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Product cancellations are just part of Google's culture. They have been doing it for years, including at times when they had very good financial results. It is
by twblalock 8y ago
Product cancellations are just part of Google's culture. They have been doing it for years, including at times when they had very good financial results. It is not a sign of anything other than Google being Google.
In particular it is the result of two unusual characteristics of Google's culture: work supporting legacy code is valued much less than it is at other companies, and launching a new product is by far the best way to get promoted.
- DannyBee 8y agoFWIW: The latter is often thought but this isn't really supported by data AFAIK (or at least any data i've ever seen computed on the subject) As anecdote: My org has historically been one of internal infrastructure, maintenance, fixing apis, etc, and our promo rate is much higher than most orgs that launch products.
- systemBuilder 8y agoYes, people get promoted for launching products, but they don't get un-promoted when the product fails 2y later, which most of them have, including 10O% of moonshots so far.
- twblalock 8y agoMoonshots are supposed to be high-risk speculative projects. Failure is the most likely outcome. You cannot expect good people to take a chance working on moonshots if they will be punished when they fail.
- decebalus1 8y ago> two unusual characteristics of Google's culture: work supporting legacy code is valued much less than it is at other companies, and launching a new product is by far the best way to get promoted. This has been the case at all companies I ever worked at. I don't think there's a place where supporting legacy code is highly regarded and ensures your promotion.