6 ms·

> That's why I'm always a little skeptical about hiring leaders from one-trick pony companies. I'd put it this way: hyper-growth makes everyone look great, but

by api 10y ago

> That's why I'm always a little skeptical about hiring leaders from one-trick pony companies. I'd put it this way: hyper-growth makes everyone look great, but hyper-growth is often a one-off event whose causes are obscure. When someone gallops into town riding a white exponential, ask whether that person had any direct causal influence over the genesis of that exponential. If the answer is no, evaluate them as if they held the same position in an average firm. Unless you designed Google's original search or AdWords, "worked at Google" =~ "worked at IBM."

elgabogringo 10y ago
Very well put. Thank you.
jrockway 10y ago
> Unless you designed Google's original search or AdWords, "worked at Google" =~ "worked at IBM." I'm not sure I agree. Think about all the infrastructure required to run those services; low-latency transactional databases, data centers, network engineering (peering, load balancing), etc., etc. Those are all enormous achievements that are rarely duplicated at other companies. When you "ping google.com" and nothing comes back, do you assume that google.com is down, or that your Internet connection is down? What about "ping ibm.com"? :) (P.S., ibm.com appears to block pings. Or it's down right now!)
- skewart 10y ago
  I take it the commenter is talking more about business roles than engineering. To be sure, there are unique engineering problems that massive scale companies face. For business leadership roles though, you often see people trying to coast on successes that they had little role in creating. To be fair though, there are great leaders at all kinds of companies. And the success, money, and potential impact one can have at companies like Intel and Google attracts a lot of talented people. I think it's just a matter of not automatically assuming people are great just because of what's on their resume.
  - jrockway 10y ago
    I work on Google Fiber and am continually impressed with the business folks too. It is hard work to dig up streets and install fiber, negotiate agreements necessary to provide TV service, provide high-quality customer service, etc. Google (er, Alphabet) has a lot of employees, and maybe not every single one is the best in their field (they hired me), but overall I think that a Google tenure on your resume can be a meaningful positive signal for future employees. At the very least, maybe they'll steal some of the really good ideas around here, like an internal social network. (Available for anyone using Google Apps, not just us ;)
skewart 10y ago
> gallops into town riding a white exponential I love that. I'm stealing it! :-) Your overall observation is spot on too.

by api 10y ago

elgabogringo 10y ago

Very well put. Thank you.

jrockway 10y ago

> Unless you designed Google's original search or AdWords, "worked at Google" =~ "worked at IBM." I'm not sure I agree. Think about all the infrastructure required to run those services; low-latency transactional databases, data centers, network engineering (peering, load balancing), etc., etc. Those are all enormous achievements that are rarely duplicated at other companies. When you "ping google.com" and nothing comes back, do you assume that google.com is down, or that your Internet connection is down? What about "ping ibm.com"? :) (P.S., ibm.com appears to block pings. Or it's down right now!)

skewart 10y ago
I take it the commenter is talking more about business roles than engineering. To be sure, there are unique engineering problems that massive scale companies face. For business leadership roles though, you often see people trying to coast on successes that they had little role in creating. To be fair though, there are great leaders at all kinds of companies. And the success, money, and potential impact one can have at companies like Intel and Google attracts a lot of talented people. I think it's just a matter of not automatically assuming people are great just because of what's on their resume.
- jrockway 10y ago
  I work on Google Fiber and am continually impressed with the business folks too. It is hard work to dig up streets and install fiber, negotiate agreements necessary to provide TV service, provide high-quality customer service, etc. Google (er, Alphabet) has a lot of employees, and maybe not every single one is the best in their field (they hired me), but overall I think that a Google tenure on your resume can be a meaningful positive signal for future employees. At the very least, maybe they'll steal some of the really good ideas around here, like an internal social network. (Available for anyone using Google Apps, not just us ;)

skewart 10y ago

> gallops into town riding a white exponential I love that. I'm stealing it! :-) Your overall observation is spot on too.