Can it be that the aim of this system is limiting the number of potential promotees, similar to how leetcoding limits number of candidates for hiring?
The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
261–270 of 613 posts
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can you name a company that has actually been doing this better? No. But that doesn't mean that Apple hasn't fallen prey to this phenomenon. It just means that they set the bar incredibly high to begin with. My first Apple was an Apple II, and I have never been without an Apple product since then. I currently own three Apple phones and eight Apple laptops. But for me the overall usability and quality of Apple produ…
The MacBook design has only changed step-by-step in small increments since the 2003 aluminum Powerbooks. The iPhone has pretty similarly used just a couple of basic designs since 2013. So I'd definitely say Apple is best in class at incremental changes with the exception of the touchbar/butterfly MBPs. I'd just disagree with you over the quality: my M1 MBP is a big improvement over even the pre-touchbar ones in basic…
I'll see your M1 and raise you a trash-can Mac Pro, and the fact that anything other than a Mac Pro can't be upgraded.
But it's actually more about the software than the hardware. Once upon a time Macs were the computer that Just Worked. But recent devices, including phones, tablets, and laptops, have major usability issues. It's more about the software than the hardware, but with Apple you literally cannot separate the two.
Here are some war stories.
I bought a brand new M1 MBA. I installed XCode. The install process produced a tiny little progress bar that required a microscope to see. It got very near the end and then got stuck for several hours just short of being done. There was absolutely no indication whether the process was actually hung and no apparent way to inquire. So I tried starting XCode and it worked. I assumed that all was in order and the progress bar just hadn't gotten updated.
Then I updated the OS, which required a restart. But when I tried to restart I got a modal dialog saying that I could not shut the machine down because XCode was still in the process of being installed, and shutting down now could "damage my machine". Worse, the button to dismiss this dialog was inactive. There was no way to get rid of it. I ended up having to do a hard reset.
And this is just one of many, many similar experiences. I've tried transferring data from one iPad to another, waited many hours, only to have the process fail. I've tried importing old iPhoto libraries to Photos, waited many hours, only to have the process fail. When these failures happen there is no indication of what went wrong or what I might be able to do about it. Just, "Sorry, an unexpected error occurred".
I also really despise the new UI look and feel. Once upon a time it was easy to tell what was clickable and what was editable and what was static because all of these elements had different standardized looks. Now everything looks the same. Many UI elements are hidden until you hover over them. Apple devices have become the exact opposite of the easy-to-use discoverable devices they started out as. Using an Apple device today feels more like an old-style adventure game, complete with grues that randomly jump out and kill you for no apparent reason.
But other than that, yeah, Apple devices are great.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#263Former Googler here. This person has correctly identified that a key reason why google sucks is that people very often... > choose between doing what’s best for users or what’s best for their career But the root cause isn't that people want to get promoted. It's that Google promotes people for the wrong reasons. Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving US…
> Put very simply, the problem is that Google promotes people for "solving hard problems" not for solving USEFUL problems. Playing the devil's advocate here, but shouldn't one position in the technical career ladder be correlated with technical expertise? Furthermore, technical ability is something that the employee has some control over: whereas impact to the business has more external factors. The incentive problem…
That turns the incentive away from creating shareholder value and towards hazing and navel gazing.
There's also the issue of conflating the incentive/reward schemes with the need for roles to be performed. Being good at inverting binary trees won't make you a good manager but when the manager role carries money and prestige then it's the hammer you use to reward the shape rotators.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another former Googler here (from waaaaaaayyyy back -- I was employee #104). The reason Google is the way it is, and many organizations are the way they are, is that they are trying to reproduce the circumstances that led to their initial success. Google initially succeeded by solving what was at the time a Really Hard Problem, and so the people at the top want to reproduce that by encouraging people to solve more Re…
I think Apple has done a fantastic job of incremental improvements on their products rather than chasing the next cool thing. Can you name a company that has actually been doing this better? For instance, they often resist new technologies like high refresh rate or OLED screens, 5G, etc., until they feel the technology is developed sufficiently and won’t impact battery life. There are other brands that compete by mak…
> both the Touch Bar and the butterfly keyboard are gone now
Everybody was surprised by that because they've so rarely admitted that they were wrong. It took Jony Ive's departure for it to happen.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#265The author did a really good job of pointing out problem of promo culture, but the solutions suggested are more inspirational than actionable. All founders/execs/early employees are easily aligned on compabt success. But how do you align incentive of later hires? In order to reduce time spent on perf, you'd have to rely on a few people who knows an employee's work instead of a larger peer group and committee. The per…
i remember reading in some startup oriented text that founder driven values works up to about 50 people. once your company grows beyond that a culture shift is inevitable. i don't know what the answers are to manage that shift and avoid it going into the wrong direction.
Maybe just don't go above that. Whatsapp was at that level when acquired fwiw.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Toxic masculinity accurately represents what the OP describes and is clear here. There's nothing to be offended about. It's revealing the angst that sprang up from this community of mostly men.
Classic Bulverism on display. Don't defend your position, just assume you're right and offer an armchair pyscho-analysis for why people who disagree with you are wrong.
Here's some more Bulverism: What's there to defend? Colloquially toxic masculinity means exactly what the OP was going for. It's to jockey for power, position, and status at the expense of others (and often detrimental to their own goals). Hey! Women sometimes also display these toxic masculine traits commonly found in male primates! You should be more inclusive and call it toxic humanity! has to be one of the least useful things you can bring to the overall discussion.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#267I spent over 9 years at Google. Got promoted 3 times. Was a manager. Google is absolutely bonkers when it comes to promotions. At every opportunity to provide feedback towards upper management, I had one consistent refrain: Everyone needs to chill the f### out. The stakes (seem) too high. The amount of time invested is too high. The amount of discussion, rehashing, tinkering, rejiggering, and calibration is just too…
Inevitable with bureaucracy unless we solve the oracle problem in a tragedy of the commons resistant way.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Can you name a company that has actually been doing this better? No. But that doesn't mean that Apple hasn't fallen prey to this phenomenon. It just means that they set the bar incredibly high to begin with. My first Apple was an Apple II, and I have never been without an Apple product since then. I currently own three Apple phones and eight Apple laptops. But for me the overall usability and quality of Apple produ…
The MacBook design has only changed step-by-step in small increments since the 2003 aluminum Powerbooks. The iPhone has pretty similarly used just a couple of basic designs since 2013. So I'd definitely say Apple is best in class at incremental changes with the exception of the touchbar/butterfly MBPs. I'd just disagree with you over the quality: my M1 MBP is a big improvement over even the pre-touchbar ones in basic…
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Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems pretty sexist to associate solving hard problems with masculinity. Women at Google also work on hard problems.
The sexist part is not the "hard problems" but the competitiveness. I don't think sexism is intrinsic to solving hard problems - certainly gender-inclusive companies work on hard problems successfully. But in my experience those companies tend to be more collaborative. Google needs to celebrate heroes. Like Jeff Dean. Or Sanjay Ghemawat. Those are Great Men. They are "Living Gods" because they solved Really Hard Prob…
I agree that competitiveness is masculine[1], but it's not obvious to me that this is a case where it is toxic.
It may be a more competitive or masculine environment than you would prefer, and that's fine. But what benefit do you think comes from labeling the perceived problems of Google's culture as "toxic masculinity"?
[1]Yes women are also competitive, but most of the extremely competitive people are men.
Re: The Google incentive mismatch: Problems with promotion-oriented cultures
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve openly stated that I want my retirement job to be an SWE3-ish role somewhere. High enough to have interesting, somewhat challenging work, but with negative desire to climb the ranks any further.
Problem with that is due to inflation, you're making less and less compensation every year. Standard "you're doing a good job" raises often do not meet inflation, and certainly are not right now where inflation is higher than the recent historical mean. This is not a problem for some people, maybe including you, but I think most people have a general vague career expectation of making more when they're 60 than they m…
I agree, but this isn't as bad as you might think once you're a senior engineer at a top-end company. A lot of your compensation is in the form of stocks that will appreciate in value with inflation, so assuming you're in good graces with your director and VP, it's possible you'll fall behind the market rate very slowly