - he posts what he's working on at bradfitz.com, check it out." This was in...1998? 1999? Seeing him start to post a daily journal, get frustrated, then write LiveJour…