Sounds like someone who would be sufficiently candid with his board to me.
Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
861–870 of 1001 posts
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#862There's a great documentary about waco on Netflix and at the end, the guy who is was in command of the troops who massacred 80 women and children concluded (after 30 years of reflection), "you know the real victim was? Me, because the whole fiasco made me look bad." It's interesting to see how those who appear outwardly evil manage to cling to a self-serving and distorted view of the world in which, if anything, they…
An oddly dramatic response to a blog post of someone working on a, what is this flutter, some frontend framework library?
Counterpoint - since I left Google, little birds told me good things happened, for example, cranking down on the travel expenses (that higher-ups used to spent with little to none oversight)
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#863Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think “rediscovering” the old ways of operating is a charitable interpretation that makes it sound like these patterns are somehow better. Silos and fiefdoms don’t benefit the company, they benefit the professional managers that are using them to grow their careers. I subscribe to the interpretation that sufficiently successful companies inevitably attract ladder climbers whose goals are personal advancement at all…
Silos and fiefdoms allow small gelled teams who know and trust each other, have similar levels of competence, and sit physically near each other to put their heads down and execute with extraordinary speed and quality. Once silos are broken down and cross-team/cross-org collaboration becomes valorized, everything is strangers and Zoom meetings and time zones and Process and maybe if you’re lucky one person in your pa…
Breaking down silos de-risks a company, despite some of the costs you mentioned. Especially after covid, companies capitalize on the flexibility of employees and lack of (physical) offices. Employees can be replaced like never before.
But even without that in mind, breaking silos can also put the right people in the loop - for every successful silo you mentioned, I bet there is a successful company which was able to have a good mix of people from different teams.
For me it always boils down to: what does the company want? Who they want to be in the next 3-5-10 years? Based on this you need to have proper management training. Without that, they simply throw engineers at the problem, which as you mentioned, can backfire. If you as an organization are able to scale well (even with some small and monitored silos) I don't see why it should be a problem.
Reality is: companies want to be able to scale like Google for their pet projects, fire fast upon need, have a lot of teams all with the performance of 10x engineers, etc etc. That's the BS they write on their about page.
Do they have agile coaches? Do they have people that help them organize work? Skilled people, not random guy that developed software all his life and now he/she wants to try something new, and he/she read a book over the weekend or listened to some podcasts..
People have high expectations by paying little. It takes effort to do things right. That's in my opinion the truth.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#864Given:
- the string of missed opportunities in the last 10 years (specifically AI)
- the string of user-hostile product decisions (latest: adblockers vs YT)
- the complete lack of innovation (name a cool product launched by G in the last 5 years)
- the clear and present competitive threat to their flagship product (search vs. OpenAI)
- the once great culture that is rotting in place (see article)
- the stock price completely flat or slightly down for the past two years
- the enormous waste of goodwill Google had accumulated with both the world and their own employees, now all spilt on the floor (I mean, they've chosen to turn predatory, I'm not going to say fine, but ultimately: their choice. BUT: they don't even have the financial numbers that would justify such an about turn).
Board is asleep at the wheel.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#865> 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…
IMO the leader in question doesn't have a coherent strategy because she's likely trying to justify her org (and keep jobs!) in the face of a lot of developers who just don't care a whole lot about her portfolio. Her org could probably function with less people and achieve the same outcomes, but instead of getting rid of them, she's probably trying to make something happen by moving people around. In an environment li…
You're describing the BigCorp meta, which I think is a good portrayal that people need to see.
However, in the context of the discussion and parent, it sounds like you're trying to defend.
I don't agree.
It's completely rational to play career frogger. The leader is getting compensated (We're talking re-ups of generational wealth for however long they can survive.) However, their leadership is fair for criticism. It sounds like the leader hasn't created a compelling vision, which their staff is craving, let alone delivered team success.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#866Earlier 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…
They made - and still make - one crucial error: you need to spin those projects that are simply viable out immediately after they take root. Otherwise you will end up with the brand advantage but there will always be the pressure to use the resources (people, mostly) more efficiently in terms of ROI. And so nothing ever lasts and slowly but surely your reputation as a reliable partner for new products is eroded. You…
In addition, I don't understand why they stopped them entirely, instead of spin them off as subsidiaries under e.g. Alphabet; make them financially self-reliant, have Google/Alphabet as the main shareholder, and give the people that worked on it (and whoever else wants to) the opportunity to continue working on the product.
Some wouldn't have been viable, sure. Others were probably too ingrained in Google's hardware/software ecosystem to be separated out (although I wonder if nowadays everything Google runs on its cloud offering, which would make it simpler, just change the billing).
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#867Earlier quoted context omitted.
I loved old google they refused to share a business model. Google ~2006 I think is just past peaked google. I think they developed ads because it was the only model that fit their valuation.
You have the history backwards. Ads in early 2000s > Mega-valuation
Could be, they also had a pre-iso valuation that needed justifying. The signal to me that it was really over was when they stopped supporting jabber/XMPP and look where it go them. I never experienced Google as a stock. My only experience with google is as a search engine and a mail delivery system that broke all the rules of polite society.
Could be "Don't be evil" was the answer to the business model question of early google. My memory is that it spawned during an interview with Larry and Sergey regarding the business model.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#868Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s weird that Gmail never reached that point. Even years later it’s still the same it was 10 years ago. I think after inbox died I just gave up on it and moved to fastmail.
I understand what you're saying (I miss Inbox, too). But end users like sameness and "it just works." Normies prefer stability over innovation when they are trying to get stuff done.
Thing is, they quit on it too quickly; sure, a lot of people would stick with gmail, but others - and following generations - would adopt and grow up with inbox.
I think / suspect that many people develop habits of this type in their 20's and never move away from it for the next 60 years because it works. Example, people who still use vi(m) / emacs. Nothing personal, but as an example, they use it because they're used to it and have been for decades. And no editor that claims to be better will ever replace it for them.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#869Earlier quoted context omitted.
5 years ago it was hard to see , now I ampersonally using more chatgpt than Google.
What kind of shallow, bland, inoffensive and disconnected items do you search for that a simple chatbot can spit out?
Work-related stuff, Google is for more personal stuff but even there 85% of my search is something like best running shoes Reddit.
Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google
#870Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, agreed. My view is that the people on the inside often can't see the forest for the trees. They look at their immediate team/group, love the autonomy/transparency/"don't be evil"-mandate/etc. that they have and follow, and look around and see some of that in other groups, and think, "wow, this company is great, doesn't care about all that big-bad-company stuff". But people outside can look at a company that gets…
But then again, everyone says Google is evil to have made their own browser, but most of the world is using it - one would guess they must have done some good things with it (so taking humanity forward in some capacity etc.). Some are even criticizing Google from its own browser - I hate the fact that it made Firefox lose their market share, but I also understand it can't all be because the big corp brainwashed every…
IE6 was the browser "most of the world used" too. But really, surely, there was absolutely nothing done well in it. The only reason it was the most used browser was monopoly abuse.
And while we can discuss the exact terminology of "a monopoly" and whether the Ie6 hegemony fit in there theoretically, that it came with the most used OS, really was the only reason it was popular.
With Chrome it is different. But at least a large part of its popularity comes from abused monopolies enforcing this software on people. Less than IE6 i'd say, but still a large part.