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Steve's Google Platform rant

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Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#131

Post by 0x12 »

mbyrne wrote: post #128
0x12 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

"grouchy, testy, sullen, grumpy, dissatisfied."

All of the above, and I really don't see the ad hominem in there. It's just a description of a state of mind with respect to another entity.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#133

Post by aphexairlines »

nirvana wrote: post #46
SoupIce wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> of course, and I had to do it- RIGHT THAT MINUTE- in the middle of the night. There is your problem right there. Why in your sane mind would you even consider fixing it at that moment? You should have told them to FUCK OFF - right at that minute - and gone back to sleep. Right there and then a loud and sound go fuck a rake and fuck off.

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'm actually a bit hesitant to talk about this, even years later, because I expect to be attacked for it.

A bit unfair, don't you think? There have been several HN threads about Amazon in the last few months where former employees chimed in, and nobody has been maligned for it.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#134

Post by bmj »

johnyzee wrote: post #111
bmj wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, is there much of a start-up culture there? If so, do founders (and first employees) adhere to the same guidelines? At least here in the U.S., founding/working at a start-up basically assumes long-ish hours.

No, our country is notoriously lacking in entrepreneurship, make of that what you will. We do still manage to have a pretty good economic output and some business success stories though, so there might be something to be said for working fewer hours.

Yeah, I wasn't calling all Danes lazy--just curious if a notoriously overworked sub-culture might exist there.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#135

Post by aangjie »

Hmm.. Great level of detail in steve yegge's post for a rant....Infact one of my pain points with google+ is not being able aggregate(#tags) and publish feeds from my blog. slightly OT: does anyone else think there seems to be a trend of ranting recently, i mean Ryan Dahl,ted dziuba, and now steve yegge??

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#136

Post by david927 »

0x12 wrote: post #108
david927 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I know so little about the internal workings of Google and had such a good impression of them until today. The Wave post and now this -- not the post which was constructive and insightful, no company is perfect and it's important to examine flaws -- but for the decision to pull the post. Shameful. Steve is only wrong with one point: Google's reputation for arrogance seems actually well-deserved.

Well, the google PR people actually didn't do anything to tell him to withdraw the post, so that is his own decision.

This is one of the very few times I've seen Steve back-off of a provocative statement; whatever made that happen does not bode well for Google and I think my point stands.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#137

Post by Sukotto »

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…

If you have a name badge, it's not a startup.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#138

Post by njharman »

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…

> The problem I'd wanted to fix 2-3 months earlier. The problem I'd gotten chewed out for trying to surface but been told "won't fix" all the way up and down the chain of command.

I mostly don't have responsibilities (family) and 6mo living expenses and supreme self-confidence (aka the perhaps non-rational belief that'll I'll find work or at least make a living no matter what). Because when people try to pull shit like that. I email Bezos and all the people who said won't fix, (paraphrased) "Fuck you, you ignored me months ago when I brought this up. Now I'm ignoring you when you ask me to drop everything and fix this right now! You should fire these incompetent fucks but you will probably fire me. That's fine, this company doesn't deserve me. Happy Holidays"

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#139

Post by ams6110 »

johnyzee wrote: post #80
ajtaylor wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe and Australia have forever ruined me with their standard 4 weeks of vacation time. I can't fathom ever going back to anything less.

Six weeks here in Denmark and a maximum work week of 37 hours. You have to wonder how we ever get anything done here...

Six weeks is not uncommon in the USA if you are in higher ed.

Re: Steve's Google Platform rant

#140

Post by thurn »

maxwin wrote: post #82

"Google+ is a prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership (hi Larry, Sergey, Eric, Vic, howdy howdy) down to the very lowest leaf workers (hey yo). We all don't get it. The Golden Rule of platforms is that you Eat Your Own Dogfood. The Google+ platform is a pathetic afterthought. We had no API at all at launch, and last I checked, we had one measl…

Facebook doesn't even come close to eating their own dogfood. They extensively make use of private APIs, and their commitment to platform developers is legendarily poor. I do agree that Facebook's success going forward will be increasingly dependent on their platform, however.
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