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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#811

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

mepiethree wrote: post #383
ghaff wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't seem like the worst plan in the world.

Yeah I recently left a startup that I worked at for 6 years to join Google. At the startup I was overworked+underpaid, generally found it impossible to eat more than 2 meals a day (and difficult to eat more than one), usually worked on Saturdays (and always on Black Friday), rarely made time to visit family, and always lived on tenterhooks thinking about the next RFP we had to win. I did care about the mission of the…

The build tools are not great. Well, maybe the tools are fine, but the build times are killing me. Going from 5ms builds at home to 5 minute builds at work is brutal. 98% of my day is just waiting for builds, tests, CL approvals, experiment results, launch approvals and lunch lines.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#812

Post by hot_gril »

capableweb wrote: post #177
cbsmith wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Of course none of this will happen to Google. You're too innovative." I would have had a hard time hearing that as anything other than sarcasm.

Absolutely. And I'm sure the talker had a " " in their transcript, which they had to quickly skip since people were taking it seriously.

I can see this happening. Same as how "don't be evil" was a joke outside the company (cause obviously an evil company would say this) but taken seriously by some inside.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#813

Post by towway23111257 »

jjiij wrote: post #277
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 don't really see how naming the specific individual improved the argument, unless there is true malfeasance, like sexual harassment, I don't think it's ethical to publicly name-and-shame somebody for the crime of being bad at their job. LOTS of people are bad at their job.

For a rank and file employee or a line manager, I'd agree with you.

But this is a Director at Google. She has the power to command change and her actions affect 100s of people directly inside Google and likely many thousands using the products of teams under her. They likely draw multi million dollar total comp.

I very much welcome them to be publicly called out on their BS.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#816

Post by immibis »

miohtama wrote: post #319
eslaught wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was an intern at Google circa 2010, there was a guest lecture from a business professor who described exactly this process. At the end of it, he made a comment like, "Of course none of this will happen to Google. You're too innovative." But literally every single prediction of his came true, and I witnessed some of them happening in front of my own eyes even in just the months that I was there (and certainly i…

This is called Scumpeter's creative destruction (to be distinguished from other creative destruction) and why large companies may lose the ability to be innovative and compete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction However. it's hard to see Google's core business dominance, search and ad, to be destroyed very easily. It's also super confusing that no other entity has been able to create a matching service…

People are already lamenting the lack of useful results in Google Search, and adverts aren't returning as much value as they used to, and there's been a rise in modified client apps without ads as a reaction to ads being spammed on certain services.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#817

Post by hot_gril »

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"?

HBO is paid programming with product placement at most, and NYT sells subscriptions that actually bring in the majority of their revenue. If it were 90% ads, I'd say yeah they might want to reconsider that.

YouTube has its own content while Search ofc doesn't, and its advertising model is different. I wouldn't lump it in with Search. But still, they've decided ads aren't enough and they need YT Premium subscriptions.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#818

Post by immibis »

Andrex wrote: post #449
satvikpendem wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All their revenue came from ads, and they loss-led other projects. Great, market has matured from that. Has it? Seems like Google still makes most of their money via ads and everything else is a loss leader.

Google has been trying very hard to diversify, mostly through Cloud. How well they are succeeding at that is up to interpretation but they are chipping away at Ads' percentage of revenue. It used to be higher than 85% but as of 2022 it's down to only being 58% of operating revenue[0]. 0. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/18/how-does-google-make-mon...

When companies figure out that cloud is a waste of money, this might not work.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#819

Post by immibis »

stillwithit wrote: post #501
pardoned_turkey wrote: post #86

Ian's post is pretty incisive, although I've read so many of these over the past 15 years or so. And the prescription is always to go back in time. I don't really think that's possible. When you're a newcomer, a disruptor, the whole point is to be different. You're bold, you have a clarity of purpose, you say things like "we're building a new kind of a company" or "the user comes first." But once you achieve market d…

Has nothing to do with Google “being bad” and everything to do with emerging social trends questioning the corporatization of everything. Such memes have gone viral across our society. From big beer boycotts, to turning on Google and SV. Filter bubbles across contexts are turning on the source of their fascination; we’re out for video games, Hollywood, beer, celebrities, experts, politicians. Knives aren’t out yet bu…

Your comment has been removed for threatening violence, and your user account has been permanently suspended. Have a nice day. - corporate censors

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#820

Post by speedgoose »

JSavageOne wrote: post #760
greatgib wrote: post #534

I think this guy has a Stockholm syndrom like I saw multiple times with Google employees: ; one of the most annoying is the prevalence of pointless cookie warnings we have to wade through today. I found it quite frustrating how teams would be legitimately actively pursuing ideas that would be good for the world, without prioritising short-term Google interests, only to be met with cynicism in the court of public opin…

The internet would be better without mandated cookie banners. It's so damn frustrating using the internet in the EU. If you don't want to be tracked just browse in Incognito mode.

GDPR doesn’t mandate cookies banner but requires informed consent. Browsing in incognito doesn’t prevent all kinds of tracking by the way.
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