Lessons from 14 years at Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#481

Post by euifii » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

xmddmx wrote: post #342

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #241

> 15. When a measure becomes a target, it stops measuring. This is Goodhart's law - "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

Right, this annoyed me too - it was stated w/o attribution as if novel. What is the name of the law when someone writes a think piece of "stuff I've learned" and fails to cite any of it to existing knowledge? Makes me wonder if (A) they do know it's not their idea, but they are just cool with plagiarism or (B) they don't know it's not their idea.

[dead]

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#482

Post by jeanlou » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:07 AM UTC

jaredsohn wrote: post #357

taklimakan wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes nice but also very naive. Most developers do not have that level of ownership, nor know how their users interact with the software. Their job is precisely to complete tickets from the product manager. The product manager is the one who should be in charge of UX research and “build a software that solves users problems.” Sure, in abstract that is the mission of the developers too, but in any structured (and hopefu…

Good software engineers are concerned with product strategy. They might not be able to decide things but they can help inform product about options because they're closer to actually building things. If you just implement product tickets you'll probably get replaced by LLMs.

You need to be a product-minded engineer.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#483

Post by thayne » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:08 AM UTC

> Abstractions don’t remove complexity. They move it to the day you’re on call.

As someone who has been on call a lot, this is only true for bad or incomplete abstractions.

When you are on call (or developing) you can't possibly know everything about the system. You need abstractions to make sense of what is going on, how the system as a whole works, and know which parts to hone in on when things go wrong.

And it is extremely useful to have standard ways of changing configuration for things like timeouts, buffer sizes, etc. in a central place.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#484

Post by z3t4 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:13 AM UTC

I agree to both 3) and 8) but I find it a dilemma that if you don't get it perfect the first time, you will waste thousands of man-hours for everyone to upgrade even though it only took you 10 minutes to release the new version.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#485

Post by adrianN » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:19 AM UTC

astrange wrote: post #425

TacticalCoder wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craziest I got was users complaining their laptops were getting too hot / too noisey because I correctly parallelized a task and it became too efficient . They liked the speed but hated the fans going on at full speed and the CPU (and hence the whole laptop) getting really warn (talking circa 2010). So I had to artificially slow down processing a bit as to not make the fans go brrrrr and CPU go too hot.

You probably wanted a low thread priority/QoS setting. The OS knows how to run threads such that they don't heat up the CPU. Well, on modern hardware it does anyway.

I’d expect any os worth it’s name to run threads in a way that minimizes total energy not fan noise.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#486

Post by zdragnar » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:21 AM UTC

spicyusername wrote: post #189

bigcloud1299 wrote: post #133

15 years in leadership worked at 3 jobs lead major transformations at retail where nearly 100B of revenue goes through what i built. Ran $55-$100M in a yearly budget… over 300 FTEs and 3x contractors under my or my budget,…largest retailer in google at that time…my work influenced GCP roadmap, Datastax roadmap, … much more all behind the scenes…. besides your capabilities and ability that had to be there to get you i…

So teach your kids to kiss ass and play poltiics. Or to stay far away and do something useful with their lives.

It isn't the highest paying path in life, but this is what I chose as well. Working for small companies with good people is infinitely better than working at massive companies with decent people. No matter how many good intentions there are, the politicking is utterly exhausting and unfulfilling.

Then again, I'm the kind of person who moved to the countryside to get away from the city life, so YMMV.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#487

Post by Gigachad » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:29 AM UTC

wahnfrieden wrote: post #387

damethos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably just let them vent until they adjust their habits and just chat with their co-workers, without the need to use this as an excuse. Then, they can enjoy the fast loading times :)

Why would the boss accept that? They automated the work to eliminate employee downtime. If the employees were upset to lose their chatting time then presumably they lack the agency to choose chatting over work duties when they’re unblocked. The only way to help them in that situation is to organize them

Because the 10 minutes of chatting has value too. Which is why corporations make you spend so much time on team building exercises and axe throwing.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#488

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:38 AM UTC

wisty wrote: post #477

elmomle wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a highly idealized view that I hope we can agree doesn't completely jive with what we see in society today. If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits, the vast majority of the benefit from automation flows to them, and it's even possible for the lives of average people to get worse as automation increases, as average people then have less leverage over those who own the companies.

> If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits It's not greater profits but lower costs (and prices) that matter here.

[deleted]

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#489

Post by tuananh » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:39 AM UTC

croemer wrote: post #306

mgrat wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just that he made a killing — Osmani helped conceive a broader vision of blogging as a fusion of human in the center writing and AI agents.

Or to say it in his own words: "Few individuals have done as much to push the web forward while uplifting its developers, and that legacy will be felt for a long time to come." source: https://addyosmani.com/bio/

it's a bit weird to talk about yourselves in third person

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#490

Post by xboxnolifes » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 6:42 AM UTC

rictic wrote: post #450

elmomle wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a highly idealized view that I hope we can agree doesn't completely jive with what we see in society today. If a small number of shareholders reap all the profits, the vast majority of the benefit from automation flows to them, and it's even possible for the lives of average people to get worse as automation increases, as average people then have less leverage over those who own the companies.

Inflation adjusted incomes are up in the US across the board. The affordability problem is largely the price of housing because it's illegal to build.

How can inflation adjusted income be up and there still be an affordability crisis?