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Culture Change at Google

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Re: Culture Change at Google

#91

Post by unethical_ban »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #83
treprinum wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My very first boss that I believe is an undiagnosed psychopath is now director level over there. That told me everything I needed to know about any possible direction of the company. I no longer use anything made by them and actively steer everyone I know away to alternatives.

What alternatives do you recommend for email? That's my one google service I have difficulty getting away from.

I use Protonmail. Free tier I think, but I pay $10 a month for a bundle that allows custom domains, calendar, VPN, and storage.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#92

Post by johannessjoberg »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #83
treprinum wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My very first boss that I believe is an undiagnosed psychopath is now director level over there. That told me everything I needed to know about any possible direction of the company. I no longer use anything made by them and actively steer everyone I know away to alternatives.

What alternatives do you recommend for email? That's my one google service I have difficulty getting away from.

Fastmail is great and worth the small cost imo

Re: Culture Change at Google

#93

Post by rightbyte »

Uehreka wrote: post #76
vlovich123 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source is very hard for a bunch of reasons: * Code at Google3 is one giant monolith that has dependencies on things that aren’t open sourced. Even if they could be, they don’t make sense outside of Google * most services internally run on internal services like Borg and GFS rather than GCP for historical reasons. That maybe has changed now but I suspect a lot of stuff depends on internal infra not available on G…

> Code at Google3 is one giant monolith I’ve heard this stated before, and something about it feels off. There’s no way all of Google’s code is in one repo. Like, does that monorepo contain the full Android operating system with Google Services and the firmware for all the Pixel devices? I feel pretty sure multiple teams at Google must have forks of the Linux kernel for one reason or another, would those be in there…

Ye, like, is there a google.exe at 3912GB with 10k command line options like '--search-server --port=80' or '--Gsolitaire'?

Re: Culture Change at Google

#94

Post by petesergeant »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #55
petesergeant wrote: post #18

Other than people who worked there, and miss the old days … who cares? Google has transitioned into a mature tech company, which basically means they’re just an investment vehicle now managing assets. They’ll buy the innovation they need, but otherwise management’s job is to predictably manage share prices and profit. The nostalgia is nice for people who worked there, but the maturity of the business being presented…

Google is a bit like Microsoft under Steve Ballmer. It had lost its way. There was no leadership. Most of what they tried failed or wasn't that great. And yet it was still raking in the profits. And then MS turned it around. All it took was new leadership. They just overtook Apple as the most valuable company in the world. Just a string of good, solid decisive leadership. Satya Nadella turned that company around. Cou…

Absolutely they need a leader to turn it around, but Apple and Microsoft don’t feel like Google did: it’s still going to be a mature tech giant, run by spreadsheets, even if they can start producing some cool stuff again

Re: Culture Change at Google

#95

Post by morgante »

Uehreka wrote: post #76
vlovich123 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source is very hard for a bunch of reasons: * Code at Google3 is one giant monolith that has dependencies on things that aren’t open sourced. Even if they could be, they don’t make sense outside of Google * most services internally run on internal services like Borg and GFS rather than GCP for historical reasons. That maybe has changed now but I suspect a lot of stuff depends on internal infra not available on G…

> Code at Google3 is one giant monolith I’ve heard this stated before, and something about it feels off. There’s no way all of Google’s code is in one repo. Like, does that monorepo contain the full Android operating system with Google Services and the firmware for all the Pixel devices? I feel pretty sure multiple teams at Google must have forks of the Linux kernel for one reason or another, would those be in there…

There are certainly a few notable exceptions (Chrome and Android), but google3 really is a massive monorepo.

It does contain forks of tons of open source code in the third party folder. I don't recall if the Linux kernel is in /third_party but I would not be surprisied if it is.

A fair amount of the operations are actually documented publicly, ex. https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/thirdparty...

Re: Culture Change at Google

#96

Post by petesergeant »

Niksko wrote: post #74
petesergeant wrote: post #18

Other than people who worked there, and miss the old days … who cares? Google has transitioned into a mature tech company, which basically means they’re just an investment vehicle now managing assets. They’ll buy the innovation they need, but otherwise management’s job is to predictably manage share prices and profit. The nostalgia is nice for people who worked there, but the maturity of the business being presented…

> It's time for smaller, scrappier tech companies to be the place where innovation happens I think this is exactly what is being lamented. There was interesting stuff happening for a really long time, and now there isn't. And companies that stop innovating tend to die long, slow deaths. It sounds like Google held out longer than most, but now runs the risk of going the way of the dodo. I'd lament that too.

> and now there isn’t

… at Google. Which comes back to my point that why should anyone except Google ex employees care if it’s happening there or somewhere else?

Re: Culture Change at Google

#97

Post by flklklklkl »

Whenever I see posts like these, whether for Google, or any other company, I can't stop thinking about the people not working as engineers - the sales guys, CS reps, building maintenance, the IT guys. Did they have 20% of their time dedicated to "personal projects", whatever that might be? Did they have free food? Are their titles attached to their person? Do they feel their employer value its employees above all else?

I have a tiny little cynical voice in the back of my head having a good laugh, but I might be wrong.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#98

Post by dilyevsky »

Uehreka wrote: post #76
vlovich123 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open source is very hard for a bunch of reasons: * Code at Google3 is one giant monolith that has dependencies on things that aren’t open sourced. Even if they could be, they don’t make sense outside of Google * most services internally run on internal services like Borg and GFS rather than GCP for historical reasons. That maybe has changed now but I suspect a lot of stuff depends on internal infra not available on G…

> Code at Google3 is one giant monolith I’ve heard this stated before, and something about it feels off. There’s no way all of Google’s code is in one repo. Like, does that monorepo contain the full Android operating system with Google Services and the firmware for all the Pixel devices? I feel pretty sure multiple teams at Google must have forks of the Linux kernel for one reason or another, would those be in there…

Android, golang, chromium and a few others were separate but there were 2B+ loc of other stuff in that repository

Re: Culture Change at Google

#99

Post by romanovcode »

boxed wrote: post #89
romanovcode wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in one big company when something like this actually happened. First week one developer blatantly said to management in-front of the scammer that the scammer (CTO) doesn't know anything about technology and is a complete fraud. The developer got fired 10 minutes later. Others took note to not challenge him if they want to keep their job. That happened ~10 years ago and I am actually grateful for that expe…

You learned how to assume the world is broken, and not fix it. That's the path back to a hunter gatherer society. I think that's the wrong lesson to learn.

I learned how big companies function and how to get ahead quick. The two things - politics and competence are not mutually exclusive.

Re: Culture Change at Google

#100

Post by OsrsNeedsf2P »

tavavex wrote: post #75
renewiltord wrote: post #65

It's interesting. When I moved to California in 2012, Google was exciting. They had hot stuff, new platforms, very exciting. Six years later, you were hesitant to hire Google people. Today, it's the Bay Area retirement home. No one takes a Google resume seriously and everyone who works there talks about little they work. In a sense a massive transfer of wealth from capital to labor: the finest example of redistributi…

I'm sorry, I'm speaking from a point of absolutely no experience in these high-profile Silicon Valley jobs, but "companies refuse to hire Google employees" strikes me as a statement akin to "the king refuses to dine from a 99.999% gold plate because they skimped out on getting him a 100% pure plate". Even right now, many tech workers see Google and other big-name tech companies as basically the ultimate goal of their…

He's like 30% correct. Before, hiring someone from Google was an accomplishment, because they were so rare. Now, there's so many people with Google on their resume, most refusing to downsize in TC, that even mediocre positions are filled with ex-Google applicants.
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