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Steve's Google Platform rant

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Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#121

Post by jeremyjarvis »

jrockway wrote: post #38
nirvana wrote: post #7

I worked at Amazon from before Steve left to sometime later. I remember being excited when Larry Tessler was hired, and dismayed at the way he was treated. Everything Steve says about Amazon is true, only, it was much worse. Amazon was, by far, the worst employment experience I've ever had. I'm not saying that lightly, I worked for a dozen startups, a couple of which crashed hard in the most gut wrenchingly painful w…

I interviewed at Amazon and got an offer recently, but I have to admit, it did kind of sound like this kind of job. I really liked the offer stage, where I asked for 4 weeks vacation (what I have now) instead of their standard 2 weeks. "That's not negotiable! It wouldn't be fair if you got better benefits just because you're better at negotiating than others on your team!" True. Offer rejected.

Noooo. They seriously only give 2 weeks holiday a year? that's insane.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#122

Post by phillmv »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #64
nirvana wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon internal propagand emphasizes that Amazon is a startup. "It's day one!" is a phrase I heard way too many times. They have "door desks" -- which actually cost them more than regular off the shelf furniture would-- but they pretend like they're being frugal to perpetuate the perception that they're a startup. (When I found out about the door desks costs, I was sworn to secrecy, it is very important for morale.)…

I have an acid test for any place which claims to be a startup. When someone proclaims this, ask them to answer any two of the following questions: - What's my name? (Covering your badge, naturally) - What am I working on? - Where am I from? If the bigwigs can't answer that, I'm sorry, you've moved past actual startup-dom and you're just in la-la land where you just think you are one. Unfortunately, I only thought of…

Uhm, I think you lost the game when you had a BADGE to cover up.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#123

Post by RyanMcGreal »

wouterinho wrote: post #19

It seems to 404 now, a copy is available at https://raw.github.com/gist/933cc4f7df97d553ed89/24386c6a79b...

Steve is not asking people who shared his original post to take their copies down. Here's a reshare by Rip Rowan:

https://plus.google.com/112678702228711889851/posts/eVeouesv...

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#124

Post by nirvana »

look_lookatme wrote: post #97
nirvana wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're absolutely right. It would have meant I lost my job. When Bezos is posting on a ticket, everyone knows it. All the pressure rolled downhill right onto me. This means that, even if I did tell them to fuck off, I wouldn't have been able to get back to sleep. On some level I would have felt I was shirking my duties, and after all, I'd lobbied hard to get it fixed, months before. I think, ultimately, it is kind of…

I wouldn't have told them to fuck off, but I'd have thought long and hard about the politics of the situation and what sort of edge I have (if my situation was as dire as yours was made to be). It seems like that could have been your moment. You don't like politics, but it seems like at some point you have to come to terms with the necessity of politics to effect change in a situation, that is to say if it's worth it…

I think in a healthy, functioning, company there is some politics. The thing about amazon is, it doesn't matter to anyone that I had pointed this out months ago. From my boss up to the person who reported to Bezos, every one of them would be embarrassed by it, but what could I do? Threaten to tell Jeff Bezos? He doesn't care. He was in the ticket and they were all pointing the finger at me. Me coming back and say "But, I pointed it out months ago"... would result in "therefore its your fault because you weren't persuasive enough!"

You can't make people take responsibility. Hell, Bezos would probably say I should have made the change anyway "You failed to take initiative". But if I had made the change, I would have been fired "You're not a team player".

Asscovering is the rule of the day and its very easy in that environment.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#125

Post by nirvana »

j_col wrote: post #110
nirvana wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We set a high bar! B players hire C players! Only hire A players!" The way it works at amazon is, if anyone doesn't like you, you're out. It doesn't matter if its relevant or not. It doesn't matter if the person who doesn't like you knows nothing about programming. My boss- the one with the criminal justice degree- would often veto people because they "weren't good programmers". Of course, he had no clue who was a g…

Yeah, the "bar raiser" is a concept that you will hear about when you interview there. Mine was the last guy after a very long day (sixth interviewer), who actually introduced himself to me as "the local bar raiser", and then got me up writing algorithms on a whiteboard for an hour. Like I said earlier, I can do that stuff but I'm no network guy. > How many people do you think want to interview with Amazon again afte…

There's a massive amount of arrogance to this type of hiring. I think, however, that it reflects the companies opinion of itself and its employees.

Someone with significant skills is going to have significant self esteem. Are they going to want to put up with being treated that way?

In my day, the "bar raiser" didn't announce it, and so you never knew, if you even knew they did that. Announcing it seems profoundly stupid. And arrogant.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#126

Post by kamaal »

SandB0x wrote: post #103
nirvana wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We set a high bar! B players hire C players! Only hire A players!" The way it works at amazon is, if anyone doesn't like you, you're out. It doesn't matter if its relevant or not. It doesn't matter if the person who doesn't like you knows nothing about programming. My boss- the one with the criminal justice degree- would often veto people because they "weren't good programmers". Of course, he had no clue who was a g…

> Since their process is completely arbitrary, sometimes they get really great people (god only knows why they stick around-- I think a lot of engineers don't really know their own worth) but they also get a lot of people who randomly rub the right people the right way and get hired. It was completely arbitrary, it seemed to me. This seems to be true for the vast majority of businesses.

Very true,

Boot polishing manager's shoes works wonders in many companies. In a lot of places especially large corporates, Managers build their own gang. Loyalties run in the hierarchy throughout their stay in the company.

Now you might be the greatest guy on the team, but if you don't accept the manager as the king you are screwed. Your effort goes down in the drain. You work real hard to prove yourself and you get branded as a bad team player. Yes you are expected, to give away your work to the managers favorite 'kids' in the team.

I see this thing originates very early, even during the interviews itself. Such managers have knack to identify such people. And they generally get hired.

Needlessly to say such managers once in the company won't rest until they have ruined everything they will ever touch. And people whom they hire replicate the same. This continues until the whole company is left to rot.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#127

Post by tytso »

nirvana wrote: post #59
bambax wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's kind of interesting, isn't it? If those horror stories are true (and we have no reason to doubt they are), it kinda shows that the way you treat your employees doesn't really matter to your success. It certainly matters a lot to them; it matters from a moral point of view; but from a practical point of view the only individuals whose happiness matters are the customers. Of course, if your employees are so…

Amazon internal propagand emphasizes that Amazon is a startup. "It's day one!" is a phrase I heard way too many times. They have "door desks" -- which actually cost them more than regular off the shelf furniture would-- but they pretend like they're being frugal to perpetuate the perception that they're a startup. (When I found out about the door desks costs, I was sworn to secrecy, it is very important for morale.)…

I have to agree with your last point. IBM is a "well run" company; they take very good care of their shareholders. Some of the things they have to do in order to take care of shareholders is one of the reasons why I no longer work there. But I still hold on to my IBM stock....

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#128

Post by mbyrne »

0x12 wrote: post #70
nirvana wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought a lot about this. In part because, you can't generally say anything bad about Amazon without being attacked. "You must be disgruntled" etc. I only made my post because I had the cover of Steve Yegge saying very similar things (Though I went into more detail.) Most people believe Amazon's press releases. In 2006, they said that AWS powered Amazon.com. It was a flat out lie. But how could I prove it? Fortu…

> "You must be disgruntled" But you are disgruntled. You've got excellent reasons for being so. I always wonder why people will use things like that as stoppers for the discussion, the fact that someone is disgruntled alone should not be cause for dismissal, the underlying reasons are what matter. And you've gone over and beyond the call of duty in my opinion here and I am frankly surprised that Amazon manages to ope…

"Disgruntled" is a straight up ad hominem attack that doesn't address whether or not what the person says is true or not.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#129

Post by ilamont »

bonzoesc wrote: post #100
ilamont wrote: post #60

No mention of Android. I know it was an acquisition, but Google built it out into a platform. Yes, it has flaws, but overall I would consider it a success.

A success by what standard, because it's probably not profit.

I was thinking of installed base (48% in the U.S. in August, compared to 23% for iOS, source http://searchengineland.com/comscore-android-nears-50-us-sma... ) and applications, but revenue is (or was late last year) part of the picture, too, via advertising:

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Android-based phones already generate enough new advertising revenue to cover the cost of the software’s development.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/10/03/how-android...

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#130

Post by aphexairlines »

nirvana wrote: post #84
potatolicious wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, the way Amazon treats their employees does harm them substantially, they just haven't paid the price visibly to the public (or quite as hard as they will, eventually). Attrition at Amazon is at horrific rates. I know the actual number, though I'm pretty sure that'd violate my NDA to reveal. It's high. It's really high. Guess a really truly terrible number. It's probably higher than that. The stream o…

I still periodically try out some of the regression tests that I'd done back when I worked there... there are bugs that have been in the site for about 4 years now. I think when my team was reduced by %90 from people leaving, they just disbanded it and nobodies doing that work now. Certainly the major initiatives haven't moved forward. I don't think Bezos has a technical background... I thought he was a hedge fund gu…

Regarding laptops, the situation has improved a lot from what you describe. Instead of crappy HP laptops, we now have thinkpads like every other tech company. And if you want a mac laptop, they'll give you a new one.

Of course there's room for improvement (SSDs, linux desktop, bring your own OS) but IT is aware of the pain points and making the appropriate cases for expenses and head count.

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