5 ms·

> Calling 20% time 120% time is fair. Realistically it's hard to do your day job productively and also build a new project from scratch. You have to be willing

> Calling 20% time 120% time is fair. Realistically it's hard to do your day job productively and also build a new project from scratch. You have to be willing to put in hours outside of your normal job to be successful. Then it's not 20% time, it's personal time you're giving to your employer for free. Why would you do that? Why not build your projects outside of Google and keep them for yourself (assuming it's a product and not open source)?

dekhn 13y ago
Why would I give my time for free to Google? Because my entire career- well before I started working here- has been dependent on things that Google has given to me for free. Like Google Search. Search helped me learn to run linux clusters effectively (it was far better than AltaVista for searching for specific error messages) which ensured I had a job, even in the dotcom busts. It helped me learn python, which also played a huge role in my future employment. Like Gmail. Although I've run my own highly available mail services in the past, free Gmail with its initial large quotas hooked me early on. I have never regretted handing the responsibility for email over to Gmail. Like Exacycle (my project): http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-core-hours-awarded-to.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-core-... in which Google donated 1B CPU hours to 5 visiting faculty (who got to keep the intellectual property they generated). I would like to repay Google for their extreme generosity. Spending my "Free" time doing things I enjoy (building large, complex distributed computing systems that manage insane amounts of resources) so that Google can make products that it profits from seems perfectly reasonable to me. If I had continued to work in academia, I'd spend most of my time applying for grants, writing papers, and working 150% time just to maintain basic status and get tenure. Anybody working in the highly competitive sciences, or in the tech industry, who wants to be successful, has to put in more than what most people consider a 9-5 job. As for open sourcing: Google has a nice program to ensure that Googlers can write open source code. I haven't taken advantage of it, because most of my codes are internally facing and don't need to be open sourced. But I would certainly consider using my time to do that; I just think my time is best spent working on Google products because I believe their impact will be much higher.
- bennyg 13y ago
  To be honest, you sound brainwashed.
  - roguecoder 13y ago
    All the best corporate cultures are a form of brainwashing. My form of brainwashing happens to include 40 hours weeks. It's pretty nice.
- SmokyBorbon 13y ago
  Someday you'll be carrying a box of personal effects out of the office crying and wondering why your god has forsaken you.
- eyeareque 13y ago
  Google doesn't give you anything for free; you give them data that allows them to sell directed marketing to you. I don't have a problem with that as for me it's a fair trade. But I wouldn't call what they offer as "free".
  - dekhn 13y ago
    I believe that's also known as "TANSTAAFL".
- freshhawk 13y ago
  I'm not seeing any "generosity" on Google's part, at least from the examples you provided. You certainly seem like a smart guy, working on some cool stuff, so I'm not surprised people are a bit confused (hence the term "brainwashed") by your (pretending to?) not understand the business model of the company you work for. You are giving your time away, for free, to a for profit corporation. That's so irrational it's painful to hear. If you like working with google systems and resources so much that you are willing to pay your employer to use them then ok, that's a bit weird, but it's your time. If you feel you need to work 120% time to keep your career on track then ok, that's not uncommon in this industry (but it's the opposite of generosity and it's not sustainable for you). Framing this as repaying Google for "their extreme generosity" is delusional, which is why I'm assuming it's not the real reason.
nicholas73 13y ago
What happens if your 20% project becomes a product at Google? Do you get rewarded with a share or promotion? In a sense, Google could be acting as a mini-VC for you, so even if you work 120% that is just equivalent you doing a side project hoping it turns into a start up. Except you'd be able to work on different kinds of projects.
- dekhn 13y ago
  I don't really know if there is a standard "share or promotion" for 20% projects that become products. I'm sure some people have received bonuses. I don't think most people who work on 20% projects that become products really care that much about the monetary compensation- it's far more enjoyable to see people use your product happily, than get a wad of cash (at least for me). Anyway, I think you raise an interesting analogy: working on 20% projects at Google, then using the company's resources to launch the product, does have a number of parallels to VC funding for startups (note: I'm advisor for Google Ventures, so I have some experience with both worlds). In a sense- and nobody everybody will agree with me- Google as an employer is a low-risk, low-capital way to launch my products. Larry and Sergey already took the risks (launching a company with no clear monetization strategy), they figured out a monetization strategy, and now they invest their capital in speculative projects. Anyway, in my case, after it seemed like my project was in good hands and ready to be a product, I looked for something else interesting to work on. I think the main problem I have working here is that there are too many cool projects I could work on, learning from experienced SWEs and SREs, but I have to stick to one.

dekhn 13y ago

Why would I give my time for free to Google? Because my entire career- well before I started working here- has been dependent on things that Google has given to me for free. Like Google Search. Search helped me learn to run linux clusters effectively (it was far better than AltaVista for searching for specific error messages) which ensured I had a job, even in the dotcom busts. It helped me learn python, which also played a huge role in my future employment. Like Gmail. Although I've run my own highly available mail services in the past, free Gmail with its initial large quotas hooked me early on. I have never regretted handing the responsibility for email over to Gmail. Like Exacycle (my project): http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-core-hours-awarded-to.html http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2012/12/millions-of-core-... in which Google donated 1B CPU hours to 5 visiting faculty (who got to keep the intellectual property they generated). I would like to repay Google for their extreme generosity. Spending my "Free" time doing things I enjoy (building large, complex distributed computing systems that manage insane amounts of resources) so that Google can make products that it profits from seems perfectly reasonable to me. If I had continued to work in academia, I'd spend most of my time applying for grants, writing papers, and working 150% time just to maintain basic status and get tenure. Anybody working in the highly competitive sciences, or in the tech industry, who wants to be successful, has to put in more than what most people consider a 9-5 job. As for open sourcing: Google has a nice program to ensure that Googlers can write open source code. I haven't taken advantage of it, because most of my codes are internally facing and don't need to be open sourced. But I would certainly consider using my time to do that; I just think my time is best spent working on Google products because I believe their impact will be much higher.

bennyg 13y ago
To be honest, you sound brainwashed.
- roguecoder 13y ago
  All the best corporate cultures are a form of brainwashing. My form of brainwashing happens to include 40 hours weeks. It's pretty nice.
SmokyBorbon 13y ago
Someday you'll be carrying a box of personal effects out of the office crying and wondering why your god has forsaken you.
eyeareque 13y ago
Google doesn't give you anything for free; you give them data that allows them to sell directed marketing to you. I don't have a problem with that as for me it's a fair trade. But I wouldn't call what they offer as "free".
- dekhn 13y ago
  I believe that's also known as "TANSTAAFL".
freshhawk 13y ago
I'm not seeing any "generosity" on Google's part, at least from the examples you provided. You certainly seem like a smart guy, working on some cool stuff, so I'm not surprised people are a bit confused (hence the term "brainwashed") by your (pretending to?) not understand the business model of the company you work for. You are giving your time away, for free, to a for profit corporation. That's so irrational it's painful to hear. If you like working with google systems and resources so much that you are willing to pay your employer to use them then ok, that's a bit weird, but it's your time. If you feel you need to work 120% time to keep your career on track then ok, that's not uncommon in this industry (but it's the opposite of generosity and it's not sustainable for you). Framing this as repaying Google for "their extreme generosity" is delusional, which is why I'm assuming it's not the real reason.

nicholas73 13y ago

What happens if your 20% project becomes a product at Google? Do you get rewarded with a share or promotion? In a sense, Google could be acting as a mini-VC for you, so even if you work 120% that is just equivalent you doing a side project hoping it turns into a start up. Except you'd be able to work on different kinds of projects.

dekhn 13y ago
I don't really know if there is a standard "share or promotion" for 20% projects that become products. I'm sure some people have received bonuses. I don't think most people who work on 20% projects that become products really care that much about the monetary compensation- it's far more enjoyable to see people use your product happily, than get a wad of cash (at least for me). Anyway, I think you raise an interesting analogy: working on 20% projects at Google, then using the company's resources to launch the product, does have a number of parallels to VC funding for startups (note: I'm advisor for Google Ventures, so I have some experience with both worlds). In a sense- and nobody everybody will agree with me- Google as an employer is a low-risk, low-capital way to launch my products. Larry and Sergey already took the risks (launching a company with no clear monetization strategy), they figured out a monetization strategy, and now they invest their capital in speculative projects. Anyway, in my case, after it seemed like my project was in good hands and ready to be a product, I looked for something else interesting to work on. I think the main problem I have working here is that there are too many cool projects I could work on, learning from experienced SWEs and SREs, but I have to stick to one.