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We can assess the analogy on its merits, but random opinions are circulated in docs at Google all the time. From this article, 186,000 employees, therefore lots

We can assess the analogy on its merits, but random opinions are circulated in docs at Google all the time. From this article, 186,000 employees, therefore lots of opinions. This is a random employee who's made an analogy, not a leadership owned doc.

esprehn 4y ago
Without commenting on the contents of the memo Komoroske was not some random employee, he was one of the most senior PMs at the company and now heads up strategy for Stripe.
echelon 4y ago
I would argue the top down leadership has been blind or negligent to their Achilles heel. They've let growth in all areas but their single cash cow be needlessly duplicated, rudderless, left to wither on the vine. To rephrase, I'm not sure that Google leadership has demonstrated the great insight to see what's going wrong and change it. I'd trust just about anyone else at the company to produce an equally plausible hypothesis. Especially if it rhymes with what we see from the outside. We've discussed these same systemic issues at Google for over a decade now. Google is a dodo.
allenu 4y ago
Agreed. This is just a random employee bemoaning that his large, bureaucratic employer is slow to move, and the opinion document he wrote got leaked for some reason. It doesn't "explain" why Google has become slow. Anyone can work out why Google is slow. Most likely because, like a lot of other large companies, Google has a lot of bureaucracy in the way of getting anything done, and a lots of people and lots of teams leads to mismatched incentives, which aren't necessarily aligned towards shipping product people want.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  A month ago a commenter linked to[1] a similar rant from Waze’s ex-CEO bemoaning the same kinds of things. Process yuck! Bureaucracy bad! Too slow! and so on. I imagine it’s a common complaint from people who don’t thrive in a slow, steady, process oriented culture. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33905310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33905310
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    > I imagine it’s a common complaint from people who don’t thrive in a slow, steady, process oriented culture. People who don’t thrive in a process-oriented culture? That’s everyone except for administrators and political ladder climbers.
yellow_lead 4y ago
[flagged]
- visarga 4y ago
  James Damore argued that the gender gap in the tech industry was not due to discrimination, but rather to biological differences between men and women. I don't think this equals to anti-diversity.
  - 4ggr0 4y ago
    Sounds even worse, yeah.
  - TuringTest 4y ago
    > I don't think this equals to anti-diversity. Except that it is. What passes as a cold, rational analysis of cold, scientific facts is rooted on traditionalist biases of the conservative mindsets of scientists in the XIXth century, when the basis of our social sciences were being established. Colonialism and sexism were seen as common-sense a prioris, and those positions permeate a lot of the reasonings and conclusions achieved in these sciences without being put to test (see e.g. myths about the primitive hunter men and gatherer women, or how money originates from barter, which are passed as truisms when studying these disciplines without questioning). Colonialism and sexism are inherently anti-diversity; and people stating those opinions and usually unable to see how their position derivates from those premises.
    - catiopatio 4y ago
      Acknowledging the average differences between the sexes is neither colonialism nor sexism. It is a reasonable hypothesis that explains some disparities in individual choices that lead to disparities in aggregate outcome. To riff on your rather bold assertion: precluding such a hypothesis from consideration is rooted in activist biases of the radical mindset of non-scientists in the 21st century.
      - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

esprehn 4y ago

Without commenting on the contents of the memo Komoroske was not some random employee, he was one of the most senior PMs at the company and now heads up strategy for Stripe.

echelon 4y ago

I would argue the top down leadership has been blind or negligent to their Achilles heel. They've let growth in all areas but their single cash cow be needlessly duplicated, rudderless, left to wither on the vine. To rephrase, I'm not sure that Google leadership has demonstrated the great insight to see what's going wrong and change it. I'd trust just about anyone else at the company to produce an equally plausible hypothesis. Especially if it rhymes with what we see from the outside. We've discussed these same systemic issues at Google for over a decade now. Google is a dodo.

allenu 4y ago

Agreed. This is just a random employee bemoaning that his large, bureaucratic employer is slow to move, and the opinion document he wrote got leaked for some reason. It doesn't "explain" why Google has become slow. Anyone can work out why Google is slow. Most likely because, like a lot of other large companies, Google has a lot of bureaucracy in the way of getting anything done, and a lots of people and lots of teams leads to mismatched incentives, which aren't necessarily aligned towards shipping product people want.

ryandrake 4y ago
A month ago a commenter linked to[1] a similar rant from Waze’s ex-CEO bemoaning the same kinds of things. Process yuck! Bureaucracy bad! Too slow! and so on. I imagine it’s a common complaint from people who don’t thrive in a slow, steady, process oriented culture. 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33905310 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33905310
- catiopatio 4y ago
  > I imagine it’s a common complaint from people who don’t thrive in a slow, steady, process oriented culture. People who don’t thrive in a process-oriented culture? That’s everyone except for administrators and political ladder climbers.

yellow_lead 4y ago

[flagged]

visarga 4y ago
James Damore argued that the gender gap in the tech industry was not due to discrimination, but rather to biological differences between men and women. I don't think this equals to anti-diversity.
- 4ggr0 4y ago
  Sounds even worse, yeah.
- TuringTest 4y ago
  > I don't think this equals to anti-diversity. Except that it is. What passes as a cold, rational analysis of cold, scientific facts is rooted on traditionalist biases of the conservative mindsets of scientists in the XIXth century, when the basis of our social sciences were being established. Colonialism and sexism were seen as common-sense a prioris, and those positions permeate a lot of the reasonings and conclusions achieved in these sciences without being put to test (see e.g. myths about the primitive hunter men and gatherer women, or how money originates from barter, which are passed as truisms when studying these disciplines without questioning). Colonialism and sexism are inherently anti-diversity; and people stating those opinions and usually unable to see how their position derivates from those premises.
  - catiopatio 4y ago
    Acknowledging the average differences between the sexes is neither colonialism nor sexism. It is a reasonable hypothesis that explains some disparities in individual choices that lead to disparities in aggregate outcome. To riff on your rather bold assertion: precluding such a hypothesis from consideration is rooted in activist biases of the radical mindset of non-scientists in the 21st century.
    - 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]