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Hiring the smartest people to do the "simplest" tasks is how you reduce errors and variance.
by nojito 6y ago
Hiring the smartest people to do the "simplest" tasks is how you reduce errors and variance.
- fennecfoxen 6y agoAt some point there's a problem of comparative advantage. You could hire a top tier genius computer programmer to check out groceries at the supermarket, and he could become the best supermarket checkout clerk in the world — but it's more efficient for him to be programming computers and leaving the grocery job to someone else, who isn't even particularly good at it, just as an entry level job. Google's simplest tasks may be more important than many other companies' complex tasks, but in the long term, wasting capital (including human capital) by using it at a fraction of its potential is generally a losing game, for society and for the capitalist.
- ghaff 6y agoGoogle has certainly moved the needle on things like SRE--both for themselves and for the industry as a whole--because they can and do hire much of what their interview process determines is the "best" into roles that many other companies will staff with more or less whatever resume comes along. That said, it really hasn't helped Google much to expand their business. GSuite is probably the clearest mostly organic new area--and it's pretty good. Google Cloud somewhat although, like Java for Sun, Kubernetes will probably end up making other companies a lot more money than it will for Google. Hence the current spat over Istio. Certainly lots of things haven't gone anywhere. Anyone want to lay long odds on Waymo being around in 10 years? And it's probably not healthy for the tech industry. Yes, some will go for the startup lottery ticket for reasons of passion or naivete. And others are just less driven by money. But having many of the notionally best and brightest spending years at Google mostly because they'll pay such large wads of cash to even fresh grads means a lot of companies won't even try to compete for them.
- quicklime 6y agoYep, try working in a company that hires incompetent people to do mundane testing. The results are not good. Maybe it's just that Google understands the value of testing in a way that the other companies don't.
- dreamcompiler 6y agoIt's also how you keep the smart people from competing against you. See Microsoft Research in the 90s.
- taneq 6y agoAlso increase turnover. Hiring smart, interesting people to do boring jobs just wastes everyone's time.
- im3w1l 6y agoIf you are too smart for some task then you will get bored and zone out and start making silly mistakes.