5 ms·

"so there is an absence of a culture capable of developing, delivering, marketing, maturing, and monetizing products at google. And definitely an absence of a c

by larrys 13y ago

"so there is an absence of a culture capable of developing, delivering, marketing, maturing, and monetizing products at google. And definitely an absence of a culture capable of acquiring and dealing with customers." This really is the core of it. I'm remembering how long it took AT&T after divestiture (mid 80's) to turn into a company that instead of a monopoly and technology had to actually do marketing. The upper ranks of the company down to the guys on the street never had to do that. It took a long long time.

InclinedPlane 13y ago
We're in a really weird state with technology right now and a lot of it has to do with the comparatively undeveloped level of models and terminology we have available. Let me use an analogy. There are lots of different people who work in a "shop", but they use different tools and work on different things. There are wood workers who do carpentry, there are metal workers who work with metal, and so on. Even wood work can range from fine carpentry making use of a lathe to general contracting and building simple structures by nailing together pre-made pieces of lumber. While metal work can run the gamut from machining to iron mongery and forging to soldering and brazing and can include everything from a plumber on the one hand to someone who designs internal combustion engines on the other. Fortunately we have the terminology to describe these different jobs reasonably well. It's not easy to confuse a plumber with a machinist. But that's not true when it comes to tech. We have very little terminology in that realm. It's non-trivial to explain the difference between a systems programmer, a DevOps automation guru, a mobile app dev, a web dev, etc. A lot of these jobs end up falling under the standard "software developer" heading. Even though that's about as silly as calling taxi drivers and truck drivers "automobile operators". This problem of terminology extends into the tech industry as well. We have sufficiently developed mental models of things like restaurants to be able to understand the differences, and difficulties of changing, between sit-down, take out, delivery, and catering focused establishments. Yet when it comes to tech our brains go on vacation and suddenly the equivalent of a high-class sit-down restaurant switching to making pre-made meals to be sold in grocery stores seems trivial when it is anything but. You get the same effect when people ruminate on how Apple should spend its huge cash reserves. With people throwing out crazy ideas of how Apple should buy into some completely different industry that would totally change the nature of the company, which is just as ridiculous as the idea they should switch to building rocket ships or submarines.
- larrys 13y ago
  What's interesting is that tech is very precise and yet plumbing is not (it's analog with some margin for error just like cooking as another example). But both of those things have been around for much longer than tech so perhaps the roles are clearly defined for that reason. (You probably could find counter examples of course.) Maybe this stems from the fact that the general public doesn't typically deal with "computer guys" [1] so they have no need to differentiate them. But they do need plumbers, carpenters and electricians and they know what they are. [2] (And those are also union jobs so that probably also makes titles necessary). [1] How many times have you heard "he does something with computers?". [2] Maybe this all stems from the fact that there was no central defining authority at any point that made any statement as to what the titles meant. Even in religion there are clearly defined titles, right? In tech (on the net at least) what do we have? RFC's a nice way of asking opinions.

by larrys 13y ago

InclinedPlane 13y ago

We're in a really weird state with technology right now and a lot of it has to do with the comparatively undeveloped level of models and terminology we have available. Let me use an analogy. There are lots of different people who work in a "shop", but they use different tools and work on different things. There are wood workers who do carpentry, there are metal workers who work with metal, and so on. Even wood work can range from fine carpentry making use of a lathe to general contracting and building simple structures by nailing together pre-made pieces of lumber. While metal work can run the gamut from machining to iron mongery and forging to soldering and brazing and can include everything from a plumber on the one hand to someone who designs internal combustion engines on the other. Fortunately we have the terminology to describe these different jobs reasonably well. It's not easy to confuse a plumber with a machinist. But that's not true when it comes to tech. We have very little terminology in that realm. It's non-trivial to explain the difference between a systems programmer, a DevOps automation guru, a mobile app dev, a web dev, etc. A lot of these jobs end up falling under the standard "software developer" heading. Even though that's about as silly as calling taxi drivers and truck drivers "automobile operators". This problem of terminology extends into the tech industry as well. We have sufficiently developed mental models of things like restaurants to be able to understand the differences, and difficulties of changing, between sit-down, take out, delivery, and catering focused establishments. Yet when it comes to tech our brains go on vacation and suddenly the equivalent of a high-class sit-down restaurant switching to making pre-made meals to be sold in grocery stores seems trivial when it is anything but. You get the same effect when people ruminate on how Apple should spend its huge cash reserves. With people throwing out crazy ideas of how Apple should buy into some completely different industry that would totally change the nature of the company, which is just as ridiculous as the idea they should switch to building rocket ships or submarines.

larrys 13y ago
What's interesting is that tech is very precise and yet plumbing is not (it's analog with some margin for error just like cooking as another example). But both of those things have been around for much longer than tech so perhaps the roles are clearly defined for that reason. (You probably could find counter examples of course.) Maybe this stems from the fact that the general public doesn't typically deal with "computer guys" [1] so they have no need to differentiate them. But they do need plumbers, carpenters and electricians and they know what they are. [2] (And those are also union jobs so that probably also makes titles necessary). [1] How many times have you heard "he does something with computers?". [2] Maybe this all stems from the fact that there was no central defining authority at any point that made any statement as to what the titles meant. Even in religion there are clearly defined titles, right? In tech (on the net at least) what do we have? RFC's a nice way of asking opinions.