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That seems like a funny place to start cutting costs. You can run Google's datacenters for about 1 second on the same money as all those shirts. When these pe

That seems like a funny place to start cutting costs. You can run Google's datacenters for about 1 second on the same money as all those shirts. When these people talk about cost they are talking about headcount.

throwaway12522 10y ago
My point is less about the t-shirts specifically (as I said, it's a minimal cost) and more about the company culture as a whole. If you can make a silly request for an office fire pole and the company will give you a fire pole, does that foster an attitude where you'll just throw more servers at a problem instead of thinking hard about your systems, or an attitude where a cool project will stay in development for a long time, even when the business case for it stops making sense.
- fdsaaf 10y ago
  That fire pole costs a lot less than the salary increase you'd need in order to achieve the same level of employee retention. Google has quite a bit of engineering talent; you don't want that talent to evaporate for the sake of some short-term cost savings. Your scheme will absolutely affect innovation: it will cause innovators to leave. If you want to cut datacenter costs, reward engineers for impact, and include cost savings under your definition of impact. Engineers are pretty rational people and will respond to incentives.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  I don't believe those are equivalent scenarios, because it is much easier to request a fire pole in your office than to request production resources.
  - lfender6445 10y ago
    hilarious but true in many cases
- crucifiction 10y ago
  as a thought experiment, Amazon is basically the opposite of the google culture in this perspective (door desks, soda/food is not subsidized, equipment is just barely enough, etc). now, this leads to lots of complaints from a subset of engineers who do then go to google (or like) pretty quickly. but Amazon does seem to be able to innovate (aws, kindle/fire, alexa) and survive in very low margin businesses. google seems to have struggled to move beyond search in any meaningful way.
  - maverick_iceman 10y ago
    >google seems to have struggled to move beyond search in any meaningful way. Ever heard of Gmail, Chrome, YouTube or Android?
    - majewsky 10y ago
      I don't think the first two make any revenue, except in terms of data collected.
      - honkhonkpants 10y ago
        I'm sure you don't believe that Gmail's revenue is zero.
    - mmargerum 10y ago
      Google apps for business isnt free. I pay for gmail.
  - shiift 10y ago
    I understand the point you're trying to make about the stress on frugality at Amazon and I agree with you, but your specific points are more accurate for past Amazon. These days Amazon has become significantly more accommodating. The door desks are more of a tradition. You can request more expensive automatic standing desks easily. The soda/food is not subsidized day-to-day, but we do get coffee and tea (and if you stay late due to work you can get reimbursed for dinner depending on your team). The hardware is perfectly fine as well. I have 2x 1440p monitors and an i7 13" Retina MacBook Pro as well as a cloud desktop (courtesy of AWS) with scaling hardware as I need it for development.
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  Sometimes throwing money at a problem is the right solution. I've been at companies where we've spent 16 man hours trying to figure out how to clear up space on a server(about 40 GB). Have there been a more open purchasing system we just would have gone out and bought a hard drive and saved the company $8500.
  - niij 10y ago
    This hits close to home. :)
- skybrian 10y ago
  So, basically it's about symbolism? I remember working at a place that made employees buy their own pens, maybe as symbol of frugality. Nobody really got it - we just thought it was eccentric. Some workspace amenities are basically just props - they don't cost anything once installed. People try it out a few times and go back to work. Day to day, it's about as significant as the junk on the walls at a theme restaurant, but it makes the space look "creative", and apparently that's more important than looking "frugal". Arcade games get used that way too - sure, you can play it, but who has time? Meanwhile, important, recurring costs like improving data center efficiency do get a lot more attention.

throwaway12522 10y ago

My point is less about the t-shirts specifically (as I said, it's a minimal cost) and more about the company culture as a whole. If you can make a silly request for an office fire pole and the company will give you a fire pole, does that foster an attitude where you'll just throw more servers at a problem instead of thinking hard about your systems, or an attitude where a cool project will stay in development for a long time, even when the business case for it stops making sense.

fdsaaf 10y ago
That fire pole costs a lot less than the salary increase you'd need in order to achieve the same level of employee retention. Google has quite a bit of engineering talent; you don't want that talent to evaporate for the sake of some short-term cost savings. Your scheme will absolutely affect innovation: it will cause innovators to leave. If you want to cut datacenter costs, reward engineers for impact, and include cost savings under your definition of impact. Engineers are pretty rational people and will respond to incentives.
honkhonkpants 10y ago
I don't believe those are equivalent scenarios, because it is much easier to request a fire pole in your office than to request production resources.
- lfender6445 10y ago
  hilarious but true in many cases
crucifiction 10y ago
as a thought experiment, Amazon is basically the opposite of the google culture in this perspective (door desks, soda/food is not subsidized, equipment is just barely enough, etc). now, this leads to lots of complaints from a subset of engineers who do then go to google (or like) pretty quickly. but Amazon does seem to be able to innovate (aws, kindle/fire, alexa) and survive in very low margin businesses. google seems to have struggled to move beyond search in any meaningful way.
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  >google seems to have struggled to move beyond search in any meaningful way. Ever heard of Gmail, Chrome, YouTube or Android?
  - majewsky 10y ago
    I don't think the first two make any revenue, except in terms of data collected.
    - honkhonkpants 10y ago
      I'm sure you don't believe that Gmail's revenue is zero.
  - mmargerum 10y ago
    Google apps for business isnt free. I pay for gmail.
- shiift 10y ago
  I understand the point you're trying to make about the stress on frugality at Amazon and I agree with you, but your specific points are more accurate for past Amazon. These days Amazon has become significantly more accommodating. The door desks are more of a tradition. You can request more expensive automatic standing desks easily. The soda/food is not subsidized day-to-day, but we do get coffee and tea (and if you stay late due to work you can get reimbursed for dinner depending on your team). The hardware is perfectly fine as well. I have 2x 1440p monitors and an i7 13" Retina MacBook Pro as well as a cloud desktop (courtesy of AWS) with scaling hardware as I need it for development.
JamesBarney 10y ago
Sometimes throwing money at a problem is the right solution. I've been at companies where we've spent 16 man hours trying to figure out how to clear up space on a server(about 40 GB). Have there been a more open purchasing system we just would have gone out and bought a hard drive and saved the company $8500.
- niij 10y ago
  This hits close to home. :)
skybrian 10y ago
So, basically it's about symbolism? I remember working at a place that made employees buy their own pens, maybe as symbol of frugality. Nobody really got it - we just thought it was eccentric. Some workspace amenities are basically just props - they don't cost anything once installed. People try it out a few times and go back to work. Day to day, it's about as significant as the junk on the walls at a theme restaurant, but it makes the space look "creative", and apparently that's more important than looking "frugal". Arcade games get used that way too - sure, you can play it, but who has time? Meanwhile, important, recurring costs like improving data center efficiency do get a lot more attention.