7 ms·

Here are 3 pertinent facts related to your post: 1) When I worked there, long before Larry Page was CEO, 20% time barely existed and Google cared a heck of a l

by birken 13y ago

Here are 3 pertinent facts related to your post: 1) When I worked there, long before Larry Page was CEO, 20% time barely existed and Google cared a heck of a lot about making money. 2) The share price going up makes employees, former employees, and all sorts of non-"wall street investors" very happy. 3) Your hacker news about section links to your Google+ page

dewiz 13y ago
>> 3) Your hacker news about section links to your Google+ page ..where he published a link to the same article. I don't understand why you point this out, the user says he's using Google products, so what ?
nostrademons 13y ago
1) 20% time still exists. I used it to write an HTML parser [1] that's had some modest success, and I have coworkers that have 20%ed on robotics, quantum computation, elementary school education, Project Loon, Flu Trends, and a variety of other interesting things. Google Now came out of a 20% project. It is something that you have to take a lot of initiative on to pull off successfully, but the opportunity is still available. [1] https://github.com/google/gumbo-parser https://github.com/google/gumbo-parser
- mathattack 13y ago
  Does 20% realistically come between 80 and 100%, 100 and 120, or 120 and 140%?
  - na85 13y ago
    What does that even mean? edit: Yes, let's downmod the guy who doesn't understand an obtusely-worded question. Well done.
    - reikonomusha 13y ago
      He's asking if the 20% time is exclusively: 1. genuinely 20% of one's full-time schedule; 2. 20% beyond one's full-time schedule; or 3. 20% beyond one's over-time schedule.
    - mschulkind 13y ago
      It means that for a long time people have called it 120% time because most of the people who still 'used' their 20% time were working 120% the amount of people that didn't use their 20% time. Despite Google not really stack ranking, it's kind of like inflation. If you work 40 hours a week and 20% of the time, you work on your 20% project, you look 20% worse than the average 40 hour a week worker that doesn't use their 20% time.
  - afhof 13y ago
    100 and 120, at least in my brief experience. Coworkers start expecting 100% output from you, which means you are going to get a lesser review for putting out 80%. That they don't let you do 20% in the first 6 months there is what makes it so hard to start it back up.
    - nostrademons 13y ago
      This is hackable if you're strategic about it. The trick is to always make sure your coworkers are unblocked. If someone needs a code review, do it before your regular work. If someone's waiting on an e-mail response from you, send it first. If someone needs your CL to be in before they can proceed, make sure you get it in. Then once everybody is unblocked, your time is yours. On a well-functioning team you still need to pick things up on your own initiative (eg. fix bugs, volunteer to take on new features), but in general you can do just enough to show activity, and don't need to worry about always being the best on the team. So that's your chance to do 20% work, or play with other technologies, or investigate other areas of Google. Another tricky bit is making time for professional development and advancement, and the way to do this is to take advantage of the 6 month review cycle. Make sure you can demonstrate tangible accomplishments in the 1-2 months leading up to a review, then spend a couple months assimilating the big picture and learning the skills you need to get known as an expert on the team, and then use your newfound knowledge to improve the effectiveness of the team. What people look for come perf time is "Does this person make my job easier, or harder?" As long as the answer for them is "easier", you'll get good reviews. That doesn't necessarily mean working flat out all the time, it means being mindful of the people around you and what they're hoping to accomplish and then making sure your actions are a help and not a hindrance.
      - mathattack 13y ago
        Great tips. Unblocking folks also applied to taking an afternoon off, or even using the office pool table.
  - jobu 13y ago
    The joke that Google's 20% time is more like 120% time has been around for a long time. There was even a Dilbert strip about it a couple years ago: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-12-19/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-12-19/
  - nostrademons 13y ago
    Depends on what you're using it for. For Gumbo I found that it was more like 50-120%, i.e. for a good portion of time I was spending something like 50% of my work time plus nights & weekends on my 20% project. I was lucky to have a supportive manager, where after I showed him what I was hoping to do and some feedback from coworkers that believed it was very necessary, let me spend some of my regular time on it. I have friends that do things like teach Lego Mindstorms to 5th graders though, and that by definition is bounded to 20% of your actual time and won't overfill the workday.
Permit 13y ago
>3) Your hacker news about section links to your Google+ page Someone can use Google+ and love Google+ and empathize with others who might not feel the same way. Regardless, it's entirely irrelevant. He doesn't mention Google+ once in the post.
- yapcguy 13y ago
  Proves the point that people use Google+ to scavenge information, including real names, before attacking them... love the irony!
mbennett 13y ago
>The share price going up makes employees, former employees, and all sorts of non-"wall street investors" very happy. Sure it does, but when some of the profit increases are made by deliberately decreasing contrast of the background of the ads and avoiding borders to increase ad clicks, especially from old people who are unable to see contrast [0][1], that's when it crosses the line into "decline" of the user experience. They(along with other search engines) got smacked by the FTC [2], it's an interesting read. That plus shoving Google+ down the throat of people and making them literally cry [3] (yes I mean literally) in an effort to compete with Facebook at any cost leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and reminds me of how Microsoft got it's M$ moniker. [0] http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it [1] http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional... [2] http://www.ftc.gov/os/2013/06/130625searchenginegeneralletter.pdf http://www.ftc.gov/os/2013/06/130625searchenginegenerallette... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs
- alaskamiller 13y ago
  Micro$oft leveraged their market dominance to stifle competition. Google leverages their market dominance to... get more people to create more data with real names.
  - adventured 13y ago
    Microsoft leveraged their market dominance to distribute more copies of Windows and Office, not to stifle competition. Your statement makes it sound like you don't understand the profit motive. Distributing more software is how they earn more money. The $ reveals what you think of Microsoft, and going by that, one would have to assume you think Microsoft's goal was to optimize profit. Optimizing profit would require distributing more copies of their software.
    - alaskamiller 13y ago
      Maybe you're older or maybe you know something more than me but Micro$oft I remember already won the Windows and Office game. It was Borg Gates by my time. They then used that market dominance to handicap, break, or deny entries by anyone else into the platform. They also used it to make Internet Explorer a thing. I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say about the profit motive either. Distribution doesn't necessarily means profit nor driven by profit. They could have tossed Windows on to blank CDs and threw it out of helicopters if they want but it serves no purpose when they were making fat margins licensing Windows to Dell.
kamaal 13y ago
>>20% time barely existed and Google I wouldn't be surprised. And its not just 20% projects, I'd be surprised if any smart person would like to do hacknights, hackdays, weekend projects for the company. Such initiatives have always been the execs/VP's of way of saying 'Please someone do my homework'. If you have a leader who is clueless about the direction the person wants to go or projects the person wants to chase. The easiest way is to call for such initiatives, choose a mediocre project from it(You don't want great projects to make the programmers more famous than the managers). Once such a project is chosen, you will be kept busy forced to hit the deadline working 100 hr weeks. While the VP will be pushing his days sleeping on the job. What happens at the end of the year? Best case- You will get a passing mention at some event. Mediocre case- A congratulation email from a team. Worst case- Punished for making some mistakes. At the same time the VP/manager/Director will likely get promoted, receive a fat bonus or raise for 'developing a culture that fosters innovation'. If you are good enough to work on a great side project, do it at your home. And for yourself.

by birken 13y ago

dewiz 13y ago

>> 3) Your hacker news about section links to your Google+ page ..where he published a link to the same article. I don't understand why you point this out, the user says he's using Google products, so what ?

nostrademons 13y ago

1) 20% time still exists. I used it to write an HTML parser [1] that's had some modest success, and I have coworkers that have 20%ed on robotics, quantum computation, elementary school education, Project Loon, Flu Trends, and a variety of other interesting things. Google Now came out of a 20% project. It is something that you have to take a lot of initiative on to pull off successfully, but the opportunity is still available. [1] https://github.com/google/gumbo-parser https://github.com/google/gumbo-parser

mathattack 13y ago
Does 20% realistically come between 80 and 100%, 100 and 120, or 120 and 140%?
- na85 13y ago
  What does that even mean? edit: Yes, let's downmod the guy who doesn't understand an obtusely-worded question. Well done.
  - reikonomusha 13y ago
    He's asking if the 20% time is exclusively: 1. genuinely 20% of one's full-time schedule; 2. 20% beyond one's full-time schedule; or 3. 20% beyond one's over-time schedule.
  - mschulkind 13y ago
    It means that for a long time people have called it 120% time because most of the people who still 'used' their 20% time were working 120% the amount of people that didn't use their 20% time. Despite Google not really stack ranking, it's kind of like inflation. If you work 40 hours a week and 20% of the time, you work on your 20% project, you look 20% worse than the average 40 hour a week worker that doesn't use their 20% time.
- afhof 13y ago
  100 and 120, at least in my brief experience. Coworkers start expecting 100% output from you, which means you are going to get a lesser review for putting out 80%. That they don't let you do 20% in the first 6 months there is what makes it so hard to start it back up.
  - nostrademons 13y ago
    This is hackable if you're strategic about it. The trick is to always make sure your coworkers are unblocked. If someone needs a code review, do it before your regular work. If someone's waiting on an e-mail response from you, send it first. If someone needs your CL to be in before they can proceed, make sure you get it in. Then once everybody is unblocked, your time is yours. On a well-functioning team you still need to pick things up on your own initiative (eg. fix bugs, volunteer to take on new features), but in general you can do just enough to show activity, and don't need to worry about always being the best on the team. So that's your chance to do 20% work, or play with other technologies, or investigate other areas of Google. Another tricky bit is making time for professional development and advancement, and the way to do this is to take advantage of the 6 month review cycle. Make sure you can demonstrate tangible accomplishments in the 1-2 months leading up to a review, then spend a couple months assimilating the big picture and learning the skills you need to get known as an expert on the team, and then use your newfound knowledge to improve the effectiveness of the team. What people look for come perf time is "Does this person make my job easier, or harder?" As long as the answer for them is "easier", you'll get good reviews. That doesn't necessarily mean working flat out all the time, it means being mindful of the people around you and what they're hoping to accomplish and then making sure your actions are a help and not a hindrance.
    - mathattack 13y ago
      Great tips. Unblocking folks also applied to taking an afternoon off, or even using the office pool table.
- jobu 13y ago
  The joke that Google's 20% time is more like 120% time has been around for a long time. There was even a Dilbert strip about it a couple years ago: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-12-19/ http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-12-19/
- nostrademons 13y ago
  Depends on what you're using it for. For Gumbo I found that it was more like 50-120%, i.e. for a good portion of time I was spending something like 50% of my work time plus nights & weekends on my 20% project. I was lucky to have a supportive manager, where after I showed him what I was hoping to do and some feedback from coworkers that believed it was very necessary, let me spend some of my regular time on it. I have friends that do things like teach Lego Mindstorms to 5th graders though, and that by definition is bounded to 20% of your actual time and won't overfill the workday.

Permit 13y ago

>3) Your hacker news about section links to your Google+ page Someone can use Google+ and love Google+ and empathize with others who might not feel the same way. Regardless, it's entirely irrelevant. He doesn't mention Google+ once in the post.

yapcguy 13y ago
Proves the point that people use Google+ to scavenge information, including real names, before attacking them... love the irony!

mbennett 13y ago

>The share price going up makes employees, former employees, and all sorts of non-"wall street investors" very happy. Sure it does, but when some of the profit increases are made by deliberately decreasing contrast of the background of the ads and avoiding borders to increase ad clicks, especially from old people who are unable to see contrast [0][1], that's when it crosses the line into "decline" of the user experience. They(along with other search engines) got smacked by the FTC [2], it's an interesting read. That plus shoving Google+ down the throat of people and making them literally cry [3] (yes I mean literally) in an effort to compete with Facebook at any cost leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and reminds me of how Microsoft got it's M$ moniker. [0] http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it [1] http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/ http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional... [2] http://www.ftc.gov/os/2013/06/130625searchenginegeneralletter.pdf http://www.ftc.gov/os/2013/06/130625searchenginegenerallette... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs

alaskamiller 13y ago
Micro$oft leveraged their market dominance to stifle competition. Google leverages their market dominance to... get more people to create more data with real names.
- adventured 13y ago
  Microsoft leveraged their market dominance to distribute more copies of Windows and Office, not to stifle competition. Your statement makes it sound like you don't understand the profit motive. Distributing more software is how they earn more money. The $ reveals what you think of Microsoft, and going by that, one would have to assume you think Microsoft's goal was to optimize profit. Optimizing profit would require distributing more copies of their software.
  - alaskamiller 13y ago
    Maybe you're older or maybe you know something more than me but Micro$oft I remember already won the Windows and Office game. It was Borg Gates by my time. They then used that market dominance to handicap, break, or deny entries by anyone else into the platform. They also used it to make Internet Explorer a thing. I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say about the profit motive either. Distribution doesn't necessarily means profit nor driven by profit. They could have tossed Windows on to blank CDs and threw it out of helicopters if they want but it serves no purpose when they were making fat margins licensing Windows to Dell.

kamaal 13y ago

>>20% time barely existed and Google I wouldn't be surprised. And its not just 20% projects, I'd be surprised if any smart person would like to do hacknights, hackdays, weekend projects for the company. Such initiatives have always been the execs/VP's of way of saying 'Please someone do my homework'. If you have a leader who is clueless about the direction the person wants to go or projects the person wants to chase. The easiest way is to call for such initiatives, choose a mediocre project from it(You don't want great projects to make the programmers more famous than the managers). Once such a project is chosen, you will be kept busy forced to hit the deadline working 100 hr weeks. While the VP will be pushing his days sleeping on the job. What happens at the end of the year? Best case- You will get a passing mention at some event. Mediocre case- A congratulation email from a team. Worst case- Punished for making some mistakes. At the same time the VP/manager/Director will likely get promoted, receive a fat bonus or raise for 'developing a culture that fosters innovation'. If you are good enough to work on a great side project, do it at your home. And for yourself.