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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#331

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

emodendroket wrote: post #229
3seashells wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's people having families that is the ultimate corrupt or. If worst comes to worst thy values come first on the chopping block.. One of the reasons old people can't look each other in the eye, is that they all have seen what they are willing to do to each other to get junior a good start in life.

Having children can awake antisocial impulses in people but it can awake prosocial impulses just as easily and just as strongly.

Sure, if I look at their kids and think to myself "hey, those might make good husbands/wives for my own kids when they grow up".

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#332

Post by sjkoelle »

throwaway678808 wrote: post #265
drubio wrote: post #117

> Take Jeanine Banks, for example, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase. Her department nominally has a strategy, but I couldn't leak it if I wanted to; I literally could never figure out what any part of it meant, even after years of hearing her describe it. Her understanding of what her teams are doing is minimal at best; she frequently m…

I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level. To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course. Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in…

Thank you - also why target someone who has been there for only 2 years.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#333

Post by tdeck »

hintymad wrote: post #280

> Much of these problems with Google today stem from a lack of visionary leadership from Sundar Pichai, and his clear lack of interest in maintaining the cultural norms of early Google One thing I find bizarre in Google is lack of accountability. If someone builds a lousy product, we are not supposed to criticize it, not even objectively. That's because, well you guessed it, "it hurts feelings". Or per Pichai's words…

I don't think this began under Sundar. I remember that lack of accountability under Larry also.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#334

Post by pyb »

emodendroket wrote: post #189
drubio wrote: post #117

> Take Jeanine Banks, for example, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase. Her department nominally has a strategy, but I couldn't leak it if I wanted to; I literally could never figure out what any part of it meant, even after years of hearing her describe it. Her understanding of what her teams are doing is minimal at best; she frequently m…

It sounds like the generic complaints of everyone who doesn't like their manager ever and frankly I would have thought twice before attaching my name to a broadside that attacks a former manager by name. But hey, what do I know, I never worked at Google.

A 18-year veteran like OP shouldn't be complaining about their manager's lack of vision ; they should have realised by now that it's also their job to enact the vision. He was probably paid too much to behave as a passenger.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#335

Post by WalterBright »

pardoned_turkey wrote: post #86

Ian's post is pretty incisive, although I've read so many of these over the past 15 years or so. And the prescription is always to go back in time. I don't really think that's possible. When you're a newcomer, a disruptor, the whole point is to be different. You're bold, you have a clarity of purpose, you say things like "we're building a new kind of a company" or "the user comes first." But once you achieve market d…

You've described why older companies do not inevitably grow into monopolies and take over the world. They get so set in their ways and bureaucratic that they get destroyed by the next wave of upstart companies.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#336

Post by tazjin »

hinkley wrote: post #145
pardoned_turkey wrote: post #86

Ian's post is pretty incisive, although I've read so many of these over the past 15 years or so. And the prescription is always to go back in time. I don't really think that's possible. When you're a newcomer, a disruptor, the whole point is to be different. You're bold, you have a clarity of purpose, you say things like "we're building a new kind of a company" or "the user comes first." But once you achieve market d…

I have a long list of ways to improve processes and when I was young, energetic, and didn’t know any better, I got very, very lucky getting many or most of them through. As I’ve gotten older I’ve found more things that I “need” to improve and there’s been more time for me to forget how I need to justify things I consider “the right way” and so I don’t always win those arguments. But the bigger thing I’m coming to gri…

This reminds me of the "Explore/Exploit" chapter from "Algorithms to live by" :)

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#337

Post by mpalmer »

throwaway678808 wrote: post #265
drubio wrote: post #117

> Take Jeanine Banks, for example, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase. Her department nominally has a strategy, but I couldn't leak it if I wanted to; I literally could never figure out what any part of it meant, even after years of hearing her describe it. Her understanding of what her teams are doing is minimal at best; she frequently m…

I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level. To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course. Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in…

While I don't think mentioning her by name was necessary (she's just an example of the culture of bad middle management he's calling out), I do think highlighting her race as a meta-criticism does neither the OP nor Banks herself any favors.

My rule of thumb: unless given an obvious reason not to, assume good faith on the part of individuals.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#338

Post by Eridrus »

pardoned_turkey wrote: post #269
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Careers and incomes are at stake. People will get hurt. Google continues to print much more money than it burns. People get hurt by callous corporate decisions like layoffs. People don't get hurt by a company that has insane amounts of money taking risky projects, and if they fail, assigning those people to some other project. Given the size of Google and the fact that they hire generalists, being at risk of losing…

Layoffs at Google didn't happen because they had to happen. They happened because the leadership was concerned that in the good years, the company accumulated way too much dead weight - pointless projects, underperforming employees that the managers never had to deal with because they could always hire more people, etc. It's an awful fix and only a temporary one, but unnecessary risk-taking can jeopardize a lot more…

> Regulatory and PR risks are similarly grave. For example, Google couldn't have pulled off something like TikTok without all kinds of regulators jumping at their throats right away. They had to wait for ByteDance to clear the way and then launched their own "also-ran" clone. It's the same story with ChatGPT: Google had the tech but not the freedom to let it loose.

I think this is directionally true: Google would have taken a lot longer to release something like Bard/ChatGPT if their hand had not been forced, but I don't think pr/regulatory pressure was the reason YouTube Shorts was not done before TikTok.

I think short form video is just hard to monetize in comparison to long form. Why would you make a product that has uncertain appeal and is likely to be a money loser if it does succeed?

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#339

Post by llbeansandrice »

sage76 wrote: post #316
throwaway678808 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level. To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course. Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in…

> there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse. Are people of specific races to be put beyond criticism?

If she is in fact "par for the course" and the failures of that department were at multiple levels then that type of criticism is certainly suspect. I give you a C- at attempted strawman though.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#340

Post by iainmerrick »

jimbokun wrote: post #63

> I still believe there's lots of mileage to be had from Google's mission statement (to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful). I'm not sure if I agree. That mission seems to be largely achieved. And maybe has something to do with the decay in Google's overall culture.

Was that mission achieved by Google, or by Wikipedia?
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