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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#701

Post by RivieraKid »

meowtimemania wrote: post #654
RivieraKid wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. What also surprises me is that coworkers have little desire to start side-projects or startups. But that's probably because those who do have left already. By the way, I was developing for Android since its early days (before the first Android phone was released) and mostly switched to iOS development few years ago. I have to say that the Android SDK (and the UI/UX too) was underwhelming, although it started…

Why are you surprised by people that don’t work on side projects?

That's not what I said. I don't currently work on any side project. But I have a desire to and I like to think about and discuss project ideas. I assumed everyone is like this.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#702

Post by leoc »

eslaught wrote: post #622
e_y_ wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On paper, Google's throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks strategy (that has lead to a substantial Google Graveyard) seems like it was intended to allow for some parts of the company to innovate while keeping the core products stable and boring. In practice, many of those innovations (Google Inbox, anyone?) were not deemed profitable enough to keep around. Others were never given the resources to grow beyon…

It's worth noting that was a turning point: the "more wood behind fewer arrows" policy adopted by Larry [1] initiated the die-off cycle of Google products. Prior to that, as far as I am aware, they were much more tolerant of products staying around in a mature-but-not-wildly-successful state. Afterwards, it seemed as if they would only keep things that maintained a trajectory to become as successful as their core pro…

What’s remarkable is that that phrase was already, at that time, notorious for having been a portent of doom at Sun Microsystems.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#703

Post by caminante »

lopiar wrote: post #404

This is the result of having leadership with MBA or finance background instead of engineering. All they see is short term money, product is a 2nd class citizen. This is what happened to the automotive industry. In the past companies tried to build the best car. Now? Profit is all that matters.

> This is what happened to the automotive industry.

Not even close.

The computer revolution happened and the automotive industry was displaced in the economy by other sectors, namely tech. [0] Car usage/ownership has gone down.

[0] https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/economy/spotlight/a...

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#704

Post by devnullbrain »

RivieraKid wrote: post #470

I work at a company that is very similar to Google (similar products, similar age, founder not there anymore - he's busy with windy.com now) and it's funny how similar my feelings are. What I think is happening is that the best people tend to leave, and those who prefer safety and are fine with the corporate environment as long as they're getting paid tend to stay or join. I doubt this downward spiral to mediocrity c…

The "sugar daddy effect" sounds an awful lot like benefiting from anticompetitive practices to the net detriment of society.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#705

Post by andromeduck »

devnullbrain wrote: post #700
teaearlgraycold wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers at Google are referred to as “headcount”. Managers fight each other for headcount. When someone leaves they are lamented for their net loss of .67 headcount (right now you only get one hire for 3 attritions).

Does that mean managers are incentivised not to let go of underperformers?

That's "durable savings" for ya.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#706

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#707

Post by johnwheeler »

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…

I really like that he calls her and pichai out. They’re both undeserving fat cats. If you’re going to be a fat cat, you should know you’re a fat cat. Otherwise, you’ll think you deserve even more.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#708

Post by dmazzoni »

Osmose wrote: post #69

This is a good reflection, but I do disagree with the view of honest efforts from Google to improve the world being met with unnecessary external criticism. People outside Google don't have the benefit of thinking of any particular project as being run only by the individuals currently working on it—those particular people may leave the company or change teams or move on to other projects. It's Google that's making i…

> No amount of the original Chrome team being excellent, well-intentioned, skilled, thoughtful makers can stop today's Chrome from cornering the market into an effective monopoly and leveraging that to try and benefit Google's ad products

Except for the fact that the original team open-sourced 99% of the browser, when they didn't have to.

That has led to tons of other companies being able to build potential Chrome competitors. It also led to products nobody anticipated, like Electron.

I sincerely believe that once one of the alternative browsers gets enough better, or Chrome gets bad enough, Chrome will lose its lead.

Remember, people thought Internet Explorer would dominate forever.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#709

Post by dmazzoni »

dazzlefruit wrote: post #139
Osmose wrote: post #69

This is a good reflection, but I do disagree with the view of honest efforts from Google to improve the world being met with unnecessary external criticism. People outside Google don't have the benefit of thinking of any particular project as being run only by the individuals currently working on it—those particular people may leave the company or change teams or move on to other projects. It's Google that's making i…

The Chrome versions of the first few years were so nice to use. It was the _lightest_ major browser for a time. It's insane how it has drifted since then.

Did it really?

Because browsers got good, the web got orders of magnitude more complex. If you try loading a modern web page in an old version of Chrome, you'll see just how much faster Chrome has gotten.

Or alternatively, try viewing an old webpage in new Chrome. It's still super light and zippy.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#710

Post by dmazzoni »

dazzlefruit wrote: post #507
crazygringo wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it drifted? I don't see it. I think all the other browsers just had to become light and fast too. Even Microsoft was forced to say goodbye to IE, and instead based Edge on Chromium. And tech people were eventually able to switch back to Firefox because it got much faster too. Google wanted a world where all browsers were light and fast in order to efficiently run complex webapps -- and they achieved that. Kudos.

Chrome is often criticized for overusing RAM. Personally I stopped using it a couple years ago, but when I stopped, it was very far from light; I remember it freezing for a few seconds for lack of RAM in a way other browsers (Firefox with multiprocessing, Edge before it got rebuilt over Chromium) didn't. The original Chrome just felt like a barebones window to the Internet. Though I agree that Firefox et al. became m…

Chrome isn't using all that RAM.

The web pages you visit are.

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