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Also, Google's internal politics are kind of broken. It's my understanding that a lot of the product launches and cancellations are a consequence of an internal
by ashtonkem 5y ago
Also, Google's internal politics are kind of broken. It's my understanding that a lot of the product launches and cancellations are a consequence of an internal culture that rewards launching new products, but not maintaining or improving them.
- refulgentis 5y agoNeither OP or GP have it right - Fuchsia isn't a "3rd OS", it's a kernel, like Linux, except MIT. Maintenance is most certainly rewarded, at least in the 5 years I've been at Google
- mike_d 5y agoEh. If you've been at Google for 5 years then you should recognize Fuchsia as another one of the "retention projects" where you get paid to twiddle away at something cool in the corner and your only real deliverable is not going to work for Facebook or Apple. Sometimes they stumble upon something another PA needs, but often it just ends up as a patent or research paper.
- refulgentis 5y agoI can forthrightly say you're way, way, off the mark here. Another common anecdote in any Fuchsia article, one I myself believed at times, but not the case here. Edit: one of the many, many signs HN has deteriorated to a poor clone of subreddit combos is getting downvoted for knowing that this isn't a do-nothing project, which should be obvious to anyone reading: the whole point of the article is _it is launching on consumer hardware_. Sad stuff.
- mike_d 5y ago"Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- new_realist 5y agoAnd if HN did turn into Reddit, how would we know, given that we're gagged?
- ryandvm 5y agoI find these playground rule recitations to be a rather lily-livered way of stifling discussion. This is a forum and we're here to discuss things. Lest you forget, the _users_ and their opinions are the most valuable part of Hacker News, so how about we dispense with the self-appointed hall monitoring? I really don't give a shit if there's a commandment about not comparing HN to Reddit. If the shoe fits...
- Bud 5y agoI'm interested: can you name even one more of the supposed "many, many signs"? The only one you elucidated doesn't really click; nor can I discern that HN is, by any stretch, a "poor clone" of anything about Reddit. HN has, in fact, many virtues that Reddit can't really touch, and it's basically just as old as Reddit, not that Reddit really invented anything that hadn't already existed for decades.
- refulgentis 5y agoI got banned from posting for _4 hours_ because I got downvoted 5 points in a half hour for these comments. Suffice it to say I tried writing more substantive but the policy had its obvious effect, the off-topic echo chamber was preserved. Look no further than you're being _upvoted_ for quintupling down on inanity completely divorced from the article that's we're supposed to be discussing, even with schoolyard debate nonsense like "can you name even one thing backing up your thesis statement?" (back in the day, or still with more traditional HN posts, you'd get something more like: 'I find that surprising, what makes you feel that way?'. Dang calls this "coming with curiosity" or something like that) Meanwhile in the sibling thread, we have a guy with a year old account neener-neering me for daring to mention things are bad because it's a noob fallacy, and people who have actually been here a while getting flagged/dead through the floor for pointing out this _isn't actually some steadfast rule_, its a classic HN "rule". Meanwhile, I've been here for 12+ years and its never been close to being as bad as it is right now. This site, and you, are getting what always happens to these sites: too large of an audience to preserve quality of discussion over group dynamics. You shall inherit the board, but, no one will be the wiser for you being here - it's all half-baked assertions, schoolyard bully absolutist nonsense that you know isn't argumentation, you'd never talk like that to someone in real life. Then add the thesis here being that people _in the actual company_ aren't seeing the truth, their coworkers are engaged on makework PhD bullshit because otherwise they'd jump to Apple (never mind that the #1, #2, and #3 pieces of career advice in the valley is to leave so you get promoted)
- Bud 5y agoQuite to the contrary, I'd talk to you exactly like this in real life. I cordially invite you to coffee if you'd like proof of that. You made a very broad claim that was unsupported, so I asked you to support it. You responded with zero support and with a lot of heated blather that violates as many HN policies as you could manage. Stop complaining about upvotes and downvotes, and support your argument, instead. As for your "coming with curiosity" scolding attempt? Please review the first two words of my comment.
- xvector 5y agoWhy would Google pay employees to not go to Apple?
- echelon 5y agoThe only competition for the giants are the other giants. Who can divert from Google's massive ad income funnel? Apple. Facebook. (Also maybe several foreign governments' antitrust cases.) An engineer on your payroll is an engineer not on the competition's payroll.
- astrange 5y agoBecause Google has infinite money, the execs just hire people so they can admire the zoo of smart people they've built. Why do they need Vint Cerf, Guido, and Rob Pike? Why are they on the MIDI board? Because there's no real reason not to.
- 1024core 5y agoGuido hasn't been at Google since 2013
- therealrootuser 5y agoI don't have an opinion either way on your position here, other than a fact check. Guido van Rossum (creator of Python) is a Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft. Before that, he worked at Dropbox.
- mike_d 5y agoBefore that, he was at Google. Failing to retain an employee doesn't invalidate that Google would rather they didn't leave. I get the quarterly check-ins from the "alumni recruiting" team, and can assume Guido does too.
- rejectedandsad 5y agoFacebook or Apple? Not Amazon or Microsoft?
- gjsman-1000 5y agoActually, it is a 3rd OS named Fuchsia, which uses a custom kernel called Zircon which is MIT. "Zircon is the core platform that powers Fuchsia. Zircon is composed of a kernel (source in /zircon/kernel) as well as a small set of userspace services, drivers, and libraries (source in /zircon/system/) necessary for the system to boot, talk to hardware, load userspace processes and run them, etc. Fuchsia builds a much larger OS on top of this foundation." - Fuchsia Docs, https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/kernel https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/concepts/kernel
- CobrastanJorji 5y agoI suspect that this is a consequence of the above problem. Something that's pretty successful and growing at a pretty good clip is not a giant spigot of money, and therefore it's effectively useless to Google. Maintaining it requires programmers that could be better put to searching for the next spigot.
- BurningFrog 5y agoThis is also typical of mismanaged governments: Always building new infrastructure, and not maintaining the existing one.
- ortusdux 5y agoAs I understand it, higher level promotions require a portfolio be compiled and submitted to an anonymous review board. A successful product launch is one of the most valuable additions to these packets. This has two logistical consequences: 1 - it's more valuable to launch a new product that it is to successfully maintain/grow a current one. 2 - the person running these new projects tends to get promoted away, leaving it rudderless. Google could change all this overnight by restructuring what these review boards prioritize.
- est31 5y agoIf a solution is that simple, why hasn't it been done? Also, the head of Android has become the CEO, and Android is still not rudderless.
- s3r3nity 5y agoBecause the system works? Why fix what isn't broken?
- jolux 5y agoIt works for some things but they've kind of painted themselves into a corner with cloud services, many companies do not trust that GCP will not just disappear without a trace someday.
- ashtonkem 5y agoIdentifying a good change and actually implementing it in a massive organization are two wildly different things.
- opheliate 5y agoPeople always say this on HN, and while it’s definitely a viable explanation for why Google so often cans projects that are well-loved, I’m finding it harder to believe the more I think about it. If all of us on the outside are so aware of this fact about Google’s culture, surely someone with sway has heard about it, and taken steps to fix it. I’m sure Google are well aware of the perception that they’re always getting rid of products, and would like to fix that. So if the explanation was just that the culture doesn’t reward maintaining existing projects, I’m sure we would have heard something about a corporate incentive to maintain stuff.
- phkahler 5y agoI hate the word, but if there's one thing google has it's analytics - data. They can tell if something is growing or dying. I'm guessing they could even tell youtube was growing before they bought it. But seeing an upward trend seems easier than seeing a flat line and deciding it can't be turned into an upward trend.
- CarelessExpert 5y ago> So if the explanation was just that the culture doesn’t reward maintaining existing projects, I’m sure we would have heard something about a corporate incentive to maintain stuff. So, two things: 1) Changing culture is really hard, especially at a company the size of Google, and 2) Even if they could change the culture, it's possible they simply don't care or they believe the benefits outweigh the cost.
- jsnell 5y agoHow about this explanation instead: Google doesn't actually have a habit of canceling projects that are well-loved? If you don't believe it, try selecting 10 of their supposedly killed products at random. Had you honestly heard of them ever before? Do they look like something that would have had a significant user base? Hell, do they even look like they were actual products?
- danans 5y ago> product launches and cancellations are a consequence of an internal culture that rewards launching new products, but not maintaining or improving them This is very stale information at this point. Product launches are now pretty heavily gated, and promotion criteria are far less based on launches than on overall impact, including but not limited to improving/maintaining products. (Googler but interpretation is my own)
- mrwh 5y agoI think that depends where you are. There's a lot of lip-service being paid, but from what I've seen, it's mostly translated to talking about _landings_ rather than _launchings_, which isn't much of a change. (Also a Googler.)
- danans 5y agoI think landings allows for a much broader scope of accomplishments. For example, if refactor an entire system for demonstrably better maintainability and efficiency, that's a landing, but not a launch.
- mlazos 5y agoPeople say this all the time about every company. For many this is true, when seen from the narrow perspective of an individual. However for the only metric that people care about (stock price and profit) Google’s system is incredibly successful. Higher ups will not dictate changes like this if the company is successful. Culture change at the macro level only happens when the company is spiraling at the macro level.