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I do think their engineers have likely slipped in quality over the years, but that's not the problem. The problem is their culture of product managers being re

I do think their engineers have likely slipped in quality over the years, but that's not the problem. The problem is their culture of product managers being rewarded for launching projects and nobody being rewarded for maintaining projects. They financially incentivize people to launch and kill projects. It sounds like a leadership problem, because only leadership can change the culture like that.

GVIrish 7y ago
Probably a lot to do with this. Incentives are probably the strongest driver of behavior in a company, much stronger than any stated strategy. If people are richly rewarded for launching new products, they'll optimize their work for launching new products, even when that product doesn't make sense, or when more business value could be created by supporting/enhancing an existing product. For another example, Microsoft's dysfunction and infighting in the Ballmer era can be tied to stack ranking. If your success depends on your peers doing worse than you, you're incentivized to not cooperate at best, snipe and sabotage at worst. Google absolutely has to change their internal incentives if they want to sustain success into the future. In the case of GCP they're gonna have to start figuring out how they can shift their culture to wooing and keeping enterprise customers. This leak, their culture, and their history is gonna make that a tall order.
codingslave 7y ago
This is also true, but Google is a very engineering centric company, who they hire with regards to software end up running other parts of their business. Lots of really powerful people there came in and worked as engineers.
numbsafari 7y ago
That, and the absolute 100% lack of customer support or engagement. Unless you are a Fortune 100, they don't do support. Want to move an SMB with 50+ employees to Chromebooks with Chrome Enterprise? You literally cannot pay Google to support you. You have to work with one of their third-party vendors, who all suck. Perhaps with Brin and Page finally leaving, this is something that can change. But, I doubt it will, since they hired the leadership that's implemented their vision. The next chapter of Google is likely to be how Sundar Pichai leads them to the brink.
- x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
  "The next chapter of Google is likely to be how Sundar Pichai leads them to the brink." Damn, that's dark.

GVIrish 7y ago

Probably a lot to do with this. Incentives are probably the strongest driver of behavior in a company, much stronger than any stated strategy. If people are richly rewarded for launching new products, they'll optimize their work for launching new products, even when that product doesn't make sense, or when more business value could be created by supporting/enhancing an existing product. For another example, Microsoft's dysfunction and infighting in the Ballmer era can be tied to stack ranking. If your success depends on your peers doing worse than you, you're incentivized to not cooperate at best, snipe and sabotage at worst. Google absolutely has to change their internal incentives if they want to sustain success into the future. In the case of GCP they're gonna have to start figuring out how they can shift their culture to wooing and keeping enterprise customers. This leak, their culture, and their history is gonna make that a tall order.

codingslave 7y ago

This is also true, but Google is a very engineering centric company, who they hire with regards to software end up running other parts of their business. Lots of really powerful people there came in and worked as engineers.

numbsafari 7y ago

That, and the absolute 100% lack of customer support or engagement. Unless you are a Fortune 100, they don't do support. Want to move an SMB with 50+ employees to Chromebooks with Chrome Enterprise? You literally cannot pay Google to support you. You have to work with one of their third-party vendors, who all suck. Perhaps with Brin and Page finally leaving, this is something that can change. But, I doubt it will, since they hired the leadership that's implemented their vision. The next chapter of Google is likely to be how Sundar Pichai leads them to the brink.

x86_64Ubuntu 7y ago
"The next chapter of Google is likely to be how Sundar Pichai leads them to the brink." Damn, that's dark.