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Lessons from 14 years at Google

addyosmani.com

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Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#471

Post by BobbyJo »

phyzix5761 wrote: post #459
elmomle wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a highly idealized view that I hope we can agree doesn't completely jive with what we see in society today. If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits, the vast majority of the benefit from automation flows to them, and it's even possible for the lives of average people to get worse as automation increases, as average people then have less leverage over those who own the companies.

On average, most large cap stocks (MSFT, GOOG, AAPL, etc) are owned by millions of retail investors through 401Ks, mutual funds, ETFs, and direct ownership.

Median net worth at 40 years old in the US is less than 150k. Most Americans benefit very little from share prices rising, at least directly.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#472

Post by utbabya »

As much as we meme about it internally, one of my favourite things about AWS was the leadership principles. I always worried I've became cult like biased. Seeing how these converge to similar great ideas is a relief.

IMO the most common denominator among all these is trust, in order for many of these to work. From policy setting at strategic level, hiring, to tactical process refinement, the invariant must always be building an environment and culture of trust. Which isn't trivial to scale.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#473

Post by wdr1 »

varjag wrote: post #295
wdr1 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder why Google UX always sucked so much It depends on how you define "suck." When Google first launched it's homepage, its emptiness (just a logo & search box) was a stark contrast to the portal pages popular, which were loaded with content. Some thought the Google homepage "sucked" whereas other liked it. (I was in the latter.) Likewise, the interface for Gmail. Or the interface for Google Maps. Or the interf…

I remember when Google appeared and literally can't recall anyone who thought it sucked. There statistically have to be some people who hated it. But everyone I knew was either on dial-up or low bitrate leased line and it was impossible to dislike that design.

I remember it too!

But not everyone was on dial-up. A lot were in dorms w/ (for the time) high speed connections or workplaces with it.

Remember at the time it wasn't clear that search was going to be the dominate pattern for how people found information on the web. It seems crazy now, but in the early days of the web, the space was small enough that a directory-style approach worked pretty well. It was Yahoo's directory that made it initially popular, not its search.

And so there was a fair bit of debate on which was better -- something like a directory + search (a la Yahoo!) vs just search.

It took a bit of time before search proved if it was done really well, you didn't need a directory.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#474

Post by [deleted] »

Sephr wrote: post #287

This feels somewhat hypocritical coming from Addy. Addy Osmani plagiarized my code and 'apologized' years later by publishing an article on his website[1] that he has never linked to from his social media accounts. I cannot accept his apology until he actually syndicates it with his followers. Seems relevant to note this behavior in light of points "6. Your code doesn’t advocate for you. People do.", "7. The best cod…

[deleted]

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#475

Post by Aeglaecia »

astrange wrote: post #426
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> actually enjoy the game, or have an unsatiable (fear-driven?) need for status, or something else of this sort Ie. Somewhat serious mental disorders as requisite for leadership. I wonder how we got onto this darkest timeline?

If it's adaptive it's not a disorder.

sweet , a new way to justify addiction

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#476

Post by jsrozner »

I am 70% sure this is partially ai generated.

It is furthermore hard to believe that the engineers are working for the users, given that google’s primary activities today are broad enshittification of their products.

Because of these two things I did not make it past point 4.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#477

Post by wisty »

elmomle wrote: post #434
Panzer04 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they will have to go find another job instead. It feels weird but this is how we raise living standards - removing human labor from production (or, in other words, increasing the amount produced per human) Automation is a game of diffuse societal benefit at the expense of a few workers. Well, I guess owners also benefit but in the long term that extra profit is competed away.

That's a highly idealized view that I hope we can agree doesn't completely jive with what we see in society today. If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits, the vast majority of the benefit from automation flows to them, and it's even possible for the lives of average people to get worse as automation increases, as average people then have less leverage over those who own the companies.

> If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits

It's not greater profits but lower costs (and prices) that matter here.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#478

Post by adrianN »

wisty wrote: post #477
elmomle wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a highly idealized view that I hope we can agree doesn't completely jive with what we see in society today. If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits, the vast majority of the benefit from automation flows to them, and it's even possible for the lives of average people to get worse as automation increases, as average people then have less leverage over those who own the companies.

> If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits It's not greater profits but lower costs (and prices) that matter here.

Lower costs only translate into lower prices if sufficient competition is there. That is not true for many markets

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#479

Post by j16sdiz »

Panzer04 wrote: post #374
vbezhenar wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my work involved automating some process which was very manual and tedious, took a lot of time and there was dedicated employee for that process. After I did the project, it turned out that this job wasn't necessary anymore and that employee was fired. I felt uneasy about the whole situation.

And they will have to go find another job instead. It feels weird but this is how we raise living standards - removing human labor from production (or, in other words, increasing the amount produced per human) Automation is a game of diffuse societal benefit at the expense of a few workers. Well, I guess owners also benefit but in the long term that extra profit is competed away.

> removing human labor from production

Karl Marx would argue this evil because this take away the value and job satisfaction from the labour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#480

Post by jeanlou »

trescenzi wrote: post #13

> At scale, even your bugs have users. First place I worked right out of college had a big training seminar for new hires. One day we were told the story of how they’d improved load times from around 5min to 30seconds, this improvement was in the mid 90s. The negative responses from clients were instant. The load time improvements had destroyed their company culture. Instead of everyone coming into the office, turnin…

I was told at university that every software system is a socio-technical system. Keeping a mental note of that fact has helped me throughout my career.
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