Seems like a desperate attempt to drum up book sales. Whomever created this could have just found motivational posters and pasted them in all 50 slides. I found nothing in this but same old tired cliches; try hard, don't give up, think big. "What's different now?"
How Google Works
91–100 of 113 posts
Re: How Google Works
#92The images were distracting, the text was not prominent enough and slide 29 is religiously and humanly offensive to several billion people.
Re: How Google Works
#93> "Never forget that hiring is the most important thing you do."
Uhh.... I think at least a hundred commenters on HN who've gone through Google hiring would disagree with you.
Re: How Google Works
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? That slave labour was used to build pyramids is a popular but unfounded belief. There is evidence suggesting that some pyramids were built by well-paid government contractors. Also apparently American-type slavery was a historical abberation. A typical slave in the past was not unlike a salaried employee today. He was well-treated, earned good money for his services and was able to free himself after accumulatin…
>free himself after accumulating enough of it If you don't think enslavement to a particular person is worse than working now, you need a reality check.
Not all slavery is chattel slavery.
Re: How Google Works
#95I can't seem to find it but Jeff Dean did a talk a long while back about How Google's search works, how they predict. I wish I could see it again. He talks about "shard" servers.
Anyone remember this?
Re: How Google Works
#96I started work at google pretty recently, and expressed an interest in working on a particular project. I made some notes about some of my ideas, and was putting some stuff together to show to one of the teams, to get some input before prototyping. I asked a senior team member to have a look at the notes I had made, and see if they were ready to show to the wider team. His advice? "Go build something, then we can hav…
I was under the impression that the work load at Google is so heavy that it is almost impossible to get "20% time" anymore. During what time did you work on your idea? Are they freeing you of all responsibilities to build your prototype or do they expect you to do it in your free time and then donate it to the company? Thanks, I'm very curious about this aspect of Google's culture.
I've got two 20% projects: one for Saturday, and one for Sunday.
-- Googler saying.Re: How Google Works
#97I started work at google pretty recently, and expressed an interest in working on a particular project. I made some notes about some of my ideas, and was putting some stuff together to show to one of the teams, to get some input before prototyping. I asked a senior team member to have a look at the notes I had made, and see if they were ready to show to the wider team. His advice? "Go build something, then we can hav…
I was under the impression that the work load at Google is so heavy that it is almost impossible to get "20% time" anymore. During what time did you work on your idea? Are they freeing you of all responsibilities to build your prototype or do they expect you to do it in your free time and then donate it to the company? Thanks, I'm very curious about this aspect of Google's culture.
I was under the impression that the work load at Google is so heavy that it is almost impossible to get "20% time" anymore.
You don't get in trouble for not working enough hours. A six-hour day is more than enough effort to keep you employed. As in most corporate jobs, you could probably get away with 2-4 (spending the other hours at your desk, but learning skills for the next job) if it's not obvious.
You get in trouble for 20%T (being "distracted") if it pisses your manager off, if it looks like you're trying to engineer a transfer off an undesirable project, or if you appear to be putting 50% of your time into the project.
The reason 20%T usually fails (on employee-initiated side projects) is that it's really hard to launch at Google without a full-time launch. The standards are really high. You have to cover a lot of bases that you wouldn't be expected to worry about in a startup, and you'll need to get enough SRE (reliability engineer) support to cover 24 hours. It's not unreasonable that Google is that way, because they have an understandable brand concern when it comes to reliability in new services.
Most successful uses of 20%T are to engineer a transfer, but managers are wise to that and not supportive. That game is actually a bad thing, because it means that to get a transfer requires auditioning, dividing your efforts, and putting your standing on your main project at risk. It's actually a lot harder to transfer to a good project within Google than to get a job at Google. This also means that you can 20%T for the purpose of transferring, only to get screwed on "headcount" and have put your standing on your main team at risk for nothing.
I don't think that your typical, run-of-the-mill manager is going to punish you for 20%T alone, but if the Perf gods decide that he has to stick someone with a "2.9" (bad Perf) this cycle, then having one foot out the door puts you at risk of being the one thrown under the bus. And once you get a 2.9 it's impossible to transfer.
Re: How Google Works
#98I started work at google pretty recently, and expressed an interest in working on a particular project. I made some notes about some of my ideas, and was putting some stuff together to show to one of the teams, to get some input before prototyping. I asked a senior team member to have a look at the notes I had made, and see if they were ready to show to the wider team. His advice? "Go build something, then we can hav…
Bringing this back to the slides, I don't see how this applies to most companies. At most places we are utterly swamped with work; the idea that we can go just build something to allow us to have a conversation is pretty mad. Most companies don't have Google's resources, and I don't see how this advice is remotely possible. I can't build the things I need for what we are already expected to do; I certainly am not going to put that further in the hole to build something that will also not have enough resources to succeed.
I'm not arguing with your position, just reflecting on the slides. They seemed to be saying 'this is how you (not google) should be doing it', ignoring the kind of cash flow that is required to make that happen.
Re: How Google Works
#99I found these slides rather shallow. Smart, creative people are the best employees? Who knew! The Internet led to massive disruptions in traditional businesses? Wow! Sorry for my cynicism/sarcasm, but I see the book campaign as Eric Schmidt positioning himself for his next role. He's trying to secure his personal Google legacy as he gets ready for an exit. I can't imagine it's all that enticing to go from CEO to chai…
First, the slides are meant to be simple. Notice how this is written/drawn in a children's book style? Second, I do think it's very very provocative for "formal" people like me. I'm the business guy in a suit who just left Procter & Gamble.
I'm curious. What about this is provocative for you?
Re: How Google Works
#100The answer to "What has changed? Which assumptions do people make that are no longer true? Why does everything feel like it's speeding up?" is supposedly "Technology is transforming virtually every business sector."
It list three examples which are mostly true. But the same answer could easily have been said any time in at least the last 120 years -- and it was. I think the complaint about the shallow content in this presentation is completely justified, because there's nothing really new about the idea of change.
Steam power. Electricity. Telegraph. Telephone. Mechanical calculators. Slide rules. Cheap aluminum. Flight. Punch card sorting machines. Linotype machines. Each of those are examples where technology transformed business sectors.
The telegraph made it possible for information to reach around the world on the same day it happened. Ham radio enthusiasts talked to each other around the world, including bouncing TV signals off the moon. Scratch off the names and it's the same ideas that this presentation promotes as something somehow new. It's assumes the fallacy that what you grew up with was slow and unchanging.
It's difficult to read much of the research literature from the 1960s without hearing people talk about the "information explosion" and there being too much change and things out of balance.
Mail order is an 1800s example of "barriers to entry melting away" and is how Sears gained its fame. So was the rise of the daily newspaper, subsidized by advertising that made is possible for people to know what was available.
"Power has shifted from companies to consumers" ... Hello, the 1930s called. Consumer Reports wants to know if you would like a subscription so they can pay for rigorous testing. Or do you seriously think that mass edited unrestricted feedback can't be gamed?
"Individuals and small teams have a massive impact." etc. That sounds a lot like the HP Way, which has as point #1 "We have trust and respect for individuals"
Except, oddly enough, the Google way doesn't mention ethics. Compare to the HP Way where "We conduct our business with uncompromising integrity." and that as a good corporate citizen HP will "meet the obligations of good citizenship by making contributions to the community and to the institutions in our society which generate the environment in which we operate.
Does Google consider ethics less important than business nirvana?
What is new in this presentation that HP didn't cover in the 1960s?