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Culture Change at Google

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Re: Culture Change at Google

#131

Post by Ntrails »

poisonborz wrote: post #125
tavavex wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Valve does have a reputation for having this type of model. They've famously expressed an intention to not go public or sell the company to anyone else. This is also what leads to them being a fairly small and selective company that can afford to cherry-pick employees, and that also has an allegedly more employee-friendly culture than others. Just like the recollection in the original post, they might have th…

I would argue that they made a really good early bet with Steam which rakes in enough profit that they can keep this (or whatever) mindset. They never really had competition in the PC space. If they would need to come up with new and better products each fiscal year they would look very different.

I feel like you could have said the same about google or facebook. They made a dominant early platform and could have comfortably lived off that success?

There are a bunch of companies trying to compete with valve. They are not behind any more of a moat than anyone else.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#132

Post by mrintegrity »

redcobra762 wrote: post #68

Someone I used to work with was acquihired into Google, despite being one of the most manipulative, conniving, duplicitous people I’ve ever met. A person like this can get found out at companies that value talent (he has none), but at Google, he’s thriving . This ruined the shine of a Google resume, for me. It’s still great, but it’s just a job now. I look at the specific skills applied during an applicant’s time the…

I was at a big conference in Dublin years ago where a Google talking head stated to hundreds of people that "google only hires the most intelligent people" with a grotesquely smug look on her face, instantly turned me off from ever considering applying to work there. Incidentally RMS was also there and screamed from the back "WHICH BSD LICENSE?" when the Google drone said google uses "the bsd license", which I thought was hilarious.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#133

Post by sparrowInHand »

poisonborz wrote: post #121
zamfi wrote: post #24

Is any company still like this? I was at Google in ‘06-07, and again ‘09-11, and already there were obvious differences. You just can’t scale “total internal transparency” when the company doubles in size every year. And at some point you need just plain-old-“good” engineers to make the A/B tests happen and all the other stuff that doesn’t excite the PhDs. And at some point you need product people too, because you st…

Yes, and there's no good way around this - no human organisation can scale beyond a certain (quite early) point without becoming an immoral profit machine. I wish society would better understand this, and governments would add caps. Of course no one on the world political stage would handicap their economy like this.

This is because, states at some size become immoral power machines deeply distrusting one another.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#134

Post by eru »

0xpgm wrote: post #48
zamfi wrote: post #24

Is any company still like this? I was at Google in ‘06-07, and again ‘09-11, and already there were obvious differences. You just can’t scale “total internal transparency” when the company doubles in size every year. And at some point you need just plain-old-“good” engineers to make the A/B tests happen and all the other stuff that doesn’t excite the PhDs. And at some point you need product people too, because you st…

I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Maybe become profitable and pay off the VCs then don't go public? Then you can resist the pressure for growth quarter by quarter, and remain the 'right size' that your internal culture demands. Did Valve corporation do something like that?

> I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets.

Google (and Facebook etc) are controlled by their founders (some even as majority shareholders). There's no blaming financial markets here.

Facebook was even happy to set fire to a giant pile of cash in pursuit of the 'metaverse', a project that approximately no investors wanted, but that was dear to the heart of their founder.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#135

Post by rapnie »

eru wrote: post #134
0xpgm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Maybe become profitable and pay off the VCs then don't go public? Then you can resist the pressure for growth quarter by quarter, and remain the 'right size' that your internal culture demands. Did Valve corporation do something like that?

> I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Google (and Facebook etc) are controlled by their founders (some even as majority shareholders). There's no blaming financial markets here. Facebook was even happy to set fire to a giant pile of cash in pursuit of the 'metaverse', a project that approximately no investors wanted, but that was dear to the heart of…

> Facebook was even happy to set fire to a giant pile of cash in pursuit of the 'metaverse'

I always saw it more as priming the market. Throw out this idea, with the apparent weight of Meta behind it, and see how the market jumps on it (or not). If it goes well, Meta as initiator can easily ensure they stay in the lead, gobble up startups and such.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#136

Post by LarsDu88 »

poisonborz wrote: post #125
tavavex wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Valve does have a reputation for having this type of model. They've famously expressed an intention to not go public or sell the company to anyone else. This is also what leads to them being a fairly small and selective company that can afford to cherry-pick employees, and that also has an allegedly more employee-friendly culture than others. Just like the recollection in the original post, they might have th…

I would argue that they made a really good early bet with Steam which rakes in enough profit that they can keep this (or whatever) mindset. They never really had competition in the PC space. If they would need to come up with new and better products each fiscal year they would look very different.

And yet they crank out new and innovative "products" every 4 years. So much so that they were essentially doing 90% of what Meta is trying to do now with 100x less people and budget.

I think the real answer lies in the fact that at a public company, you will need to answer to shareholders, but at Valve, you actually need to answer to the whims of benevolent dictator Gabe Newell.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#137

Post by protomolecule »

Intralexical wrote: post #130
boxed wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You learned how to assume the world is broken, and not fix it. That's the path back to a hunter gatherer society. I think that's the wrong lesson to learn.

Hard agree. But yet, what became of the one who did try to fix it?

He left that shitty place early and lived happily ever after?

Re: Culture Change at Google

#138

Post by eru »

rapnie wrote: post #135
eru wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Google (and Facebook etc) are controlled by their founders (some even as majority shareholders). There's no blaming financial markets here. Facebook was even happy to set fire to a giant pile of cash in pursuit of the 'metaverse', a project that approximately no investors wanted, but that was dear to the heart of…

> Facebook was even happy to set fire to a giant pile of cash in pursuit of the 'metaverse' I always saw it more as priming the market. Throw out this idea, with the apparent weight of Meta behind it, and see how the market jumps on it (or not). If it goes well, Meta as initiator can easily ensure they stay in the lead, gobble up startups and such.

That's plausible, and perhaps what Mr Zuckerberg had in mind?

But investors, or at least their opinion aggregated via the share price, had a different opinion at the time.

(Investors are often happy to bet on speculative things, as long as they have a positive expected value.)

Re: Culture Change at Google

#139

Post by bitcharmer »

0xpgm wrote: post #48
zamfi wrote: post #24

Is any company still like this? I was at Google in ‘06-07, and again ‘09-11, and already there were obvious differences. You just can’t scale “total internal transparency” when the company doubles in size every year. And at some point you need just plain-old-“good” engineers to make the A/B tests happen and all the other stuff that doesn’t excite the PhDs. And at some point you need product people too, because you st…

I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Maybe become profitable and pay off the VCs then don't go public? Then you can resist the pressure for growth quarter by quarter, and remain the 'right size' that your internal culture demands. Did Valve corporation do something like that?

> I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets.

Yes, just don't hire MBAs with fetish for shareholder value

Re: Culture Change at Google

#140

Post by JeffSnazz »

0xpgm wrote: post #48
zamfi wrote: post #24

Is any company still like this? I was at Google in ‘06-07, and again ‘09-11, and already there were obvious differences. You just can’t scale “total internal transparency” when the company doubles in size every year. And at some point you need just plain-old-“good” engineers to make the A/B tests happen and all the other stuff that doesn’t excite the PhDs. And at some point you need product people too, because you st…

I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Maybe become profitable and pay off the VCs then don't go public? Then you can resist the pressure for growth quarter by quarter, and remain the 'right size' that your internal culture demands. Did Valve corporation do something like that?

> I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets.

Growth and private investment are part and parcel.

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