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There are people inside Google that must have thought this review and communication process was a Good Idea. It wouldn't have gotten built otherwise. Will thes

by Guzba 6y ago

There are people inside Google that must have thought this review and communication process was a Good Idea. It wouldn't have gotten built otherwise. Will these individuals continue to be putting Good Ideas into production indefinitely or is there some sort of immune response inside Google? I have no interest in a scape goat or anything like that, I'm just curious if there's a way to incorporate the real-world consequences of choices like this into who is empowered to make choices going forward.

downerending 6y ago
One thing I've noticed working for a variety of companies is that highly profitable companies generally do not have consequences for even fairly dramatic failures, both in terms of how they treat customers and how they treat employees. They simply have too much money, so there's little need to do so. In a tiny company, a large failure can easily be the end of the company, so they're far more motivated to care about things like customer happiness, etc.
- sneak 6y ago
  Relevant: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/gap/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/gap/ This story is about infra, but it applies just as much for product.
  - downerending 6y ago
    Interesting read. I've never worked for a company that tried to do a reasonably serious post mortem on a disaster. Or perhaps I was simply never one of the cool kids that were invited. It's pleasant to think that that's actually happening somewhere. Usually it's probably more like Google+ (gosh, we did everything right, but somehow it just didn't work out--oh well, it wasn't that much money after all, and hey, we can keep using it internally).
- IronWolve 6y ago
  VP of ATT Wireless Billing fired the number portability group and hired an outside firm to do it, right before the date the FCC mandated people be allowed to switch carriers and keep their cell number. Took a few months to fix the issue, and ATTWS was fined millions per day. The VP made a boatload in a bonus for outsourcing a major group with expensive Seattle engineers and offshoring it. Then the company paid millions to the FCC in fines for the fuck up. He kept his job. Saw this cycle repeated all over, VP replacing expensive hundreds of millions in telecom equipment then go working for that vendor as a VP for them cough nortel cough... Shit kept moving along, saw VP's back in the day push for the expensive per minute charges on low income phones while allowing the cheapest rates or inclusive long distance for normal users. The costs to keep the extra expensive billing and bad press of gouging the poor was ignored util it made the news. Shrug, change policy, nothing to see here. Google is losing Joe Rogan due to censorship, while Google is running off their most watched creators due to guest censorship. Theres even people making plugins to get around googles censorship (msm channel blacklist, pockettube, etc). The whole control angle of companies strangles customers and developers to create new platforms, bad mangament is a great opportunity for startups to take on these issues and grow into major companies. Spotify is just the modern day Napster. Bitchute is a wayward home for censored conversations. Paypal decided to ban people for politics and now dozens of companies are biting into their market, Square/Stripe etc. People are tired of being controlled by FANNG companies, nextdoor took off due to facebook, companies are trying to keep the afloat with the largest consumer base, but once the market is shattered with fleeing/banned users and customers, new companies will pop up. Myspace tried to control the market, facebook took over, now facebook controls what you see in your feed, and people flee, so facebook buys up the startups people flee too. Tiny companies fill the need, we just need to make sure they get funded to continue and grow, crowd sourcing is one area that helps. I'm loving that hackers and programmers who hate being told what to do and how to act, are coding and design ways around this problem. Chrome extensions is a good idea, but soon google will ban them, Dissenter as an example. When chrome is too controlling people flee to the next browser. Look at how many browsers there are now doing what Google is lacking. I cant wait to see what people build to rebel against "the system", and theres now methods to fund them, the future looks great. Everyone keeps talking about the same issues, as if its an accepted fact, then someone comes along and builds a platform/app/extension that fixes it. And people move on...

by Guzba 6y ago

downerending 6y ago

One thing I've noticed working for a variety of companies is that highly profitable companies generally do not have consequences for even fairly dramatic failures, both in terms of how they treat customers and how they treat employees. They simply have too much money, so there's little need to do so. In a tiny company, a large failure can easily be the end of the company, so they're far more motivated to care about things like customer happiness, etc.

sneak 6y ago
Relevant: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/gap/ https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2020/05/23/gap/ This story is about infra, but it applies just as much for product.
- downerending 6y ago
  Interesting read. I've never worked for a company that tried to do a reasonably serious post mortem on a disaster. Or perhaps I was simply never one of the cool kids that were invited. It's pleasant to think that that's actually happening somewhere. Usually it's probably more like Google+ (gosh, we did everything right, but somehow it just didn't work out--oh well, it wasn't that much money after all, and hey, we can keep using it internally).
IronWolve 6y ago
VP of ATT Wireless Billing fired the number portability group and hired an outside firm to do it, right before the date the FCC mandated people be allowed to switch carriers and keep their cell number. Took a few months to fix the issue, and ATTWS was fined millions per day. The VP made a boatload in a bonus for outsourcing a major group with expensive Seattle engineers and offshoring it. Then the company paid millions to the FCC in fines for the fuck up. He kept his job. Saw this cycle repeated all over, VP replacing expensive hundreds of millions in telecom equipment then go working for that vendor as a VP for them cough nortel cough... Shit kept moving along, saw VP's back in the day push for the expensive per minute charges on low income phones while allowing the cheapest rates or inclusive long distance for normal users. The costs to keep the extra expensive billing and bad press of gouging the poor was ignored util it made the news. Shrug, change policy, nothing to see here. Google is losing Joe Rogan due to censorship, while Google is running off their most watched creators due to guest censorship. Theres even people making plugins to get around googles censorship (msm channel blacklist, pockettube, etc). The whole control angle of companies strangles customers and developers to create new platforms, bad mangament is a great opportunity for startups to take on these issues and grow into major companies. Spotify is just the modern day Napster. Bitchute is a wayward home for censored conversations. Paypal decided to ban people for politics and now dozens of companies are biting into their market, Square/Stripe etc. People are tired of being controlled by FANNG companies, nextdoor took off due to facebook, companies are trying to keep the afloat with the largest consumer base, but once the market is shattered with fleeing/banned users and customers, new companies will pop up. Myspace tried to control the market, facebook took over, now facebook controls what you see in your feed, and people flee, so facebook buys up the startups people flee too. Tiny companies fill the need, we just need to make sure they get funded to continue and grow, crowd sourcing is one area that helps. I'm loving that hackers and programmers who hate being told what to do and how to act, are coding and design ways around this problem. Chrome extensions is a good idea, but soon google will ban them, Dissenter as an example. When chrome is too controlling people flee to the next browser. Look at how many browsers there are now doing what Google is lacking. I cant wait to see what people build to rebel against "the system", and theres now methods to fund them, the future looks great. Everyone keeps talking about the same issues, as if its an accepted fact, then someone comes along and builds a platform/app/extension that fixes it. And people move on...