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Leaving Google

jayconrod.com

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Re: Leaving Google

#151

Post by achow »

cube00 wrote: post #2

> PMs made all the decisions. Engineers (at least at my level) had very little influence. This is interesting given Google used to have a reputation for being an "engineer led" organization, I guess that's slowly changing over time.

This could be Cloud Org characteristic. Enterprise applications cannot be engineering led as tech does not matter but 'checkboxes' do (features).

For checkboxes one needs to be constantly in touch with customers, sales, pre-sales, need to be full time demo giver, etc. These are not the job of engineers and even if it is made so, it is setting them and the team/org/company up for failure on both fronts - frontend and backend.

Re: Leaving Google

#152

Post by Thorrez »

srvmshr wrote: post #111
sillysaurusx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is true. Normally I'd be inclined to agree with you, but the Timnit situation was handled badly. Objectively, there was nothing wrong with her paper. You may have a point about the other researchers. I'm not familiar enough with their situations. But I dug into Timnit's pretty thoroughly. Their recent behavior isn't too encouraging either: https://archive.md/7jCQY (Related Twitter thread: https://tw…

I have mentioned this long time ago and would do so again: No matter how righteous be the cause, threatening your employers and instigating a mutinous conduct with fellow employees doesn't go down too well. Both sides could have done better. Both sides includes Timnit's subsequent conduct as well.

> threatening your employers and instigating a mutinous conduct with fellow employees doesn't go down too well.

That sounds to me like what strikes do. Sometimes they do go down well, sometimes they don't.

Re: Leaving Google

#153

Post by hintymad »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #23
freyir wrote: post #17

“Quite a few activists and researchers were fired for asking Google to be a bit more ethical” In the examples the author cited, those activists and researchers were fired for reasons going beyond “asking Google to be a bit more ethical. And frankly it doesn’t seem ethical for activists, researchers, and the author to deliberately misconstrue facts whenever they believe they’re on the right side of an ethical (and som…

I'm not sure this is true. Normally I'd be inclined to agree with you, but the Timnit situation was handled badly. Objectively, there was nothing wrong with her paper. You may have a point about the other researchers. I'm not familiar enough with their situations. But I dug into Timnit's pretty thoroughly. Their recent behavior isn't too encouraging either: https://archive.md/7jCQY (Related Twitter thread: https://tw…

Timnit is unethical as hell. She's also the worst kind of being unethical: being unethical in the name of doing good. She second guessed the motives of her coworkers. She attributed every difference to her paper or claim to racism or white supremacy or oppression or any combination out of the three. For all I know, only a true racist would view everything through a racial lens.

She's a disgrace to the research community.

Re: Leaving Google

#154

Post by theptip »

Thorrez wrote: post #152
srvmshr wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mentioned this long time ago and would do so again: No matter how righteous be the cause, threatening your employers and instigating a mutinous conduct with fellow employees doesn't go down too well. Both sides could have done better. Both sides includes Timnit's subsequent conduct as well.

> threatening your employers and instigating a mutinous conduct with fellow employees doesn't go down too well. That sounds to me like what strikes do. Sometimes they do go down well, sometimes they don't.

Right, the one-person strikes tend to be less effective.

Re: Leaving Google

#155

Post by ido »

vishnugupta wrote: post #51
oppositelock wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Google from 2005 to 2013, seeing it grow from 4,000 to 50,000 employees during this time. In 2005, it was a wonderful, prestigious place to work with many great people and a startup vibe, the place was vibrant. By 2013, Larry and Sergey were put out to pasture, and the company took on a much more bureaucratic, compartmentalized feel. I was working hard, most of my work was fighting bureaucracy and optimiz…

This is eerily similar to my experience at Amazon including how I feel when I look back. Even the years are same :-). I somehow feel joining and leaving Amazon when I did (2005-2012) was the best thing to have happened. What makes it more special was the stellar team that I got to be a part of with whom I’m still in touch with. It’s like being part of a secret club. The only thing we used to discuss among colleagues…

The funny thing (to me) is that 4000 people already seems unwieldy to me - I run a company of 5 and can imagine managing maybe 20-30 people, 100 at a stretch but I have no idea how to run a company with anywhere close to 4000 employees (nor what would so many people work on).

Re: Leaving Google

#156

Post by ido »

echelon wrote: post #15
ashtonkem wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s kind of incredible how fast the shine has come off of most of the FAANG companies.

They're no longer about breadth, limitless innovation, and moonshots, but rather extraction of platform economic control. They're the new Oracles, except they own mobile, social, and web instead of databases. Start new companies and push them over. Fight their ability to land grab more.

Then you too can be the rent seeker!

Re: Leaving Google

#157

Post by Buge »

choppaface wrote: post #133
ergocoder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dr. Gebru was fired for having approached a lawyer about workplace issues. That is just very dishonest. She gave an ultimatum. Execs accepted the ultimatum. You are gaslighting other people on this topic. At the very least, you should've acknowledged that this is up to an interpretation. Regardless whether she was fired or quit, she was toxic as hell. She dragged Jeff Dean into an unrelated matter in public and imp…

The email about the lawyers is months before the “ultimatum.” The reason Dr Gebru’s case is so divisive in tech (especially in this thread) is because so many are agnostic or ignorant of the role of ethics in tech; and almost every employee is ignorant of how Legal/HR execute retaliation. Anthony Levandowski is a literal criminal and yet is still enjoying tens of millions of dollars of Google’s money. Same with Andy…

Is there any reason to think Michael Church earned more than Dr. Gebru? Michael Church only worked at Google for 6 months, so I would guess none of his stock vested.

Re: Leaving Google

#158

Post by reilly3000 »

ehershey wrote: post #71

While the original site isn’t feeling well: https://archive.md/YV9AQ

I wasn’t able to view the content with this link. I tried using the captcha but it kept unchecking itself. I’m on mobile so I couldn’t debug.

Re: Leaving Google

#160

Post by tsimionescu »

me_me_mu_mu wrote: post #113
Waterluvian wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like this optimistic sentiment. And I think it’s true. I work for a company that’s a unicorn this year. About five years ago it didn’t exist until Amazon decided to drop customer support for their warehouse robots, forcing a warehouse company to build its own replacements. There is still plenty of room for new players to emerge.

This is the best time to be alive, because we can leverage their platforms (ex. google search, YT) to learn anything and everything to ultimately destroy them by building something different. Just excited to live in a time where we (anyone with basic internet access pretty much) can execute runtime hacks on capitalism by changing the inputs a bit while still creating value where it matters to us.

Given the history of Facebook's acquisitions, I think this is a little optimistic. The sheer disgusting amount of money that FAANGs have allows them to buy or undercut any competitor that looks to gain steam.
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