5 ms·

I guess I'm at a point in my life where "people go home on time and nobody wants to work entire weekend just for funsies!! :-<" is no longer as scary portent of

I guess I'm at a point in my life where "people go home on time and nobody wants to work entire weekend just for funsies!! :-<" is no longer as scary portent of doom as it may have been intended by the author. Other note - I understand the author's point of "we don't have executive vision, engineers do random things and sometimes it works". But I've also read posts complaining of "engineers are not allowed to try things, we are forced to follow executive orders". Google is a massive organization. The only thing that's likely true of majority of the disparate, heterogeneous, wildy different teams, is that they're unlikely to feel like a 5 person early-stage startup. At that size there'll be governance and HR and investors and stakeholders and SEC and politics and competing priorities and layers of middle management etc. All of which is not everybody's cup of tea granted. But not all of which is necessarily nihilism and doom.

matthewdgreen 3y ago
I assume people who have been there for a few years have seen Google in its successful "no longer a startup" phase and can reasonably compare it to the current iteration.
- neilk 3y ago
  To be clear, I think you can and should avoid a “pervasive sense of nihilism” at any organization. My quibble is with the people who think somehow Google should overcome this by finding their inner Googliness or tapping into founder magic. The solutions exist but they are hard work. They are probably more about abandoning illusions like that. (The example of Steve Jobs might suggest that founders might have some magic after all. Maybe in this one way: he was a brutal editor and simplifier, and he was a good talent spotter. So if he had any founder magic it was _focus_, not some “spark” of indulging dreamy creativity.)
  - matthewdgreen 3y ago
    Focus is a pretty vague term. It feels like Jobs had a talent for recognizing and promoting good product ideas and for promoting talented people to management positions. The technical leadership hierarchy at Apple also never felt extremely deep, whereas at today’s Google nobody seems to know who makes product decisions, and there’s very little unified technical direction. (Or rather, this is what I’ve heard from multiple current and former Google folks.)
0xcafefood 3y ago
> At that size there'll be governance and HR and investors and stakeholders and SEC and politics and competing priorities and layers of middle management etc. [...] But not all of which is necessarily nihilism and doom. That actually does sound like it would doom a tech company, especially one competing in fast evolving web services. The competition is only a few clicks away in that market. Why wouldn't those strong headwinds spell doom?
- Ekaros 3y ago
  Google is not going anywhere for good while. They have enough popular services and they are big in the ad market. They may not make any new innovative products, but certainly can buy those. And how many start-ups are effectively competing in ads?
  - 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
    "And how many start-ups are effectively competing in ads." Just enough to claim Google does not have market power whenever antitrust issues are raised.
- therealdrag0 3y ago
  Do you think MS teams feel like 5 person startups? Successful large orgs succeed by being good at being large and balancing the necessary parts of that, not pretending they’re not.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Switching is painful whether it's "a few clicks away" or not and it's not like spinning up better services is that easy.
antognini 3y ago
The OP also says "The buildings are half empty at 4:30." I'm guessing that a lot of people have to pick up kids from school or daycare. I know a lot of parents do a bit of work at home in the evening or get in earlier.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Even if they didn't... I mean look, how often do you look around the office and half the people around you are looking at their phones, reading some news article on their desktop, or otherwise goofing off?
- NikolaNovak 3y ago
  That's the thing. It's 2024, remote work is part of equation - and, average googleer may no longer be a single 22 year old work enthusiast. As technical startup grows, I assume its workforce population age does as well, and for a lot of them it will be just work. Which I suppose is not very magical I guess so fair point for the author :)
- shostack 3y ago
  Uh... What time do shuttles leave? At a lot of companies that is when people leave to catch their shuttle, where they may continue working.
ignoramous 3y ago
> we don't have executive vision, engineers do random things and sometimes it works If I am not wrong, that's exactly what Eric Schmidt meant when he misquoted Mao Zedong, "Let a thousand flowers bloom" and Sergey Brin when he said "But once they do bloom, at some point you want to make a coherent bouquet". https://archive.is/wsTUO https://archive.is/wsTUO Also: It takes a special type of analysis to claim things are going downhill at a company making $500m/day! May be, some folks do idealize the start-up grind way too much because all they see are survivors and not the ones that withered away. If I am allowed to be reductive, at FAANG scale, the only games that matter are M&A (to avoid being disrupted) and govt contacts / contracts.
al_borland 3y ago
I used to be the person who worked late every night. 60 hour weeks were the norm, but on some projects I'd put in 100 hour weeks of several months. That was fine when I was young and had nothing else going on, but at some point a person realizes they need a life outside of work. There is something to be said for being able to sustain a pace over decades. Interestingly, I worked significantly more when I had a high level of autonomy and I was working on my ideas. When things changed and the orders were given by senior management, didn't make sense, and there was no room for discussion, I felt no desire to ever work late again. At that point it might as well be factory work. No one is putting in extra hours at the factory for free. That all being said, working standard hours doesn't mean a person can't get something done (assuming the conditions are still good). Outside of the tech world, Eminem has been very prolific and he surprises people when they collaborate with him. He shows up at 9am, starts work in the studio, takes a lunch break, and leaves at 5pm. He treats it like any other job. https://genius.com/a/akon-explains-how-eminem-treats-recording-music-like-a-nine-to-five-job https://genius.com/a/akon-explains-how-eminem-treats-recordi...
filoleg 3y ago
> I understand the author's point of "we don't have executive vision, engineers do random things and sometimes it works". But I've also read posts complaining of "engineers are not allowed to try things, we are forced to follow executive orders". In this case, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Engineers aren’t allowed to do things and are forced to follow executive orders. And due to the lack of executive vision, engineers end up following executive orders to build random things without any good rhyme or reason (and certainly without any long-term vision). And sometimes it works, but often enough, it doesn’t. At least that’s been my 2 years of experience within google.

matthewdgreen 3y ago

I assume people who have been there for a few years have seen Google in its successful "no longer a startup" phase and can reasonably compare it to the current iteration.

neilk 3y ago
To be clear, I think you can and should avoid a “pervasive sense of nihilism” at any organization. My quibble is with the people who think somehow Google should overcome this by finding their inner Googliness or tapping into founder magic. The solutions exist but they are hard work. They are probably more about abandoning illusions like that. (The example of Steve Jobs might suggest that founders might have some magic after all. Maybe in this one way: he was a brutal editor and simplifier, and he was a good talent spotter. So if he had any founder magic it was _focus_, not some “spark” of indulging dreamy creativity.)
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  Focus is a pretty vague term. It feels like Jobs had a talent for recognizing and promoting good product ideas and for promoting talented people to management positions. The technical leadership hierarchy at Apple also never felt extremely deep, whereas at today’s Google nobody seems to know who makes product decisions, and there’s very little unified technical direction. (Or rather, this is what I’ve heard from multiple current and former Google folks.)

0xcafefood 3y ago

> At that size there'll be governance and HR and investors and stakeholders and SEC and politics and competing priorities and layers of middle management etc. [...] But not all of which is necessarily nihilism and doom. That actually does sound like it would doom a tech company, especially one competing in fast evolving web services. The competition is only a few clicks away in that market. Why wouldn't those strong headwinds spell doom?

Ekaros 3y ago
Google is not going anywhere for good while. They have enough popular services and they are big in the ad market. They may not make any new innovative products, but certainly can buy those. And how many start-ups are effectively competing in ads?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago
  "And how many start-ups are effectively competing in ads." Just enough to claim Google does not have market power whenever antitrust issues are raised.
therealdrag0 3y ago
Do you think MS teams feel like 5 person startups? Successful large orgs succeed by being good at being large and balancing the necessary parts of that, not pretending they’re not.
emodendroket 3y ago
Switching is painful whether it's "a few clicks away" or not and it's not like spinning up better services is that easy.

antognini 3y ago

The OP also says "The buildings are half empty at 4:30." I'm guessing that a lot of people have to pick up kids from school or daycare. I know a lot of parents do a bit of work at home in the evening or get in earlier.

emodendroket 3y ago
Even if they didn't... I mean look, how often do you look around the office and half the people around you are looking at their phones, reading some news article on their desktop, or otherwise goofing off?
NikolaNovak 3y ago
That's the thing. It's 2024, remote work is part of equation - and, average googleer may no longer be a single 22 year old work enthusiast. As technical startup grows, I assume its workforce population age does as well, and for a lot of them it will be just work. Which I suppose is not very magical I guess so fair point for the author :)
shostack 3y ago
Uh... What time do shuttles leave? At a lot of companies that is when people leave to catch their shuttle, where they may continue working.

ignoramous 3y ago

> we don't have executive vision, engineers do random things and sometimes it works If I am not wrong, that's exactly what Eric Schmidt meant when he misquoted Mao Zedong, "Let a thousand flowers bloom" and Sergey Brin when he said "But once they do bloom, at some point you want to make a coherent bouquet". https://archive.is/wsTUO https://archive.is/wsTUO Also: It takes a special type of analysis to claim things are going downhill at a company making $500m/day! May be, some folks do idealize the start-up grind way too much because all they see are survivors and not the ones that withered away. If I am allowed to be reductive, at FAANG scale, the only games that matter are M&A (to avoid being disrupted) and govt contacts / contracts.

al_borland 3y ago

I used to be the person who worked late every night. 60 hour weeks were the norm, but on some projects I'd put in 100 hour weeks of several months. That was fine when I was young and had nothing else going on, but at some point a person realizes they need a life outside of work. There is something to be said for being able to sustain a pace over decades. Interestingly, I worked significantly more when I had a high level of autonomy and I was working on my ideas. When things changed and the orders were given by senior management, didn't make sense, and there was no room for discussion, I felt no desire to ever work late again. At that point it might as well be factory work. No one is putting in extra hours at the factory for free. That all being said, working standard hours doesn't mean a person can't get something done (assuming the conditions are still good). Outside of the tech world, Eminem has been very prolific and he surprises people when they collaborate with him. He shows up at 9am, starts work in the studio, takes a lunch break, and leaves at 5pm. He treats it like any other job. https://genius.com/a/akon-explains-how-eminem-treats-recording-music-like-a-nine-to-five-job https://genius.com/a/akon-explains-how-eminem-treats-recordi...

filoleg 3y ago

> I understand the author's point of "we don't have executive vision, engineers do random things and sometimes it works". But I've also read posts complaining of "engineers are not allowed to try things, we are forced to follow executive orders". In this case, they aren’t mutually exclusive. Engineers aren’t allowed to do things and are forced to follow executive orders. And due to the lack of executive vision, engineers end up following executive orders to build random things without any good rhyme or reason (and certainly without any long-term vision). And sometimes it works, but often enough, it doesn’t. At least that’s been my 2 years of experience within google.