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Engineers losing control to money types and bureaucrats is a gradual process. It is not that one day Google strikes out the second word from its unofficial mott

by ptero 8y ago

Engineers losing control to money types and bureaucrats is a gradual process. It is not that one day Google strikes out the second word from its unofficial motto ("do not be evil"). Engineers might dislike each small step in that direction, but it is not enough to make them pack up and move (house, family, kids, etc.). Pretty quickly they are tamed by both money people and the bureaucrats -- still appreciated and paid, but as brains to be tasked, with no ability to influence company policy. People accept a LOT with gradual changes over a few years that they would never accept as an upfront bulk package. This is not just in engineering. But there is a flip side to this -- once bureaucrats are in control and engineers who stay accept "that is the way we do it" as a justification they often lose energy and become set in their ways. This is more dangerous to a company than a rotting executive class. My 2c.

nojvek 8y ago
I wouldn’t call Microsoft as a company returning control to Engineers and product. I bought a surface pad for my dad. Setting up was a pain, my dad had constant issues where he’d do something and didn’t know how to get out of it. UX was inconsistent. Bing ads everywhere. Yuck! It still very much felt like features were created for someone to get a promo. Google at the moment feels like a ruthless data driven company. “Our charts show that with this change people use more google services. It invades user’s privacy and pisses off a bunch of HN users but who cares? This will make us a trillion dollar company, and it is working!” And this is why everyone should fear Google. If they are willing to do this, as their AI capabilities advance, their actions show they value their stock price far above their users privacy. God knows what they’ll do next. It’s not the first time they’ve done something like this. On the other hand. The current US govt is in bed with Google. They lobby like crazy. The govt will not do anything. Gogo is a behemoth that can pretty much get away with anything now. May be the EU will. I really hope they get fined for this.
- ptero 8y ago
  > I wouldn’t call Microsoft as a company returning control to Engineers and product. I would not either, but this just reinforces the opinion that it is very hard for a company to get out of this state. Once engineers are domesticated even if the leadership wants to reinvigorate the company (and I think Microsoft's would like), empowering tame engineers is unlikely to produce earth-shattering results. Product improvements, sure; new technologies, probably not. My 2c.
- ipython 8y ago
  > Google at the moment feels like a ruthless data driven company. “Our charts show that with this change people use more google services. It invades user’s privacy and pisses off a bunch of HN users but who cares? This will make us a trillion dollar company, and it is working!” This. A million times. Be prepared for the next step: http://decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html http://decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html
  - ISL 8y ago
    Despite my familiarity with the Paperclip Maximizer, it has still been instructive to think it through in real time. It's a nice way to think about priorities in life. Thanks!
  - mdaniel 8y ago
    Holy cow, what have you done to me?! And I thought Civ5 was "one more click" syndrome... The page is pretty sparse; do you know if there are any winning conditions, or it just goes on until `Number` in JS oveflows?
    - dmurray 8y ago
      It does terminate and there's more to the story than you've seen so far.
asimpletune 8y ago
Didn’t they literally strike that word out from their motto overnight. I believe I recall them removing it from the handbook but I’m not sure.
- Animats 8y ago
  Yes, right after they got caught helping drug pushers and had to pay a $500,000,000 fine.[1] "Google executives, including CEO Larry Page, knew about this stuff and condoned it": "Mr. Page, now Google’s chief executive, knew about the illicit conduct, said Mr. Neronha, the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island who led the multiagency federal task force that conducted the sting. “We simply know from the documents we reviewed and witnesses we interviewed that Larry Page knew what was going on,” he said in an interview after the August settlement… “Suffice to say this was not two or three rogue employees at the customer service level doing this on their own,” said Mr. Neronha, the U.S. attorney. “This was corporate decision to engage in this conduct.”" This is way, way beyond most company scandals. It made the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Page could have ended up doing federal prison time. [1] https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/the_journal_takes_us_inside_th.php https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/the_journal_takes_us_insi...

by ptero 8y ago

nojvek 8y ago

I wouldn’t call Microsoft as a company returning control to Engineers and product. I bought a surface pad for my dad. Setting up was a pain, my dad had constant issues where he’d do something and didn’t know how to get out of it. UX was inconsistent. Bing ads everywhere. Yuck! It still very much felt like features were created for someone to get a promo. Google at the moment feels like a ruthless data driven company. “Our charts show that with this change people use more google services. It invades user’s privacy and pisses off a bunch of HN users but who cares? This will make us a trillion dollar company, and it is working!” And this is why everyone should fear Google. If they are willing to do this, as their AI capabilities advance, their actions show they value their stock price far above their users privacy. God knows what they’ll do next. It’s not the first time they’ve done something like this. On the other hand. The current US govt is in bed with Google. They lobby like crazy. The govt will not do anything. Gogo is a behemoth that can pretty much get away with anything now. May be the EU will. I really hope they get fined for this.

ptero 8y ago
> I wouldn’t call Microsoft as a company returning control to Engineers and product. I would not either, but this just reinforces the opinion that it is very hard for a company to get out of this state. Once engineers are domesticated even if the leadership wants to reinvigorate the company (and I think Microsoft's would like), empowering tame engineers is unlikely to produce earth-shattering results. Product improvements, sure; new technologies, probably not. My 2c.
ipython 8y ago
> Google at the moment feels like a ruthless data driven company. “Our charts show that with this change people use more google services. It invades user’s privacy and pisses off a bunch of HN users but who cares? This will make us a trillion dollar company, and it is working!” This. A million times. Be prepared for the next step: http://decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html http://decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html
- ISL 8y ago
  Despite my familiarity with the Paperclip Maximizer, it has still been instructive to think it through in real time. It's a nice way to think about priorities in life. Thanks!
- mdaniel 8y ago
  Holy cow, what have you done to me?! And I thought Civ5 was "one more click" syndrome... The page is pretty sparse; do you know if there are any winning conditions, or it just goes on until `Number` in JS oveflows?
  - dmurray 8y ago
    It does terminate and there's more to the story than you've seen so far.

asimpletune 8y ago

Didn’t they literally strike that word out from their motto overnight. I believe I recall them removing it from the handbook but I’m not sure.

Animats 8y ago
Yes, right after they got caught helping drug pushers and had to pay a $500,000,000 fine.[1] "Google executives, including CEO Larry Page, knew about this stuff and condoned it": "Mr. Page, now Google’s chief executive, knew about the illicit conduct, said Mr. Neronha, the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island who led the multiagency federal task force that conducted the sting. “We simply know from the documents we reviewed and witnesses we interviewed that Larry Page knew what was going on,” he said in an interview after the August settlement… “Suffice to say this was not two or three rogue employees at the customer service level doing this on their own,” said Mr. Neronha, the U.S. attorney. “This was corporate decision to engage in this conduct.”" This is way, way beyond most company scandals. It made the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Page could have ended up doing federal prison time. [1] https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/the_journal_takes_us_inside_th.php https://archives.cjr.org/the_audit/the_journal_takes_us_insi...