4 ms·

The "text of the memo" is really just the article's author not understanding the context of Steve Yegge's years-later retelling, from which that text comes. "Hi

by wging 5y ago

The "text of the memo" is really just the article's author not understanding the context of Steve Yegge's years-later retelling, from which that text comes. "His Big Mandate went something along these lines" (Yegge's words right before the quoted text) doesn't even imply there was a singular 'memo' involved, and definitely (and obviously) wasn't meant to say that the text was actually what Bezos wrote. So the footnote "Whether or not it existed in this exact form" is unnecessarily ambiguous about whether these were Bezos' words. They're clearly not - besides Yegge not saying they are, they're a dead ringer for Yegge's style and not at all Bezos'.

nemesisj 5y ago
I wish this comment was the top comment. Not to be too critical, but this blog post is a (in my opinion, poor) rehash of Steve Yegge's infamous Google+ post which he accidentally posted online. It's entertaining and one of the most influential memos I've read in the last twenty years. His followup memo was great as well.
- devchix 5y ago
  And the cargo-culting of "everything should be API no exception" was due to Yegge's colorful writing which endorsed it (relative to how things were done at Google at the time he was there) in his original piece. I sometime wonder if this development philosophy drove the microtizing of services, and then AWS went to sell that philosophy all over the world. There is such a thing as TOO MUCH atomizing of services.
willshepherdson 5y ago
Came here to say this - the next line made it even more clear that Yegge is making a joke. Here's a mirror of the original essay: https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 Ha, ha! You 150-odd ex-Amazon folks here will of course realize immediately that #7 was a little joke I threw in, because Bezos most definitely does not give a shit about your day.
- weswpg 5y ago
  and then the next line clarifies that only the last part of the whole story was a joke: > #6, however, was quite real, so people went to work. Bezos assigned a couple of Chief Bulldogs to oversee the effort and ensure forward progress, headed up by Uber-Chief Bear Bulldog Rick Dalzell.

by wging 5y ago

nemesisj 5y ago

I wish this comment was the top comment. Not to be too critical, but this blog post is a (in my opinion, poor) rehash of Steve Yegge's infamous Google+ post which he accidentally posted online. It's entertaining and one of the most influential memos I've read in the last twenty years. His followup memo was great as well.

devchix 5y ago
And the cargo-culting of "everything should be API no exception" was due to Yegge's colorful writing which endorsed it (relative to how things were done at Google at the time he was there) in his original piece. I sometime wonder if this development philosophy drove the microtizing of services, and then AWS went to sell that philosophy all over the world. There is such a thing as TOO MUCH atomizing of services.

willshepherdson 5y ago

Came here to say this - the next line made it even more clear that Yegge is making a joke. Here's a mirror of the original essay: https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 https://gist.github.com/chitchcock/1281611 Ha, ha! You 150-odd ex-Amazon folks here will of course realize immediately that #7 was a little joke I threw in, because Bezos most definitely does not give a shit about your day.

weswpg 5y ago
and then the next line clarifies that only the last part of the whole story was a joke: > #6, however, was quite real, so people went to work. Bezos assigned a couple of Chief Bulldogs to oversee the effort and ensure forward progress, headed up by Uber-Chief Bear Bulldog Rick Dalzell.