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Culture Change at Google

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Re: Culture Change at Google

#51

Post by eastbound »

vlovich123 wrote: post #20
huevosabio wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could keep starting products and instead of killing them, release them as open source. Or one click deploy on GCP. Actually, that last one makes a lot of sense for pushing for more GCP adoption.

Open source is very hard for a bunch of reasons: * Code at Google3 is one giant monolith that has dependencies on things that aren’t open sourced. Even if they could be, they don’t make sense outside of Google * most services internally run on internal services like Borg and GFS rather than GCP for historical reasons. That maybe has changed now but I suspect a lot of stuff depends on internal infra not available on G…

So, Google’s choice of architecture prevents them from open-sourcing or maintaining projects a tad longer than absolute necessary. I’d say they dug their own grave, if it has such a large impact on the trust of customers. Maybe Google3’s architecture was excellent for worldwide scalability and costs, but let’s see which one matters in the long term.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#52

Post by mschuster91 »

> Let me explain. In a typical company, when priorities shift, you "downsize" (or cancel) a project, and then use the money to add people to a different, more important project. The common way to do this is fire people from the first project, then rehire a bunch of new people in the second project. It's easy, it's simple, it's expected.

This is funny for me as a German, because here as a company you are not allowed to fire people essentially on a whim - you have to find new roles for them in the company, and can only lay off people if you can't reasonably do so. Obviously you can try nevertheless but if you can't prove in front of a court that you did reasonable effort, then you'll lose.

And that email quote is also interesting on its own:

> Even the IT department works differently. In every building, there are little offices called "tech stops". They sort of look like miniature computer stores. If you have a problem with your computer, just walk it right into the tech stop and show a technician. They generally help you on the spot. If you need hardware, just ask. "Hey, I need a new mouse"... "sure, what kind would you like?", says the tech, opening a cabinet full of peripherals. No bureaucracy, no forms, no requests. Just ask for hardware, and get it. The same goes for office supplies... cabinets full of office supplies everywhere, always stocked full. Just take what you need, whenever you feel like it.

I think that in the end all this bureaucracy is part of what makes people feel like they're just another cog in the machine, and it's intended to do so. Just think about it from the outside... a company that pays you 60k a year, but adds about 100$ worth of "management overhead" for a simple mouse for 15 €? It certainly shows that you, or anyone else, isn't to be trusted even with minuscule amounts.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#53

Post by raincole »

0xpgm wrote: post #48
zamfi wrote: post #24

Is any company still like this? I was at Google in ‘06-07, and again ‘09-11, and already there were obvious differences. You just can’t scale “total internal transparency” when the company doubles in size every year. And at some point you need just plain-old-“good” engineers to make the A/B tests happen and all the other stuff that doesn’t excite the PhDs. And at some point you need product people too, because you st…

I wonder if there's a way to prevent the growth at all costs that is demanded by the financial markets. Maybe become profitable and pay off the VCs then don't go public? Then you can resist the pressure for growth quarter by quarter, and remain the 'right size' that your internal culture demands. Did Valve corporation do something like that?

I'm really surprised that SideFX has only 169 employees.

It's biggest competitor, Autodesk, has 13,700 employees.

Of course Autodesk has a lot of products and SideFX has practically one so it's not a very fair comparison. But my point is that SideFX is a living evidence that if you want to stay reasonably small you can. SideFX was been existed for 28 years, so we can safely assume it has a positive cash flow.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#55

Post by jillesvangurp »

petesergeant wrote: post #18

Other than people who worked there, and miss the old days … who cares? Google has transitioned into a mature tech company, which basically means they’re just an investment vehicle now managing assets. They’ll buy the innovation they need, but otherwise management’s job is to predictably manage share prices and profit. The nostalgia is nice for people who worked there, but the maturity of the business being presented…

Google is a bit like Microsoft under Steve Ballmer. It had lost its way. There was no leadership. Most of what they tried failed or wasn't that great. And yet it was still raking in the profits. And then MS turned it around. All it took was new leadership. They just overtook Apple as the most valuable company in the world. Just a string of good, solid decisive leadership. Satya Nadella turned that company around.

Could happen to Google as well. But not with their current CEO. They have a lot of stuff that they are working on but very little of it has any real impact on their revenue. Their strategy is a mess. And they have a huge expensive work force not delivering more revenue to justify their existence. And they've been hiring non stop for 20 years just mindlessly growing their staff adding tens of thousands of people per year. The Google that built the company was much smaller and nimbler. The layoffs slow down the bloat but it's still a bloated company. The reason they get away with that is that revenue hasn't stopped growing either. But it's increasingly detached from staff size. Staff reductions at this point merely increase profits.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#57

Post by Rebelgecko »

baron816 wrote: post #5

> Early employees would often encourage each other to "fail fast" as a means to innovation, but that's no longer easy in an environment where failure implies a layoff. Big tech is in a really tough spot when it comes to innovation. Google has developed a reputation for killing off products too easily. Many have commented here and elsewhere that you can’t trust them to invest in using their new products because they m…

FWIW, the only person I've ever actually met with a 20% project was working on quantum

Re: Culture Change at Google

#58

Post by jrockway »

V-eHGsd_ wrote: post #21
AlbertCory wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be. Patrick was just so perfect as a Google CFO. Only-at-Google. His backpack full of hundreds (supposedly). But Ruth: she could be anywhere in the corporate world.

patrick "sorry I missed the last tgif I was running a marathon in paris with my daughter" pichette. and I don't say that disparagingly. that was endearing. (i'm probably getting some details of that wrong, it was ... dear lord, a long time ago)

Speaking of TGIF, the day it moved to Thursday is where I start my "beginning of the end" counter.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#59

Post by antupis »

ptmcc wrote: post #11
siliconc0w wrote: post #7

There is no evidence layoffs are a good idea from a fiscal perspective either, except in the short term. They're basically random so you loose good talent and you demoralize the best that stay. It should be reserved for dire circumstance.

And if you must, cut deep and cut only once. Trickling out monthly layoffs is far more demoralizing and instills a culture of fear and uncertainty.

I think there are two ways. The first is basically what good sports teams do (or Netflix at least was doing) where you continuously fire people who don't perform wanted at levels but also do very rigorous hiring and pay very well. Then there is cut fast and deep and shuffle organization at the same time which also works if you do that when needed and very rarely like once in 10-15 years Facebook might have pulled this and the company looks like it is in much better shape than Google or Amazon.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#60

Post by eastbound »

eftychis wrote: post #22
baron816 wrote: post #5

> Early employees would often encourage each other to "fail fast" as a means to innovation, but that's no longer easy in an environment where failure implies a layoff. Big tech is in a really tough spot when it comes to innovation. Google has developed a reputation for killing off products too easily. Many have commented here and elsewhere that you can’t trust them to invest in using their new products because they m…

The mistake Google has done here is that it deploys and launches and uses to garner attention projects under it's name. There is little to no, this is an experimental project by x team. It is this is a Google product. If everything is a product and you don't support most or expect most to die, then you damage the collective product that is the Google brand. And as a result how your employees feel and are treated abou…

> There is little to no “this is an experimental project by x team”

They communicated quite clearly when products were in beta. For example, they communicated clearly that Gmail was in Beta until 2009 (launched in 2004). What’s less clear is what makes a beta, when a tremendously successful product remains in beta for so long.

Another product that came out of beta in 2009 was… drumrolls… Google Reader[1].

[1] https://www.alphr.com/news/home-and-leisure/125603/google-re...

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