Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead • Hacker News Board

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#141

Post by g20 » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:44 PM UTC

6d0debc071 wrote: post #94

g20 wrote: post #24

20% time isn't dead -- I have been using it at Google consistently for over 7 years, and it has immensely benefited me. You don't need any permission, at least in engineering. However, I would agree that it is "as good as dead". What killed 20% time? Stack ranking. Google's perf management is basically an elaborate game where using 20% time is a losing move. In my time there, this has become markedly more the case. I…

> What killed 20% time? Stack ranking. This is just a "They did WHAT ?" moment for me. Like, wow. Stack ranking >_< Seriously?

Well, actually Google has had stack ranking forever, since before I got there. I remember my first manager (as a new hire) was telling me about this weird ritual where managers got together in a room and talked about everyone and wrote stuff down.

It is a bit puzzling to me that Google was pretty innovative in a lot of areas, including HR policy, but the perf stuff is unimaginative and rote. Then again, I don't necessarily have a better solution for a company of its size.

From a personal perspective I think it's great to give up a level and 10-20% salary for increased time learning things. Google already pays at least 10-20% more than other places which DON'T have 20% time.

From the company perspective, I think it is sad that 20% time is becoming less and less relevant.

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#142

Post by varelse » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

orblivion wrote: post #127

Spooky23 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a management perspective, you're forgetting about the obvious: the less than productive people. The benefit of giving employees no- or few-strings attached time to work on whatever is clear. Things like GMail, Apple 1, etc. The "cost" is that people are doing things that don't necessarily contribute to the bottom line -- for every GMail, there are 1,000 low-impact ideas. When your ability to make money hand over…

And then consider that Google's hiring standards seem to have decreased as they need a lot of people and not just the best. Thus 20% of more average people's time is going to be a lot less valuable on average.

While their standards have definitely dropped because they hired me in 2011, they then proceeded to assign hirees like myself to all the work no one else wanted to do around the googleplex.

I suspect this was one of Larry's failed experiments because a whole bunch of the people I met were let go within a year. I personally fled the place after a couple months of trying and failing to find work remotely suitable to my skillset, which was, ironically, what led them to recruit me in the first place.

Great perks, lousy work.

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#143

Post by jzwinck » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:46 PM UTC

mattzito wrote: post #59

hvs wrote: post #39

Six months after he took the reins, Page announced that Google would adopt a “more wood behind fewer arrows” strategy that would put more of Google’s resources and employees behind a smaller number of projects. There's nothing more soul-crushing for an organization than a board of directors.

I think it's not unreasonable for senior management at a company to say, "Geez, you know, we have our fingers in too many pies". Sometimes their logic is sound - they're distractions, they're consuming resources that could be used on core business ideas, we can shift innovation to a focused group of our core innovators. And sometimes it's not sound - it's purely about the dollars and sense. But to argue that the boar…

"we can shift innovation to a focused group of our core innovators"

It might be easier to manage a separate Innovation Department, but what happens when someone on another team has a great idea? Do we transfer that person to the Innovation Department to continue innovating? What would that mean for their team left behind, relieved explicitly of responsibility, and implicitly of capability, to innovate?

Maybe the whole company should be tasked with innovation, but innovators should be allowed 80% time to write CRUD apps if they so choose.

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#144

Post by gaius » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:47 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #128

api wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind, given the big money involved, why so many people continue to bet huge sums of cash on the proven short-term penny-wise/pound-foolish idiocy of MBA-think. I mean sure-- if your company is under cash flow pressure you have to pinch pennies. You have no choice. Spreadsheet says so, and spreadsheet's the boss. But if you're not, you should be investing and thinking long term cause the other guys proba…

You are sooooo right on with this. The top-10 MBA cult is awful. These are usually those people you knew in high school/college who were excellent at studying for and passing tests. Excellent at getting great grades on projects. Excellent at everything except building ANYTHING. I think that the people who are best at building things that people want don't want to get an MBA. They instead choose to spend their time bu…

When we say a child is talented, we usually mean they are a good learner. When we say an adult is talented, we mean they are a good doer. But these are actually two different axes.

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#145

Post by api » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #128

api wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind, given the big money involved, why so many people continue to bet huge sums of cash on the proven short-term penny-wise/pound-foolish idiocy of MBA-think. I mean sure-- if your company is under cash flow pressure you have to pinch pennies. You have no choice. Spreadsheet says so, and spreadsheet's the boss. But if you're not, you should be investing and thinking long term cause the other guys proba…

You are sooooo right on with this. The top-10 MBA cult is awful. These are usually those people you knew in high school/college who were excellent at studying for and passing tests. Excellent at getting great grades on projects. Excellent at everything except building ANYTHING. I think that the people who are best at building things that people want don't want to get an MBA. They instead choose to spend their time bu…

"I think that the people who are best at building things that people want don't want to get an MBA."

I know MBA school will be the first thing I do in hell.

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#146

Post by ferdo » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

mkolodny wrote: post #120

ferdo wrote: post #11

I'd point out that Page and Brin predicted the course of their own search engine, and perhaps their own company, in 1998: “The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users.” “We expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers.” “Advertising income often provides an incentiv…

This is an interesting point, but I don't see how it relates to Google doing away with 20% time.

Just watching as an interested outsider for all these years and partly based on the paper quoted above, much of Google's early energy and innovation was based on the simple idea of extending and applying knowledge of the new field in service to users.

When that focus shifted to exactly what Page and Brin had criticized themselves in 1998, we can clearly see that it's not the interests of the users being served anymore.

The decline of 20% time appears to go hand in hand with this shift from the focus on the user to focus on the advertiser and other interests first. I'm not claiming direct correlation but it's not a stretch to say there might be some connection.

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#147

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:51 PM UTC

riffraff wrote: post #132

toyg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Embarrassing attempts at social networks (wave, err, that other one I'm forgetting) You mean Orkut. That was weird: it got wildly popular in Brazil, India, Turkey and other places, but never really took off in "the West" (weird name, bad quality when first released, boring UI...). I guess most of its members (it's still going!) will become G+ users, so it wasn't a complete failure in the end (in fact, a large userba…

More likely imho, he meant google buzz

or + ?

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#148

Post by api » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

Graham24 wrote: post #131

api wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind, given the big money involved, why so many people continue to bet huge sums of cash on the proven short-term penny-wise/pound-foolish idiocy of MBA-think. I mean sure-- if your company is under cash flow pressure you have to pinch pennies. You have no choice. Spreadsheet says so, and spreadsheet's the boss. But if you're not, you should be investing and thinking long term cause the other guys proba…

Side Issue: do Americans really say "penny-wise/pound-foolish"? I'd have thought it'd been dollar. And what exactly is a po-dunk school when it's at home?

(1) Yes

(2) A po-dunk school is any school not on the coasts and not in the top ten, possibly excluding a small number of top-tier schools in "flyover country."

(*) Flyover country is the large area you fly over when traveling between, say, Boston and San Francisco.

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#149

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:53 PM UTC

donw wrote: post #18

Few people remember it, but the same thing happened at HP. It used to be that HP engineers were expressly given Friday afternoons and full access to company resources to just play with new ideas. Among other things, this led to HP owning the printer market. Then "professional" management came in and killed the proverbial goose. They had to focus more on the "bottom line". To do what was easy to measure and track, rat…

The same thing may have happened at HP, but at Google is isn't happening (yet). It may happen but to claim that 20% time is gone is simply false.

Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

#150

Post by samatman » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 2:53 PM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #81

api wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It boggles my mind, given the big money involved, why so many people continue to bet huge sums of cash on the proven short-term penny-wise/pound-foolish idiocy of MBA-think. I mean sure-- if your company is under cash flow pressure you have to pinch pennies. You have no choice. Spreadsheet says so, and spreadsheet's the boss. But if you're not, you should be investing and thinking long term cause the other guys proba…

I don't think the decision had anything to do with money. It's part of the whole "more wood behind fewer arrows" initiative. Essentially, a defrag. 20% time was seen as having created too much fragmentation with little benefit. Gmail was the only major success to come from the program. Also, Google has a separate team for working on skunk works style projects.

Metaphor is not reality, but that metaphor is terrible. I'm an archer: you want as many arrows as fit in the quiver, and as far as more wood, well, we've switched to carbon fiber shafts for a reason. When you shoot an arrow, velocity gets you to your target, and velocity penetrates it too. Extra weight is a literal drag.