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Things I've learned at Google so far

bentilly.blogspot.com

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Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#91

Post by nostrademons »

btilly wrote: post #14
mrduncan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought there were some really interesting tidbits in there and I enjoyed reading about the office environment. About the information that they're hiring - has there ever been a time when Google wasn't hiring? (I mean that seriously, not to be snarky.)

About a year ago Google had a layoff and stopped hiring. This was personally frustrating, because I got through the interview process in Feb, got approved by the hiring committee, then headcount was not approved. Which put me in a state of indefinite limbo. So I had found a different job by the time they contacted me again in October.

Woah, I really did squeak in under the wire. I got through the interview process in December and started in January. They actually did an end run around Larry Page and had a quorum of other VPs approve my app, because he was on vacation that week and I had another offer I was pretty close to taking.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#92

Post by nostrademons »

dschobel wrote: post #47
hello_moto wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh... I was referring to the fact that the author just completed his first month at Google... It's hard to judge a company just in one month especially when some people might spend their first week (or two) doing company orientation.

Agreed. I don't doubt that it's an amazing place to work, but every job has its honeymoon phase and the author is definitely in that. I'd be eager to hear an honest assessment from him after a year though. There has to be a reason why brilliant and motivated people leave Google, after all.

I've been there for just over a year. My reactions are basically the same as his - they were the same when I started, but they've dulled as I got accustomed to it. Still think it's a great place to work.

The OMG-everyone's-so-smart factor does fade as you get accustomed to all the proprietary infrastructure and realize that hey, I'm smart too. Eventually, intelligence just doesn't matter all that much. It's like my dad's story about starting at MIT: the first 2 weeks, everybody has their phi-beta-kappa rings on all the time. After a month, they've all disappeared, because you realize that everybody else has one too, and then smarts just aren't an issue afterwards.

You also tend to become more overworked as you gain competence. There's far more that we'd like to do than what we can do. Eventually that marveling at "Oh my god we built this" becomes "Oh shit I have to build this", which can be very satisfying, but also is a lot of work.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#93

Post by elblanco »

nostrademons wrote: post #85
elblanco wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you can. To date, Google really only has one successful product (success meaning "makes money for Google") and that's Ad-sense. Sure it's wildly successful. But if that stopped making money for Google tomorrow (for example, I automatically mentally filter out all advertisements in my search results, how long before everybody does that), what would their revenue and profitability picture look like? In alm…

AdWords, not AdSense. AdSense is their second successful product. And Search exists basically to supply inventory for AdWords. They wouldn't have anything to run ads on without search (okay, not quite true, there's AdSense, but they wouldn't have developed either...)

Thanks for the correction.

But yeah, that merely proves my point. If click-throughs started to drop, what other money making products does Google have in its portfolio?

(don't get me wrong, I love and use Google products as much as the next fella, but I also understand that their search/ad revenue is what's subsidizing my use of Google Earth or Picassa or whatever)

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#94

Post by nostrademons »

elblanco wrote: post #93
nostrademons wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AdWords, not AdSense. AdSense is their second successful product. And Search exists basically to supply inventory for AdWords. They wouldn't have anything to run ads on without search (okay, not quite true, there's AdSense, but they wouldn't have developed either...)

Thanks for the correction. But yeah, that merely proves my point. If click-throughs started to drop, what other money making products does Google have in its portfolio? (don't get me wrong, I love and use Google products as much as the next fella, but I also understand that their search/ad revenue is what's subsidizing my use of Google Earth or Picassa or whatever)

There're some, but if they're not in the 10-K I'm not allowed to comment on the profitability of other products.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#95

Post by jheriko »

ThinkWriteMute wrote: post #37
csomar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Blogger? It does its' job well. What's the point from Blogging? -> Getting the word to the others. and it does it well, so it's not crap.

If getting it done was the only objective then why isn't Blogger just a web server that people can FTP self written HTML files to? Blogger has a lot of paper cuts that slowly make it either unbearable to use or unsightly to visit. It takes me 4 refreshes just to comment on a page.

Because most people don't know what FTP is, if they even know it exists - much less how to use it? Ditto on HTML.

It might be a bit flaky, but for the average end user its significantly (perhaps "infinitely") more useful than an FTP client and a text editor.

Maybe what you want is Google Sites?

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#96

Post by logicalmind »

One thing I'd like to know about is how google deals with declines in productivity. Undoubtedly, their hiring process gets them highly qualified individuals, at least initially. But over time, there has to be people who become lazy and take advantage of their good graces. And it would be expected that as people age they start a family and their work priorities may take a back seat.

Is there some kind of process, ala Jack Welch, where people are ranked and the bottom 10% are removed? How does google deal with under-performers?

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#97

Post by waterlesscloud »

Here's a question, and I don't mean this in a snarky way at all. It's a genuine question.

With all these smart people, why has the experience of google search not improved substantially over the last 10 years? Sure, there's more little geegaws in search now, but the experience of finding what I want hasn't gotten any easier.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#98

Post by argv_empty »

maryrosecook wrote: post #73
jff wrote: post #10

As my boss likes to say, they have the free meals because they expect you to be there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I've never seen the problem with being at work for all three meals, given that breakfast and lunch closely bracket work hours. If you are young and don't have a family, having your employer cook you healthy meals is probably a net time-saver, even if you do work 9am - 7pm.

If you are young and don't have a family, having your employer cook you healthy meals is probably a net time-saver, even if you do work 9am - 7pm.

Unfortunately, maintaining that work schedule means I'd have to continue to not have a family.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#99

Post by brown9-2 »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #97

Here's a question, and I don't mean this in a snarky way at all. It's a genuine question. With all these smart people, why has the experience of google search not improved substantially over the last 10 years? Sure, there's more little geegaws in search now, but the experience of finding what I want hasn't gotten any easier.

I would assume that for most people, the experience of search is easy and is working well. Otherwise I don't think it would continue to be #1. It sounds like you might be outside the norm.

Re: Things I've learned at Google so far

#100

Post by elblanco »

nostrademons wrote: post #94
elblanco wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the correction. But yeah, that merely proves my point. If click-throughs started to drop, what other money making products does Google have in its portfolio? (don't get me wrong, I love and use Google products as much as the next fella, but I also understand that their search/ad revenue is what's subsidizing my use of Google Earth or Picassa or whatever)

There're some, but if they're not in the 10-K I'm not allowed to comment on the profitability of other products.

Well, it's not hard to just go through the list of products Google offers, and subtract the ones that don't have a business model around them.

For example, Google Earth does some actual business business, and probably makes a bit of cash selling pro versions and geospatial servers and services (haven't looked at the 10-k to be honest). Orkut, Sites, Knol, Chat, Wave, Scholar, etc. does not.

Some things like SketchUp are designed as loss leaders like Search to provide content to things that might have a decent revenue stream like Google Earth (except most of the paying users are probably not using the Sketchup Data).

But other, more expensive things like Chrome and Android have a link to making money that's very tenuous at best.

And we also already know that Search Ads account for 99% of Google's revenue stream. Subtract that out and we have a very good idea of where Google's other offerings are.

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