Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Personally, I like to understand problems, rather than grok them."
"Personally, I like people"
Personally, I like persons.
Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
311–320 of 498 posts
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#312Few 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…
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…
This is a story about Google, which is still led by its technical founders (who are also huge equity holders with a long-term interest) and who don't have MBAs? If 20% is getting killed, it's getting killed because Larry Page wants it dead.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#313Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ouch! UC Comp Sci graduate here, whats wrong with UC?
Nothing. It was great, and the profs were excellent. But it's not on the coasts so it might as well be from somewhere that ends in -stan. :)
Could be from University of North Dakota, who got the pleasure (early 90's) of being told by Microsoft that they only hired our graduates for Tech Support because we had a nice accent and worked hard (being, of course, all farmer's kids).
Oh, well, at least I had low debt (few $K, paid off easily) even though I got screwed on scholarships by my high school.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've gone on about this elsewhere (search my comments), but it comes down to the utter stupidity of blind allocation for experienced engineers. There were projects that literally needed my exact skill set, and engineers on those teams did their best to try and open up a position for me on them, but middle-level management and HR blocked all their efforts. I could have stayed a year and hoped for the best, but by then…
I'm curious - were the projects you wanted to transfer to in niche technical areas or niche products? It's very easy at Google to transfer from niche to core. If we (in Search) see someone languishing in another part of the company with skills that we want and they want to work with us, we make the transfer happen, and there's nothing HR or another manager can do about it. It's much harder to transfer from core to ni…
I was in a core technical area trying to transfer into another core technical area in both cases (really, they needed me elsewhere, I could have made a genuine difference, and the blind allocation process completely hosed that up).
I also didn't know upfront that little tidbit that whatever assignment I took, I would be stuck there for 4-5 years. If I had known that, I would not have accepted my initial assignment, nor any other, until it was something I knew I'd remotely enjoy, and I'd probably still be there today.
So by relentlessly focusing on short-term ROI, Google lost 100% with me.
If they're going to insist on blind allocation, then they ought to not be surprised when it doesn't work out. But I gather the heuristic is to assume these cases are a 100% indicator of non-googliness.
Again, whatever...
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
It entirely depends on your manager and team. Some managers might want you to ask permission, and/or if you take the "forgiveness" approach your relationship with that manager might suffer. But that's because people are people. I can't imagine my former TLM ever taking 20% time, but I can thoroughly imagine him encouraging every single one of his direct reports to do so, unless we were on a launch sprint.
Frankly, I don't think that inconsistant application of rules, and relying on a good Manager is a good thing overall. I don't want to equate this with working at Google, because I don't have enough information, but here's my anecdote about good managers: Twice before I've worked with spectacular managers. They treated their employees well, and acted as great shields against the political infighting inside the company…
> Frankly, I don't think that inconsistant application of rules, and relying on a good Manager is a good thing overall.
If you need humans instead of robots doing a job, that usually (increasingly, as automation advances) means it requires judgement such that pre-written inflexible rules will be inadequate to handle it sufficiently. Which means you need to rely on the judgement of people applying flexible rules for the best results.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#316Earlier 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 root cause of this is company ownership. Even if Page wants to follow an innovative approach, he might not be able to convince the board and the big shareholders to invest long term because they want to see their shares "appreciated". If you want to keep innovating, the company need to stay nimble, with the owner(s) only interested in innovation. I don't know, maybe that's why the startup eco system works. Anothe…
Unless something has changed that I'm not aware of, Google has a share structure that gives Brin and Page effectively full control through shares in a separate class that has 10 times the voting power of the A shares that were offered in the IPO.
So if Page can't convince "the board and the big shareholders" I believe it means he can't convince Brin, not some horde of faceless MBA's or institutional investors.
Your assumption about Bezos relative influence over Amazon seems unlikely, as Bezos Amazon holdings and the lack of a similar share structure means Bezos has far less voting power at Amazon than Page has at Google. Last I heard, Bezos held less than 20% of the voting power at Amazon.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
The policy is that you don't ask, you tell. If your manager needs you to focus on your primary project, she can ask you to bank your 20% time for up to a quarter, but then you get to use that saved time.
So, the employees and other sources cited by the author are lying about needing manager permission? Or are you in an unintendedly unique position?
Looks like someone's never heard of sample bias before.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
I say this as somebody who suffered through getting a professional management degree as well: I think the observed pattern is that we repeatedly see startups get kicked off, grow like wildfire, then turned into an empty shell of their former selves once the "professional management team" is brought in as they promptly kill off all of the reasons the company was growing in the first place in favor of short-term (bonus…
Matthew Stewart's "the management myth" runs with this thesis. Google it - the Atlantic article is a great read. He explicitly links the Tom Peters types with televangelists and self help infomercial pitchmen.
I remember this article when it came out and thinking how well it mirrored my own experience. I almost feel like I just summarized his 5 pages ;)
The Mayo lighting experiment is an awesome and sadly typical example of the kind of shit poor "research" that goes into the field. With premises, methodologies and outcomes so flimsy a six year old could poke holes in it. Yet these kinds of "studies" are published and taken as a great advances and contributions to "management science".
Before you know it, based on one or two of this "studies", great fads sweep the ranks of professional management and we end up with bizarre and counter-productive management initiatives. When those plans inevitably fails and some consulting firm is brought in and recommends a house cleaning, new management is brought in who's only worth is that they're more up to date on the latest fads and reshape the company along those lines...generating lots and lots of activity (reorg after reorg after reorg) but no actual value.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google is expanding quite a bit in Pittsburgh, New York, and a few other locations. I wonder if this is why? I also wonder though if the real estate hyperinflation of the valley is a factor. It negatively impacts the ability to attract out of town talent when a "starter home" is one million dollars and a decent apartment is over $3000/month. It also impacts retention. I meet a lot of folks from the Valley and SF who…
Expanding in New York because of real estate prices in Silicon Valley? That sounds nutty, but maybe I'm missing something.
Take a look. Silicon Valley real estate prices are unhinged. I mean like frothing at the mouth, must be restrained or else he'll bite his tongue off crazy.
Manhattan is similar to SV, but the thing is this: it is possible in New York to find reasonable (for the local market) real estate within a reasonable commute from work in one of the boroughs. It won't be the trendiest, but it's going to be okay.
In SV you are talking about $800k or $2500+ a month for places that in other parts of the country would be called a "crack den." Either that, or you are going to be both far away and in an utterly dull, depressing suburb.
SV is America's only six-figure ghetto. There is nowhere else where so much buys so little. Driving around on my most recent visit I was shocked by the squalor of these six-figure engineers and millionaires (relative to what you'd get for that price in sane markets).
I'm not a local so I can't say for sure, but I'd be strongly tempted to blame the anti-development political mentality. With growing demand and no supply, this is gonna happen.
Re: Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like it a lot. I eat about 10 meals a week there, have lost about 25 pounds, and I hate going out to restaurants because you have to pay and the food isn't as good.
You're probably going to crappy restaurants.
I don't think you've eaten in a Google cafeteria then. The food here really is top-notch. An equivalent restaurant would cost you between $25 and $35 a plate, possibly more depending on the day. I've had meals that would have easily cost me more than $50 anywhere else.