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I think Google couldn't do better, even if they wanted to. The reason is the engineering culture and the promotion system. People expect to switch to new proje

by fh973 6y ago

I think Google couldn't do better, even if they wanted to. The reason is the engineering culture and the promotion system. People expect to switch to new projects, and work towards to a promotion within 2-3 years. This shows in all products, and presumalby also the reason for the deprecation. New people come on the project, want and need to do a major overhaul, and do not have resource or incentives to support the old stuff. The other half is that most projects are done efficiently by relatively small groups of engineers. I remember that Android Market was still a few people in MTV, with no payment possibilities outside of the US, when Apple already had significant revenue from apps. And that shows everywhere. I'd argue Google is incapable of tackling projects that require more than a few hundred people for more than 2-3 years. But as a billion dollar company, that does not work. Throwing money at obvious new billion dollar opportunities like Microsoft did with gaming and cloud, and following through over 5 years is not possible for Google.

mamurphy 6y ago
My armchair thought: what if the CEO said "wow, Yegge is right, we've gotten really off trail here. you need to show leadership in maintaining a 3+ year old system at Google for promotions?" Could that happen and would it work?
- londons_explore 6y ago
  Yes, but there might be other downsides... Suddenly every developer turns into 'maintenance man' just refactoring existing code to make it neater without adding much.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - vmateixeira 6y ago
    Increasing performance and cutting down infrastructure costs? Looks like someone deserves a bonus
    - username90 6y ago
      Those are seen as launches at Google and are rewarded.
  - skohan 6y ago
    The solution to this is more qualitative performance evaluations. People are really good at gaming quantitative systems, so once it becomes a rule that more releases == more promotions, people will prioritize that over actual value creation. Same for if maintenance work becomes the metric. You need the people evaluating performance to really understand the work, and make informed, discretionary decisions about who to promote to maximize real value creation.
    - bradleyjg 6y ago
      > You need the people evaluating performance to really understand the work, and make informed, discretionary decisions about who to promote to maximize real value creation. I agree but for everyone working at / running a company without a money printing machine it is worth noting that this is really expensive. You need to take someone that’s a good engineer—-one with judgment and a modicum of people skills—-and give them mostly thankless, stressful work.
- Traster 6y ago
  The promotion system isn't the issue, the promotion system was the issue 10 years ago. For the last 10 years Google has been hiring and promoting and keeping people who prioritize shiny new things more than maintaining old things. If you start rewarding maintaining old things you aren't going to suddenly get what you want, you're just going to lose a tonne of people because they don't want to do what you're telling them and you won't be able to hire good people with your priorities because no one is going to believe they can have a good career at Google by prioritizing stability and long term support. It's all downstream of culture, and culture change is very difficult. Of course if you do buy into this idea that this is the issue, then GCP has already lost. It would be years before they could make a dent in that culture, and more years after that for external customers to know and trust Google's new culture. By that time there's going to be a dominant player anyway. So maybe actually it's best to stick with the current culture - try and win on your strengths than try to fix your defficiencies.
  - sebazzz 6y ago
    > The promotion system isn't the issue, the promotion system was the issue 10 years ago. For the last 10 years Google has been hiring and promoting and keeping people who prioritize shiny new things more than maintaining old things. Isn't that inherent to their interview process?
  - zimbatm 6y ago
    It might be even deeper than that. I don't know if it's representative, the few Googlers I talked to were there only for the money. Their view of the company was actually quite negative. Keeping backward-compatibility requires people that care. That have enough pride in their work to counter-balance the grind.
    - corin_ 6y ago
      Obviously having people that care about the work they do is a positive thing, but there are plenty of people in plenty of industries managing to do a good job despite only being in it for the money. It might not be a good business decision for Google, but surely if they create enough positions that are solely focussed on the boring stuff but are paid better to make up for it, there is a price point at which they'd get enough interested people.
- lallysingh 6y ago
  Direct OKRs for stability. "99.9% of customers unaffected by any change this quarter"
sukilot 6y ago
That could be fixed in 1 day if the CEO simply said hire people to maintain this stuff, and don't require them to get promoted. Google's a mega corp now, not a startup. And they pay white well at entry level. Most people don't care about promo unless forced (up or out).
- otterley 6y ago
  You grossly underestimate how long it takes to change the culture of a company, let alone one the size of Google. A CEO can’t snap his/her fingers and direct a change of this kind into existence.

by fh973 6y ago

mamurphy 6y ago

My armchair thought: what if the CEO said "wow, Yegge is right, we've gotten really off trail here. you need to show leadership in maintaining a 3+ year old system at Google for promotions?" Could that happen and would it work?

londons_explore 6y ago
Yes, but there might be other downsides... Suddenly every developer turns into 'maintenance man' just refactoring existing code to make it neater without adding much.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- vmateixeira 6y ago
  Increasing performance and cutting down infrastructure costs? Looks like someone deserves a bonus
  - username90 6y ago
    Those are seen as launches at Google and are rewarded.
- skohan 6y ago
  The solution to this is more qualitative performance evaluations. People are really good at gaming quantitative systems, so once it becomes a rule that more releases == more promotions, people will prioritize that over actual value creation. Same for if maintenance work becomes the metric. You need the people evaluating performance to really understand the work, and make informed, discretionary decisions about who to promote to maximize real value creation.
  - bradleyjg 6y ago
    > You need the people evaluating performance to really understand the work, and make informed, discretionary decisions about who to promote to maximize real value creation. I agree but for everyone working at / running a company without a money printing machine it is worth noting that this is really expensive. You need to take someone that’s a good engineer—-one with judgment and a modicum of people skills—-and give them mostly thankless, stressful work.
Traster 6y ago
The promotion system isn't the issue, the promotion system was the issue 10 years ago. For the last 10 years Google has been hiring and promoting and keeping people who prioritize shiny new things more than maintaining old things. If you start rewarding maintaining old things you aren't going to suddenly get what you want, you're just going to lose a tonne of people because they don't want to do what you're telling them and you won't be able to hire good people with your priorities because no one is going to believe they can have a good career at Google by prioritizing stability and long term support. It's all downstream of culture, and culture change is very difficult. Of course if you do buy into this idea that this is the issue, then GCP has already lost. It would be years before they could make a dent in that culture, and more years after that for external customers to know and trust Google's new culture. By that time there's going to be a dominant player anyway. So maybe actually it's best to stick with the current culture - try and win on your strengths than try to fix your defficiencies.
- sebazzz 6y ago
  > The promotion system isn't the issue, the promotion system was the issue 10 years ago. For the last 10 years Google has been hiring and promoting and keeping people who prioritize shiny new things more than maintaining old things. Isn't that inherent to their interview process?
- zimbatm 6y ago
  It might be even deeper than that. I don't know if it's representative, the few Googlers I talked to were there only for the money. Their view of the company was actually quite negative. Keeping backward-compatibility requires people that care. That have enough pride in their work to counter-balance the grind.
  - corin_ 6y ago
    Obviously having people that care about the work they do is a positive thing, but there are plenty of people in plenty of industries managing to do a good job despite only being in it for the money. It might not be a good business decision for Google, but surely if they create enough positions that are solely focussed on the boring stuff but are paid better to make up for it, there is a price point at which they'd get enough interested people.
lallysingh 6y ago
Direct OKRs for stability. "99.9% of customers unaffected by any change this quarter"

sukilot 6y ago

That could be fixed in 1 day if the CEO simply said hire people to maintain this stuff, and don't require them to get promoted. Google's a mega corp now, not a startup. And they pay white well at entry level. Most people don't care about promo unless forced (up or out).

otterley 6y ago
You grossly underestimate how long it takes to change the culture of a company, let alone one the size of Google. A CEO can’t snap his/her fingers and direct a change of this kind into existence.