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How Google Works

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Re: How Google Works

#41

Post by paganel »

sz4kerto wrote: post #31

This is not how Google works, this is a PR product -- it's full of fashionable and/or trivial things that we see on various blogs every single day. I don't see why is this interesting to the HN crowd, but well, who am I to judge this. :)

I think it's related to a book written by Schmidt and that Rosenberg guy, I think I just read a review about it a couple of weeks ago (here's the review: http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21620056-search...).

As for the presentation itself, maybe it's because I'm becoming more and more grumpier with age and haven't drunk my coffee yet, but there's something to be said about today's langue de bois, with expressions like "smart creative" and "Internet Century" being some worthy examples.

Re: How Google Works

#43

Post by andy_ppp »

Wow! I Love him talking about creating company culture for smart creative people! Those are presumably the same smart creative people that Google illegally stopped from competing in the job market. Nice one!

Re: How Google Works

#45

Post by dfritz »

q_revert wrote: post #5

I started work at google pretty recently, and expressed an interest in working on a particular project. I made some notes about some of my ideas, and was putting some stuff together to show to one of the teams, to get some input before prototyping. I asked a senior team member to have a look at the notes I had made, and see if they were ready to show to the wider team. His advice? "Go build something, then we can hav…

That's the same in most companies. But when they say "go build something", it really means "go build something at home, not during your working time!". In my career, the most interesting things I worked on were mostly done on my spare time. Then, I left the company and lost the right to use my own code. Retrospectively, I'd have rather spent this time on my own projects.

Re: How Google Works

#47

Post by [deleted] »

balazsdavid987 wrote: post #25
codeonfire wrote: post #13

The motivation of Google is not even discussed here. Why do you want to create a certain environment for "smart creatives?" Oh yeah, almost forgot... so they'll make products that will make Google lots of money. This always leads to a logic contradiction. If they are so smart and creative, why do they need Google? Everyone knows if you create the next g-mail you still walk in on Monday and get a salary, not equity. Y…

> If they are so smart and creative, why do they need Google? Many things cannot be created individually, no matter how smart and creative you are. Think of pyramids, space ships, - or even GMail. It's about leveraging the resources of a big company. And not to forget the low risk: you build something while you are on salary vs. building something for equity that may or may not worth dollars in the end.

[deleted]

Re: How Google Works

#48

Post by bsaul »

I think google's culture has become quite of a joke, and only the people inside the company are still not aware of it. "Do no evil" has been replaced by "pay no tax".

They've launched two succesful products in their entire history (search engine and gmail), the rest has been bought or only work because they're given away for free.

An from what i've heard, internal culture with meetings that explain what should people at google think to really be a "googler" is turning into an orwelian nightmare ("but it's for the general good" isn't an answer to limited personnal opinion).

Re: How Google Works

#49

Post by [deleted] »

WoodenChair wrote: post #37

I found these slides rather shallow. Smart, creative people are the best employees? Who knew! The Internet led to massive disruptions in traditional businesses? Wow! Sorry for my cynicism/sarcasm, but I see the book campaign as Eric Schmidt positioning himself for his next role. He's trying to secure his personal Google legacy as he gets ready for an exit. I can't imagine it's all that enticing to go from CEO to chai…

[deleted]

Re: How Google Works

#50

Post by davidw »

mgraczyk wrote: post #30
DonPellegrino wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that the work load at Google is so heavy that it is almost impossible to get "20% time" anymore. During what time did you work on your idea? Are they freeing you of all responsibilities to build your prototype or do they expect you to do it in your free time and then donate it to the company? Thanks, I'm very curious about this aspect of Google's culture.

I joined Google a few months ago and have not had this experience. The company is gigantic so everybody's situation is a little bit different, but plenty of people still have 20% projects. The culture strongly emphasizes a "build first and ask questions later" attitude.

Another guy saying he still uses his:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8431951

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