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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#461

Post by titzer »

Osmose wrote: post #69

This is a good reflection, but I do disagree with the view of honest efforts from Google to improve the world being met with unnecessary external criticism. People outside Google don't have the benefit of thinking of any particular project as being run only by the individuals currently working on it—those particular people may leave the company or change teams or move on to other projects. It's Google that's making i…

When there is such a huge scale difference between the entity that causes harm and the person/group harmed, it just doesn't register. E.g. if you wanted down the sidewalk and inadvertently stepped on a cockroach because you were thinking about something else, you'd probably not even notice. If the cockroach's relatives confronted you as a horrible, evil entity hell-bent on destruction, you'd probably not have even conceived of any damage you were doing; you feel innocent, maybe even offended. And you were busy with something huger and way more important! You were on your phone negotiating a really important business deal, what the heck is a cockroach to you?

Big companies steamroll people all the time. Least of all their worries is the privacy and security of people they don't make money from.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#464

Post by simoncion »

benrapscallion wrote: post #30

Another article that highlights Vic Gundotra’s arrival and rise at Google as the beginning of their decline.

> ...Vic Gundotra...

Please, let's honor the man's fiercely-defended policies.

He is Vivek "Vic" Gundotra. His Real Name is Vivek, and we should refer to him by it.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#465

Post by [deleted] »

pas wrote: post #306
hinkley wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once noted that several of my coworkers and I had created a silent conspiracy to get a certain manager to clearly and concisely state her very bad ideas in front of the entire staff. This was not news to one of the other two people. He confessed he was doing it “for sport” and thought we were in on it. Only sort of. I think this statement might have been his little way to entertain himself.

can you give a few examples of what kind of bad ideas? like everyone should do all nighters or let's use email as the only login, no need for password for the first iteration, we will fix it later, or ... ?

[deleted]

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#466

Post by yashap »

pardoned_turkey wrote: post #86

Ian's post is pretty incisive, although I've read so many of these over the past 15 years or so. And the prescription is always to go back in time. I don't really think that's possible. When you're a newcomer, a disruptor, the whole point is to be different. You're bold, you have a clarity of purpose, you say things like "we're building a new kind of a company" or "the user comes first." But once you achieve market d…

I honestly think it’s possible to have large/mature companies that are still innovative, fast moving, transparent/candid internally, user focused, and low on internal bureaucracy. It’s just really, really, really hard.

You need to constantly be eliminating red tape and causes of slowdowns, because they’ll keep appearing. For tech companies this means spending a lot of time eliminating tech debt, slow/unreliable workflows, toil work, etc. It also means reducing cross-team dependencies, keeping decision making units small and independent.

You need a very performance oriented culture, where you only keep strong performers and fire miss-hires (or ppl who start strong but later start coasting). This is maybe the hardest part, as firing people is very tough and can have real negative consequences on the person being let go, but an accumulation of ppl who are just sort of coasting is one of the biggest reasons companies slide into mediocrity over time.

I think very, very few companies pull this off in practice, but I don’t think it’s impossible to pull off, just EXTREMELY hard.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#467

Post by cmrdporcupine »

booleandilemma wrote: post #440
throwaway678808 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level. To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course. Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in…

Which race would have made the "targeted attack" better?

[flagged]

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#468

Post by aeturnum »

Osmose wrote: post #69

This is a good reflection, but I do disagree with the view of honest efforts from Google to improve the world being met with unnecessary external criticism. People outside Google don't have the benefit of thinking of any particular project as being run only by the individuals currently working on it—those particular people may leave the company or change teams or move on to other projects. It's Google that's making i…

Parts of this reminded me of Daniel Ellsberg's admonition to Henry Kissinger about security clearances[1]:

"[...]You will feel like a fool, and that will last for about two weeks. Then, after you’ve started reading all this daily intelligence input and become used to using what amounts to whole libraries of hidden information, which is much more closely held than mere top secret data, you will forget there ever was a time when you didn’t have it, and you’ll be aware only of the fact that you have it now and most others don’t....and that all those other people are fools."

[1] https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/daniel-ellsbe...

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#469

Post by closeparen »

dasil003 wrote: post #372
closeparen wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silos and fiefdoms allow small gelled teams who know and trust each other, have similar levels of competence, and sit physically near each other to put their heads down and execute with extraordinary speed and quality. Once silos are broken down and cross-team/cross-org collaboration becomes valorized, everything is strangers and Zoom meetings and time zones and Process and maybe if you’re lucky one person in your pa…

> Silos and fiefdoms allow small gelled teams who know and trust each other, have similar levels of competence, and sit physically near each other to put their heads down and execute with extraordinary speed and quality. ...for things that align with that silo structure. If you try to build new things that necessitate conceptual integrity across org boundaries, then teams that think this way will first debate ownersh…

I don’t disagree. But I have also seen situations where middle managers are highly attuned to and proud of cross-team projects, and basically don’t pay any attention or give any weight to value delivered for end-users within teams, so everyone is encouraged to structure their projects to maximize communication overhead (even line managers, since doing so gives them the opportunity to grow their directs).

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#470

Post by RivieraKid »

I work at a company that is very similar to Google (similar products, similar age, founder not there anymore - he's busy with windy.com now) and it's funny how similar my feelings are.

What I think is happening is that the best people tend to leave, and those who prefer safety and are fine with the corporate environment as long as they're getting paid tend to stay or join. I doubt this downward spiral to mediocrity can be reversed.

I actually can't decide what would be the best strategy from the CEO's point of view. I.e. how best to govern an aging, established tech company like Google? I really like what Aswath Damodaran said about Google - there's a "sugar daddy effect" - the various departments lack desperation to make it, unlike startups.

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