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Bloomberg, 2018: > One person who has spoken to Fuchsia staff described the effort simply: "It’s a senior-engineer retention project." https://www.bloomberg.c

by apozem 6y ago

Bloomberg, 2018: > One person who has spoken to Fuchsia staff described the effort simply: "It’s a senior-engineer retention project." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-19/google-team-is-said-to-plot-android-successor-draw-skepticism https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-19/google-te... Fuchsia’s greatest value is letting senior devs solve fun puzzles without the burden of shipping anything customers want.

earthboundkid 6y ago
Traditionally, large money-making companies liked having big, obvious loss areas, so that when the hard times come, they can just cut that and restore the illusion of growth on Wall Street. It only buys you a couple of quarters of fake growth, but for Wall Street, that's often enough.
- tomjakubowski 6y ago
  Ah, the corporate Speed-Up Loop. https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Speedup-Loop https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Speedup-Loop
- nv-vn 6y ago
  People like to claim these things anecdotally but if you sit down for a few minutes and think about it then it doesn't really make sense. By doing something like that you'd sacrifice current growth, and since money today is worth more than money in the future cutting dead weight now would be more valuable to the shareholders (not to mention the fact that the losses accumulate each year as cash being drained from your accounts). The reality is probably that companies are making a bet on some far fetched technology, so for example Fuschia or the developers behind it could lead to something insanely profitable, but there's only a 20% chance. If you're in a good year then the investment is worthwhile because the expected value is still positive. If you're in a bad year you can't afford to wait for the investment to pan out (not to mention your risk model goes totally out of whack; if the market is doing poorly consumers won't shell out cash for this new tech) so you have to cut costs in that area.
  - ImaCake 6y ago
    I like the insight in this comment, but I worry that you subscribe to the idea that there is any kind of sanity in buisness decisions in a large org. As a researcher pleb mucking around in the undergrowth of a university organisation, many of the decisions admin makes don't make any strategic sense if the university is considered as a rational machine looking out for it's own good. If instead, the university is seen as being controlled by a bunch of self serving sociopaths looking to get a leg-up on the competition, the insane decisions admin makes suddenly become a lot more understandable.
  - c3534l 6y ago
    Shareholders are not rational, and CEOs believe shareholders to be even more irrational than they actually are. There's plenty of research showing that CEOs do things they think looks good to investors, despite evidence to the contrary. What happens to come to mind is research of FIFO v. LIFO inventory. One understates income at the benefit of having a lower tax liability, and the other overstates income to investors at the cost of paying more in taxes. Statistically, investors punish CEOs for leaving tax cuts on the table for an amount greater than the value of the supposed tax savings, while CEOs insist the opposite is true and that investors are rewarding them for overstating income. Managing your books is widespread and commonplace. People downsize, hide liabilities, massage earnings, and do irrational things regardless of not just long-term consequences, but often on the basis of perceived consequences. In this particular case, though, you're probably right. Android itself was one of those whacky ideas that no one expected to gain any traction. Google funds moonshot projects as a matter of company culture and self-identity and it seems to actually make them money. Of course, the possibility still exists to cut them for short-term gain and I doubt no one factors that into their equation at all.
  - earthboundkid 6y ago
    The Xbox: figment of the imagination because markets are rational.
m463 6y ago
Sounds like unix during the period when bell labs was prohibited from entering the computer market by the consent decree.
- noobermin 6y ago
  You're going to compare that to Fuchsia, an OS that will compete in an already occupied space?
  - m463 6y ago
    No i'm comparing it to "os engineers hooked up to a pipeline of infinite money" :)
noobermin 6y ago
People seem to forget this is Google. Yes, this take might be a bit cynical but given Google's track record of projects that sound great but then burn and die, how sure are we that this won't be another one? Google working on something and it becoming the next Chrome or Android isn't a sure bet given history. It's more like a >60% probably it will become abandoned at some point after enough careers from within the company are advanced.
pvarangot 6y ago
Ah, the "senior-engineer retention project". And when they need those senior engineers, or they get bored and retire or go to another company, only the senior engineers that were not that good will keep on working on that thing. That's usually when the useless by design project starts getting pressure to show that's actually useful and when it's surprisingly not it gets the axe. And while that happens all the cream of the crop of the top talent already left or leaves because of the bullshit that comes with the pressure to show marketability for a research project.

by apozem 6y ago

earthboundkid 6y ago

Traditionally, large money-making companies liked having big, obvious loss areas, so that when the hard times come, they can just cut that and restore the illusion of growth on Wall Street. It only buys you a couple of quarters of fake growth, but for Wall Street, that's often enough.

tomjakubowski 6y ago
Ah, the corporate Speed-Up Loop. https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Speedup-Loop https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Speedup-Loop
nv-vn 6y ago
People like to claim these things anecdotally but if you sit down for a few minutes and think about it then it doesn't really make sense. By doing something like that you'd sacrifice current growth, and since money today is worth more than money in the future cutting dead weight now would be more valuable to the shareholders (not to mention the fact that the losses accumulate each year as cash being drained from your accounts). The reality is probably that companies are making a bet on some far fetched technology, so for example Fuschia or the developers behind it could lead to something insanely profitable, but there's only a 20% chance. If you're in a good year then the investment is worthwhile because the expected value is still positive. If you're in a bad year you can't afford to wait for the investment to pan out (not to mention your risk model goes totally out of whack; if the market is doing poorly consumers won't shell out cash for this new tech) so you have to cut costs in that area.
- ImaCake 6y ago
  I like the insight in this comment, but I worry that you subscribe to the idea that there is any kind of sanity in buisness decisions in a large org. As a researcher pleb mucking around in the undergrowth of a university organisation, many of the decisions admin makes don't make any strategic sense if the university is considered as a rational machine looking out for it's own good. If instead, the university is seen as being controlled by a bunch of self serving sociopaths looking to get a leg-up on the competition, the insane decisions admin makes suddenly become a lot more understandable.
- c3534l 6y ago
  Shareholders are not rational, and CEOs believe shareholders to be even more irrational than they actually are. There's plenty of research showing that CEOs do things they think looks good to investors, despite evidence to the contrary. What happens to come to mind is research of FIFO v. LIFO inventory. One understates income at the benefit of having a lower tax liability, and the other overstates income to investors at the cost of paying more in taxes. Statistically, investors punish CEOs for leaving tax cuts on the table for an amount greater than the value of the supposed tax savings, while CEOs insist the opposite is true and that investors are rewarding them for overstating income. Managing your books is widespread and commonplace. People downsize, hide liabilities, massage earnings, and do irrational things regardless of not just long-term consequences, but often on the basis of perceived consequences. In this particular case, though, you're probably right. Android itself was one of those whacky ideas that no one expected to gain any traction. Google funds moonshot projects as a matter of company culture and self-identity and it seems to actually make them money. Of course, the possibility still exists to cut them for short-term gain and I doubt no one factors that into their equation at all.
- earthboundkid 6y ago
  The Xbox: figment of the imagination because markets are rational.

m463 6y ago

Sounds like unix during the period when bell labs was prohibited from entering the computer market by the consent decree.

noobermin 6y ago
You're going to compare that to Fuchsia, an OS that will compete in an already occupied space?
- m463 6y ago
  No i'm comparing it to "os engineers hooked up to a pipeline of infinite money" :)

noobermin 6y ago

People seem to forget this is Google. Yes, this take might be a bit cynical but given Google's track record of projects that sound great but then burn and die, how sure are we that this won't be another one? Google working on something and it becoming the next Chrome or Android isn't a sure bet given history. It's more like a >60% probably it will become abandoned at some point after enough careers from within the company are advanced.

pvarangot 6y ago

Ah, the "senior-engineer retention project". And when they need those senior engineers, or they get bored and retire or go to another company, only the senior engineers that were not that good will keep on working on that thing. That's usually when the useless by design project starts getting pressure to show that's actually useful and when it's surprisingly not it gets the axe. And while that happens all the cream of the crop of the top talent already left or leaves because of the bullshit that comes with the pressure to show marketability for a research project.