Reflecting on 18 Years at Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#931

Post by hinkley » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #653

henham wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you distinguish "I can fix them" companies that will not improve because they are where they are because of organisational and human issues and the ones you can actual improve and are ready for you?

It’s simple, you just assume none are ready for change, and you’ll have a pretty much 100% accurate heuristic.

I think my thesis is that rather than looking for diamonds in the rough I need to reset my sense of good enough at least high enough that the exchange of new wisdom is somewhat proportional. I can teach you things and you can teach me things.

As a polymath my natural instinct is to learn by observation and doing rather than engage a teacher directly. Fortunately I can also learn by interviewing, so I’m not completely hopeless. If I’m asking you a ton of questions odds are good I think you’re a mentor or I think you need one.

The problem is that I’ve worked for a couple places that I thought could teach me a lot more than they did, I mistook individual attributes as a pattern that wasn’t there, and what I saw was more (or less) what I got. So at the end of the day I am probably the wrong person to ask. Thankfully other people replied.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#932

Post by hinkley » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #657

hinkley wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a long list of ways to improve processes and when I was young, energetic, and didn’t know any better, I got very, very lucky getting many or most of them through. As I’ve gotten older I’ve found more things that I “need” to improve and there’s been more time for me to forget how I need to justify things I consider “the right way” and so I don’t always win those arguments. But the bigger thing I’m coming to gri…

I joined my current company 5 years ago, and I feel like we’ve ‘fixed’ a lot of things, but the effort to do so is so absurd. And then it’s suddenly invalidated by some high-up rando on the other side of the world deciding we need to go back to the bad old way of doing things.

How do you cope with Told Ya So? I’ve found it’s never as cathartic as I think and keeping it to myself is somewhat stressful, so nobody wins no matter which option I choose.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#933

Post by wilsynet » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

immibis wrote: post #821

strangescript wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies confuse their initial product success with general success. "We made this amazing thing, so everything we do is amazing". The logic is flawed but can carry the company a tremendous distance before becoming unsustainable. Google is reaching the early steps of the unsustainable phase, and their initial product success is finally being threatened via AI. Working on an open source library for 9 years and then c…

I've seen a hypothesis that Google has never created anything new worth anything to anyone, after it created search and ads. Gmail is a clone of Hotmail, and YouTube and Android were acquisitions.

There were Internet search engines before Google, but Google did it way better.

I remember when Gmail was new. It was way, way better and more amazing than Hotmail. The idea was a practically infinite searchable inbox. Nothing else was like it at the time.

I think it would be unfair to not give credit to Google for YouTube. YouTube was indeed a visionary idea with legs, but it is so much further developed now than in 2005. And a lot of it has to do with the way Google has nurtured it over the years.

You could also say there were digital music players before the iPod, Apple copied the Mac from Xerox, and there were smart phones before the iPhone.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#934

Post by gscott » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 5:40 PM UTC

ot1138 wrote: post #734

> Much of the criticism Google received around Chrome and Search, especially around supposed conflicts of interest with Ads, was way off base (it's surprising how often coincidences and mistakes can appear malicious). The author is refreshingly candid but hopelessly myopic. Speaking as an outsider and a rather large advertiser, Google was great to work with in the early years (2004-2008). I founded the first search i…

It used to be early on you could specify not to show your ad below a certain position.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#935

Post by AlbertCory » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 5:45 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #737

e_y_ wrote: post #438

Earlier 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…

Assignment: Consider Agilent, itself a spinoff from HP, also spun off four (I think) companies, because they were good businesses but distracted the management.

Is this the right strategy? I'm tempted to say Yes.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#936

Post by compiler-guy » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:11 PM UTC

compiler-guy wrote: post #916

cavisne wrote: post #582

Its not very cool IMO to name & shame anyone lower than Sundar. Nevertheless the article is spot on with the effect of layoffs, and the general culture of big tech.

I disagree generally, but in specific, CFO Ruth Prost is clearly fair game.

Ruth Porat. Autocorrect ruins things.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#937

Post by KaiserPro » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #238

Osmose wrote: post #69

This is a good reflection, but I do disagree with the view of honest efforts from Google to improve the world being met with unnecessary external criticism. People outside Google don't have the benefit of thinking of any particular project as being run only by the individuals currently working on it—those particular people may leave the company or change teams or move on to other projects. It's Google that's making i…

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…

As a Cynic that also works at a FAANG, I sometimes see instances of the "outside" reading too much into an action that the company takes.

However. From the inside you have to keep an eye on how your actions might look to the outside with little to no context.

The research my team does could be pulled in one of two ways: "wow thats really useful" and "wow that's fucking intrusive." Its down to us to demonstrate to the normal person in the street that we have done effective work to mitigate the downsides so that its a net benefit to society.

This means we have to actually think about how adversaries might use our stuff and put in meaningful blocks, rather than handwavey "oh but no one would be that evil/stupid/malevolent/power hungry"

large tech companies should get lots of continuous scrutiny, the current tech press are extremely shit at doing that. For example facebook kinda gets enough, but its just default hate, rather than "why are they doing that seemingly stupid thing?" Google is still gets a mostly free pass, and Apple are apparently the saints of privacy. They are all as bad as each other, tiktok, Google and Facebook for mostly the same reasons(pumping industrial amount of shite into young people's eyes), Apple for enabling child porn at industrial levels and undermining encryption in the process.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#938

Post by bbor » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:40 PM UTC

arlongparker wrote: post #564

downWidOutaFite wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, I put my money where my mouth is. GOOG's monopoly-fueled glory days will soon be behind it. In tech, if you stand still for too long you will eventually be left behind.

Crazy you think that the company who invests the most in AI won’t retain any value in the transition to the space. People forget. Who owns kaggle, who owns Google collab. Boggles my mind that people think a few AI upshot’s are going to reap all the value. Having a good AI companion that’s integrated into all your suite of tools. That’s the peak.

Google colab is ludicrously underfunded, I’m shocked it’s stuck around for so long in the AI space. Tried Gradient recently and it’s like night and day. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be on the colab team, knowing what features devs want/need and not being able to deliver because the org priorities are whack

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#939

Post by chairhairair » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #677

caskstrength wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also I am almost never the person to bring this kind of thing up but ... there aren't a lot of other black women in leadership at Google. Makes this targeted attack feel worse. Unless I misunderstood the author she was his manager. It is not like he chose some random "black woman in leadership at Google" to attack.

But then, why point at "her department" when they are both in it ? My read is she's not in author's direct hierarchy line.

Your read is incorrect.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#940

Post by etruong42 » Thu, Nov 23, 2023, 6:43 PM UTC

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…

> why would you rock the boat and risk the nice thing we have... It's not just about profit. Careers and incomes are at stake. People will get hurt.

I think we really need to define "risk" and the "hurt" people might experience. I've been at Google for 5 years, and I don't believe Google is at an existential risk. From my perspective, the biggest concerns I've heard people express were forms of not maximizing compensation: whether from not getting promo, not getting big bonuses, amenities being reduced, etc.

I confess that the layoffs change things, but 1) I'm not really sure how people can protect themselves other than rising to senior leadership position who seemed more insulated from the layoffs and 2) I am in the pool of people who wouldn't have minded 6+ months severance (including accelerated stock vesting).

I think the nebulous fear of hurting people is another way that the status quo secures itself. If this fear of "hurting people" is the fear that motivates Googlers to maintain the status quo when Googlers are among the most privileged people upon the Earth, I'm not sure who else could buck the status quo.

I dunno if Google as a whole can change itself. But I hope that enough individual Googlers do decide that they can change the status quo. I hope there are enough people who aren't so vulnerable and can thus risk getting "hurt", whatever that means in this case, while protecting the truly vulnerable people around us.

The risk to maintaining the status quo is real; there is a real risk that this massively powerful company sacrifices our people and our opportunity to maximize the good we could do on a truly planetary scale only to strive to maximize quarterly earnings through short term thinking.