Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Of course none of this will happen to Google. You're too innovative." I would have had a hard time hearing that as anything other than sarcasm.
"Present company excluded" It's a polite fiction.
Exactly.
Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#542Ian'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…
Your username is genius, BTW. Assume you are a regular on HN but decided to post with a new account?
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#543Yet another "famous" Googler whom I didn't know. He joined one month before I did. I did know Chris DiBona, at least. Didn't know this Jeanine person. I wrote a number of articles about working there in the early (or earlier) days. Chronologically: https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/working-at-google-enterp... https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/working-at-google-ads https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/working-at-go…
"At any rate, after exploring this, I naturally wondered if there wasn’t some easier way to do it; not as statistically valid, maybe, but adequate for the advertiser who just wants to improve his performance. I won’t go into the details here, but let’s just say that everyone wanted a Super Deluxe version even if it did require changing every part of the Ads system. No one wanted something quick-and-dirty that just did the job. This was Google, after all; “quick and dirty” would not get you promoted or get your talk accepted at a conference. It did not make me popular to suggest this."
I had a similar experience at Google--simple improvements such as parameter tuning are looked down on and rejected for being mere tinkering, even if the metrics are good. Meanwhile super complicated deep learning projects keep being added, even if they barely improve metrics. In the short term the complexity looks like hard work and leads to promotions, but long term it makes the system hard to maintain and understand.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#544Ian'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…
> But once you achieve market dominance [..]
Here lies the problem. Market dominance should mean anti-trust kicks in to prevent businesses from shifting to this more conservative, rent seeking behavior. You want businesses kept in that sweet spot where company vision is more than a PR checkbox.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#545This 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…
Yup, agreed. My view is that the people on the inside often can't see the forest for the trees. They look at their immediate team/group, love the autonomy/transparency/"don't be evil"-mandate/etc. that they have and follow, and look around and see some of that in other groups, and think, "wow, this company is great, doesn't care about all that big-bad-company stuff". But people outside can look at a company that gets…
In the end it's still a management problem. I do not think it is rank-and-file employees' duty to think about long term strategies or outside perspectives on the company or anything like that. It should be the management's responsibility to clarify this to the outside world. Again Google's management completely fails at that.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#546"Flutter is amazingly successful. It's already the leading mobile app development framework" ???
There are a lot of reasonable metrics one might use to define "leading mobile app development framework": * Number of developers using it on some daily/weekly/monthly, etc. cadence. * Number of apps published (to iOS, Android, both). * Number of jobs available using the framework. * Various subjective desirability metrics from developers survey like the StackOverflow ones. It's anyone's guess as to which is the best…
When filtered to "cross platform mobile app frameworks" anyway, which is a huge reduction in scope - 1/3rd of respondents in that study in fact.
So 46% of 33% of mobile app developers that aren't building mobile websites use Flutter. That's not bad at all, but hardly supports a claim of being the "leading mobile app development framework" as you're down to ~15% of mobile app developers using it. And only then since mobile web is being excluded, who knows what it'd be if that was included.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#547Earlier 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…
Calling her out by name felt a bit harsh within the context of the post. Sure, call out Sundar as he's a public figure, but this lady, never heard of her, never seen her. He could have made the point by writing "I had this terrible boss who had no idea about anything and...", her name is irrelevant to demonstrate the issue of decline at Google.
Maybe it was too much, but one counterpoint: if horrible managers never get called out how are you supposed to know to avoid them / how will they face consequences?
I understand authors frustration, I've experienced the same in the past but could not voice this beyond just some close friends and coworkers (who knew it already anyway), for fear of repercussions. I've since left but of course this person remains, and from what I hear is still as bad.
Outsiders might join that organization unaware of this. Others working with those teams might not know this and can get burned by it.
Was this particular call out justified? I don't know. But I don't think it is inherently bad.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#548Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't think public, targeted statements like this are ever the right thing to do. As a previous believer in this, I now strongly disagree. (even if I am too chicken to do it myself) Tech nerds are usually nice and non-confrontational people. They get exploited to high heaven by those who are effective at navigating low-visibility & grey-area political spaces. When an org, leader, employee or associate taints ever…
The consequences of naming someone in such a manner, in an article that makes its rounds on the Internet, can be actually quite dire. Public harassment, etc. There are some pretty unhinged people out there, and in particular some rather ugly people who in particular get especially unhinged on the topic of women in tech at Google, etc. I think it's in very bad taste in this case.
And weirdly superfluous to the point he was trying to make. Did anyone really need the name of someone with whom he has an axe to grind in order to believe the larger point about Google's organizational ossification?
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#549Interesting to hear the author complain about Android, which today is held up as the one part of Google which knows how to ship product.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#550Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had the same reaction. I'm ex-Google, but never worked in that org or heard of her ever but it seemed in profound bad taste (or just mean?) to me to be pinpointing people by name like that. I'm not sure what it accomplishes, unless there is a vendetta at work here? Also seemed out of tone with the rest of the article, which I agreed with the substance of and enjoyed reading.
Why is there a presumed intent to "accomplish" anything? It's a blog post.
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