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Inside Google's Secret Lab

businessweek.com

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Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab

#31

Post by nostrademons »

jholman wrote: post #29
michaelochurch wrote: post #17

Here's an honest question: how do the unluckier 90 percent, who face calibration scores and Perf and closed allocation, not find themselves in revolt when they learn that others work in a blue-sky environment on challenging problems that will build their careers? How is the fact that most people at Google won't get to work on stuff like this not a gigantic HR issue?

Your "honest question" contains several false assumptions, as you well know, Michael. Who do you think you're fooling? I'm not sure who the "unluckier 90 percent" are, because a) X is much, much smaller than 1% of the company, and b) you're not laying out any other 90%-sized subset of the company with your other comments. People inside X also have calibration and perf, of course. Your ongoing ranting about "closed al…

"I have no idea if the cafeteria staff think their work is challenging"

The cafeteria staff works amazingly hard at their jobs and there're a bunch of challenges involved in feeding 30,000 employees well on a weekly budget. Go to Chef's Table at Jia (if you're in Mountain View) and ask about the job, or even just find the cafe's head chef (they're usually standing around the food looking proud of it) and strike up a conversation. They usually love to talk about their work.

Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab

#32

Post by michaelochurch »

nostrademons wrote: post #28
seiji wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are different kinds of people though (uh oh, one of those analogies). There are people who are content to work on unambitious stuff. People who, say, are happy to do python stuff at reddit working on translation and obsessing over starcraft, all while transitioning their personal appearance towards more of an unkempt, yet smiling, middle-eastern shop owner vibe. Then, there are people who have a larger, possibl…

The second group of people, once they try to actually build something to help millions of people on their own without anybody to blame, often find that fighting MySQL crapping itself is an integral part of building anything that helps millions of people.

Postgres.

Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab

#33

Post by nostrademons »

michaelochurch wrote: post #32
nostrademons wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second group of people, once they try to actually build something to help millions of people on their own without anybody to blame, often find that fighting MySQL crapping itself is an integral part of building anything that helps millions of people.

Postgres.

....is handy, I used it myself for my startup and liked it a lot better than MySQL. Regardless, you're going to face annoying schleps whatever you work on.

Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab

#34

Post by michaelochurch »

nostrademons wrote: post #33
michaelochurch wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Postgres.

....is handy, I used it myself for my startup and liked it a lot better than MySQL. Regardless, you're going to face annoying schleps whatever you work on.

That is true. Even the most exciting work has mundane and difficult elements. There's no avoiding that.

What's infuriating is when it's all the mundane stuff, because management took the exciting parts and made them political favors.

Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab

#35

Post by raldi »

seiji wrote: post #25
raldi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us in the non-X parts of Google are actually pretty content. I for one am happy for the X team, not jealous. Though I do admire them. You might as well be asking how NASA plans to avoid a revolt of the rank-and-file technicians because only a small number of people get to be astronauts.

There are different kinds of people though (uh oh, one of those analogies). There are people who are content to work on unambitious stuff. People who, say, are happy to do python stuff at reddit working on translation and obsessing over starcraft, all while transitioning their personal appearance towards more of an unkempt, yet smiling, middle-eastern shop owner vibe. Then, there are people who have a larger, possibl…

And then there's the 99% between those two extremes, who have ambitious long-term goals but feel the best way to reach them is through patient perseverance, as opposed to getting frustrated right away and quitting in disgust at the first sign of a setback.

> Why does the second group of people put up with not being in the prestigious X teams?

In my case, it's because there are plenty of impactful, prestigious, and fulfilling positions elsewhere in the company, and many of them are a better match for my skill set.

BTW, I decided to pick someone at random who had helped millions of people, and see what their career was like. The first name to come to mind was Jonas Salk. Here's an excerpt from his Wikipedia page:

By 1947, Salk decided to find an institution where he could direct his own laboratory. After three institutions turned him down, he received from William McEllroy, the dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, an offer which included a promise that he would run his own lab. He accepted, and in the fall of that year, left Michigan and relocated to Pennsylvania. But the promise was not quite what he expected. After Salk arrived at Pittsburgh, "he discovered that he had been relegated to cramped, unequipped quarters in the basement of the old Municipal Hospital," writes Bookchin. As time went on, however, Salk began securing grants from the Mellon family and was able to build a working virology laboratory, where he continued his research on flu vaccines.

And it was a result of that long period of hard work that he got the invitation to work on a polio vaccine. It's a good thing he didn't quit in a huff when the going got tough.

Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab

#36

Post by yuhong »

seiji wrote: post #24
jnazario wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's usually a mix of things. first, while you may be drawn to that type of work, not everyone is. some people really enjoy the work they do in other parts of the company. second, if you're drawn to it, you need to identify the path to it and the needed qualifications. if you don't make the cut, then you know why. that keeps it from being an exclusive "clique" with no obvious merit-based way in, which helps keep the…

second, if you're drawn to it, you need to identify the path to it and the needed qualifications. if you don't make the cut, then you know why. That's a very Big Corp way of thinking. We don't believe in that. Nobody here starts off in the mailroom and works their way up to CEO in 30 years. You start off as a CEO at 21, say to hell with "experience" and "qualifications" — I'll just learn by doing and figure it out as…

>You start off as a CEO at 21, say to hell with "experience" and "qualifications" — I'll just learn by doing and figure it out as we go along.

This reminds me that IMO hiring CEOs based on previous experience at the same job is fundamentally flawed because it creates a paradox.

Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab

#37

Post by jsolson »

michaelochurch wrote: post #34
nostrademons wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....is handy, I used it myself for my startup and liked it a lot better than MySQL. Regardless, you're going to face annoying schleps whatever you work on.

That is true. Even the most exciting work has mundane and difficult elements. There's no avoiding that. What's infuriating is when it's all the mundane stuff, because management took the exciting parts and made them political favors.

> What's infuriating is when it's all the mundane stuff, because management took the exciting parts and made them political favors.

Yeah, that would be awful. Thankfully Google isn't that sort of place.

Re: Inside Google's Secret Lab

#38

Post by dm2 »

nhebb wrote: post #15
ChuckMcM wrote: post #9

Perhaps it is just late and I'm cynical but this screamed "hey we're still cool, c'mon see?" There were a series of articles about Microsoft's research projects that had the same vibe. Perhaps it is the BusinessWeek lens. Hard to say. I cringe though on that title, if its a "secret" lab then you wouldn't know about it, so it isn't secret, so what is it?

It's easy to get cynical about business articles and anything with "secret" in the title. I get that way myself. But since the demise of Bell Labs, it feels like there's a big void to be filled. It probably never will be filled in the same way, but I'm happy to see a big company take on big projects. Other than CERN or NASA, I don't hear too much in the news about big budget R&D / science projects.

University teams around the country have partially filled that void.

DARPA is doing some pretty neat things as well.

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