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The "design" of the original Google search page was not so much in the aesthetics as the loading time. Every other search engine piled on decoration and most us
by Detrus 16y ago
The "design" of the original Google search page was not so much in the aesthetics as the loading time. Every other search engine piled on decoration and most users had 56K connections. She was the one who convinced the founders not to imitate the other search engines, not to be portals, just let people search as quickly as possible.
That might have been more important than their search results in many cases. Design doesn't get better than that.
- samt 16y agoIt's often hard to look back and attribute success to the things that one did not do. I think this more than anything is Marissa Mayer's problem here on HN - it's tough to publicly point to anything she did, except play the totally critical role of saying no a million times over. Few people can do that, fewer still are right.
- derefr 16y agoIt seems that people who say no for a living—designers, directors, critics, even big-league VCs—all fare poorly on HN. I wonder why that is?
- nostrademons 16y agoBecause HN is filled with prospective entrepreneurs and innovative software engineers, and these people need to say "Yes" in order to do their job. Startups would never get off the ground if their founders said "No" to everything. The next great idea would be killed long before it could be developed enough to prove its worth. The critical piece is being able to say "Yes" to everything early on, and then critically look at everything you've said "Yes" to once they're on the table and say "No, no, and no" to the vast majority of them.