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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

ln.hixie.ch

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#631

Post by henrytill »

Capricorn2481 wrote: post #222
emodendroket wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are probably right; I just don't really see what's to be gained by going public with it considering the complaints are pretty inside-baseball and not that interesting to outsiders (I mean, hard to imagine someone thinking "I'm not going to deal with Google because so-and-so's subordinates say they don't understand her strategy").

I will certainly not use Dart if a person in charge of its direction doesn't know what they're doing even at a basic level. I can't just blindly hope her team does what's best and doesn't listen to her.

I found myself asking the same questions after reading the post.

You might consider reading the followup post: https://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1700627532&count=1

It suggests that, in spite of his problems with management, the author remains bullish about Flutter (and likely Dart).

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#632

Post by foobiekr »

chubot wrote: post #226
paxys wrote: post #159

Every bit of innovation in the AI space today originated at Google. The company poured probably tens of billions into its Brain division, sponsored and made public every bit of research, and pretty much created the field of modern AI. So what was the outcome? When the employees realized they had struck gold they figured they'd rather go join startups or found their own companies instead, because regardless of the amo…

Not disagreeing with your larger point, but Google paid $40M+ for the 3 people from U Toronto responsible for AlexNet (according to Cade Metz's book). Google might deserve more credit than any other company, but there were 20-30 years of innovation at universities beforehand.

more like 50

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#633

Post by sdenton4 »

com2kid wrote: post #577
kelnos wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every bit of innovation in the AI space today originated at Google. The company poured probably tens of billions into its Brain division, sponsored and made public every bit of research, and pretty much created the field of modern AI. So what was the outcome? When the employees realized they had struck gold they figured they'd rather go join startups or found their own companies instead, because regardless of the a…

> And that's a pretty strong indictment of Google! Googlers who worked on this research and technology believed that they'd have a better chance of doing something life-changing and making some bank outside of Google! While that isn't all that uncommon, it's also something Google could have taken steps to prevent. Better culture, better compensation. It's a huge risk to strike out on your own with something like this…

And then commenters will complain that the company doesn't make anything, and just acquires good ideas...

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#635

Post by lupire »

pardoned_turkey wrote: post #269
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Careers and incomes are at stake. People will get hurt. Google continues to print much more money than it burns. People get hurt by callous corporate decisions like layoffs. People don't get hurt by a company that has insane amounts of money taking risky projects, and if they fail, assigning those people to some other project. Given the size of Google and the fact that they hire generalists, being at risk of losing…

Layoffs at Google didn't happen because they had to happen. They happened because the leadership was concerned that in the good years, the company accumulated way too much dead weight - pointless projects, underperforming employees that the managers never had to deal with because they could always hire more people, etc. It's an awful fix and only a temporary one, but unnecessary risk-taking can jeopardize a lot more…

Layoffs at everywhere happened because money got more expensive.

The whole industry didn't magically accumulate debt weight all at the same time in the same proportions.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#636

Post by electriclove »

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…

This has been happening at every middle sized and up tech company over the last couple of decades. Woke leadership brings in diverse but incompetent management that kills morale, productivity and any sense of purpose in the company.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#637

Post by electriclove »

sage76 wrote: post #316
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…

> there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse. Are people of specific races to be put beyond criticism?

Pretty much yes if you want to stay employed. Hixie can speak up now because he left.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#638

Post by Solvency »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #614
closeparen wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building in silos is when you get something done by yourself or with your direct teammates. Cross team collaboration involves e.g. a weekly sync, coauthored design documents, code changes made in modules you’ve never seen before reviewed by people you don’t know, tasks that are critical blocking dependencies for you but totally irrelevant to the decision-makers of the teams that need to allocate time for them. The ex…

This is not at all what people mean when they talk about silos

Ok how do you meaningfully define the difference and moreover how would you prevent his version of a "good" silo from devolving into a "bad" one in actuality?

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#639

Post by lupire »

zem wrote: post #381
ivancho wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finance is cut-throat in the upper echelons, and also around culling people producing less value than their salary. But once they find someone willing to produce $400K of value in exchange for $200K salary, who is not otherwise interested in career growth, they usually just leave them be, that's how you see people staying in the same job with roughly the same responsibilities and skills for 10-15 years. Which creates…

> someone willing to produce $400K of value in exchange for $200K salary, who is not otherwise interested in career growth that probably describes a lot of people in tech megacorps too

It's nearly impossible to measure the marginal contribution of someone one in a non sales role.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#640

Post by physhster »

"Decisions went from being made for the benefit of users, to the benefit of Google, to the benefit of whoever was making the decision."

This is so painfully accurate. Everything is geared towards the individual's needs to appear good under the lens of promotion and compensation.

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