9 ms·

I feel like the elephant in the room is culture. * Facebook seems to be a bunch of smart people working on pet projects. Monopoly profits drive a political emp

I feel like the elephant in the room is culture. * Facebook seems to be a bunch of smart people working on pet projects. Monopoly profits drive a political empire where people at the top think up something random, and it gets built. * Google has customer contempt. They started with brilliant people who were used to being smarter than everyone else. They also started in algorithm-driven markets like search and ad-words, where everything was statistical and individuals didn't matter. They've lost the smarts and the ethics, and they're in a bit of a hole. I think they've reached the end of the growth line. * I know nothing about Apple. Too secretive. * Microsoft has a bunch of cut-throat teams, competing with each other. Their technology is middling. However, they're the only one of the bunch you'd want to partner with for B2B. * ... except for Amazon, which is hyper-customer-focused, and has a track record of successful forward-looking projects. AWS has been rock solid. On the other hand, I'd never want to work there; they treat employees like crap. But it somehow works out for them.

dredmorbius 5y ago
This cartoon still holds much truth: http://joyreactor.com/post/287724 http://joyreactor.com/post/287724
- zinekeller 5y ago
  Please try to find the original (in this case, it's from Manu Cornet's webseries Bonkers World: https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts)
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Thanks! I wasn't able to hunt that down.
mwattsun 5y ago
Microsoft is an enterprise company, has a bureaucratic manner and bureaucratic ways of doing things, for example going all in on the XML craze of the late 1990's and early 2000's. There's a lot of ceremony in their projects, TypeScript being a notable exception (at least one that comes to my mind.) It reminds me of a complaint that is interesting to me about India being in love with bureaucracy and paperwork [1]. Somehow it all works and I think they are making strides to be more nimble, but I wonder if it's part of Microsoft's DNA. [1] It’s 2021 and the Indian bureaucracy remains the greatest impediment to progress https://theprint.in/opinion/its-2021-and-the-indian-bureaucracy-remains-the-greatest-impediment-to-progress/587750/ https://theprint.in/opinion/its-2021-and-the-indian-bureaucr...
- ivvve 5y ago
  Would you mind expanding on the "ceremony" around Typescript a little, please? Or if there's an article which explains this that'd be great too. That statement interested me, is all!
  - teh_klev 5y ago
    Parent said "TypeScript being a notable exception"
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  Not knowing much about India, but excessive gov. bureaucracy is often a just side effect of rampant corruption. It goes both ways: - people wanting to fix the corruption problem through technical means will make it more difficult for individual clerks to make decisions alone, and push for more paper trails. - the harder the system is to navigate, the easier it is for clerks to get bribes and quid for pro. At some point it can become impossible to get anything done without bribing to accelerate or bypass the checks.
  - mwattsun 5y ago
    I'm talking more about people who like rules, regulations, organization and order as part of their nature. People who keep their ducks in a row.
    - stkdump 5y ago
      I find it pretty funny that you would attribute something to the nature of a people after getting a well reasoned explanation of why people act that way and what the effect is, without even going into the argument.
      - mwattsun 5y ago
        You are right, I didn't even get involved in the corruption argument. If you think I said something about it, I didn't. It's not interesting to me. You say it's well reasoned but I have no opinion it. The commenter is probably right about corruption and bureaucracies. I was talking about Microsoft. There isn't any corruption of that sort at Microsoft. Maybe in India, I don't know. I was comparing them as organizations that are bureaucratic in nature. I find it interesting that some people like that kind of system and create it, because I don't. To me it seems stifling of creativity and discovery. But maybe I'm missing something and could use more rules and order in my life. I'll keep studying it. I'm glad you pointed out that I was misunderstood.
azalemeth 5y ago
There is much truth in this post. Perhaps controversially, I think Microsoft's real "B2B" success comes from treating end users like crap. Arguably their only successful "end user" product line is Gaming, and that (on Windows) has grown with comparatively modest investment on Microsoft's part or with phenomenal (bought, third-party IP-based) software and a bucketload of cash (Xbox division). Microsoft's true success in the business world comes from ultimately targeting managers – be they in an IT department or otherwise. They are afforded real power over users. GPC can deny a user the ability to do something with their computer that other users can do. Permissions can be very finely grained. Office has, for many years, come with some form of document-based DRM. Microsoft as a company seems to love DRM; they invented activation, for god's sake. The net result of this is that they know what managers like, which is, in fact, to manage. They centralise. They absorb. They have created a huge, confusing, proprietary computer-verse completely orthogonal to the rest of the world (except inasmuch as the rest of the world needs to interact with it). A lot of their product line boils down to implementing MBA newspeek in disguise: clearly; writing good web software is difficult and a good business-orientated app features database, GUI and user-interaction parts – thus Dynamics CRM is born. It's not the business's "core competence" to redevelop those skills -- they're hard. Tie it in with their other B2B offerings and you have central control over both employees' performance, and customer's offerings, in a very tailored, swish way. Sure, other companies can do this (looking at you, Salesforce) but this is just one example. Salesforce can't also do, say, long-term archival storage on Azure for less than a cent per GB, and won't provide you with a calendar-and-meeting-filled video-chat app that is "free" with your existing subscriptions. All of these things tick boxes. They provide "return" on the "investment" of paying the microsoft tax. The broader their product offering, no matter how shit it is to the poor saps that have to use it, the cheaper it effectively becomes. That's the true success of microsoft: they've always been big enough to do things well enough, conglomorate enough stuff, and amortise its effective cost over lots of different offerings. The net result looks good on an Excel spreadsheet, features that managers care about are there - and they keep getting business. (And end-users be damned!)
- rejectfinite 5y ago
  >GPC can deny a user the ability to do something with their computer that other users can do. Yes, this is for security and management. Pretty important stuff. We don't just set GPOs to be dicks.
WalterBright 5y ago
> they treat employees like crap The local Seattle area is full of Amazon employee millionaires.
- wvenable 5y ago
  Somebody has to be at the top of the stack ranking.
- Spivak 5y ago
  I don’t think that disagrees too much with the hypothesis. There’s plenty of jobs with good pay but will double the rate of your aging — Amazon is one of them. If you’re someone who has the skills and can put up with the culture then collect that paycheck. Right now today I could switch companies and make about 30% more if I was willing to take a corporate job. I don’t because I have a great work life balance and the money just isn’t worth it right now.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > will double the rate of your aging — Amazon is one of them Amazon workers have a life expectancy of 50? At least try some plausible arguments.
    - Karunamon 5y ago
      hy·per·bo·le /hīˈpərbəlē/ noun exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      People work for Amazon from age 5 until they die? If you're going to be pedantic about a hyperbolic figure of speech, at least think it through first.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Normal life expectancy is 80y. If you start work at 20y, you can expect to live another 60 years. Cut that in half to 30, and you die at age 50. > at least think it through first Back to you.
abraxas 5y ago
> AWS has been rock solid AWS is a hodgepodge of stellar, middling and some downright crap services. I think their strategy is to make a million flowers bloom and see what takes root. Unfortunately it's hard to tell at first sight which services offer a good experience and which are half baked. In my past experience teams tend to learn this through trial and error.
- datavirtue 5y ago
  This. Read the docs, do a tutorial, start implementing, run into obscure issues, performance problems, or missing features on Stack overflow that are unresolved years later.
edmundsauto 5y ago
I’m curious how confident you are in this assessment of each company, and how you came upon it. I’ve worked for several big tech companies, some named here, and my insider perspective is these entities are so huge that you can’t really boil it down to a simple explanation. Put another way, is this a well researched opinion held after discussions with a variety of roles and time periods? Is the sample size enough to think it’s representative?
- l33t2328 5y ago
  You’re on hackernews, so the answer is likely no.
  - minusf 5y ago
    out of curiosity, where would be the answer yes?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
GlennS 5y ago
> Google ... reached the end of the growth line. I think they still have some things set in motion during their old culture that have a chance grow up big. But it does seem like their best bet would be to move all the good parts of Alphabet far, far away from the decaying center.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  having their war chest means they have a chance to 'grow up big' (not sure what means given they're already one of the biggest companies ever). They could fund entirely new businesses without issue, so there's always a chance.

dredmorbius 5y ago

This cartoon still holds much truth: http://joyreactor.com/post/287724 http://joyreactor.com/post/287724

zinekeller 5y ago
Please try to find the original (in this case, it's from Manu Cornet's webseries Bonkers World: https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts)
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Thanks! I wasn't able to hunt that down.

mwattsun 5y ago

Microsoft is an enterprise company, has a bureaucratic manner and bureaucratic ways of doing things, for example going all in on the XML craze of the late 1990's and early 2000's. There's a lot of ceremony in their projects, TypeScript being a notable exception (at least one that comes to my mind.) It reminds me of a complaint that is interesting to me about India being in love with bureaucracy and paperwork [1]. Somehow it all works and I think they are making strides to be more nimble, but I wonder if it's part of Microsoft's DNA. [1] It’s 2021 and the Indian bureaucracy remains the greatest impediment to progress https://theprint.in/opinion/its-2021-and-the-indian-bureaucracy-remains-the-greatest-impediment-to-progress/587750/ https://theprint.in/opinion/its-2021-and-the-indian-bureaucr...

ivvve 5y ago
Would you mind expanding on the "ceremony" around Typescript a little, please? Or if there's an article which explains this that'd be great too. That statement interested me, is all!
- teh_klev 5y ago
  Parent said "TypeScript being a notable exception"
makeitdouble 5y ago
Not knowing much about India, but excessive gov. bureaucracy is often a just side effect of rampant corruption. It goes both ways: - people wanting to fix the corruption problem through technical means will make it more difficult for individual clerks to make decisions alone, and push for more paper trails. - the harder the system is to navigate, the easier it is for clerks to get bribes and quid for pro. At some point it can become impossible to get anything done without bribing to accelerate or bypass the checks.
- mwattsun 5y ago
  I'm talking more about people who like rules, regulations, organization and order as part of their nature. People who keep their ducks in a row.
  - stkdump 5y ago
    I find it pretty funny that you would attribute something to the nature of a people after getting a well reasoned explanation of why people act that way and what the effect is, without even going into the argument.
    - mwattsun 5y ago
      You are right, I didn't even get involved in the corruption argument. If you think I said something about it, I didn't. It's not interesting to me. You say it's well reasoned but I have no opinion it. The commenter is probably right about corruption and bureaucracies. I was talking about Microsoft. There isn't any corruption of that sort at Microsoft. Maybe in India, I don't know. I was comparing them as organizations that are bureaucratic in nature. I find it interesting that some people like that kind of system and create it, because I don't. To me it seems stifling of creativity and discovery. But maybe I'm missing something and could use more rules and order in my life. I'll keep studying it. I'm glad you pointed out that I was misunderstood.

azalemeth 5y ago

There is much truth in this post. Perhaps controversially, I think Microsoft's real "B2B" success comes from treating end users like crap. Arguably their only successful "end user" product line is Gaming, and that (on Windows) has grown with comparatively modest investment on Microsoft's part or with phenomenal (bought, third-party IP-based) software and a bucketload of cash (Xbox division). Microsoft's true success in the business world comes from ultimately targeting managers – be they in an IT department or otherwise. They are afforded real power over users. GPC can deny a user the ability to do something with their computer that other users can do. Permissions can be very finely grained. Office has, for many years, come with some form of document-based DRM. Microsoft as a company seems to love DRM; they invented activation, for god's sake. The net result of this is that they know what managers like, which is, in fact, to manage. They centralise. They absorb. They have created a huge, confusing, proprietary computer-verse completely orthogonal to the rest of the world (except inasmuch as the rest of the world needs to interact with it). A lot of their product line boils down to implementing MBA newspeek in disguise: clearly; writing good web software is difficult and a good business-orientated app features database, GUI and user-interaction parts – thus Dynamics CRM is born. It's not the business's "core competence" to redevelop those skills -- they're hard. Tie it in with their other B2B offerings and you have central control over both employees' performance, and customer's offerings, in a very tailored, swish way. Sure, other companies can do this (looking at you, Salesforce) but this is just one example. Salesforce can't also do, say, long-term archival storage on Azure for less than a cent per GB, and won't provide you with a calendar-and-meeting-filled video-chat app that is "free" with your existing subscriptions. All of these things tick boxes. They provide "return" on the "investment" of paying the microsoft tax. The broader their product offering, no matter how shit it is to the poor saps that have to use it, the cheaper it effectively becomes. That's the true success of microsoft: they've always been big enough to do things well enough, conglomorate enough stuff, and amortise its effective cost over lots of different offerings. The net result looks good on an Excel spreadsheet, features that managers care about are there - and they keep getting business. (And end-users be damned!)

rejectfinite 5y ago
>GPC can deny a user the ability to do something with their computer that other users can do. Yes, this is for security and management. Pretty important stuff. We don't just set GPOs to be dicks.

WalterBright 5y ago

> they treat employees like crap The local Seattle area is full of Amazon employee millionaires.

wvenable 5y ago
Somebody has to be at the top of the stack ranking.
Spivak 5y ago
I don’t think that disagrees too much with the hypothesis. There’s plenty of jobs with good pay but will double the rate of your aging — Amazon is one of them. If you’re someone who has the skills and can put up with the culture then collect that paycheck. Right now today I could switch companies and make about 30% more if I was willing to take a corporate job. I don’t because I have a great work life balance and the money just isn’t worth it right now.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > will double the rate of your aging — Amazon is one of them Amazon workers have a life expectancy of 50? At least try some plausible arguments.
  - Karunamon 5y ago
    hy·per·bo·le /hīˈpərbəlē/ noun exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    People work for Amazon from age 5 until they die? If you're going to be pedantic about a hyperbolic figure of speech, at least think it through first.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Normal life expectancy is 80y. If you start work at 20y, you can expect to live another 60 years. Cut that in half to 30, and you die at age 50. > at least think it through first Back to you.

abraxas 5y ago

> AWS has been rock solid AWS is a hodgepodge of stellar, middling and some downright crap services. I think their strategy is to make a million flowers bloom and see what takes root. Unfortunately it's hard to tell at first sight which services offer a good experience and which are half baked. In my past experience teams tend to learn this through trial and error.

datavirtue 5y ago
This. Read the docs, do a tutorial, start implementing, run into obscure issues, performance problems, or missing features on Stack overflow that are unresolved years later.

edmundsauto 5y ago

I’m curious how confident you are in this assessment of each company, and how you came upon it. I’ve worked for several big tech companies, some named here, and my insider perspective is these entities are so huge that you can’t really boil it down to a simple explanation. Put another way, is this a well researched opinion held after discussions with a variety of roles and time periods? Is the sample size enough to think it’s representative?

l33t2328 5y ago
You’re on hackernews, so the answer is likely no.
- minusf 5y ago
  out of curiosity, where would be the answer yes?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

GlennS 5y ago

> Google ... reached the end of the growth line. I think they still have some things set in motion during their old culture that have a chance grow up big. But it does seem like their best bet would be to move all the good parts of Alphabet far, far away from the decaying center.

LegitShady 5y ago
having their war chest means they have a chance to 'grow up big' (not sure what means given they're already one of the biggest companies ever). They could fund entirely new businesses without issue, so there's always a chance.