This is all exacerbated by a ton of the ML stack being in Python, for some god Forsaken reason.
Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
71–80 of 147 posts
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d wager 90% time spent at Google is fighting incidental organizational complexity, which is virtually unlimited.
The phrase thrown around was “collaboration headwind”, the idea was if project success depends on 1 person with a 95% chance of success, project success also had a 95% chance. But if 10 people each need to succeed at a 95% chance, suddenly the project success likelihood becomes 60%… In reality, lazy domain owners layered on processes, meetings, documents, and multiple approvals until it took 6 months to change the te…
The assumptions in that math are wrong anyway. Once you depend on 10 people, the chance that they each achieve "95% successful execution" is 0.
This is only partially down to the impossibility of having every staff member on a project be A++ players.
There is coordination RISK not just coordination overhead. Think planning a 2 week trip with your spouse with multiple planes/trains/hotels, museum/exhibit ticket bookings, meal reservations, etc. Inevitably something gets misunderstood/miscommunicated between the two of you and therefore mis-implemented.
Now add more communication nodes to the graph and watch the error rate explode.
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry about that, I'm my newsletter provider (Substack) which is very buggy sometimes.
Probably because it is overly complex system.
if only there were some simple solution to host a static website without cookies and other garbage
https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/hosting-static-website + pick your favorite OSS CMS
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d wager 90% time spent at Google is fighting incidental organizational complexity, which is virtually unlimited.
The phrase thrown around was “collaboration headwind”, the idea was if project success depends on 1 person with a 95% chance of success, project success also had a 95% chance. But if 10 people each need to succeed at a 95% chance, suddenly the project success likelihood becomes 60%… In reality, lazy domain owners layered on processes, meetings, documents, and multiple approvals until it took 6 months to change the te…
Coordination Headwind: https://komoroske.com/slime-mold/
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’d wager 90% time spent at Google is fighting incidental organizational complexity, which is virtually unlimited.
The phrase thrown around was “collaboration headwind”, the idea was if project success depends on 1 person with a 95% chance of success, project success also had a 95% chance. But if 10 people each need to succeed at a 95% chance, suddenly the project success likelihood becomes 60%… In reality, lazy domain owners layered on processes, meetings, documents, and multiple approvals until it took 6 months to change the te…
The old "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
My last workplace had a similar institution, only the reward was candy bar or similar that you could go grab from a bowl in the kitchen (working on an honor code basis), in addition to getting some praise on Slack for general warm fuzzies. It was more of a symbolic gesture for recognizing small everyday things, of course, but it was nice IMO.
[flagged]
I don’t get the connection to capitalism here. Care to elaborate?
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
The phrase thrown around was “collaboration headwind”, the idea was if project success depends on 1 person with a 95% chance of success, project success also had a 95% chance. But if 10 people each need to succeed at a 95% chance, suddenly the project success likelihood becomes 60%… In reality, lazy domain owners layered on processes, meetings, documents, and multiple approvals until it took 6 months to change the te…
The assumptions in that math are wrong anyway. Once you depend on 10 people, the chance that they each achieve "95% successful execution" is 0. This is only partially down to the impossibility of having every staff member on a project be A++ players. There is coordination RISK not just coordination overhead. Think planning a 2 week trip with your spouse with multiple planes/trains/hotels, museum/exhibit ticket bookin…
That's what the math is reflecting. Project succeeds if all of 10 people does their job well. Each person has a 95% chance of succeeding. 0.95^10 ~= 60%, and so the chance that all 10 people do their job successfully is ~60%.
Those jobs also include things like management and product design, and so the coordination risk is reflected in the 5% chance that the manager drops the ball on communication. (As a manager, I suspect that chance is significantly more than 5% and that's why overall success rates are even lower.)
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#78Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
The phrase thrown around was “collaboration headwind”, the idea was if project success depends on 1 person with a 95% chance of success, project success also had a 95% chance. But if 10 people each need to succeed at a 95% chance, suddenly the project success likelihood becomes 60%… In reality, lazy domain owners layered on processes, meetings, documents, and multiple approvals until it took 6 months to change the te…
The old "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
Also why the optimal business strategy seems to be to go as far as you can alone and then bring on other people when you're running out of steam.
Re: Working on complex systems: What I learned working at Google
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
The assumptions in that math are wrong anyway. Once you depend on 10 people, the chance that they each achieve "95% successful execution" is 0. This is only partially down to the impossibility of having every staff member on a project be A++ players. There is coordination RISK not just coordination overhead. Think planning a 2 week trip with your spouse with multiple planes/trains/hotels, museum/exhibit ticket bookin…
That's what the math is reflecting. Project succeeds if all of 10 people does their job well. Each person has a 95% chance of succeeding. 0.95^10 ~= 60%, and so the chance that all 10 people do their job successfully is ~60%. Those jobs also include things like management and product design, and so the coordination risk is reflected in the 5% chance that the manager drops the ball on communication. (As a manager, I s…
That's what I mean "only 5%" encapsulating all failure modes (comms/implementation/coordination/etc) is very low.
And that under-estimation compounds to make the top level 60% much higher than it should be.
A 7.5% rate takes top-level success odds below 50% - 46%. A not unrealistic 10% takes the top level down to 35%.
Etc.