7 ms·

Google's first employee

140 points by dirtyaura 16y ago

pg 16y ago
I took more notes the first time Craig spoke at YC than I've done with any other speaker. Most of the time I only write down one or two sentences. The first time Craig spoke I took 4 pages of notes.
- dirtyaura 16y ago
  I think stories by early employees of successful companies are often the only way to see the messy truth of early stages. Founders are so involved in many aspects that constant self-observation is not possible. At least books by founders highlight the big lows and the big highs, but there are many insights to be gained from smaller daily decisions or way of making them, and I think employees can remember better how was the daily life in the early stages.
  - pg 16y ago
    I've found this too. We also had Shel Kaphan speak, the first employee at Amazon (and really de facto cofounder), and he was very good as well.
    - swah 16y ago
      Reminded me of http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things-smart.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things...: "It's modeled on the early successes I've witnessed at Geoworks, Amazon, and Google, all of whom had one thing in common: they hired brilliant seed engineers."
      - seiji 16y ago
        After re-reading the post, this sticks out prominently: "I've been debating whether to say this, since it'll smack vaguely of obsequiousness, but I've realized that one of the Google seed engineers (exactly one) is almost singlehandedly responsible for the amazing quality of Google's engineering culture." Is it Craig?
        swah 16y ago
        Dunno, some folks in the comments also mention Jeff Dean.
- quizbiz 16y ago
  What made his remarks so notable?
  - pg 16y ago
    He was the only one besides Larry and Sergey who had first hand knowledge of some of the stuff he talked about, because for quite a long time the company was just those three.
- revorad 16y ago
  Can you please share the notes?
  - pg 16y ago
    Unfortunately I don't think I could. If speakers knew that even notes from what they said were going to get published, they wouldn't be so candid. I talked about that here: http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html What I do do though is incorporate their insights into the general advice I give in essays. That's not just based on my experience with YC-funded startups, but also on things I've heard in talks at YC.
ardit33 16y ago
"A There are these cultures you see in some companies -- they are just very negative, where the way that you show you are the hot shot engineer is by showing how stupid everyone else's idea is, or how bad everyone else's code is. And honestly, we see that more at Google now then we used to when it was small. And part of it is we've got people who were used to these other cultures; it's a very prevalent, sort of alpha-dog culture you see in the programming world. But it's never been part of Google's culture. And I think even when you see it now, it's not as respected. The respected voices say, hey cut it out. " --That's very true. What I have seen in large companies, looking good is important, and apart from building stuff and bragging about it, and even easier way to do it is by criticizing others, and finding any way on how to point at minor flaws on other's people's work, simply malignant / non constructive behaviour, but masqueraded in the name of 'quality', company standards etc..
- krosaen 16y ago
  Yeah, I think part of how google does it is you have people like Guido who are super humble and helpful to everyone. That was generally true of the smartest folks at google and it just set a really good example; people weren't afraid to "look stupid".
- synnik 16y ago
  I think this is changing. Corporations are not the blind, mindless creatures that people seem to think. They do see their own problems, and do want to change them. They are starting to recognize the needs and desires of a younger workforce, and changes are starting to occur. They also have been hard hit by the recession and cannot waste their energy on their own politics. I would predict that in 10 years, corporate culture will be more like the startup cultures of today, but with some added discipline to meet the risk tolerances and business continuity needs of a large company.
- duhprey 16y ago
  Here's a very tiny "company" anecdote. I'm volunteering on a remake of an old game for fun. So far I've been the only programmer. I've had conversations with two other programmers who considered joining, and the conversations went similarly. That they seemed eager to tell me about something I was doing wrong and needed to do differently. I'm not really against that (even less if it comes with a patch...) but I guess it was the delivery that got to me. For instance, in one conversation the first thing the other programmer said to me (after chatting with the guy introducing us) was "I've found tons of bugs in the build." My initial reaction was "well duh" :) But it didn't really set a good tone for the rest of the conversation. Haven't heard back from either of them. But it got me thinking in part about why I had such a negative reaction to it, but also what draws people like that. I figured it was because it's a game, but after seeing this I guess it's common in the industry (I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad). Perhaps it's because we're working in relative anonymity on this game and a large corporation has a similar feel that it still would remain only there. I hold out hope.
colbyolson 16y ago
I'm not sure if the parent link works or not, it didn't work for me. I believe this is the article linked. http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?articleId=16291970&siteId=568 http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/pr... Edit: Nevermind, now it wants to work. Although I did link to the print version, incase anyone wants that instead.
- cskau 16y ago
  I had problems with it too, but got this working: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16291970 http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16291970
  - pasbesoin 16y ago
    Yes, you need to drop the query string from such URL's. This has been the case with at least one other recent Mercury News post.
- dirtyaura 16y ago
  Odd, yeah site seems to require registration with a random(?) pattern. Maybe someone with enough karma can edit the original link to point to printed version, seems that I can't.
  - freejoe76 16y ago
    If you append a source param to the URL it will always work (I'm familiar with the CMS): http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16291970?source=tupac4eva http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16291970?source=tupac4eva
hasenj 16y ago
Firefox says the connection is untrusted and refuses to open the page.
- brown9-2 16y ago
  Just refresh, it seems to work and not work randomly.
jscore 16y ago
He got 1600 (perfect score) on SATs. I wonder what the relationship of SAT scores and highly successful people is.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >I feel a lot of our success is due to luck. I guess what I'm most proud of is successfully keeping the culture as well as we have, given all the success and growth that we've had. Suggests that he wouldn't believe there to be a direct correlation.
- smanek 16y ago
  Most smart people I know got a 'good' (say, better than ~1400ish) score on the SAT. I can't tell the difference between someone I work with who got a 1450 and a 1550 though (unless they tell me, of course).
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    Most smart people I know also got a better than ~1400ish score on the SAT, but a disproportionate number are also in the near perfect range (~1570-1600). I can definitely tell the difference between a 1400 and a 1570, and can usually tell the difference between a 1570 and 1600.
    - JMStewy 16y ago
      I find myself very skeptical of your last claim. According to the research my friends and I did when taking the SATs, the difference between a 1570 or 1580 and 1600 was often a single question. The scoring scale varied a bit based on the difficulty of the particular exam you sat, and as we were aiming for scores near the top of the scale we hoped to get an exam that allowed a question or two wrong to still get a 1600. Often one question wrong on verbal would still score 800, math was less forgiving of a single mistake. I have trouble believing there could be any distinguishable difference in practice between the population of students who got two questions wrong on the exam and those who got one wrong.
jganetsk 16y ago
I started here at Google NYC not too long ago, and was surprised to find Craig inconspicuously sitting at a desk across the room, tapping away at his keyboard. Some folks around here don't even know who he is.
michael_nielsen 16y ago
Silverstein's old Stanford homepage is here: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~csilvers/ http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~csilvers/ Interesting to get some idea of what his background was when he went to Google.
s1rech 16y ago
I remember one article of Steve Yegge in which he wrote that for the most part the engineering culture at Google came from an early employee. Is this actually the guy?
- nostrademons 16y ago
  He would be my vote.
- swah 16y ago
  One of the authors of the MapReduce and BigTable papers would be my guess: Jeff Dean.

140 points by dirtyaura 16y ago

pg 16y ago

I took more notes the first time Craig spoke at YC than I've done with any other speaker. Most of the time I only write down one or two sentences. The first time Craig spoke I took 4 pages of notes.

dirtyaura 16y ago
I think stories by early employees of successful companies are often the only way to see the messy truth of early stages. Founders are so involved in many aspects that constant self-observation is not possible. At least books by founders highlight the big lows and the big highs, but there are many insights to be gained from smaller daily decisions or way of making them, and I think employees can remember better how was the daily life in the early stages.
- pg 16y ago
  I've found this too. We also had Shel Kaphan speak, the first employee at Amazon (and really de facto cofounder), and he was very good as well.
  - swah 16y ago
    Reminded me of http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things-smart.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things...: "It's modeled on the early successes I've witnessed at Geoworks, Amazon, and Google, all of whom had one thing in common: they hired brilliant seed engineers."
    - seiji 16y ago
      After re-reading the post, this sticks out prominently: "I've been debating whether to say this, since it'll smack vaguely of obsequiousness, but I've realized that one of the Google seed engineers (exactly one) is almost singlehandedly responsible for the amazing quality of Google's engineering culture." Is it Craig?
      - swah 16y ago
        Dunno, some folks in the comments also mention Jeff Dean.
quizbiz 16y ago
What made his remarks so notable?
- pg 16y ago
  He was the only one besides Larry and Sergey who had first hand knowledge of some of the stuff he talked about, because for quite a long time the company was just those three.
revorad 16y ago
Can you please share the notes?
- pg 16y ago
  Unfortunately I don't think I could. If speakers knew that even notes from what they said were going to get published, they wouldn't be so candid. I talked about that here: http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html http://ycombinator.com/atyc.html What I do do though is incorporate their insights into the general advice I give in essays. That's not just based on my experience with YC-funded startups, but also on things I've heard in talks at YC.

ardit33 16y ago

"A There are these cultures you see in some companies -- they are just very negative, where the way that you show you are the hot shot engineer is by showing how stupid everyone else's idea is, or how bad everyone else's code is. And honestly, we see that more at Google now then we used to when it was small. And part of it is we've got people who were used to these other cultures; it's a very prevalent, sort of alpha-dog culture you see in the programming world. But it's never been part of Google's culture. And I think even when you see it now, it's not as respected. The respected voices say, hey cut it out. " --That's very true. What I have seen in large companies, looking good is important, and apart from building stuff and bragging about it, and even easier way to do it is by criticizing others, and finding any way on how to point at minor flaws on other's people's work, simply malignant / non constructive behaviour, but masqueraded in the name of 'quality', company standards etc..

krosaen 16y ago
Yeah, I think part of how google does it is you have people like Guido who are super humble and helpful to everyone. That was generally true of the smartest folks at google and it just set a really good example; people weren't afraid to "look stupid".
synnik 16y ago
I think this is changing. Corporations are not the blind, mindless creatures that people seem to think. They do see their own problems, and do want to change them. They are starting to recognize the needs and desires of a younger workforce, and changes are starting to occur. They also have been hard hit by the recession and cannot waste their energy on their own politics. I would predict that in 10 years, corporate culture will be more like the startup cultures of today, but with some added discipline to meet the risk tolerances and business continuity needs of a large company.
duhprey 16y ago
Here's a very tiny "company" anecdote. I'm volunteering on a remake of an old game for fun. So far I've been the only programmer. I've had conversations with two other programmers who considered joining, and the conversations went similarly. That they seemed eager to tell me about something I was doing wrong and needed to do differently. I'm not really against that (even less if it comes with a patch...) but I guess it was the delivery that got to me. For instance, in one conversation the first thing the other programmer said to me (after chatting with the guy introducing us) was "I've found tons of bugs in the build." My initial reaction was "well duh" :) But it didn't really set a good tone for the rest of the conversation. Haven't heard back from either of them. But it got me thinking in part about why I had such a negative reaction to it, but also what draws people like that. I figured it was because it's a game, but after seeing this I guess it's common in the industry (I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad). Perhaps it's because we're working in relative anonymity on this game and a large corporation has a similar feel that it still would remain only there. I hold out hope.

colbyolson 16y ago

I'm not sure if the parent link works or not, it didn't work for me. I believe this is the article linked. http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?articleId=16291970&siteId=568 http://www.mercurynews.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/pr... Edit: Nevermind, now it wants to work. Although I did link to the print version, incase anyone wants that instead.

cskau 16y ago
I had problems with it too, but got this working: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16291970 http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16291970
- pasbesoin 16y ago
  Yes, you need to drop the query string from such URL's. This has been the case with at least one other recent Mercury News post.
dirtyaura 16y ago
Odd, yeah site seems to require registration with a random(?) pattern. Maybe someone with enough karma can edit the original link to point to printed version, seems that I can't.
- freejoe76 16y ago
  If you append a source param to the URL it will always work (I'm familiar with the CMS): http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16291970?source=tupac4eva http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_16291970?source=tupac4eva

hasenj 16y ago

Firefox says the connection is untrusted and refuses to open the page.

brown9-2 16y ago
Just refresh, it seems to work and not work randomly.

jscore 16y ago

He got 1600 (perfect score) on SATs. I wonder what the relationship of SAT scores and highly successful people is.

pbhjpbhj 16y ago
>I feel a lot of our success is due to luck. I guess what I'm most proud of is successfully keeping the culture as well as we have, given all the success and growth that we've had. Suggests that he wouldn't believe there to be a direct correlation.
smanek 16y ago
Most smart people I know got a 'good' (say, better than ~1400ish) score on the SAT. I can't tell the difference between someone I work with who got a 1450 and a 1550 though (unless they tell me, of course).
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Most smart people I know also got a better than ~1400ish score on the SAT, but a disproportionate number are also in the near perfect range (~1570-1600). I can definitely tell the difference between a 1400 and a 1570, and can usually tell the difference between a 1570 and 1600.
  - JMStewy 16y ago
    I find myself very skeptical of your last claim. According to the research my friends and I did when taking the SATs, the difference between a 1570 or 1580 and 1600 was often a single question. The scoring scale varied a bit based on the difficulty of the particular exam you sat, and as we were aiming for scores near the top of the scale we hoped to get an exam that allowed a question or two wrong to still get a 1600. Often one question wrong on verbal would still score 800, math was less forgiving of a single mistake. I have trouble believing there could be any distinguishable difference in practice between the population of students who got two questions wrong on the exam and those who got one wrong.

jganetsk 16y ago

I started here at Google NYC not too long ago, and was surprised to find Craig inconspicuously sitting at a desk across the room, tapping away at his keyboard. Some folks around here don't even know who he is.

michael_nielsen 16y ago

Silverstein's old Stanford homepage is here: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~csilvers/ http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~csilvers/ Interesting to get some idea of what his background was when he went to Google.

s1rech 16y ago

I remember one article of Steve Yegge in which he wrote that for the most part the engineering culture at Google came from an early employee. Is this actually the guy?

nostrademons 16y ago
He would be my vote.
swah 16y ago
One of the authors of the MapReduce and BigTable papers would be my guess: Jeff Dean.