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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#471

Post by cmrdporcupine »

nitwit005 wrote: post #431
jLaForest wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretending racial disparities doesn't exist (particularly in tech) doesn't do any favors either.

Acting like race determines everything isn't exactly the healthiest strategy either. Ultimately we're discussing assuming someone is a racist because they said something negative about a person of a different race. That assumption is also a racial stereotype.

No, there's two levels to this.

The dickishness/meanness of singling someone out by name in a public article on the Internet, which is what the comment here was primarily about.

And then the second level, which the commenter deliberately downplayed as a minor second point (but people here jumped on it...) that said person is a minority, so it makes one extra-suspicious about motives.

So I'm not sure where you got this "acting like race is about everything" point, because that wasn't in the comment.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#472

Post by henham »

hinkley wrote: post #145
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 have a long list of ways to improve processes and when I was young, energetic, and didn’t know any better, I got very, very lucky getting many or most of them through. As I’ve gotten older I’ve found more things that I “need” to improve and there’s been more time for me to forget how I need to justify things I consider “the right way” and so I don’t always win those arguments. But the bigger thing I’m coming to gri…

How do you distinguish "I can fix them" companies that will not improve because they are where they are because of organisational and human issues and the ones you can actual improve and are ready for you?

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#473

Post by layer8 »

willsmith72 wrote: post #268
NanoYohaneTSU wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know people can be evil or at the least they can be bad people. Do you think this person is bad or good? My point is that when you say something like "She's just a person, doing a job." you're defending the bad rather than calling it out.

This is exactly my point. There is no way the public has information about whether the person is bad or good, just 1 disgruntled employee's impression of their job performance. There's more to life and a person than a job. That's all. Even the worst managers I've had have been good people. They're good dads and mums, enjoy hiking and camping. Public statements like this one are easy to make, impossible to verify or c…

> just 1 disgruntled employee's impression of their job performance.

And what’s wrong with that, if that’s their honest and informed impression?

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#474

Post by pseg134 »

jjiij wrote: post #277
drubio wrote: post #117

> Take Jeanine Banks, for example, who manages the department that somewhat arbitrarily contains (among other things) Flutter, Dart, Go, and Firebase. Her department nominally has a strategy, but I couldn't leak it if I wanted to; I literally could never figure out what any part of it meant, even after years of hearing her describe it. Her understanding of what her teams are doing is minimal at best; she frequently m…

I don't really see how naming the specific individual improved the argument, unless there is true malfeasance, like sexual harassment, I don't think it's ethical to publicly name-and-shame somebody for the crime of being bad at their job. LOTS of people are bad at their job.

If she doesn’t want to be publicly shamed for being bad at her job she could always try to be good at it.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#475

Post by pseg134 »

ghaff wrote: post #312
kradroy wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no greater source of professional resentment than suffering under a manager who's incompetent and a narcissist (my summary of his blurb). After 18 years at Google he probably feels safe burning that bridge.

But why? I could legitimately IMO rag on a handful of former managers who I think mostly meant well but I’m not going to do it in a blog post.

Well that is because you live your life from a place of fear. Not everyone is like that.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#476

Post by knorker »

> Much of these problems with Google today stem from a lack of visionary leadership from Sundar Pichai, and his clear lack of interest in maintaining the cultural norms of early Google

These are the Balmer years. Or as we'll start saying in a few years: The Sundar years.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#477

Post by fragmede »

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…

5, 10, 20 years from now, an unproven startup that doesn't manage to find product-market will equally be gone and unavailable to customers. Why does, eg Monday.com not get the same "oh no, what if they shut down" scaries that stops people from using their product the way, say, Google keep does? Fair or not, it's some quirk of human psychology that unfortunately Google has tapped into.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#478

Post by OnACoffeeBreak »

titzer wrote: post #461
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 co…

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible." - Stanisław J. Lec

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#479

Post by dilyevsky »

ghaff wrote: post #312
kradroy wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no greater source of professional resentment than suffering under a manager who's incompetent and a narcissist (my summary of his blurb). After 18 years at Google he probably feels safe burning that bridge.

But why? I could legitimately IMO rag on a handful of former managers who I think mostly meant well but I’m not going to do it in a blog post.

Good for you. It might save someone from taking a job under what appears to be an awful manager though

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#480

Post by occz »

jhaenchen wrote: post #457
occz wrote: post #103

Sad times. If not Google, what's the place to be nowadays? Has high interest rates killed tech as a great place to work in entirely, or is there any oasis left?

I'd say startups. At the very least, it seems like companies where the founder stays on after getting rich tend to do better. Avoid Day 2 companies.

Startups are shit on pay and as an early tech employee you are basically the one that gets screwed the hardest of all. A huge gamble with very little upside even in the best of cases. I'm gonna have to pass.
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