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Lessons from 14 years at Google

addyosmani.com

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Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#691

Post by euifii »

cherioo wrote: post #409
euifii wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I really don’t get about these types of folks. Do they really want to remember their life’s work as “kissing ass and playing politics”? I get the “work to live” and all that, but you’re basically tossing away half your life…for what, money? How much money do you need!?

Because that's not how they perceive their works. Instead it is "advocating for one's own team and passion", "helping others advance their career", "networking and building long-term connections".

[dead]

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#693

Post by gwbas1c »

caminante wrote: post #688
gwbas1c wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And now sometime back I got like 2-3 dressing downs from managers, reason being I am not taking leadership feedback seriously enough and mending my ways. It's important that you have relationships with your boss's boss. Some organizations call these skip-level 1-1s, other times it's just riding with your boss's boss in the car. This also is not politicking or CYA. The reason is that managers are fallible, and when…

In your situation, it's end of year review time. He might be softening you up. Why not mention to your manager that CEO supported you? Are they working with different data? I get these may not be fun to press on right before the holidays.

Don't make assumptions. My employer does not do end-of-year reviews.

To make a long story short, my manager got angry because I wrote a quick and dirty tool that bypassed a lot of confusing abstraction layers, and is significantly easier to use than the tool the company currently uses.

When my manager got angry, I first told my manager that we shouldn't argue in front of the entire office. Then I went to the CEO for advice. The CEO gave me advice that I used on my 1-1 with my manager later that day. (The CEO was also quite happy that I made a quick-and-dirty tool that made peoples' lives easier.)

> Why not mention to your manager that CEO supported you?

I suggested that my manager discuss the issue with the CEO when they told me that he didn't think he could "sell my tool" to the CEO.

To make a long story short, this is a case where my manager started the company, and people / project management is not their strong part. The limiting factor is funding, otherwise we'd have hired a proper project manager and promoted my manager (the founder) to a thought leadership role.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#694

Post by maxverse »

j3s wrote: post #96

feels LLM assisted, at the very least. > The skill isn’t being right. It’s entering discussions to align on the problem > clarity isn’t a style preference - it’s operational risk reduction > The punchline isn’t “never innovate.” It’s “innovate only where you’re uniquely paid to innovate > This isn’t strictly about self-promotion. It’s about making the value chain legible to everyone > The problem isn’t that engineers…

I love Addy's work, and enjoyed this article -- and I completely agree that it felt very LLM-y. I'm not sure what's scarier; that we know some of this didn't come from the author (and maybe that's okay?) or that one day soon, we'll get to a point where we won't be able to tell anymore.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#695

Post by caminante »

sanderjd wrote: post #687
caminante wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, from a stoic viewpoint, glue/coordinator roles are getting eviscerated by basic LLMs. I feel the resentment is stronger if you ignore the game and get lulled into contentment when others are more transactional. It's all about interfaces and continuous contracting. And planning 2+ steps ahead.

Oh I disagree entirely with your first sentence. LLMs continue to be much better at writing lots of code than keeping track of how all the pieces of an organization actually fit together.

I'm pretty sure it's good at both.

>I like being helpful and I like doing this kind of work and I really don't want to think or care about how it is reading to upper management.

Coding aside, I'm afraid this is already falling prey to LLMs plugged into exec calendars and org charts. You're adding yet another non-human, digital layer.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#696

Post by sanderjd »

caminante wrote: post #695
sanderjd wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I disagree entirely with your first sentence. LLMs continue to be much better at writing lots of code than keeping track of how all the pieces of an organization actually fit together.

I'm pretty sure it's good at both. >I like being helpful and I like doing this kind of work and I really don't want to think or care about how it is reading to upper management. Coding aside, I'm afraid this is already falling prey to LLMs plugged into exec calendars and org charts. You're adding yet another non-human, digital layer.

I'm happy to agree to disagree, but I think this seems like a misunderstanding of the kind of work I'm referring to. It's not clear to me how being plugged into exec calendars and org charts would help, so I think we're probably talking about different things.

But that the with is misunderstood and invisible to lots of people is the whole point of the thread! So it's an understandable misunderstanding :)

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#697

Post by _heimdall »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #665
_heimdall wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do the laws exist if its better for (almost) everyone involved? Without the laws why would people not do it that way if its the better approach?

Many laws solve the problem of high initial cost dissuading globally good actions. Laws forcing everyone to buy insurance, for example. It's very easy to see that where such laws don't exist, almost no one buys insurance, making everyone worse off. This is also an example of the same kind of law.

Insurance is an interesting example, I would have expected one that causes more direct harm to others like drunk driving.

How are we all worse off when fewer people have insurance?

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#698

Post by WalterBright »

mike_hearn wrote: post #547
WalterBright wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The negative responses from clients were instant. Back when I was designing TTL circuits, the TTL specifications gave a min and max time for the delay between the inputs and the outputs. I was instructed to never rely on the min delay, as the chips kept getting faster and the older, slower replacement parts will not be available anymore. The IBM PC was frustrating to many hardware engineers, as too much software re…

Ah, the Turbo Button! I think by the time I got my first IBM PC the button no longer did anything, but it was still there on the case for some reason. I remember pushing it repeatedly, puzzled that nothing went faster.

I have one in my car. It doesn't do anything, either.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#699

Post by Gigachad »

rswail wrote: post #599
Gigachad wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, that's HR justifying its existence. Plus that's for higher stature service based roles, not warehouse logistics. It's also mostly bullshit. Teams work because they have the right combination of skills, both personal and technical, high EQ and IQ, leadership and ownership. Whether or not you fall backwards into a team's arms or have to participate in childish games is not relevant.

For most people, liking and being friends with the people you work with is a huge factor in how much you like the job and are willing to stay. Most of the times I’ve left a job it’s been triggered by the people I liked talking to leaving and the remaining team members being dull and anti social.

Re: Lessons from 14 years at Google

#700

Post by caminante »

gwbas1c wrote: post #693
caminante wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your situation, it's end of year review time. He might be softening you up. Why not mention to your manager that CEO supported you? Are they working with different data? I get these may not be fun to press on right before the holidays.

Don't make assumptions. My employer does not do end-of-year reviews. To make a long story short, my manager got angry because I wrote a quick and dirty tool that bypassed a lot of confusing abstraction layers, and is significantly easier to use than the tool the company currently uses. When my manager got angry, I first told my manager that we shouldn't argue in front of the entire office. Then I went to the CEO for…

>I suggested that my manager discuss the issue with the CEO

Point blank:

Why not tell your manager you already spoke with the CEO instead of

1. Not mentioning you already overstepped your manager

2. And the skip-level boss/CEO liked the idea.

This seems like potentially good intentions being easily perceived by your manager as passive-aggressive. Maybe your skip level told you to use that phrasing.

Regardless, good luck.

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