3 ms·

My best guess is that we see internal politics leak out. Product names are a "leaky abstraction" over organization structure. In the case of Google: Chief Goog

by qznc 9y ago

My best guess is that we see internal politics leak out. Product names are a "leaky abstraction" over organization structure. In the case of Google: Chief Googler: "We need a payments product: Google Wallet" time passes Android Team: "Google Wallet does not fit mobile well and the Wallet team is in another building. Let's do our own thing: Android Pay" time passes Chief Googler: "WTF? Why do we have two payment solutions? Let us merge them." Android Team: "We will not give away our control to Team Google Wallet! They have no clue about mobile." Team Google Wallet: "We will not give away our control to Team Android! They have no clue about big business." Chief Googler: "I just created a third new greenfield project. You will both cooperate there. Let's try if it works out." Android Team: "Ok that works for us" Team Google Wallet: "Ok that works for us" time passes Team Three: "Hey this actually works fine on mobile and big business." Chief Googler: "Great. Now let's make this public. Oh, and ... Android Team and Team Google Wallet, you are terminated." Essentially, it was a manager hack to make two teams cooperate. Names have a lot of power when groups of people interact. (I have no clue what actually happens inside Google)

stock_toaster 9y ago
I once heard that at Google advancement (and thus salary increase) is significantly pinned to shipping new things. As a result, nobody is incentivized to work on maintenance or improvement of existing things. Everybody wants to ship something new, so they can ride along with it up the corporate elevator.
- DannyBee 9y ago
  Counterpoint: I've been promoted 5 times (last was to Director), and i've never shipped anything new, only worked on maintenance or improvement of existing things.
- dandv 9y ago
  It was probably via [this Quora answer](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things-about-working-at-google-2016-12?op=0#/#staff-are-rewarded-for-dreaming-up-new-things-even-when-new-things-arent-needed-27 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...). I don't think that's entirely accurate. There are efforts to reward Product Excellence, for example, which involved UX polish, performance tuning etc.
  - earenndil 9y ago
    > It was probably via [this Quora answer](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things... http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...). FYI, HN doesn't really have markdown, so that link doesn't work. Instead, generally we do something like this: > It was probably via this Quora answer[1] > I don't think that's entirely accurate. There are efforts to reward Product Excellence, for example, which involved UX polish, performance tuning etc. > > 1: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things... http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...).
- junkscience2017 9y ago
  Google has become their own worst nightmare: Yahoo Google has optimized its hiring process almost uniformly for raw intelligence and it shows...they have very little common or "street smarts" sense about product vision. Apple isn't perfect but they run laps around Google here. Google is what happens when you are only hyper-intelligent. Bezos, Zuck, Musk...none of them are losing sleep worried about Google at this point. Google's products have become boring and stale. They endlessly build up and then tear down basic services like messaging that their competitors crushed long ago. They can't even fully commit with their hearts and guts to a "other bet". There will be some soul-searching at Google when Waymo is beat to market by a competitor that started years after they did but simply had more hustle and drive Look at something like Slack, Discord, Github, Whatsapp...those would never have emerged from Google as it is today. All Google can do is polish its boring stable of utilities.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
> "Why do we have two payment solutions? Let us merge them." Reminds me of XKCD's "How standards proliferate" https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/

by qznc 9y ago

stock_toaster 9y ago

I once heard that at Google advancement (and thus salary increase) is significantly pinned to shipping new things. As a result, nobody is incentivized to work on maintenance or improvement of existing things. Everybody wants to ship something new, so they can ride along with it up the corporate elevator.

DannyBee 9y ago
Counterpoint: I've been promoted 5 times (last was to Director), and i've never shipped anything new, only worked on maintenance or improvement of existing things.
dandv 9y ago
It was probably via [this Quora answer](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things-about-working-at-google-2016-12?op=0#/#staff-are-rewarded-for-dreaming-up-new-things-even-when-new-things-arent-needed-27 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...). I don't think that's entirely accurate. There are efforts to reward Product Excellence, for example, which involved UX polish, performance tuning etc.
- earenndil 9y ago
  > It was probably via [this Quora answer](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things... http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...). FYI, HN doesn't really have markdown, so that link doesn't work. Instead, generally we do something like this: > It was probably via this Quora answer[1] > I don't think that's entirely accurate. There are efforts to reward Product Excellence, for example, which involved UX polish, performance tuning etc. > > 1: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things... http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...).
junkscience2017 9y ago
Google has become their own worst nightmare: Yahoo Google has optimized its hiring process almost uniformly for raw intelligence and it shows...they have very little common or "street smarts" sense about product vision. Apple isn't perfect but they run laps around Google here. Google is what happens when you are only hyper-intelligent. Bezos, Zuck, Musk...none of them are losing sleep worried about Google at this point. Google's products have become boring and stale. They endlessly build up and then tear down basic services like messaging that their competitors crushed long ago. They can't even fully commit with their hearts and guts to a "other bet". There will be some soul-searching at Google when Waymo is beat to market by a competitor that started years after they did but simply had more hustle and drive Look at something like Slack, Discord, Github, Whatsapp...those would never have emerged from Google as it is today. All Google can do is polish its boring stable of utilities.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

> "Why do we have two payment solutions? Let us merge them." Reminds me of XKCD's "How standards proliferate" https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/