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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#661

Post by cmrdporcupine »

hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #23
t8sr wrote: post #12

Around 2016 at Google, my entire reporting chain, from manager to CEO, changed. Literally not a single person was left. Laszlo, both Erics, Patrick and the rest of the L team all left in quick succession. I think the old Google of < 2015 and the current Google are two companies that have almost nothing in common.

I guess it was the Alphabet saga? It's all like this. I have decided that if given the chance, I'd never work in companies with more than 1,000 persons.

It was a whole bundle of things all at the same time but probably started with G+ and "The Social Wars". That was all happening when I first got there, but it set internal crap on a bad path, plenty of bad feelings as the whole organization was pivoted onto that, but it all basically fizzled out and failed.

And then a couple years later, yeah, it was Ruth & Alphabet. And that's when it got progressively stupider and stupider.

When I started it was like 25k engineers, and while it was big I still felt there was a very cool internal thing going on there. And I'm a pretty cynical person.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#663

Post by Aeolun »

deckard1 wrote: post #523
zepearl wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But once you achieve market dominance, your priorities have to shift. It's no longer "why wouldn't you try this" or "let's do the right thing." It's "why would you rock the boat and risk the nice thing we have?" It's not just about profit. Careers and incomes are at stake. People will get hurt. I don't get this. Why did they kill so many products which were running on standalone tracks? (at least in my opinion) If…

I'm sure internal politics plays a large role. Managers knee-capping each other and so forth. But there is another way to look at it. A company of Google's size will not be satisfied by a "small" $10M ARR business or perhaps even a $100M ARR business. It's not going to move the needle. The needle being, effectively, Google's stock price. There are two ways to move the stock price: increased profit or decreased spend.…

You can build a very solid business empire on a large collection of small offerings.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#664

Post by wyclif »

Aeolun wrote: post #644
jjulius wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google Inbox Still so damn bitter about that death.

It’s weird that Gmail never reached that point. Even years later it’s still the same it was 10 years ago. I think after inbox died I just gave up on it and moved to fastmail.

I understand what you're saying (I miss Inbox, too). But end users like sameness and "it just works." Normies prefer stability over innovation when they are trying to get stuff done.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#665

Post by kevinventullo »

emodendroket wrote: post #174
kevinventullo wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I’d characterize YouTube as a diversification from ads.

It is though. Being an ad supplier is different from being an ad exchange. Or would you describe the New York Times or HBO as "ads businesses"?

You may wish to review Google’s sources of revenue. There is one source which contributes over 50%, and it’s not the ad exchange.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#666

Post by yterdy »

emodendroket wrote: post #189
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…

It sounds like the generic complaints of everyone who doesn't like their manager ever and frankly I would have thought twice before attaching my name to a broadside that attacks a former manager by name. But hey, what do I know, I never worked at Google.

[flagged]

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#667

Post by thrownaway9739 »

pyb wrote: post #334
emodendroket wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like the generic complaints of everyone who doesn't like their manager ever and frankly I would have thought twice before attaching my name to a broadside that attacks a former manager by name. But hey, what do I know, I never worked at Google.

A 18-year veteran like OP shouldn't be complaining about their manager's lack of vision ; they should have realised by now that it's also their job to enact the vision. He was probably paid too much to behave as a passenger.

Any vision covering firebase, flutter, dart and go, etc. doesn't make sense.

It would take close to a decade to align these products.

My impression is that this is a place to hang these products on the org-tree. IMO the individual teams appear to have LOTS of vision!

The VP in question is unnecessary (IMO).

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#668

Post by thrownaway9739 »

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.

The Dart team certainly has vision!

The VP above might not, but who cares...

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#669

Post by whoknowsidont »

obviouslynotme wrote: post #626
whoknowsidont wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that has to do with the capabilities of the executives involved, it doesn't make it impossible. Just like in your example, there are many, many developers that can perfectly understand large functions or code bases without issue. If you have such a code base and you hire people that are not equipped, either through inexperience or capability, of managing that code base that is a resourcing issue. If your executiv…

Except large code bases do the same. They regularly die when their ability to be understood drops too low. Even with well organized code, they are pushed to add features until they aren't understood at the deepest level. Once you hit millions of lines of code, even when you spend decades in that code base, you still forget changes you made even if you have an overarching picture. That's ignoring other people working…

I agree with you, but none of this makes it impossible. It just makes it a resourcing/hiring issue.

The same thing regularly happens with smaller companies or code bases. The size exacerbates the issue, but it's not the cause of it.

Which is largely this OP's point regarding the subject of calling out culture rot and a particular executive.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#670

Post by lapphi »

mk89 wrote: post #454
teen wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean that incubator was a total waste of money. No one did anything, everyone was a bser from the top, and 95% of the projects were total failures. I think there were maybe 3 "successful" projects.

3 successful projects can totally justify what you call waste of money. I sometimes wonder what people expect innovation is. You try and try and try. One thing is good and you must know how to use it - it can make history. If I understood right, chatgpt comes from one of such ideas.... so the question is also: who evaluates the ideas? How come that Google was not able to capitalize on that idea? So yeah, instead of t…

Agreed, we are on ycombinator.com, after all. The patron saint of failed ideas.
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