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> $50M is tiny compared to the opportunity cost of having 100 of your best engineers jump ship to a competitor or found a new one. See my comment to nnq. You c

> $50M is tiny compared to the opportunity cost of having 100 of your best engineers jump ship to a competitor or found a new one. See my comment to nnq. You can't just take "100 of your best engineers", and stick them on some bogus project that regularly gets raided for its best talent by hiring managers. If they'd rather work on a bogus project than on a real product, they're not very useful engineers. The project will quickly be seen as a joke, and not just by one unnamed "person who has spoken to Fuchsia staff", but by everyone in the company. No serious engineer would stay on it. There's literally no evidence for this far-fetched theory, and no verified examples of this happening in the industry at all. If an engineer isn't producing something worthwhile, he's not a good engineer, certainly not "one of my best engineers". The whole theory is pretty crazy and it's funny it ended up so high in the comment thread that we're discussing it seriously. > Silicon Valley basically works on the principle of "Never let your employees do to you what you did to your past employer or competitors." [...] This is a lot of unsubstantiated hand-waving with no real data to back it up. The data I've seen is that involuntary turnover (aka termination) in FAANG is 5-8% annually, which is very reasonable for healthy companies. Have you worked for a FAANG? People are regularly put on notice and fired for poor performance. Even a very successful company can't afford to keep poor performers indefinitely. If they do, they would not remain successful for long. You're describing a public company with fiduciary accountability to its shareholders as if it can be run like some corrupt retirement home for aging diva former-engineers. You realize that if Google was throwing away $50-100m of investor money per year, an exec would eventually have to publicly explain to the shareholders why their money is wasted this way, and if Google was trying to hide that it is a bogus project, then they would be lying to investors, which is a criminal offense? This theory is frankly nonsense.

nostrademons 8y ago
> Have you worked for a FAANG? I was at Google for 5.5 years and was the beneficiary of an engineer-retention project for a year of that. I'm now working on a startup. Think of it from the company's perspective: they have an engineer who has already been "paid off" in the sense of having generated more revenue for the company than they are likely to get in salary during a lifetime, and is likely independently wealthy through stock options. That engineer comes to them and says "I'm unhappy here and thinking of leaving so I can work on personal projects." The company does not want to see them on the open market, where they can potentially compete with Google or work for a competitor. So their manager asks them "Well, what is it you really want to work on? Maybe we can make it happen here and you don't have to leave all the perks of Google behind." The engineer says "I've always wanted to do OS development, and there's a bunch of neat research developments like capabilities that haven't yet been incorporated in a production OS." The manager says, "Hmm, I know of some guys over in this other department that have similar ideas. Why don't you connect with them and see if your interests align?" Google wins because it keeps these talented engineers off the market, and if the project succeeds they can win in a really big way. The employee wins because they don't have to deal with all the risk and bullshit of being unemployed or starting their own thing. Competitors lose but screw them. Consumers probably lose, but it's not a sure thing because if their project succeeds, consumers can win in a big way, so Google doesn't get into antitrust or anticompetitive trouble for it. This is not unlimited, BTW. The unofficial rule-of-thumb when I was at Google is that "you get one freebie" - if you were instrumental to the success of a project that made Google much more than you're ever likely to make in salary, you get one chance at a self-directed project. If that fails, you either go back to being an ordinary rank-and-file engineer and have to prove yourself, or you get marginalized and usually leave. Public examples of such projects include Google Scholar (Anurag basically ran the crawl single-handedly for many years, and so he gets to indulge his passion project because Google wouldn't exist without him), Golang (Ken Thompson is Ken Thompson and Rob Pike basically built the log handling infrastructure for Google), Google Wave (the Rasmussen brothers basically founded Google Maps), Hello.com (Orkut Buyokokkten's passion project, eventually spun out), and Andy Rubin's robot collection.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  > So their manager asks them "Well, what is it you really want to work on? Maybe we can make it happen here and you don't have to leave all the perks of Google behind." The engineer says "I've always wanted to do OS development, and there's a bunch of neat research developments like capabilities that haven't yet been incorporated in a production OS." The manager says, "Hmm, I know of some guys over in this other department that have similar ideas. Why don't you connect with them and see if your interests align?" What you describe is simply allowing a well-performing engineer to switch to new project, which of course happens all the time. It's very different from "a bogus project for the sole purpose of retaining some engineers" that OP theorized. > Google wins because it keeps these talented engineers off the market, and if the project succeeds they can win in a really big way. So more or less like any ambitious new project? :) > This is not unlimited, BTW. Right, and again, goes against what OP was implying, that Google is going to run a huge project indefinitely just to retain a bunch of diva engineers who wouldn't work on anything else. As I wrote above: "a rich employer may retain an unproductive employee for a limited amount of time if they expect it to ultimately pay off". This is exactly what you are describing. > if you were instrumental to the success of a project that made Google much more than you're ever likely to make in salary, you get one chance at a self-directed project. Right, and Fuchsia is not a "self-directed project" of this kind. It's a big project with over 100 engineers, the vast majority of whom did not have the impact of Rob Pike or the others you mentioned. Your comment is good and informative, but ultimately does not lend any support to the notion that Fuchsia really is some bogus project with no business case or future, solely for retention purposes, which is what OP was implying and what I am disputing.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    Wave and Hello.com each had over 50 engineers, and Andy Rubin spent several hundred million (perhaps billions) on robotics acquisitions, all for projects that ended up getting canceled. At some point the difference between "engineer retention project" and "risky venture that probably won't pan out but could win big" ceases to matter. Larry Page is exceptionally good at "Heads I win, tails I win even more" gambits - historically, these included Google Toolbar (initially conceived as a defensive play against Microsoft, but ended up getting Google Search in front of hundreds of millions of new users - this, BTW, was Sundar Pichai's first big win on the way to CEO); Google Chrome (ditto, with the side effect of becoming the dominant browser); GMail (initially an internal tool to improve productivity, then became a major consumer product); and Google Fiber (worst case, force Internet speeds up through competition, best case, new ISP). It's likely that Sundar & Larry's thinking of Fuchsia is that worst-case, it keeps 100 talented engineers at the company, and best-case, it's a dominant new OS that drives computing forwards. Either one is worth the $50M or so, so they do it.
slededit 8y ago
> If an engineer isn't producing something worthwhile, he's not a good engineer, certainly not "one of my best engineers". Not my experience. I've seen amazing engineers happily convince themselves whatever they are working on is important regardless of what it is. In fact its pretty common for really good engineers to simply fall in love with the code - or be convinced if they only finished this refactor it would be beautiful. I almost never hear them talk of business value. The ones that do have this insight end up going on to be great managers - as they can bridge the divide.
- dunpeal 8y ago
  For a functional employer, the definition of "a good engineer" is "someone who produces valuable engineering solutions for me". An engineer who isn't doing that is either mismanaged, misplaced, or is no good. In the first two cases, I can possibly make use of them. But if the engineer is a diva who would only work on some made-up fancy project, then he is not a good engineer for me. Maybe he will be able to do good work elsewhere, but that's not really relevant for me, my business, or my shareholders. Not anymore than the fact he may be a great painter or musician. Good for him, but sadly irrelevant for my business.
  - slededit 8y ago
    Generally its the managers responsibility to ensure they are working on what is important. That's literally their entire job. An employee capable of convincing themselves whatever they work on is important is a net benefit to the manager - they are more malleable and can be convinced to work on the important but "boring" parts. An employee refusing to work on something because in their opinion its not worthwhile is a tough place for both the employee and the manager.
remir 8y ago
Who said Fuchsia was some bogus project and a waste of talent and resources? My original comment was that Google was willing to let its enginners work on duplicate project so they remain at Google instead of leaving to work elsewhere. If Fuchsia turns out great, that will be a win for Google. It's not like these enginneers are just being paid to kill time. Google bought Android, then also created Chrome OS and is now making a tthird OS named Fuchsia. They had Gchat that they scrapped for Hangouts, which they pivoted into a business chat (Meet), but the Hangouts client is still available for the general public. They also made Allo, which eventually went nowhere, so now they're pushing for the adoption of RCS (Android Messages). Gchat, Hangouts, Meet, Allo, RCS. That's 5 messaging apps right there.
- izacus 8y ago
  RCS isn't an app (and neither it's something that Google built).
  - remir 8y ago
    But they acquired Jibe, which they now offer as a service to telecom companies, so with Android Messages, they're invested in RCS.
jrockway 8y ago
You talk tough but I don't think your understanding of the problem space warrants that tone. Doing research & development is not something that involves lying to investors. Investors love new products. That is how they make money by investing. Consider the project mentioned in the article. Sure, it will cost millions of dollars to develop. But OSes are in high demand, existing OSes have quite a few sore points, and plenty of people have made money selling operating systems or devices that need a custom operating system (MS/DOS, Windows, iOS, etc.) So it is not categorically insane from a business or engineering perspective to say "hey, we're going to invest in the development of a new operating system that will change the world." On the other hand, maybe all the OS world needs are some patches on top of Linux to smooth over the rough spots. People that see the project the first way will say they're working on a "moonshot". People that see the project the second way will say they're working on a "senior engineer retention project." Any big company will likely want to hedge its bets, and indeed... apparently Google has people working on a new OS, and they obviously have people patching the Linux kernel (Android). No matter which approach ends up being correct, Google makes money. I don't think the investors are going to be filing many criminal charges against the board. Back to the retention aspect, remember what the downside is in this scenario. The people that want to build their own OS to change the world or whatever just leave and go do it. They have money and can probably rope in some investors. If they end up being right about the approach... there is no more Android and that means no more Google ads on mobile phones, no more location history, no more searches... etc. That is quite a downside for Google. So even though the project is "this seems crazy, but we don't want these people to quit", it's 100% the right financial decision. I think the shareholders can appreciate that. That said, as an employee... this was all a little too much for me when I was at Google. No matter what you worked on, there was always a competing project with twice as much headcount and 1/10th the users. You would have a meeting with them along the lines of "hey, this thing you're assembling a 30 person team for... my team already made and it's in production and working." They would be like "nah, our use case is slightly different and rather than editing 1 line of code and getting no promotion, I'd like to build a HUGE team and put an EZ promotion packet together." Not for me.

nostrademons 8y ago

> Have you worked for a FAANG? I was at Google for 5.5 years and was the beneficiary of an engineer-retention project for a year of that. I'm now working on a startup. Think of it from the company's perspective: they have an engineer who has already been "paid off" in the sense of having generated more revenue for the company than they are likely to get in salary during a lifetime, and is likely independently wealthy through stock options. That engineer comes to them and says "I'm unhappy here and thinking of leaving so I can work on personal projects." The company does not want to see them on the open market, where they can potentially compete with Google or work for a competitor. So their manager asks them "Well, what is it you really want to work on? Maybe we can make it happen here and you don't have to leave all the perks of Google behind." The engineer says "I've always wanted to do OS development, and there's a bunch of neat research developments like capabilities that haven't yet been incorporated in a production OS." The manager says, "Hmm, I know of some guys over in this other department that have similar ideas. Why don't you connect with them and see if your interests align?" Google wins because it keeps these talented engineers off the market, and if the project succeeds they can win in a really big way. The employee wins because they don't have to deal with all the risk and bullshit of being unemployed or starting their own thing. Competitors lose but screw them. Consumers probably lose, but it's not a sure thing because if their project succeeds, consumers can win in a big way, so Google doesn't get into antitrust or anticompetitive trouble for it. This is not unlimited, BTW. The unofficial rule-of-thumb when I was at Google is that "you get one freebie" - if you were instrumental to the success of a project that made Google much more than you're ever likely to make in salary, you get one chance at a self-directed project. If that fails, you either go back to being an ordinary rank-and-file engineer and have to prove yourself, or you get marginalized and usually leave. Public examples of such projects include Google Scholar (Anurag basically ran the crawl single-handedly for many years, and so he gets to indulge his passion project because Google wouldn't exist without him), Golang (Ken Thompson is Ken Thompson and Rob Pike basically built the log handling infrastructure for Google), Google Wave (the Rasmussen brothers basically founded Google Maps), Hello.com (Orkut Buyokokkten's passion project, eventually spun out), and Andy Rubin's robot collection.

dunpeal 8y ago
> So their manager asks them "Well, what is it you really want to work on? Maybe we can make it happen here and you don't have to leave all the perks of Google behind." The engineer says "I've always wanted to do OS development, and there's a bunch of neat research developments like capabilities that haven't yet been incorporated in a production OS." The manager says, "Hmm, I know of some guys over in this other department that have similar ideas. Why don't you connect with them and see if your interests align?" What you describe is simply allowing a well-performing engineer to switch to new project, which of course happens all the time. It's very different from "a bogus project for the sole purpose of retaining some engineers" that OP theorized. > Google wins because it keeps these talented engineers off the market, and if the project succeeds they can win in a really big way. So more or less like any ambitious new project? :) > This is not unlimited, BTW. Right, and again, goes against what OP was implying, that Google is going to run a huge project indefinitely just to retain a bunch of diva engineers who wouldn't work on anything else. As I wrote above: "a rich employer may retain an unproductive employee for a limited amount of time if they expect it to ultimately pay off". This is exactly what you are describing. > if you were instrumental to the success of a project that made Google much more than you're ever likely to make in salary, you get one chance at a self-directed project. Right, and Fuchsia is not a "self-directed project" of this kind. It's a big project with over 100 engineers, the vast majority of whom did not have the impact of Rob Pike or the others you mentioned. Your comment is good and informative, but ultimately does not lend any support to the notion that Fuchsia really is some bogus project with no business case or future, solely for retention purposes, which is what OP was implying and what I am disputing.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  Wave and Hello.com each had over 50 engineers, and Andy Rubin spent several hundred million (perhaps billions) on robotics acquisitions, all for projects that ended up getting canceled. At some point the difference between "engineer retention project" and "risky venture that probably won't pan out but could win big" ceases to matter. Larry Page is exceptionally good at "Heads I win, tails I win even more" gambits - historically, these included Google Toolbar (initially conceived as a defensive play against Microsoft, but ended up getting Google Search in front of hundreds of millions of new users - this, BTW, was Sundar Pichai's first big win on the way to CEO); Google Chrome (ditto, with the side effect of becoming the dominant browser); GMail (initially an internal tool to improve productivity, then became a major consumer product); and Google Fiber (worst case, force Internet speeds up through competition, best case, new ISP). It's likely that Sundar & Larry's thinking of Fuchsia is that worst-case, it keeps 100 talented engineers at the company, and best-case, it's a dominant new OS that drives computing forwards. Either one is worth the $50M or so, so they do it.

slededit 8y ago

> If an engineer isn't producing something worthwhile, he's not a good engineer, certainly not "one of my best engineers". Not my experience. I've seen amazing engineers happily convince themselves whatever they are working on is important regardless of what it is. In fact its pretty common for really good engineers to simply fall in love with the code - or be convinced if they only finished this refactor it would be beautiful. I almost never hear them talk of business value. The ones that do have this insight end up going on to be great managers - as they can bridge the divide.

dunpeal 8y ago
For a functional employer, the definition of "a good engineer" is "someone who produces valuable engineering solutions for me". An engineer who isn't doing that is either mismanaged, misplaced, or is no good. In the first two cases, I can possibly make use of them. But if the engineer is a diva who would only work on some made-up fancy project, then he is not a good engineer for me. Maybe he will be able to do good work elsewhere, but that's not really relevant for me, my business, or my shareholders. Not anymore than the fact he may be a great painter or musician. Good for him, but sadly irrelevant for my business.
- slededit 8y ago
  Generally its the managers responsibility to ensure they are working on what is important. That's literally their entire job. An employee capable of convincing themselves whatever they work on is important is a net benefit to the manager - they are more malleable and can be convinced to work on the important but "boring" parts. An employee refusing to work on something because in their opinion its not worthwhile is a tough place for both the employee and the manager.

remir 8y ago

Who said Fuchsia was some bogus project and a waste of talent and resources? My original comment was that Google was willing to let its enginners work on duplicate project so they remain at Google instead of leaving to work elsewhere. If Fuchsia turns out great, that will be a win for Google. It's not like these enginneers are just being paid to kill time. Google bought Android, then also created Chrome OS and is now making a tthird OS named Fuchsia. They had Gchat that they scrapped for Hangouts, which they pivoted into a business chat (Meet), but the Hangouts client is still available for the general public. They also made Allo, which eventually went nowhere, so now they're pushing for the adoption of RCS (Android Messages). Gchat, Hangouts, Meet, Allo, RCS. That's 5 messaging apps right there.

izacus 8y ago
RCS isn't an app (and neither it's something that Google built).
- remir 8y ago
  But they acquired Jibe, which they now offer as a service to telecom companies, so with Android Messages, they're invested in RCS.

jrockway 8y ago

You talk tough but I don't think your understanding of the problem space warrants that tone. Doing research & development is not something that involves lying to investors. Investors love new products. That is how they make money by investing. Consider the project mentioned in the article. Sure, it will cost millions of dollars to develop. But OSes are in high demand, existing OSes have quite a few sore points, and plenty of people have made money selling operating systems or devices that need a custom operating system (MS/DOS, Windows, iOS, etc.) So it is not categorically insane from a business or engineering perspective to say "hey, we're going to invest in the development of a new operating system that will change the world." On the other hand, maybe all the OS world needs are some patches on top of Linux to smooth over the rough spots. People that see the project the first way will say they're working on a "moonshot". People that see the project the second way will say they're working on a "senior engineer retention project." Any big company will likely want to hedge its bets, and indeed... apparently Google has people working on a new OS, and they obviously have people patching the Linux kernel (Android). No matter which approach ends up being correct, Google makes money. I don't think the investors are going to be filing many criminal charges against the board. Back to the retention aspect, remember what the downside is in this scenario. The people that want to build their own OS to change the world or whatever just leave and go do it. They have money and can probably rope in some investors. If they end up being right about the approach... there is no more Android and that means no more Google ads on mobile phones, no more location history, no more searches... etc. That is quite a downside for Google. So even though the project is "this seems crazy, but we don't want these people to quit", it's 100% the right financial decision. I think the shareholders can appreciate that. That said, as an employee... this was all a little too much for me when I was at Google. No matter what you worked on, there was always a competing project with twice as much headcount and 1/10th the users. You would have a meeting with them along the lines of "hey, this thing you're assembling a 30 person team for... my team already made and it's in production and working." They would be like "nah, our use case is slightly different and rather than editing 1 line of code and getting no promotion, I'd like to build a HUGE team and put an EZ promotion packet together." Not for me.