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It was once put to me that Google's promotion system creates this dynamic. Starting a new project that garners widespread attention looks good in a package, bu

It was once put to me that Google's promotion system creates this dynamic. Starting a new project that garners widespread attention looks good in a package, but replacing lightbulbs and scrubbing floors doesn't. Folks create a splash, get promoted, then move on and are not replaced. I've never worked at Google, so I do not know if this dynamic is real. I would be interested to hear from Googlers about incentives to work or not work on something.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
Former Googler, 16 hours ago, stated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077692
- jacques_chester 6y ago
  He says incentives and recognition began to shift by 2010, which is good to hear. But that leaves me wondering how the linked situation occurs. It's a cliché that Google shutters projects or loses interest. I don't know whether that's particular to google or if it's due to an availability heuristic (Google is well-known, so its wanderings-off are widely publicised). But if there are such dynamics and incentives, they are worthy of attention. Google exerts enormous gravity on the fabric of the technology industry, it would be helpful to avoid hurtful externalities arising from internal incentives.
  - acdha 6y ago
    My theory is that Google is notably worse at this because their core advertising business is so profitable. Most companies would have been forced to become good at managing projects by necessity but until ad revenues substantially decline Google can subsidize a ton of inefficiency and still report good numbers to Wall Street, just like Microsoft's various write-offs in the 90s and 2000s.
    - jacques_chester 6y ago
      It certainly doesn't help. I refer to this as the "Mississippi of Money" problem. If a river is deep, wide and fast-flowing, you can do pretty much anything and still get somewhere. The rest of us have to make do with leaky canoes, going up a certain creek, often sans a paddle.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Not sure a former Googler's estimation of what may have started to happen after he left is much of a signal.
  - Johnie 6y ago
    When I left in 2015, this promotion incentives was also a problem.
tjchear 6y ago
I can't speak for the entire org, but when I was in Display Ads, promotion went to people who moved the needle on certain metrics, e.g processing latency, revenue, throughput, resource usage, etc. More often than not, impacts like that were accomplished by shipping new features (while deprecating legacy code) instead of fixing bugs. If you're going for promotion, having launched something that makes an impact (appropriate to the level you're going for) is a must. That said, it's a fairly common occurrence that once you get promoted, you move to a different team, leaving your old projects to your former teammates.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago

Former Googler, 16 hours ago, stated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077692 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24077692

jacques_chester 6y ago
He says incentives and recognition began to shift by 2010, which is good to hear. But that leaves me wondering how the linked situation occurs. It's a cliché that Google shutters projects or loses interest. I don't know whether that's particular to google or if it's due to an availability heuristic (Google is well-known, so its wanderings-off are widely publicised). But if there are such dynamics and incentives, they are worthy of attention. Google exerts enormous gravity on the fabric of the technology industry, it would be helpful to avoid hurtful externalities arising from internal incentives.
- acdha 6y ago
  My theory is that Google is notably worse at this because their core advertising business is so profitable. Most companies would have been forced to become good at managing projects by necessity but until ad revenues substantially decline Google can subsidize a ton of inefficiency and still report good numbers to Wall Street, just like Microsoft's various write-offs in the 90s and 2000s.
  - jacques_chester 6y ago
    It certainly doesn't help. I refer to this as the "Mississippi of Money" problem. If a river is deep, wide and fast-flowing, you can do pretty much anything and still get somewhere. The rest of us have to make do with leaky canoes, going up a certain creek, often sans a paddle.
- gowld 6y ago
  Not sure a former Googler's estimation of what may have started to happen after he left is much of a signal.
- Johnie 6y ago
  When I left in 2015, this promotion incentives was also a problem.

tjchear 6y ago

I can't speak for the entire org, but when I was in Display Ads, promotion went to people who moved the needle on certain metrics, e.g processing latency, revenue, throughput, resource usage, etc. More often than not, impacts like that were accomplished by shipping new features (while deprecating legacy code) instead of fixing bugs. If you're going for promotion, having launched something that makes an impact (appropriate to the level you're going for) is a must. That said, it's a fairly common occurrence that once you get promoted, you move to a different team, leaving your old projects to your former teammates.