2 ms·

What is amazing to me is that no matter how much a company makes, you can't change its DNA. Facebook can never build a good physical product, no matter how much

What is amazing to me is that no matter how much a company makes, you can't change its DNA. Facebook can never build a good physical product, no matter how much money they throw at it. Google can never make a good piece of software, though they can have very strong backend engineering for it, and so on. That is why people talk about culture a whole lot and why it is so important. I wonder if the culture is set and can never be changed though. Is it an immutable property of companies based on initialization?

B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago
> Google can never make a good piece of software, I like Gmail. It started out good, and hasn't yet collapsed under all the features they've been throwing at it. Although recently I've been getting these brief freezes when I'm typing ... the end may be near.
thfuran 3y ago
It's not immutable, but it is very sticky, especially once it gets stuck in a feedback loop with process.
spacebanana7 3y ago
> Google can never make a good piece of software, though they can have very strong backend engineering for it, and so on. I think it’s more accurate to say that Google struggles to make application layer software. Most of their successful products like search, YouTube, Maps and Gmail are successful because of infrastructure/data layer advantages despite unexceptional UX/FE. Chrome is a notable exception. > I wonder if the culture is set and can never be changed though. Is it an immutable property of companies based on initialization? I suspect there’s a feedback loop where the people who drove the initial product success end up running the organisation and their priorities dominate. I’d love to read a study that investigated this by looking at how org charts on LinkedIn evolve over time.
wmeredith 3y ago
Apple's Achilles heal here seems to be search. They just can't do it.

B1FF_PSUVM 3y ago

> Google can never make a good piece of software, I like Gmail. It started out good, and hasn't yet collapsed under all the features they've been throwing at it. Although recently I've been getting these brief freezes when I'm typing ... the end may be near.

thfuran 3y ago

It's not immutable, but it is very sticky, especially once it gets stuck in a feedback loop with process.

spacebanana7 3y ago

> Google can never make a good piece of software, though they can have very strong backend engineering for it, and so on. I think it’s more accurate to say that Google struggles to make application layer software. Most of their successful products like search, YouTube, Maps and Gmail are successful because of infrastructure/data layer advantages despite unexceptional UX/FE. Chrome is a notable exception. > I wonder if the culture is set and can never be changed though. Is it an immutable property of companies based on initialization? I suspect there’s a feedback loop where the people who drove the initial product success end up running the organisation and their priorities dominate. I’d love to read a study that investigated this by looking at how org charts on LinkedIn evolve over time.

wmeredith 3y ago

Apple's Achilles heal here seems to be search. They just can't do it.