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The other half of "Artists Ship"

paulgraham.com

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Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#61

Post by andr »

pg wrote: post #23
byrneseyeview wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For large companies with a valuable reputation, that's almost guaranteed to be true. Most people won't generate a million dollars worth of value in a given year, but nearly everyone could do that amount of damage to their company's reputation in just a few minutes.

Sure, yes, if e.g. the customers' health or safety was at risk. But I don't think the average bug in a web app would damage a company's reputation significantly. GMail occasionally shows me a message saying "Oops, an error occurred." It doesn't make me think any less of Google.

The average billion dollar company is not in the web app business.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#62

Post by shiro »

pg wrote: post #39
nostrademons wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't a typical non-early-adopter user. I've had people make loud, public complaints about such trivial matters as a new logo being too tall, or a text box being too wide, or an optional WYSIWYG editor feature ruining the "text-only flavor of the community". These on websites far smaller than GMail. Look at some of the major Web2.0 kerfuffles in recent years. Off the top of my head, I can think of: - The HD/DVD…

None of these were the kind of bug that comes from releasing code with insufficient testing. The only one that even involved code was the Reddit password problem, and that was more a design mistake than a bug.

Privacy breach could harm a company a lot. Japan Network Security Association reported that, in 2007, total of 30 million personal information records are breached and estimated 22 billion dollars for damage/compensation in Japan.

Most of these incidents caused by employees taking out the data, but there are some cases caused by sloppy web app.

(I could find only Japanese version of the report: http://www.jnsa.org/result/2007/pol/incident/index.html )

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#63

Post by gaius »

pg wrote: post #49
rokhayakebe wrote: post #30

Programmers are unlike many types of workers in that the best ones actually prefer to work hard. This doesn't seem to be the case in most types of work. When I worked in fast food, we didn't prefer the busy times. And when I used to mow lawns, I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain. Programmers, though, like it better when they write more code. Or more precisely, when they release…

Writer are like hackers, yes. But the reason most salesmen like to work hard is that they're paid on commission. That's very different.

Not true. Good salesmen love the power, convincing others to do their will. They are more like actors or politicians. You can't fake charisma just because you might get paid more.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#64

Post by gaius »

neilk wrote: post #27

Some things that PG didn't make explicit: web applications can have an extraordinarily tight feedback loop between customer and coder. Multiple revisions per day are easy, especially if any single user's data is rather low-value. Many a startup of this kind has zoomed past its corporate competitors simply by iterating faster. If your product is embedded firmware for a home security device, this strategy is just not a…

Some things that PG didn't make explicit: web applications can have an extraordinarily tight feedback loop between customer and coder.

He has made that point in other essays.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#65

Post by fallentimes »

lutorm wrote: post #44
allyt wrote: post #38

I think this can be generalized to say that start-ups have a different cost-benefit analysis - one where losses are capped at the (relatively small) value of the company. On the other hand, large companies have to be risk-averse because the worst-case is several magnitudes worse. When you're working at ConEd or AIG, the "tiny probability/worst-case-loss" factors start to matter, because "worst-case" can include inves…

Funny that some of those large companies you mention didn't seem to get the memo about being risk-averse... ;-)

During their executive retreats they decided to be risk seeking instead.

I wonder if the problem at the recently troubled companies (AIG, Merrill, Lehman etc) was not enough checks in place or not enough power allotted to the employees who knew something was wrong.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#66

Post by gaius »

dcurtis wrote: post #10
unalone wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as companies get larger they can afford less and less to make mistakes. If I'm running a start-up company, I can get away with changing things abruptly, because I have a smaller base of users and I have fewer people relying on my running at production-level. Also, chances are I'll be able to look at user feedback effectively. Once you get large, and your company is providing sustenance for all your employees, p…

This thinking has always kind of confused me. Why are customers/users at a big company more important than those at a startup? Just because there's more of them, now you can't make mistakes? If you have the agility to make rapid production changes, you also have the ability to rapidly rollback. So the argument that larger companies require more checks and testing than startups isn't really valid, especially when you…

If you have the agility to make rapid production changes, you also have the ability to rapidly rollback

It doesn't matter. If you make a mistake with other people's money (e.g. calculating a payment wrong, crediting/debiting the wrong person, etc), even if you put it right quickly, they'll start losing trust and looking at your competitors.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#67

Post by Haskell »

"...not only wouldn't these guys have broken anything, they'd have gotten a lot more done."

I don't think the claim that they would not have broken anything can be backed by facts.

If you look at Microsoft, for instance, their programmers used to write very buggy code, but with the introduction of better processes, like their Secure Development Lifecycle, they saw a substantial improvement in code quality (as measured through security and reliability metrics).

The damage done by not following a quality assurance process and writing buggy code was so big that Microsoft's image will be affected for a long time, even though they have now improved the code quality.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#68

Post by mixmax »

pg wrote: post #60
allyt wrote: post #38

I think this can be generalized to say that start-ups have a different cost-benefit analysis - one where losses are capped at the (relatively small) value of the company. On the other hand, large companies have to be risk-averse because the worst-case is several magnitudes worse. When you're working at ConEd or AIG, the "tiny probability/worst-case-loss" factors start to matter, because "worst-case" can include inves…

I don't think greater risk accounts for all the slowness of big companies. Some (probably most) of it is simply breakage caused by their large size.

The major factor at work is simply a lack of personal responsibility towards the end product in a large company.

In a startup there's noone to blame but you, and thus no need for politics. As anyone who has worked in middle management or above in a large company can tell you half of the job is making sure you can always find someone else to blame, while taking credit for the successes of others.

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#69

Post by mixmax »

fallentimes wrote: post #65
lutorm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny that some of those large companies you mention didn't seem to get the memo about being risk-averse... ;-)

During their executive retreats they decided to be risk seeking instead. I wonder if the problem at the recently troubled companies (AIG, Merrill, Lehman etc) was not enough checks in place or not enough power allotted to the employees who knew something was wrong.

Same as always: greed

Re: The other half of "Artists Ship"

#70

Post by andr »

fallentimes wrote: post #65
lutorm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny that some of those large companies you mention didn't seem to get the memo about being risk-averse... ;-)

During their executive retreats they decided to be risk seeking instead. I wonder if the problem at the recently troubled companies (AIG, Merrill, Lehman etc) was not enough checks in place or not enough power allotted to the employees who knew something was wrong.

From memory: the Excel bug that caused Moody's to give high ratings of mortgage securities (one of the probable causes of the whole mess) was known, but management decided not to fix it. So, greed can override checks and balances.
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