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Google stopping coding competitions

developers.googleblog.com

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Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#71

Post by shadowgovt »

shaunsingh0207 wrote: post #11
Jun8 wrote: post #6

Is there any other, more gracious, way to interpret this as Google retiring for on being Google, if so I’d like to know. I think the direct impact of these competitions to hiring were minimal. The biggest impact was to have thousands perhaps millions of coders and researchers see Google as the place to be. As the place that gets it. The Mecca of coderdom, if you will. Now they are just another corporation. I hope the…

I hate how "normal" of a company google is becoming. Closing down services and products not because they aren't profitable, but because they aren't profitable enough . They've really lost their way the last few years. In the late 2000's/early 2010's, google was pictured as the "fun" place to work. In part due to their coding competitions and the various other events they held for students throughout the year. Everyon…

It's been a long time coming.

Google ran an experiment: "We are surrounded by stodgy, calcified software firms. Can we build a company that isn't like that and is also successful?"

For a long time, they succeeded. But I think that experiment has run to a conclusion and they've discovered for themselves why their competition became stodgy and calcified (it wasn't because that's what they wanted to be; it's because the larger you get, the more diverse work you're doing, the more you're rewarded for being reliable and efficient, not scrappy and disruptive).

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#72

Post by echelon »

mouse_ wrote: post #26
blindriver wrote: post #18

Thank you Sundar for getting rid of the frivolous, Silicon-Valley-esque things like coding competitions for kids, extricating all of the humanity and decency that made Google so inefficient with money, and for doubling down on your focus to turn Google into the next iteration of Cisco, Oracle and IBM. It's exactly what this world needs, so you are the perfect leader for this.

Sundar is a scapegoat.

Sundar is Leslie Nielsen when the pilots (Larry, Sergey, Eric) decide to get sick on dirigibles, parties, trying to become government tech czar, etc.

Nobody's flying the plane. It's on search ad autopilot and slowly crashing into the ground. Could make for one of the most catastrophic value destruction stories of our time.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#73

Post by shadowgovt »

pancrufty wrote: post #17
naillo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has never looked more tired and more prone to be overtaken.

Which Google are you referring to exactly? With its many successful products, I don’t see Google being overtaken anytime soon. Ads are doing better than ever, Android is holding steady worldwide, Maps has a huge moat that Apple has yet to overcome (in over a decade), nobody really complains about Google Search except us nerds. I see them just coasting, but an overtake is unlikely in this decade. “The New Bing” sounds…

Companies like Google don't really get "overtaken" per se.

Rather, they become bricks in the wall: the kind of place where the firm is extremely unlikely to ever shut down because it's inextricably embedded into the business practices of major firms and governments, but it also has to run ads to get the next generation of employees to bother to go work for it.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#75

Post by shadowgovt »

croes wrote: post #41
pancrufty wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which Google are you referring to exactly? With its many successful products, I don’t see Google being overtaken anytime soon. Ads are doing better than ever, Android is holding steady worldwide, Maps has a huge moat that Apple has yet to overcome (in over a decade), nobody really complains about Google Search except us nerds. I see them just coasting, but an overtake is unlikely in this decade. “The New Bing” sounds…

>nobody really complains about Google Search except us nerds. I know many non nerd complainers, but they don't know any alternatives.

Neither do the nerd complainers, apart from scoping their search to a few trusted information repositories (Reddit, StackOverflow, &c).

Nobody's cracked the "general search across the whole Internet" nut better than Google has right now. But that nut itself has encountered challenges in yielding value as of late.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#76

Post by nemo44x »

blindriver wrote: post #18

Thank you Sundar for getting rid of the frivolous, Silicon-Valley-esque things like coding competitions for kids, extricating all of the humanity and decency that made Google so inefficient with money, and for doubling down on your focus to turn Google into the next iteration of Cisco, Oracle and IBM. It's exactly what this world needs, so you are the perfect leader for this.

He's such a bad CEO that I can't believe he's still in the seat. Just the way he let the employees revolt and embarrass him. If he had any dignity or pride he would have resigned then. He may know all the facts on how businesses should be run and is a good guy, but he has 0 leadership skills. Just an awful, terrible leader. The ChatGPT fiasco is further evidence the place has been mismanaged the last 8 years.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#78

Post by shadowgovt »

proudfoot wrote: post #68

I can't imagine this cost very much to keep running.

Google is still a company where (especially for projects like this) the work is done by engineers volunteering time outside of their core job description.

It may be as simple as "Morale dropped too low for the folks there to feel like it was worth it to continue," or "They let go of the people who were volunteering their 20% time to make this happen."

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#79

Post by eitland »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #16
naillo wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has never looked more tired and more prone to be overtaken.

Honestly I was searching for something the other day and between displaying an excessive number of YouTube links (was not in a position to watch a video) and the adverts it was less useful that Yahoo! Circa 2006.

I have long since switched to Kagi and I am a happy paying customer.

I can adjust my results, block or prioritize, but I rarely do that.

What I sometimes do however is I write a bug report whenever bad results sneak in. In a matter of hours a human looks at the results, verifies or ask follow up questions and in a few days or max No more having to deal with a search engine that ignores both doublequotes and the verbatim operator (that is both Google and DDG and Bing).

Actually, the last few months before I got access to Kagi I used (and paid for) search.marginalia.nu . It was actually and honestly better for certain queries, especially things like arcane git knowledge or (I think) the nerdier parts of history.

Re: Google stopping coding competitions

#80

Post by eastWestMath »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #58

Before jumping on the "Google is now Oracle" bandwagon, curious with anyone with even a little inside baseball knowledge can comment on the reasoning behind this. Because if it's for penny-pinching, "we need to be more efficient" reasons, then yeah, I'm ready to jump on the bandwagon too. But someone else posited it may be more that they want to focus on new skills needed for AI, for example (i.e. "Software 2.0" vs.…

Yeah I’ve always been a bit leery of code competitions. I saw a lot of undergrads spend a lot of effort on these contests, and I was never convinced it was the best use of their time (especially because the university I did my graduate studies at had a professor who put a lot of effort into running the competitive programming club).

I think a group of 15-20 bright and enthusiastic CS students under the guidance of a tenured CS professor could accomplish a lot with the time/effort they were spending and learn just as much!

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