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Google stopping coding competitions

developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#321

Post by Beldin »

jsnell wrote: post #25
shaunsingh0207 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate how "normal" of a company google is becoming. Closing down services and products not because they aren't profitable, but because they aren't profitable enough . They've really lost their way the last few years. In the late 2000's/early 2010's, google was pictured as the "fun" place to work. In part due to their coding competitions and the various other events they held for students throughout the year. Everyon…

> I hate how "normal" of a company google is becoming. Closing down services and products not because they aren't profitable, but because they aren't profitable enough . What specific services and products are you thinking of there? How do you know they were profitable?

Just to be pedantic: not profitable enough doesn't necessarily imply profitable.

Consider, eg, shutting down their (Stadia's) game studio before the release of their first game. First release was scheduled a few months later, with no significant delays having occurred. Nevertheless, shutdown.

No one would expect it to have made a profit without a release. But apparently there was no way they could be profitable enough to warrant keeping.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#322

Post by cvalka »

eitland wrote: post #83
shadowgovt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither do the nerd complainers, apart from scoping their search to a few trusted information repositories (Reddit, StackOverflow, &c). Nobody's cracked the "general search across the whole Internet" nut better than Google has right now. But that nut itself has encountered challenges in yielding value as of late.

Good news: kagi.com is mostly a shell over Google and Bings apis, but they do quality control and they are building their own index. I have paid for months from my own pocket and since I started using it, search doesn't drive me mad anymore. It is not perfect, but anytime I find a problem now a real human verifies it or ask for clarification within hours and a fix is made an pushed with a reference to my report. Also…

The founder of kagi.com - " I was grateful to be the VP of Product at GoDaddy (2016 - 2018)." Thanks, but no thanks.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#323

Post by chlorion »

stephencanon wrote: post #248
chlorion wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to drive a box truck at work and I can definitely confirm that google maps is used heavily. I used Google maps during almost every trip! Finding random addresses in places you aren't familiar with can be difficult and waste a lot of time, with the maps app it would let us go straight to the destination. I can only recall one time that Google maps lead us astray too! It's very accurate even in rural areas and o…

> It's very accurate even in rural areas and on random tiny back roads in the middle of nowhere. … which is how we would end up with a semi stuck on our old street a couple times a year, blocking all traffic for everyone. “Oh, Google said to take this road!”

Well to be fair, I think this is less of an issue of maps being inaccurate and more people blindly following it without considering whether or not their truck can fit down the roads.

Maps does not have a "truck mode" that refuses to lead you down small roads but I always thought that would be a useful feature.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#324

Post by astrange »

jjoonathan wrote: post #311
astrange wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because large companies are good. They're easier to regulate and more productive. If you're a small company, that means you're not good enough to get big, and if you've met SMB owners they're often the most reactionary class of people.

Ha, a genuine pro-monopoly tool, in the flesh! Amazing. Small companies require more overhead (per size) for compliance, yes, but they also have to compete with each other and they can't fight back nearly as effectively with lawyers and lobbyists. > If you're a small company, that means you're not good enough ...at the game of monopoly, which is not a game any of us should be particularly invested in.

This is a forum run by a VC company, you know. Turning small companies into large ones is the whole point!

Though it's not the full Thiel monopolies are good philosophy. I merely think that large companies are not all monopolies, and that they can be monopsonies too, which can be good for consumers. (And they can also pay better and treat employees better than small companies because of the reasons I said above.)

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#325

Post by stbtrax »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #286
stbtrax wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no way your salary is comparable. Are you only counting base and not tcomp? edit: Ah, he's counting start-up equity as not worthless. That's definitely one way to value it.

I was talking about base salary. Zipline has been very proactive about making adjustments to stay fair and competitive, and I have only positive things to say. Regarding total compensation, yes Zipline equity is riskier than Google stock grants. I'm not going to share details, but so far it's trending favorably. I've never worried about compensation details so much, and instead tried to find projects with interesting…

Google's equity is cash. Ziplines is not real. I would much rather work at Zipline but given the delta in cost I would rather not forgo $1-200K a year to work there given bay area housing costs.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#326

Post by jjoonathan »

astrange wrote: post #324
jjoonathan wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, a genuine pro-monopoly tool, in the flesh! Amazing. Small companies require more overhead (per size) for compliance, yes, but they also have to compete with each other and they can't fight back nearly as effectively with lawyers and lobbyists. > If you're a small company, that means you're not good enough ...at the game of monopoly, which is not a game any of us should be particularly invested in.

This is a forum run by a VC company, you know. Turning small companies into large ones is the whole point! Though it's not the full Thiel monopolies are good philosophy. I merely think that large companies are not all monopolies, and that they can be monopsonies too, which can be good for consumers. (And they can also pay better and treat employees better than small companies because of the reasons I said above.)

If YCombinator / VC discussions about high level corporate strategy have not convinced you that megacorps are bad for humanity, I suspect nothing will. Moats, two-sided markets, network effects, blitzscaling -- the victory conditions are very clearly based on avoiding the competitive pressure that is supposed to keep companies in check. Cheating, in other words. It's easy to understand why one would be eager to obtain such a victory, but it's less clear why one would be eager to enable this misbehavior in general. Are you a "temporarily embarrassed Zuckerberg" or merely a simp who has found that the fattest coattails make for the best riding? Either way, yuck.

> they can also pay better and treat employees better than small companies because of the reasons I said above

On the other side of every "easy dollar" is someone getting squeezed hard. Google employees and shareholders love the easy ad dollars, but everyone else pays through the nose for marketing. Apple employees and shareholders love the easy app store dollars, but independent devs and end customers get taken to the cleaners. Your ability to only see one side of this equation represents an extreme failure of imagination. We all pay a heavy price to keep things this way.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#327

Post by md_ »

fenesiistvan wrote: post #310
md_ wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fifteen years ago at Microsoft, most people worked ~40 hour weeks, there were shuttles between Seattle and Redmond, a good gym on campus, and (mostly) private offices. You'd come into work at 9, wander off campus to a nearby restaurant with coworkers for a relaxing lunch at noon (granted, because the food in the cafeterias sucked and cost money), and after a bit of exercise or a nice game of racquetball at the gym, y…

Gym after lunch? :)

We were young, and stupid. ;)

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#329

Post by sgtnoodle »

stbtrax wrote: post #325
sgtnoodle wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about base salary. Zipline has been very proactive about making adjustments to stay fair and competitive, and I have only positive things to say. Regarding total compensation, yes Zipline equity is riskier than Google stock grants. I'm not going to share details, but so far it's trending favorably. I've never worried about compensation details so much, and instead tried to find projects with interesting…

Google's equity is cash. Ziplines is not real. I would much rather work at Zipline but given the delta in cost I would rather not forgo $1-200K a year to work there given bay area housing costs.

Each person has their own risk tolerance. Not taking on any risk at all is certainly safe, but also limiting. I've always taken a probabilistic "expected value" approach when weighing financial decisions, and so far it's worked out favorably. I don't think it's fair to conflate liquidity with reality. My equity in Zipline is real enough, at least to the Internal Revenue Service!

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#330

Post by rubslopes »

eitland wrote: post #252
rubslopes wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a Kagi subscriber, but I'll be. Yesterday I was looking for a pdf reader app with a specific feature. Nor Google nor Bing helped me; result pages were almost 100% ads (most by Adobe). I was giving up. My first try with Kagi gave me exactly what I wanted.

Exactly. Can I guess it wasn't a result of keyword stuffing with every result but Google and Bing "forgot" some of your search terms to show you more thinly veiled ads/"content"?

Yup. Nailed it.
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