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Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

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Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#981

Post by munificent »

artzmeister wrote: post #527
munificent wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A genuine question: if one is a good, well intentioned human being, supposedly with principles, and ends up actively contributing to a dystopia or at least a much worse society, is that person excused because of "oh, the leadership fell off!" or "because I had good intentions"? At all? No, you'd be piled up with all the others that sold their morals and their society for money. The challenge is that we are all simu…

You're right, and it makes sense. Let me propose another perspective then: would a well-meaning, good person not be liable to culpability if he or she worked on a feature that actively monitored its users for data to sell to advertisors, much more than if such a person was working with something like Flutter or Go, since the latter workers are doing net positive things? I suppose I got a bit carried away originally,…

> or in paying taxes to our governments.

Yes, but we must inevitably pay taxes to some government. If you can find one with zero blood on its hands, let me know and I'll be the first to emigrate.

> We do, however, have a choice when it comes to working for Google.

True, but we must work somewhere, and few corporations are purely good. And some large corporations that have done many regrettable things have also done many valuable things. Do the good things a group does enter into its calculation?

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#982

Post by ob-gyn »

screye wrote: post #347
throwaway678808 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level. To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course. 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…

> series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level Isn't that exactly the job of an org executive? To hire and align competent senior leadership ? I don't think he is criticizing her in particular as much as the archetype that she represents. She is a person who has never had a coding job & spent her early career quite far from the people who write code. I can't for the life of me figure out why…

I find it fascinating how you speak with so much authority. I know Jeanine Banks and I've been really upset with all the "diversity hire" nonsense coming from many of you who cannot hold a candle next to her. For your information she had been programmingor since high school and was hired into a government agency as a high school programmer-intern. That internship was her introduction into the worlf of technology. She has been an executive at GE and Amazon. Let's take alook at your resume and see if you can get into the rooms that Jeanine has been in. The condescension from many of you and particularly Ian's hit piece has been a disappointment to see.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#983

Post by ob-gyn »

chatmasta wrote: post #358
screye wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level Isn't that exactly the job of an org executive? To hire and align competent senior leadership ? I don't think he is criticizing her in particular as much as the archetype that she represents. She is a person who has never had a coding job & spent her early career quite far from the people who write code. I can't for the life of me figure out why…

> I can't for the life of me figure out why you would put someone like that in charge of google-dev relations. One possibility is that the person who put her in that position has an incentive for Flutter/Dart to fail.

[flagged]

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#984

Post by ob-gyn »

serial_dev wrote: post #490
throwaway678808 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in the org that Jeanine now runs. It had a series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level. To call out Jeanine and only Jeanine in language this harsh feels wrong. From my recollection and from what I have heard from people still working there, she is par for the course. 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…

Calling her out by name felt a bit harsh within the context of the post. Sure, call out Sundar as he's a public figure, but this lady, never heard of her, never seen her. He could have made the point by writing "I had this terrible boss who had no idea about anything and...", her name is irrelevant to demonstrate the issue of decline at Google.

[flagged]

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#985

Post by 75th »

ob-gyn wrote: post #982
screye wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> series of bad-to-disastrous leaders at the Director, VP, and SVP level Isn't that exactly the job of an org executive? To hire and align competent senior leadership ? I don't think he is criticizing her in particular as much as the archetype that she represents. She is a person who has never had a coding job & spent her early career quite far from the people who write code. I can't for the life of me figure out why…

I find it fascinating how you speak with so much authority. I know Jeanine Banks and I've been really upset with all the "diversity hire" nonsense coming from many of you who cannot hold a candle next to her. For your information she had been programmingor since high school and was hired into a government agency as a high school programmer-intern. That internship was her introduction into the worlf of technology. She…

> hold a candle next to, programmingor, worlf, alook, has been

I dare say we’ve all been in some rooms we didn’t really deserve to be in, wouldn’t you?

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#986

Post by pjmlp »

ChrisArchitect wrote: post #780
leoc wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s remarkable is that that phrase was already, at that time, notorious for having been a portent of doom at Sun Microsystems.

..and now all that's left of Sun is the wood on the back of the Meta sign.

And the Java/MaximeVM legacy, alongside some entertaining podcast stories.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#987

Post by pjmlp »

rizky05 wrote: post #733
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…

Microsoft today is more innovative than google IMO. They keep executing bold and controversial strategies, even though being older than google.

If we ignore the GUI civil wars for a bit, though.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#988

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

drevil-v2 wrote: post #115

This is not going to be popular but I have noticed the same phenomenon at other companies where hiring decisions (especially for management hires) is a diversity quota exercise. The decline is slow at first but compounds rapidly. Smart and lazy people leave first. Average but ambitious employees leave. Smart and hard working folks are the last to leave. Leaving the grifters and dumb & lazy to pick through the remains…

>(especially for management hires) is a diversity quota exercise.

Tangential, but a less obvious way of decline is hiring people you trust ( old friends, classmates etc.) but who are be other wise incompetent.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#989

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

Takeaways:

A sort of boiling frog phenomenon. The creep sets in because the founders hired or promoted people who did not uphold the core principles, and prioritized short terms gains.

My comment: Sieving and assessing multitudes of prospective candidates for a job is a very time consuming, exhausting work, and people are often willing to settle for less, especially if the organization is really successful and the founders feel the need to expand rapidly.

Re: Reflecting on 18 Years at Google

#990

Post by roncesvalles »

lupire wrote: post #635
pardoned_turkey wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Layoffs at Google didn't happen because they had to happen. They happened because the leadership was concerned that in the good years, the company accumulated way too much dead weight - pointless projects, underperforming employees that the managers never had to deal with because they could always hire more people, etc. It's an awful fix and only a temporary one, but unnecessary risk-taking can jeopardize a lot more…

Layoffs at everywhere happened because money got more expensive. The whole industry didn't magically accumulate debt weight all at the same time in the same proportions.

Money becoming more expensive only matters for those who don't have any. I don't believe Google is one of them.

And before someone says opportunity cost, if the treasury offering a 5% ROI on your dollar is enough to dissuade you from executing on your business plan, that was never a very good business plan.

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