4 ms·
At least they are firing sales and marketing people and not engineers.
by ktharavaad 18y ago
At least they are firing sales and marketing people and not engineers.
- kailashbadu 18y agoAnd why is that better?
- Kirby 18y agoBecause I'm not a sales or marketing person. :)
- old-gregg 18y agoPerhaps because they realize that the company's long-term future depends on products people want, as opposed to products people are being convinced they want?
- kailashbadu 18y agoOff topic but then I would presume that you do not know what marketing is. Marketing is not just about selling and shouldn't be. It is also about figuring what products people want and communicating it clearly to the people who build products.
- abstractbill 18y agoIsn't that market research? I used to date a market researcher - she was very touchy about the confusion between the two fields.
- daveungerer 18y agoI'm quite surprised that this was modded up. Market research is indeed a component of marketing. I would suggest that those who modded it up sign up for some business courses / read a book on general business management or marketing. Just as you respect business guys who take the trouble to understand technical details / are ex hackers, so too an understanding of business lingo will gain you respect in their eyes. And allows you to have more meaningful discussions. Or just read Wikipedia if in doubt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing
- abstractbill 18y agoShrug, all I know is the market researcher I dated was quite clear that marketing and market research are very different things and are not subsets of each other. Then again, the wikipedia article you linked to says "The marketing literature is also infamous for re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times and the culture". So who knows?
- daveungerer 18y agoAhhh, but we do know. The Wikipedia article also says: "..at the Harvard Business School in the early 1960s, suggested that the Marketing Mix contained 4 elements: product, price, place and promotion." And then: "Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants." Market research has been a subset of marketing for over over four decades now - modern textbooks will give you the exact same information I quoted above. While I'm sure the market researcher was a lovely girl, she's no substitute for reading up on the matter.
- andreyf 18y agoLast time I took a marketing class was in '03, and indeed, at least up until then, the 4 P's were still taught as the major components of marketing.
- sharpshoot 18y agoMarketers create demand for a product. Sales people convert demand into paid customers. Hackers build the product that is sold.
- andreyf 18y agoAnd who decides what the product is? What about how much it costs? And who decides how to get the product from production to consumers? Without the right marketing, you'll be building the wrong product, selling it at the wrong price, and with the wrong distribution. Yes, marketing is easier with your brand new shiny web apps, but it's still just as important.
- abstractbill 18y agoAnd who decides what the product is? Not necessarily marketing people. Often engineers make those decisions.
- andreyf 18y agoNo. By definition, marketers make that decision.
- daveungerer 18y agoExactly. When PG says "Make something people want", what he's really saying is: as an engineer, remember to wear your marketing hat when appropriate.
- krav 18y agoAs someone who's been on the sales and marketing side (and is now on the Angel side), I agree. When I look at potential investments, if it's an internet company run by MBAs or sales and marketing folks, I immediately pass. Invest in and keep the people who build stuff. They're the talent. The rest (with exceptions, of course) can always be brought back in, outsourced, etc.
- jwilliams 18y agoOuch. So much negativity in these threads. They are just stereotypes. There are (some) bad MBAs, sales and marketing folks out there saying "I'll pass on the techies - it's just grunt work, I can get it done for nothing in (insert country here)". Stereotypes again. Google has simply decided that their marketing department is too big. It happens. Particularly when you acquire a lot of companies as Google does (other shared functions such as HR, Finance are in a similar boat). From the vibe of this thread you'd think they're getting rid of their marketing function entirely.
- palish 18y agoHe's saying that sales and marketing is less valuable than engineering, not that it's not valuable, which is (usually) true. If you had to lay off a bunch of your staff, wouldn't you lay off the least valuable ones? It's not a personal decision, it's a business decision.
- jwilliams 18y agoThey're saying engineers are the "talent" and the others are something you outsource. Or that engineers do the "real work". Or that "At least they are firing sales and marketing people and not engineers.". Doesn't sound like you describe.
- krav 18y agoIn an internet company, the people responsible for the product (engineers) are the talent. In my experience, marketing people at big companies only know how to spend money. Many sales people just have expensive dinners and long-winded biz dev meetings. Give me the sales guy who sold insurance door to door and is passionate about the product. Or someone who can excite Eskimos about snow to be marketing. The rest don't belong in startups (or any company trying to maintain a startup ethic)
- prakash 18y agoThere is a pecking order, I guess the engineers figure somewhere and that makes it a question of when and not if they fire engineers/technical folks.
- whughes 18y agoWhat makes you think they will need to? It's possible that this was an independent decision and not entirely based on economic pressure. Google might not need to move down the pecking order.
- skmurphy 18y agoIs it a contest? I don't understand this sentiment.