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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

#341

Post by dekhn »

jrockway wrote: post #325
calinet6 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'm hearing is that the dream of Google has been reduced to some characteristic bullet points and a reasonably positive conclusion. This isn't a criticism or negativity, all things considered it seems to be a great company to work for; it just seems to be a bit more homogenized than it used to be.

I think you hear a lot of bullet points because it's hard to write a HN comment that describes everything about Google in one sentence. Let me tell you a story from my recent experience. My neck hurts from time to time, and as part of stopping that, I decided that one thing I needed to do was to not sit at my desk anymore. Fortunately, I already had a standing desk at work, so it was just a matter of using it. When I…

When one of my coworkers (at Google), outside of work, crash-landed his parachute and was in the hospital for months:

1) his manager (my manager) spent the next two days with a translator contacting his family back in Iran to explain what happened 2) paid a huge amount of money to have him rehabbed. He had brain damage. They did a great job- he had access to awesome rehab people and regained a ton of brain function. 3) worked hard to get his work visa extended while he was out of work.

I use bullet points because they are a succinct way to list several orthogonal items. Please don't take my data and generalize to all of Google. All I can say is that this company is pretty incredible, and much of what get published about it isn't very accurate.

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

#342

Post by mcherm »

jacquesm wrote: post #149
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.

Do you have information that contradicts the description in the article? Because the article claims that the 20% time is still "official policy", but that employees are expected to still put in 100% time on their normal project (and measured on doing so) and that they also need permission to start a "20% time" project and finally that management has been instructed to be parsimonious in granting this permission.

The article claims that "20% time" at Google is no longer real; do you dispute this?

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

#343

Post by GoldfishCRM »

This is great news. Even Google that where a startup started are starting with big business bad manners. All of us know that starting a company is much much easier then it was before and defently not like in the 1950 where you needed a lot of money to get going. All of my worries that google will keep a dominated position on the market is gone. So lets go out there and kill it.

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

#344

Post by billnguyen »

vijayboyapati wrote: post #279

I worked at Google from 2002-2007, and the dirty little secret is that there is no 20% time. It's 120% time. You work a full schedule, and if you want to put in extra hours for a side project go ahead. I explicitly asked to use 20%-time to work on a side project (i.e., literally take 1 day a week to work on it) and was refused. 20% time has always been a great marketing gimmick for Google. I remember interviewing can…

As a former Googler definitely agree with the 120% time. But I think its more because its hard to do any work effectively only once a week. So in order to make your 20% time be useful you just have to put in more time than 20%. And obviously you can't reduce your other workload so you put in extra time to make your 20% project successful.

And for what its worth, I personally have never had a problem requesting for 20% time. Like all big companies, it really depends on your team and boss. I believe your experience of straight out rejection is more the exception than the rule.

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

#345

Post by jrockway »

dekhn wrote: post #341
jrockway wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you hear a lot of bullet points because it's hard to write a HN comment that describes everything about Google in one sentence. Let me tell you a story from my recent experience. My neck hurts from time to time, and as part of stopping that, I decided that one thing I needed to do was to not sit at my desk anymore. Fortunately, I already had a standing desk at work, so it was just a matter of using it. When I…

When one of my coworkers (at Google), outside of work, crash-landed his parachute and was in the hospital for months: 1) his manager (my manager) spent the next two days with a translator contacting his family back in Iran to explain what happened 2) paid a huge amount of money to have him rehabbed. He had brain damage. They did a great job- he had access to awesome rehab people and regained a ton of brain function.…

All I can say is that this company is pretty incredible, and much of what get published about it isn't very accurate.

Couldn't agree more. Partially-truthful stories titled "Google used to be a great place to work but isn't anymore," seem to make a lot of HN commenters very happy. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, back to complaining about how I don't like the new pour-over coffees that the baristas upstairs make. Replacing Intelligentsia with Stumptown? How dare they! What a terrible place to work! :)

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

#346

Post by driverdan »

dekhn wrote: post #122

I am a Googler. I will only speak to my personal experience, and the experience of people around me: 20% time still exists, and is encouraged as a mechanism to explore exciting new ideas without the complexity and cost of a real product. My last three years were spent turning my 20% project into a product, and my job now is spent turning another 20% project into a product. There was never any management pressure from…

> Calling 20% time 120% time is fair. Realistically it's hard to do your day job productively and also build a new project from scratch. You have to be willing to put in hours outside of your normal job to be successful.

Then it's not 20% time, it's personal time you're giving to your employer for free. Why would you do that? Why not build your projects outside of Google and keep them for yourself (assuming it's a product and not open source)?

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

#347

Post by deelowe »

Shooti wrote: post #227
deelowe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Google Now: http://memeburn.com/2013/03/from-a-20-project-to-googles-fut... If IO 13 is to be believed its become an essential pillar of their current vision/roadmap for search (Answer, Converse, Anticipate).

Did not know about now. Thanks.

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

#348

Post by pigscantfly »

jknightco wrote: post #222
orblivion wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think Google's hiring standards have decreased, they've just shifted their focus away from inaccurate signals such as where you went to University and what your GPA was there. One could argue that Google's hiring standards have actually increased, as they're now hiring people who can demonstrate an ability to perform instead of people who were able to get a pretty piece of paper from Stanford.

Full disclosure: I'm a rising senior at Stanford, so maybe your comment is just irritating to me on a personal level. That said, the Stanford CS department is objectively very good; further, judging by the number of people I know who have abandoned or failed out of CS here, plenty of people wouldn't be able to complete the coursework for the undergrad degree even if they were all enrolled. I agree that hiring people based on their school is bad practice (see: people failing out of CS), but I don't think it's fair to call any engineering degree a "pretty piece of paper." I've put too much work into mine for that.

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

#349

Post by deelowe »

voidlogic wrote: post #153
deelowe wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Gmail was the only major success to come from the program. Adsense, Go? I'm sure there are others too...

I don't think adsense has done very well. Does Go generate revenue?

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

#350

Post by dylangs1030 »

vitobcn wrote: post #216
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…

I really don't see the need to stereotype, and even less to call names. Personally, I have worked as a software developer, and I do also have an MBA, and I strongly believe that my broad/diverse education allows me to better interface with people from different backgrounds within a work environment. Are there ways to obtain broad skills (technical, management, etc.) which are more time effective, cost effective, etc.…

I'm glad you made this comment. It's disheartening that so many people in this community lash out at MBAs like they're viral scum. Stereotyping never solves anything.
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