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Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

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Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#21

Post by nostrademons »

moultano wrote: post #20
dschobel wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any Google product which is as frivolous as FB. Maybe buzz and wave (RIP). People would not take down-time in gmail, analytics, calendar, search, maps, et al lightly.

I work near the people that did goo.gl, and even though it has higher uptime and lower latency than any other url shortener, there's pressure on them to make it even faster and more reliable. We definitely have an institutional mentality that speed and reliability are the best features, and every other feature is secondary. (Not saying this is a bad thing, it just biases us towards certain types of products.)

For most "panda" tasks, isn't that the case? When people use a product to do something, they evaluate it based on how well it helps them accomplish that. Speed and reliability are important features there.

This model completely falls down for "lobster" tasks, which may be why Google sucks at social. But a URL-shortener, along with most of Google's products, is a panda task. I don't think that the emphasis on speed & reliability is misplaced there.

Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#22

Post by dschobel »

nostrademons wrote: post #21
moultano wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work near the people that did goo.gl, and even though it has higher uptime and lower latency than any other url shortener, there's pressure on them to make it even faster and more reliable. We definitely have an institutional mentality that speed and reliability are the best features, and every other feature is secondary. (Not saying this is a bad thing, it just biases us towards certain types of products.)

For most "panda" tasks, isn't that the case? When people use a product to do something, they evaluate it based on how well it helps them accomplish that. Speed and reliability are important features there. This model completely falls down for "lobster" tasks, which may be why Google sucks at social. But a URL-shortener, along with most of Google's products, is a panda task. I don't think that the emphasis on speed &…

Sorry, can you explain what constitutes a "panda" or a "lobster" task?

Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#23

Post by paul »

avar wrote: post #12
holman wrote: post #8

I despise posts like these. I hate being so negative about it, but it doesn't say anything. "Facebook has smart employees. Facebook wants you to learn new things. Facebook has impact." None of it is novel or interesting. I wish there were more of a culture of insider writing while the events were going on. When Facebook pushed Questions and then retracted it, I'd love to see a blog post about "Yeah, we pushed Questio…

At least he didn't mention how great the food was. That's a step up from every "I love being at Google" post ever.

I love the food at Facebook. People underestimate how important good food is.

Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#24

Post by nostrademons »

dschobel wrote: post #22
nostrademons wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For most "panda" tasks, isn't that the case? When people use a product to do something, they evaluate it based on how well it helps them accomplish that. Speed and reliability are important features there. This model completely falls down for "lobster" tasks, which may be why Google sucks at social. But a URL-shortener, along with most of Google's products, is a panda task. I don't think that the emphasis on speed &…

Sorry, can you explain what constitutes a "panda" or a "lobster" task?

http://ifindkarma.posterous.com/pandas-and-lobsters-why-goog...

Was all over Hacker News for a while, with several discussion threads referring to it afterwards.

Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#25

Post by derwiki »

paul wrote: post #23
avar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least he didn't mention how great the food was. That's a step up from every "I love being at Google" post ever.

I love the food at Facebook. People underestimate how important good food is.

But not to everyone. One of the benefits of working in SoMa is that people who care about good food can get it, and people who just want to grab a burrito from the taco truck can do that too.

Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#26

Post by donaldc »

alanh wrote: post #4

Interesting, but hard to consider a "look back" posted on an official Facebook blog as anything but necessarily whitewashed. (Not knocking.)

Agreed. Things are probably not as ideal as that post makes them sound.

What facebook is essentially saying with this post is: "We're an engineer/programmer-driven company. If you're a good engineer, you'd like working here."

The hoped-for effect is probably to continue attracting good engineers. Many companies that aren't engineer-centric probably wouldn't even know how to say this in their official blog, much less actually bother to say it. So the fact they're saying it still carries some weight.

Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#27

Post by avar »

paul wrote: post #23
avar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least he didn't mention how great the food was. That's a step up from every "I love being at Google" post ever.

I love the food at Facebook. People underestimate how important good food is.

Yes, I'm sure it's nice. But it doesn't make for very interesting reading material. It's like knowing that your office has view.

It's interesting to read about what technologies companies use, how they use them etc. Not about things you could see if you flicked over to Martha Stewart.

Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#28

Post by cdibona »

avar wrote: post #12
holman wrote: post #8

I despise posts like these. I hate being so negative about it, but it doesn't say anything. "Facebook has smart employees. Facebook wants you to learn new things. Facebook has impact." None of it is novel or interesting. I wish there were more of a culture of insider writing while the events were going on. When Facebook pushed Questions and then retracted it, I'd love to see a blog post about "Yeah, we pushed Questio…

At least he didn't mention how great the food was. That's a step up from every "I love being at Google" post ever.

I agree, and I work at google.

Re: Reflecting on 3 Years At Facebook

#29

Post by mattmanser »

dschobel wrote: post #18
moultano wrote: post #5

The "break things" part of "move fast and break things" is something Google could learn a bit from. (Speaking as a Googler.) We're great at adding 9s of reliability, not as great at sacrificing reliability for progress. You can only move so fast when everything must work. This is the liability I guess of having a huge launch audience for even minor products.

I can't think of any Google product which is as frivolous as FB. Maybe buzz and wave (RIP). People would not take down-time in gmail, analytics, calendar, search, maps, et al lightly.

I can. It's very easy.

Everything Google makes apart from Google search.

The rest of Google is minor and tiny compared to Facebook.

They have one seriously profitable product. At the moment, the rest of it is all fluff.

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