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Google Internal Comics

goomics.net

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Re: Google Internal Comics

#51

Post by shadowgovt »

gravypod wrote: post #39
marcosdumay wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Exercise sheets to practice quickly spotting other contributor names and easing them" If the place looks like a Paranoia game, is it evidence that an AI has already took over the place?

(Opinion is my own) It's very different between teams. My personal experience: everyone I've worked with is trying really hard to put me in a position where I can succeed. I've been put on very visible projects (from day one) and I'm getting constant help from my TL to keep me on a track to get promoted. Everyone I work with directly is amazing. Google is a magical place but the standard deviation in experiences are…

Agreed. I never got the sense Google knows how to train managers... It favors a very self-organizing approach, and the feedback loops seem structured to deal with under-performing management by freezing them out of promotion (and hoping they either fix the problem or quit), not replacing them.

The consequence is that teams are fiefdoms, and the experience varies wildly based on whether a manager knows what the hell they're doing.

Re: Google Internal Comics

#52

Post by VictorPath »

bscphil wrote: post #13

I'm not saying this with the intent of harshly criticizing the author, but I admit it's surprising to me that someone (who had other options) would work for 14 years at a company they clearly came to believe was making the world a worse place.

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Re: Google Internal Comics

#53

Post by [deleted] »

shadowgovt wrote: post #50
bla3 wrote: post #12

Dude was done with Google at around comic 280 and didn't notice for almost 100 more comics.

That's right around the time the sexual misconduct allegations at Google became public (well, the second set regarding Andy Ruben... The ones regarding Vivek Gundotra's behavior came out in 2015). It was a tough pill to swallow for quite a few Googlers that the higher-ups knew about Ruben's behavior and golden-parachuted him instead of cutting him loose (especially because the story broke on the heels of the Damore m…

[deleted]

Re: Google Internal Comics

#54

Post by travoc »

29athrowaway wrote: post #35
bscphil wrote: post #13

I'm not saying this with the intent of harshly criticizing the author, but I admit it's surprising to me that someone (who had other options) would work for 14 years at a company they clearly came to believe was making the world a worse place.

If Google didn't exist, then Baidu, Tencent or Alibaba would be mining your data instead. Is that what you would prefer?

I’d prefer that they all take their place in history next to the cigarette and trans fat corporations. Thanks for asking.

Re: Google Internal Comics

#55

Post by whoisjuan »

bscphil wrote: post #13

I'm not saying this with the intent of harshly criticizing the author, but I admit it's surprising to me that someone (who had other options) would work for 14 years at a company they clearly came to believe was making the world a worse place.

Believe it or not, there’s people who just want to write code and get paid well. In fact I know more people like that, than those who are lofty about their goals.

He hints that’s the way he feels in this comic: https://goomics.net/309/

Re: Google Internal Comics

#56

Post by shadowgovt »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #45
gravypod wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Opinions are my own) An alternate way of looking at it: When you work at a place you can help influence the culture to move it in the right direction. When you aren't working there you can't .

Many people at Google have held this opinion over the past decade are now former Googlers because they've realized you can't fix it. They've realized this is an excuse people in the cult use to justify to themselves and their conscience still being there, when all evidence points to it being impossible to course correct Google from within as an engineer.

The company has made the transition from small to large and pretends (culturally) to not have noticed.

It still bills itself as small and individual-driven, but that's propaganda. It'll still welcome an individual or small team working their ass off to make the next Gmail, but it doesn't care about that individual's opinion on whether it's acceptable to materially support Border Patrol and would much prefer they get on with those table-stakes improvements to the BigQuery search engine properly handling Hispanic names.

Re: Google Internal Comics

#58

Post by mattzito »

marcosdumay wrote: post #24
gravypod wrote: post #14

"Don't focus too much on promotion" - A Billionaire Google Exec https://goomics.net/228/

"Exercise sheets to practice quickly spotting other contributor names and easing them" If the place looks like a Paranoia game, is it evidence that an AI has already took over the place?

As the other respondent said, that's not my generalized experience at Google. I am aware of one situation where I heard that someone who was planning to go up for promo was recreating important documents with only their name on it and then soliciting feedback from people in leadership to beef up their packet. It was not great, but it was successful.

But that was the only one of those that I've seen - after 14 years, I would imagine I would have seen more. In general, the big weakness in Google's promo process is that projects that are visible to leadership get more attention than those who are grinding it out behind the scenes. There's been genuine attempts to address that, but it's hard from a practical standpoint.

(Obligatory: opinion is my own)

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