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Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

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231–240 of 401 posts

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#231
post #187
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Websearch is sputtering sure but that's normal after a challenge like chatgpt. If you think the complaint about google search is that it isn't as good as chatgpt, I think you might be not listening. The problem with google search is that it's worse than it was

To be fair, Google Search is worse today because the web is worse today. But to be ultra-fair, the web is worse today because of the perverse incentives created by Google Search and Google Ads.

Who was a key player in ensuring the web is worse do you think?

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#232
post #93

(repost after every Google-bashing...) Alternate perspective as a longtime googler, ex-googler, mostly-happy user and shareholder. Please hear me out. As user, I'm pretty ok with Google. Websearch is sputtering sure but that's normal after a challenge like chatgpt. I tried Bing again and came back after a day. Google seems ok on privacy: in 2024, you don't see hackers exfiltrate Google data, employees abuse privilege…

[deleted]

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#233
post #47

I've wondered about the connection between organizations at the human level, and entropy. Nothing can avoid the increase in entropy, not even teams and their work culture. The processes used get old and unwieldy, domain knowledge becomes fragmented, features take longer and have more bugs, etc. Perhaps this is inevitable, but maybe organizations could become aware of the changes in entropy and try to do the equivalen…

“Refactoring at the org level” sounds like re-orgs and layoffs. I think it’s unavoidable. You hire to grow, but growth changes you. You can’t layoff to un-grow and return to former self because they layoffs take a toll.

That's true, although if the analogy holds then it depends on the initial quality of the teams, but I have no idea if there is any solution around incentivizing companies to build long-lasting teams.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#234
post #223

Google is printing more money than ever before. Google could likely fire 1000s more and it wouldn’t change their trajectory. Same with Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon etc. Their core businesses are massive empires. They can make so many stupid mistakes, hire inept layers of management and still cash billions. They can randomly fire 5% of their workforce with roll of dice. There is enough redundancy and resilience that…

[deleted]

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#235
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll see how short-term thinking works out for them in a decade. "Rich but irrelevant" isn't a good place to end up. But at least shareholders in 2024 got a percentage more in gains.

Just like IBM, outperforming the S&P by -4500% overall since the 1960s.

IBM's stock hasn't even tripled since Google's IPO in 2004. You buying?

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#236
post #93

(repost after every Google-bashing...) Alternate perspective as a longtime googler, ex-googler, mostly-happy user and shareholder. Please hear me out. As user, I'm pretty ok with Google. Websearch is sputtering sure but that's normal after a challenge like chatgpt. I tried Bing again and came back after a day. Google seems ok on privacy: in 2024, you don't see hackers exfiltrate Google data, employees abuse privilege…

Ex googler here.

Google has become a utility company, and I believe that's what you are saying. And I agree. I love Gmail, photos, drive etc and I have been a Google user longer than I have been an employee. This is a good thing.

But, I started my career at google, and can tell you with confidence that it is not the best place to build a career, especially if you are a high performer. Google will shape everyones career around average, and will not do much to reward extraordinary contributions, and it shows up also in compensation, promotions etc. google will happily not promote people unless they ask for, and many will not.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#237
post #161

"And I just want to clarify that, through these changes, people feel it on the ground and sometimes people write back and say, ‘Thank you for simplifying.’" Is there any mandatory training for CEOs to first understand when somebody is kissing up, second evaluate how devastating is cherry picking rare positive feedback to the company's morale? I can't believe top people can be so inept.

I don't think you get to be the CEO of a big tech company by caring about workers.

[dead]

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#238
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Want me to really bake your noodle? Ready? It has Markdown mode as an option. Peak HN, perfectly executed: - "it's obvious my pet peeve feature X should be added to Y, the company in the article". - "I don't like X". - "Can we have both?" I'm guffawing

Peak HN is also claiming Y already supports X without showing any evidence. And no, converting a `#` into a H1 is not "markdown support". I want a non-WYSIWYG mode that can let me work on plain text and export it without changing a single comma or tab, optionally with a WYSIWYG presentation layer on top of that like Dropbox Paper does, but one that does not let me add non-markdown features (which would inevitably get…

I’m with you. I would love this so much.

Maybe irrelevant, but I will say that my spouse who spends a lot more time in Google docs can’t be bothered to learn even the markdown shortcuts for H tags in docs even though it would save her a ton of time. I imagine that’s a large majority of people.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#239
post #93

(repost after every Google-bashing...) Alternate perspective as a longtime googler, ex-googler, mostly-happy user and shareholder. Please hear me out. As user, I'm pretty ok with Google. Websearch is sputtering sure but that's normal after a challenge like chatgpt. I tried Bing again and came back after a day. Google seems ok on privacy: in 2024, you don't see hackers exfiltrate Google data, employees abuse privilege…

Ex googler here. Google has become a utility company, and I believe that's what you are saying. And I agree. I love Gmail, photos, drive etc and I have been a Google user longer than I have been an employee. This is a good thing. But, I started my career at google, and can tell you with confidence that it is not the best place to build a career, especially if you are a high performer. Google will shape everyones care…

What he really meant is it’s a great career choice financially (see the supporting extended family sentence after that)

And utility? Come on now. Yes it might be doing much less actual innovation than before but compare that to building awful websites at an actual utility company. I’ll wait.

Re: Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are 'inept' and 'boring'

#240
post #187
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Websearch is sputtering sure but that's normal after a challenge like chatgpt. If you think the complaint about google search is that it isn't as good as chatgpt, I think you might be not listening. The problem with google search is that it's worse than it was

To be fair, Google Search is worse today because the web is worse today. But to be ultra-fair, the web is worse today because of the perverse incentives created by Google Search and Google Ads.

They could have prevented a lot if they stuck to penalizing when users received a different document than the googlebot got for indexing.
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