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An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

bradfitz.com

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Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

#201

Post by [deleted] »

nostrademons wrote: post #25
xyst wrote: post #8

It’s amazing how this is the first time I have heard his name. Great people basically disappear under the Google name.

It's interesting how fleeting software fame is. Perhaps that's just a special case of how fleeting fame is. Folks who came of age in the early 2000s certainly remember him - he founded LiveJournal; wrote memcached, MogileFS, Gearman, and a bunch of other prominent software packages; authored the first version of the OpenID spec (which eventually became OAuth, which you see all over the web); and was one of the early…

[deleted]

Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

#202

Post by tristor »

tills13 wrote: post #189
falcolas wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That fortune's pretty small, really. About $5,100 per employee, per year. It would take a lot of employees for that to even be a noticeable line item for a company with profits in the billions. It saves an average of 40 square feet (65 for open office, 100 for an individual office), plus a couple of thousand in construction costs. So, at around $100 per square foot per year (figures vary wildly, but I saw a couple of…

According to Google, they employ over 100k people. Suddenly that "pretty small fortune" is half a billion dollars.

Which is peanuts for Google.

Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

#204

Post by dexterdog »

anarazel wrote: post #140
VRay wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saves a fortune, but the companies are spending a fortune on their employees' salary and benefits too I think we're talking the difference between $300/month on open desk space vs $1000/month on an office. It's a lot of money and it adds up, but these people are costing the company a total of $10k-$40k a month My theory is that open space is extremely helpful to certain types of people, and those traits coincident…

> I think we're talking the difference between $300/month on open desk space vs $1000/month on an office I'd be very surprised if that were the extent of the difference. Are these numbers based on any data, or guesses?

I would assume that in open space you have somewhere around 100 sq ft per person (room for a 10x10 desk and access) and for a closed-in space they would have about 3x that.

Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

#205

Post by bradfitz »

zyang wrote: post #194
agar wrote: post #82

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…

I thought the name sound familiar. This is the guy that got really mad the Nest smoke alarm.

It got mad at me first.

Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

#206

Post by matz1 »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #200
reaperducer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do things for yourself, not for others. Don't even look at the comments. Turn them off if you can. They're not paying you, so you are under no obligation to please them. On the other hand, if you know that you're going to get undesired feedback, why post your stuff in public in the first place? You don't get the glory without the risk. Before the internet, people did things because they liked to, and because they enj…

Something you didn't address, unwarranted critisim or just plain mean comments can just hurt or drain you emotionally. It can rob you of desire to work or entirely demotivate you from your original goal. While you may argue "deal with it", and rightly so in most circumstances, but then you are only addressing an issue of grit. I have plenty of grit in _some_ areas of my life, but not _all_ areas of my life. And, some…

To not give a fuck, like anything else is something that you can train yourself to get used to.

Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

#207

Post by [deleted] »

chrisseaton wrote: post #180
bovermyer wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. Capital expenditures are reported differently and held to different standards and strategies.

But if you have a million in funding, then who does it matter to if you spend it on infrastructure or operational expenses? You're still burning the same amount of cash.

[deleted]

Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

#209

Post by faizshah »

staristari wrote: post #139
VRay wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It saves a fortune, but the companies are spending a fortune on their employees' salary and benefits too I think we're talking the difference between $300/month on open desk space vs $1000/month on an office. It's a lot of money and it adds up, but these people are costing the company a total of $10k-$40k a month My theory is that open space is extremely helpful to certain types of people, and those traits coincident…

> Sociable upper managerial-types probably value being able to collaborate more easily in open space more than being able to concentrate in private offices. This is the opposite of my experience. One thing that shocked me about a move to an open plan office after a life with offices was how stifling to discussion. It's so disruptive to have a conversation at someone's workspace, that to discuss anything nontrivial (o…

So I’m on the fence I like the social aspects of open offices but I find them highly disruptive to work.

But one observation I have made is that open offices force me to bring work home. I can sometimes accomplish more coding in one night at home than in 1 week in an open office. One time I kept a log of every 6 mins at work and found that I think do not disturb private desks with open office hot desks or an open office with telecommuting is ideal.

Re: An Update on Bradfitz: Leaving Google

#210

Post by falcolas »

tills13 wrote: post #189
falcolas wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That fortune's pretty small, really. About $5,100 per employee, per year. It would take a lot of employees for that to even be a noticeable line item for a company with profits in the billions. It saves an average of 40 square feet (65 for open office, 100 for an individual office), plus a couple of thousand in construction costs. So, at around $100 per square foot per year (figures vary wildly, but I saw a couple of…

According to Google, they employ over 100k people. Suddenly that "pretty small fortune" is half a billion dollars.

It’s less than half a billion dollars investment to maximize the output from in excess of $15 Billion worth of human capital.
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