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

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

#251

Post by spankalee »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #182
spankalee wrote: post #124

As a Googler, I can confirm that this article is... completely wrong. I don't have to get approval to take 20% time, and I work with a number of people on their 20% projects. I can also confirm that many people don't take their 20% time. Whether it's culture change due to new hiring, lack of imagination, pressure to excel on their primary project, I'm not sure, but it is disappointing. Still, in engineering No permis…

What would make this a more durable statement is if you could say "I don't have to get approval to take 20% time, and I work with a number of people on their 20% projects. And my calibration scores are the not different than when I don't use my 20% time. " There is a reason the article talked to many ex-googlers because they are ones who, perhaps, left when there was a difference of opinion about their contribution t…

Look, this is the type of thing that's impossible to settle, because yes, different managers and _peers_ might view things differently. As you know, but people here might not, there's as much weight on peer reviews as your manager's review. So what the article didn't mention (which is why I don't think they talked to that many ex-Googlers) is that if your peers feel like you're slacking your perf score will be lower, so even they could view 20% time negatively, if they wanted to.

The policy of course is to not do that, but how would Google enforce that? If you spent 200% of your time on your primary project, you might get excellent reviews. Should you be calibrated 50% lower to normalize everyone? So yes, if you work 100% on your primary and +20% on your 20p, then you might get higher perf scores. Eh, if you have a good idea how to correct for that, go ahead, but it's a people problem and people are hard to deal with in these kinds of thing.

This is one reason why I actively encourage as many people to take their 20% time as possible. :)

My personal experience though is very positive regarding 20% time. My first project, I started, gathered a few contributors, built a prototype, pitched it and turned it into a full-fledged project. I got great reviews and promoted in large part because of that. In my second PA I work on open source projects. Less glamorous, and maybe less perf-impacting, but that's not my goal right now.

In general the people I've seen take 20% time in a focused way tend to be the higher-performers. They're more self-guided, more critical of problems that need to be solved, or use 20% time to teach themselves or move onto harder problems. Maybe as we've grown the percentage of employees like that has shrunk, maybe it takes a while to realize you have 20% time. Not sure, but I'd like to see it be used more, it's good for everyone.

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

#252

Post by zafka »

While I am saddened by the fact that this is coming to an end, I understand it. I have always wanted to work in a "Bell labs" type of environment. Now that the little fish I was working at got bought by "big Corp" I have been angling to get something like this started at our division. But.... while I have the type of mind that does very well pulling in disparate ideas and melding them together, I have found that a lot of the other engineers, even the very smart ones, are not always good at invention. I can imagine that Google, has possibly found a way to identify the best group to allow the extra free time, rather than allowing it to everyone. Ideally, if they gave 75 to 100% freedom to the 1 to 5% that have the "gene" of true creativity, they will be better off.

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

#254

Post by onebaddude »

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…

>"The top-10 MBA cult is awful."

SV technorati pretentiousness is awful.

>"MBA people love to go to school and get pieces of paper that say "pay me I'm smart."

As opposed to some "Silicon Valley" types that don't have a clue about what it means to run a business, and say "pay me with investors money, I have lots of users!"

>"I have to go in and deal with these assholes all the time. I have hard numbers, they have hand-wavey MBA speak bullshit."

You sound like you don't have a clue what getting an MBA actually entails. Your comment is full of ignorance and generalizations.

Where does this idea that "an MBA" made this decision even come from? Google is run by an engineer. Point your misinformed, misdirected, stereotype hatred elsewhere.

This community is getting worse every day.

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

#255

Post by hga »

zeckalpha wrote: post #158
officemonkey wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses that make material goods like 3M and Corning _have_ to innovate. If you don't keep innovating, you're going to lose your lead in established products (post-it notes, corningware) to China or WallMart. Apple has a similar story with Android phones. Keep innovating or get your low-end eaten. Google doesn't have to innovate. They're already China. If somebody makes something they like, they'll buy it. Or make…

The examples you mention for 3M and Corning are valid patent reasons. If a company is going to productize their invention, they should have some protection. They are encouraged to innovate because of the patent process. The same does not apply to Apple and Google. Additionally, Corning sold off the Corningware brand to a non-research focused company. They've pivoted again, and their research (and relationships with A…

Which I suspect is doing Corning some brand damage. Pyrex(TM) used to be really tough low-expansion borosilicate glass, or perhaps properly tempered soda-lime glass, truly great stuff. Now outside of Europe and lab glassware it's non-tempered generic soda-lime glass, which is injuring quite a few people: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/08/pyrex.html

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

#256

Post by api »

onebaddude wrote: post #254
JPKab wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> "The top-10 MBA cult is awful." SV technorati pretentiousness is awful. > "MBA people love to go to school and get pieces of paper that say "pay me I'm smart." As opposed to some "Silicon Valley" types that don't have a clue about what it means to run a business, and say "pay me with investors money, I have lots of users!" > "I have to go in and deal with these assholes all the time. I have hard numbers, they have…

SV technorati pretentiousness is indeed awful sometimes, and stereotypical MBAs do not have a monopoly on brain-dead business ideas.

But last I checked SV and California in general pumped out more innovation than the rest of the country combined, and is preparing to colonize another planet and electrify transport.

There is obviously something fundamental in the "California mindset" that differs starkly from the majority of the rest of the world, and that ought to be understood. I think it has something to do with reasoning from first principles, and with an expansive risk-tolerant business culture.

That risk tolerance and general liberal thinking is going to generate a fair amount of silly stuff, but it's also going to permit genius.

I forget who said this, but I recall reading it somewhere: "the further West you go, the further into the future you go." I'd say it's not true literally but certainly philosophically.

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

#257

Post by SkyMarshal »

I've always wondered if one day a week was the optimum use of 20% time, given the need for extended concentration and flow to do really good work in software development.

Google has had some success with it obviously, but I wonder how it would have worked had they done it by Quarter or semi-annually instead.

Say, you meet a certain threshold in your performance review, you get a lump sum of ~20% of the time period that the review covers.

Say for a quarterly review, if you meet the threshold, you get 2.6 weeks. Or semi-annually you get 5.2 weeks, straight. You have to be at the office, but you can work on your own project during that time.

5.2 weeks is some serious hacking time, enabling a great deal of extended focus. Highly productive Google engineers could probably bootstrap a startup MVP in that time, except of course Google would own it.

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

#258

Post by api »

mindcrime wrote: post #179
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…

When your ability to make money hand over fist starts to get challenged, it is difficult to continue giving people free reign, especially when your competitors focus on cost, cost, cost. That kind of thinking sounds like it would lead to a "race to the bottom" to me. If everybody is obsessing over - and competing on - a quest to cut costs the most and the fastest, I really don't see how anybody is going to benefit fr…

"Or to put it another way: "You can't cost cut your way to a growing company"."

"For the engine which drives Enterprise is not Thrift, but Profit." - John Maynard Keynes

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

#259

Post by astral303 »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #163
varelse wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1,000x yes! My productivity comes in intense bursts of effort, with quiescent periods of research and reflection between them (or what looks like goofing off to rigidly process-oriented sorts). Combine that variability with mandatory daily scrum meetings and it makes me want to figuratively slit my wrists.

I'll even go a step further. I have a reputation as one of those people who has an ability to get things done at an incredible pace, but there's definitely days where I'm flat-out procrastinating and being lazy. For me, personally, and I suspect other people like me, it comes down to an ability to perform remarkably well under pressure, along with a lack of ability to perform well when the pressure is off. If there's…

It can also be an anxiety thing, if one has generalized anxiety disorder. The anxiety of doing something hard or with higher uncertainty (a challenging software problem) is high, and it takes the even greater anxiety of the high pressure environment to overrule it.

Worth investigating, because it seems like ADD, but it is not. ADHD drugs in this case can be counter-productive as they tend to increase anxiety.

There are techniques to cope with this that can be quite effective.

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

#260

Post by jusben1369 »

toyg wrote: post #60
jusben1369 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness 18 months ago the perception of Google is it was doing a LOT of things but none of them very well. Embarrassing attempts at social networks (wave, err, that other one I'm forgetting) is just one example. So narrowing their focus (still) seems like a good idea. But having great engineers is the most important thing for any success so not sure why you'd take away a mystical founding pillar of your cultu…

>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…

I did mean buzz. I think Orkut was an acquisition if I remember correctly.
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