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The Google Caste System
managedcode writes "Google doesn't like to do things traditionally. Right from their IPO, when they dumped Goldman Sachs for secretly trying to deal with their big investor, Kleiner Perkins. Business Week covers the Google Caste System, 'in which business types are second-class citizens to Google's valued code jockeys [..] They deem the corporate development team as underpowered in the company, with engineers and product managers tending to carry more clout than salesmen and dealmakers.' At last a company is shouting at the top of it's voice, engineers make the world."
Regardless of who's in charge, their portfolio is quite impressive.
This is sure to get you all hard. And then you'll go back to work monday and chain yourself to your desk for 8 hours.
Importance doesn't equal control in much respect. The executives and managers are still in control of the company's future, regardless of what the programmers, DB admins, and the like want to believe. Don't get me wrong, this is great for the company, and is theorhetically the best way to work it. If your workforce is happy, they are more productive and do better quality work. Quality work and productivity really make or break a company. Thus, if you motivate them and reward them to make them happy, the company will do well.
reminds of the old joke about engineers "yesterday i couldn't even spell engineer, now i are one"
seriously though, i can understand the engineers being as highly prized as the coders, what with the whole google infrastructure and all those miles of cable being bought up, but the sales staff? well, i guess they are a business.
Its like a giant ERTW being put up there in the face of business. I like it.
Moo!
" At last a company is shouting at the top of it's voice, engineers make the world."
this reminds me of when steve balmer made his famous developers speech... "developers developers developers developers..."
will start to realise it's the employees that make their company work, not just the sales people!
http://www.gibby.net.au
Where can you get a job with a short 8-hour day?
I always hated selling stuff because more often than not one must compromise moral standing to have the product appeal to and compensate for the insecurities and needs of the potential buyer. That is not to say that we are not good at selling things, or even being "face", it just goes to show that some of us perfer to sleep at night and look at ourselves in the mirror without disgust; hence the nature of Open Source. I know, I know, without salesmen we wouldn't be the great company we are. Blah blah.
It has to kick ass working there with that kind of weight. If I had a dollar for every time I had to live up to the mouth of some lying sales rep I'd have enough to buy myself one of those impossible systems I've built, and I only put up with that shit for a few months. But in the end it all boils down to me staring the salesman in the face saying, "If you are so fucking smart why don't you do it yourself?". I never got an answer back when I would ask. In fact, I usually got to take the rest of the day off.
The answer must be clear. Code monkeys are just that, but salesmen are a true phenomenon. I can only surmise that liars are very hard to come by these days and those who actually make the world go 'round are a dime a dozen. A true testament as to why we as a civilization are still around.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
...that the caste system has done for the Indian economy (though I jest---see my last paragraph)!
In fact, if you read TFA, you'll find that the author writes of Google's 'caste system' in negative tones (unsuprising, given that the article is from Business Week!). Western culture may not be perfect, but one real advantage it has over traditional subcontinental culture is that it has dispensed with this particular anachronism. At any rate, the point the article makes is that people with book smarts are typically terrible at running businesses. If you really want to feel superior, then feel superior because you have the freedom to indulge your intellectual curiosity, and not because you're running the show. In my opinion, intellectuals don't need to feel as though they are 'better' than business people. It is just that we find joy in different ways.
Further, if you really want to make a comparision with the Indian caste system, there are two fundamental differences with the Google approach:
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
Well, Google is still young. I'm fairly sure it will eventually enter middle age and the engineers will be replaced by marketing. Then when it gets old, the marketeers will be replaced by lawyers. It is just a question of time, years, or even decades.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
there are no jobs in this world without money -- without salespeople, there are no jobs. So often engineers get it wrong and show little respect for the people who actually keep them employed.
At last a company is shouting at the top of it's voice, engineers make the world.
"Developers, Developers, Developers... Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers! Yeah!"
Google is still young. Eventually the business types, who have spent their lives studying how to manipulate people, will slowly take control from the folks who have spent their lives studying how to manipulate computers.
I hadn't heard that Goldy refused to play by the rules from the Google founders. The rules were typical Google: no backroom deals that favor big institutional investors over smaller investors.
But Goldy wanted to get some easy money, they got caught and shut out of the deal. That makes my night. If you've dealt with bankers (esp. "New York" bankers), you'll know why.
Here's a nice article on this.
Perhaps this also explains the "Google will fail" articles that appeared before the IPO; the powers-that-be were peeved that Google did the IPO their way, and wanted it to fail.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
And we're supposed to care why, exactly?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So if the Google "Caste System" is exceptional in that it promotes software developers over others in the corporation, what does that say about the "caste" rankings in most companies? Or do we only start seeing phrases like "caste system" when big media companies feel threatened by successful businesses using disruptive methods?
This rather reminds me of Wall Street's desperate attempts to declare the Google auction IPO a failure, even after Google got more than twice the dollars per share than they would have in an investment bank-priced IPO. If you can't beat them, have your puppet press hang an ugly label on them.
Remain calm! All is well!
# make World
Of course we do!
See my blog for my free opinions.
I hope this finally changes attitudes of business leaders. I've been working in software business for a decade now and never have I seen a software company where experts were valued above salesmen. When a salesman makes a big contract, it's like he is the king of the world. Whole company has to kneel before him (just a metaphor). When there are lay offs, the salesmen are last to go. But what we all slashdotters know and Google has now implemented, is that a deal with a customer is just a materialization of work done by the whole workforce of a company. It's not the moment when the contract is signed, that customer decides to order. It's the whole run where project managers convince the customer with a well done project, coders produce a product which customer loves, and other project people spend long hours with the customer assuring him that we really care for him. In the end, salesman is just there to present the work done by others.
Many business leaders have began to realize, that people aren't using Google's product because they're running nice commercials on TV, but because they're just good products. It's no wonder why there have been so much polemic about bad quality of software products. Atleast where I've worked, all products have been done with a minimum effort. When a first alpha version start to emerge, business leader have already arranged massive demonstration events to customers. Focus from finishing the product shifts to making a good demonstration. Google makes a difference here. Unlike its competitors (like Micro$oft), its products actually work and what I've said many times to myself, a good product sells itself.
I hope those investors (in the article), that are looking for companies to fill up market gaps left by Google, understand it's not the market gap people are willing to buy. People are looking for good products that also might fill up a market gap in the process.
At last a company is shouting at the top of it's voice, engineers make the world.
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this reminds me of when steve balmer made his famous developers speech... "developers developers developers developers...
Seems to me like they are ONLY saying it out loud to attract best talent, I am not sure how much they actually follow what they say (I mean BOTH google and MS).
Its also a bit surprising how google talks a lot about google-culture but we hardly read about any first person account by an employee. Has NONE of their employees ever blogged about how their first month at google was (Or is it just me who couldnt find that)? I find that hard to digest, unless their is some policy restricting them.
Try this google search http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=google+emp
Just my 2 qubits
Engineering driven companies are nothing new, they're just normally not sustainable.
Semiconductor and Passives components manufacturing are normally:
a. small and founded by a geek with a good idea, who either...
1. sells out early OR
2. tries to make a go of it, spends too much time on pet projects and runs the company down.
b. large companies driven by suits who:
1. understand non-R&D business, ie. Sales and Operations, and remain competitive AND
2. acquire small companies run into the ground by geeks.
Why does Google do so well run by geeks? Dunno. It's astonishing they stay so focused. Guessing, maybe it's fear -- seems like they want to win so badly.
But right now every 'free' thing they do, from maps to mail, pumps the very serious ad business with eyeballs and press.
I'd be completely behind your comment except for the code words "New York" bankers -- meaning Jews.
Ruined it for me.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Think of a newspaper. The people who sell ad space and work in Classifieds are secondary to the reporters and editors who manage what stories go into the paper and the general political tone and direction. In fact, those sales people are generally looked down-upon as a necessary evil.
Think about TV. Who runs things, the people selling air time for commercials or the station manager who chooses what shows appear and what the format is when the network isn't forcing its agenda? Or even at network level, what directs them - people who sell ads or creative people who think their program could be a hit?
Radio is the same. Google's business model is: Sell non-obtrusive ads associated with information services. To do this, they need compelling services to make people get ads on the same web page. These services are like shows on TV or juicy news articles - they drive eyeballs, which allows for ad revenue.
Really, there is no other way to run it and make money.
Yeaaah baby !
(to be read with Austin Powers' voice)
--
anonymous engineer
...and she doesn't own a computer, let alone have the faintest idea of how to use one. Google is this millennium's Ford Motor Company. Ford started the assembly line and all the other automakers followed suit. Google values what they consider their most valuable assets and reward them well for their efforts.
Another example; I was explaining Picasa to someone who was looking for a way to easily email photos who wasn't the most computer savvy of all people. She was leery about trying a new piece of software until she found out it's a Google product. She was all for it after that. In a lot of people's minds, Google == Quality. I am not saying it's right, but perception rules the world.
It's not about "running the show" or "being better than". It's about letting the people with the knowledge, who produce, in on the control.
I believe the idea is that the tech people have a certain veto power over the suits. How this can be a bad thing, I'll never know.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
They're gonna find out the hard way that I'm not a pussy if they don't start treating us software people better.
They don't understand. I could come up with a program that could rip that place off big time.
Google just did things right from the start.
This "caste" system isn't really that big of an idea if you really think about it. It should be a no-brainer actually. All (OK, there probably an exception somewhere) companies should work this way.
"Listen to the people actually writing the code and making your products."
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Google; get laid. All the other google functions seem to work pretty well. C'mon Google, please?
Reading between the lines, it sounds like Google has caught onto the standard tactics used by executives in their "Deal Making". That is, making whatever deal that gives them the best kickback, as long as they're supplied with a Powerpoint deck good enough to lend plausible deniability.
I suspect this is just sour grapes on the part of executives who were called on the carpet for this type of behavior, especially since that the guy interviewed in the article seemed shocked and amazed that he was asked to demonstrate his acumen prior to being hired.
Having seen my share of "Strategic Initiatives" (code for: we're going to rip out a working system to replace it with a multimillion dollar "solution" barely works, requiring 10x the hardware and manpower to operate, and no, we aren't open to feedback from the technical staff) over the course of my career only convines me further that this is what's going on. Incorporating sanity checks by technical types sounds more to me like removing a caste system (with the suits as Brahmins) rather than creating one.
And without a caste system, why should the suits be exempt from requirements of competence and integrity?
It all depends on the company, if the company wants to have the smartest and brightest engineers in control then thats who is in control.
A company like google the engineers and scientists have to be in control of it. It's beyond the scope of the typical exec.
The US always had a caste system, as had India, the difference is in the situation with Google, it seems to actually be a meritocracy. I never thought I'd see a merit based corporate environment but Google may be one of the first.
Usually its always a caste based environment where elite well connected white males have meetings with their friends to decide the fate of your business or your job, while at the same time giving themselves a raise and reducing your salary.
Google on the other hand is going about this in a completely different way, the idea is good, lets see how far Google can take it. On the other hand, we should not let Google be the last corporation like this, we should use the Google model in future businesses. The model seems to work, its profitable, and its not based on abusing workers. As much as Americans complain about Chinese sweatshops, lately it seems child labor and sweatshops are a good idea for the US economy, its better to have the sweatshops than the prisons.
As a programmer, obviously I think its cool that engineers & techies who work on the product are valued at the same level (or above) the corporate company structure. I just don't see how this is so different from what has been going on at other tech companies, for instance Microsoft, where people have always been able to choose between moving up the management ladder or move up the food chain as an Independant Contributor. A lot of the Distinguished Engineers and Technical Fellows at Microsoft and specifically in MSR (and I'm sure the same is true of a lot of other companies) are really just engineers with no direct reports, and they are clearly esteemed and thought of as highly as anyone in the company.
I agree its cool, I'm just not so sold that its a new idea that applies only to Google.
How can you believe that hackers arent experts in social engineering? Theres a reason why hackers like Bill Gates and the Google founders get rich. It's because manipulating people is not something that only elite businessmen can do, anyone can do it with enough practice.
Also, what makes you think Google would hire manipulators or people who seem like a threat? And if they did don't you think they have security mechanisms in place? You make it seem as if its as simple as someone just walking in and hiijacking the company, its not easy to do a hostile take over of a corporation with an educated workforce.
Lets look at the politics here for a moment, if you dare try to mess with Google, and you ever looked up anything on their search engine such as porn and anything private, they'll have so much political dirt on you that they'll have all the information they need to shut you up, or blackmail you, your bosses, etc.
It's generally very difficult to hiijack data mining companies, because these companies know way more about the people who they hire than whats in the resume.
The difference is, Google has a caste system which values the workers on the grassroots level.
It's just a matter of which is the caste, in some systems, being a worker is the caste system, in other systems being the wrong race is a caste system, and in google, being a salesman is a caste.
Honestly its just word play, suddenly we are expected to abandon caste systems and go communist because the software developers are making too much money?
I've sure when Google was starting out plenty of business types would have tried to put one over them. Must be sweet to be able to return in kind now everyone wants a piece of the action!
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
Add to that picture all the horribly programmed engineering tools we have to use (and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for), with GUIs that were created by retarded lemurs on acid, and, well, my opinion of the current state of the science of programming is not very healthy. Nice to see someone out there is taking some initiative.
Seriously, when a Mac head like me favors using your tool via the command line and C shell scripts, you need to *FIRE* whomever it is that designs your GUIs.
Oh, and X Windows programmers? The text that's highlighted? That's what I expect to be replaced by my typing. It's not meant for the random decoration that you all use it for.
Well, he convinced me that it was a two way street. That there is no shortage of good ideas and products out there, and the ONLY reason some succeed over others is becuase people like him and Sales people make it happen. They sell products that they know aren't quite ready yet (vaporware) because the company needs the revenue. They sell products that they know are inferior to the competition because their Scientists and Engineers made a stupid mistake early on in the product development lifecycle that didn't get caught until too late and the company can't afford to start over.
Basically he convinced me (a seasoned Engineer) that we need them as much as they need us.
So, be careful in your thinking about this issue.
Think about TV. Who runs things, the people selling air time for commercials or the station manager who chooses what shows appear and what the format is when the network isn't forcing its agenda? Or even at network level, what directs them - people who sell ads or creative people who think their program could be a hit?
From what I can tell, this example doesn't apply. The Ad people are the ones who run the company when it comes to TV. The quality of programming continues to decline to pandering for whatever will get the most viewship, becuase more viewers means more eyes at commercial break and higher rates commanded for ads in that timeslot. When a major sponsor of a show doesn't like the political/ethical fork a show's storyline takes, does the network tell the writers to edit the script? Or the sponsor to live with the story or find another show?
For insight into the correct answers, check out such movies as The Insider and the currently playing Good Night, and Good Luck .
There have been companies like this in the past. It will change, just give it time. 10 years from now engineers will be treated the same as anywhere else ;)
"At last a company is shouting at the top of it's voice, engineers make the world."
Any company that gives too much weight to marketing and accounting types eventually runs things into the ditch of bad products...wrong thing - wrong way.
This is a leason that has been learned many times over, by many companies. Google is hardly the first to demonstrate the discipline to stick to it.
Chrysler supposedly learned this lesson the hard way in the 70's & 80's, when bean counters were allowed to decide which models cars and trucks would go to market. The company paid dearly for that mistake, and is only now comng off the ugly results.
Just remember that the group most capable to 'get it right' (right thing - right way) includes design engineers, usability engineers, mechanical and electrical engineers, as well as project managers, tech writers and testing types.
Find good ones and give them the tools they need and get out of their way. You'll be a hero without even trying.
It's all going to go to hell when if Warrior caste get four members on the Grey Council.
Let's hope it doesn't ruin the balence for the upcoming Great War against the Shaddows (Microsoft).
engineers take legal responsibility for their mistakes. In the case of software 'engineers' I'd like to see that.
joking aside, the phenomenon can be found in nearly every tech/engineering company in the whole wide world where the founders are engineers, still run the place and the company or industry has high growth rates. The suits only ever come in when growth is slowing down and the products don't sell by itself but need the help of the big, bad BS-marketing machine. Oh, by the way, I used to be a suit myself , with hundreds of engineers working for me, despite me mostly not having a clue what they were doing. It worked pretty well, mostly. The reason: Making business decisions and knowing the financials. Or to turn it around: To not get the suits into the door, get used to love making decisions and get a grasp of accounting. Then happy days. It is not that hard, actually it is bloody easy.
I like this bill joy quote from the unix haters handboox: "Xerox PARC was a great environment because they had great people, enough money to build real systems, and management that protected them from management."
This idea of a caste system at google sounds more to me like that, where nurturing development is the primary deal - giving developers a healthy environment and keeping irrelevant crap out of their hair. Seems smart to me. But caste system? I'd imagine that no one wants their benefits coordinator to feel like they aren't doing an important job - the marketing/sales initiative doesn't seem ignored to me, but they're pretty smart about leveraging the nature of the beast to no be too obtrusive about it. Clearly the management over the aren't a bunch of drooling morons, they're doing something right and the product that gets deployed is great....
"But perhaps more compelling to Google is AOL's access to reams of content owned by sister companies such as Time Inc. and cable channel HBO."
So if Time-Warner sells off AOL, doesn't that mean that AOL won't have any more access to TW-owned content than anybody else?
Remember when AOL was so overvalued that it could buy TW instead of the other way around? And then Wall Street was going on about how the monopoly on accessing TW content via the web would cause millions to flock to AOL to get their online Elmer Fudd fix? And then that didn't exactly happen and they took AOL out of the parent company name? Maybe they're so desperate to get rid of AOL that they're willing to throw Bugs Bunny and Wolf Blitzer in to sweeten the deal.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
This article is far from flattering towards Google. In some ways it is so feline that it's hard to work out where Business Week is coming from. It quotes bankers who suggest that "Googlers" are arrogant brats who are more likely to complain about the quality of the Google canteen's omelettes than they are do do hard work and hard deals.
I guess what one senses here is anger. The business establishment doesn't understand Google, hence this dismissal of anyone who isn't a numbers man as a mere "engineer". And, perhaps, there are a lot of investment houses out there playing a double game. They know what Google is currently where the money is, but they also have a burning desire to get revenge for the way Google humiliated them in its Dutch-auction style of IPO.
Google is going to have to be very, very careful with this lot. Nothing would please some of these bankers more than to make a few billion out of Google in some crock-of-shit deal before delivering them to the trashcan with "Don't ever cross Wall Street" stencilled on their brow.
Interestingly, the article doesn't mention Apple which has been a poster child in several eras now. Apple is run by, arguably, one of the world's greatest salesmen, and yet Apple also displays engineering and design excellence that's taken them to the top of the tree. I guess such marriages of engineering and business are possible, though very rare. Google has quite a challenge ahead of it.
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I'm guessing that you never actually worked in a for-profit radio station.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Leave it to something like Business week to totally miss the point of Google's philosophy, and leave it to Slashdot to totally miss the point of an article.
About 1/7 of the article is about the second-class status of marketers, and almost all of the rest is trying to figure out why Google won't spend all of their money *right now*! Such a huge pile of money even seems to cloud the judgement of writers at business week. Near the beginning they are suggesting that it is bad that everyone and their mothers are trying to sell the next cool thing to Google, then a couple of paragraphs later it warns that Google might drop like Yahoo or crater like DoubleClick because it hasn't spent its "ephemeral" money.
I'm not even remotely surprised that Business Week would get all squishy and sympathetic to all the Marketing Bastards and their Marketing Bullshit who keep banging thier heads against the wall that separates them from all of that filthy Google luchre. When Google asked (Google Startup Day) for VCs/marketers to turn in a spreadsheet that condensed a steaming pile of vapor and marketing speak into an actual assesment of a company and its strengths and weaknesses, they got all snippy like some kind of beta male in a monkey troop. Somehow, they thought that it was a good thing for Google to have to sift through the crap and spin and promises to find out what had potential and what didn't. This venture capitalist accused Google of trying to get out of doing "homework"! Some poor banker couldn't decide if Google's hiring process was rigid or chaotic, and got all pissed that he couldn't pass a "pop quiz". Here's a hint: if you can't combine knowledge about the current state of the market and significant players in it with a given amount of specific information about an accquisition, YOU DON'T DESERVE THE FARKING JOB! Life *is* a pop quiz. I sure as hell couldn't do that, but I'm not trying to help Google buy and sell businesses! The point is that whoever is making these decisions at Google is doing a decent job of it, and isn't spending wherever good marketers push. Google hasn't come out with the Beta for Google Everything yet, and the head of corporate development for Google conceded that there would be areas for other software companies to fill demand!
I swear, I don't know which is worse: the premise that a successful business can't be second fiddle in any given area, or the idea that businesses, like horny teenagers, should merge because everyone else is doing it.
I was in a recruiting presentation from Google a couple of weeks ago: they seemed an arrogant bunch, only talking about how they were not 'evil' all the time, how happy they were about being in the other company and how they had big plans for the future.
Well, it seems to me that Google is turning into 'World Dominance' mode: they want to control everything and my bet is, that in the process, they will become evil themselves. Give them some more time and you'll see.
A group of engineers and managers attended a conference, travelling by train. The engineers queued up to buy their travel tickets at the station but only one manager joined them. No questions were asked, but the engineers watched studiously as the manager bought just one ticket.
In the train, the engineers took their seats as did all of the managers bar two, who took up sentry positions at each end of the coach. After a while, one of the managers on sentry duty made a sign and he all the other managers headed immediately for one of the toilet cubicles. Two minutes later the ticket inspector arrived, saw the toilet door closed, knocked on the door and said "ticket please", upon which one ticket was duly slid under the door.
The engineers of course understood the ploy immediately and congratulated the managers on their guile and coordination.
Come the return journey, the engineers sent one of their crew to buy just one ticket. Puzzlingly, the managers didn't buy any tickets at all this time. Again the engineers refrained from asking questions and observed events studiously. Everyone climbed aboard the train and once again the managers immediately posted sentries. Sure enough, in due course, one of the managers on sentry duty made a sign upon which the watching engineers immediately crowded into a toilet. Strangely the managers didn't move. But as soon as the door had closed on the engineers, a passenger sitting nearby observed a manager leaving his seat, walking to the toilet, knocking on the door, and asking "ticket please".
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
I think its also a good idea if engineers get a taste of business and business people get a taste of engineering. I remember when I was the stuck-up student who believed he was the engineer of all things. I thought that users should bloody well learn to use a system correctly not the other way round. I thought that a properly engineered system was the way to go and that just making a product work so it could be sold was some kind of sin. I swore blindly to upholding standards at all costs and I wasted months trying to plan projects before I started doing anything. Back then I would look down on people because perhaps they used Flash, named a variable 'temp', used the wrong colour wires or used lossy compression in any way. Maybe I was worse than most I don't know, but someone like that doesn't work well in any kind of commercial industry, from arts to engineering, in the real world people want things that work or look good and they want them tomorrow. I only learnt that from experience and I think business people could probably learn a thing or two from the other side of the fence. Both sides are always gunning at each other because they don't understand each others issues and aspirations. Managers are always asking engineers to do something seemingly insane, engineers are always stressing that they need more time and that their system must be perfect or else it will be the end of the world.
Just to clear things up:
- Users don't need big colourful buttons to be able to figure out how something works, this does not automatically create an intuitive interface. It does however satisfy specifications and make it look like you care, if that's all that matters to you.
- Every product on the market, from TV's to computers to cars, have numerous hacks and last minute workarounds in them, they won't be a perfect system and they will have bugs or defects. you're product _will_ be the same.
- Every market has 3 products: the best, the cheapest, and the one with most value for money. While technically all other competing products are useless and not even worth assembling, that won't stop you being able to flog them to people if yours doesn't happen to fit into one of those 3 categories.
- There are two types of people: those who work 9-5, satisfy specifications and instructions *technically* and deliver on time, and those who work all the time, ignore specifications and go out of their way to make things actually work properly even if the original plan was flawed (as it usually is).
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Why isn't there a mod -1: content-free?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Article written by marketoids without understanding of the real value of Google...
Some bloppers:
That's not to say Google could afford to go out and do a big deal just for the sake of it. A mega-takeover potentially could wreak havoc on Google. Even Piper Jaffray Co's. (PJC ) 11/18/05 @ 9:05 PM --] Internet analyst Safa Rashtchy, one of Wall Street's biggest Google bulls, says: "If they were to buy AOL or eBay, it would hurt the stock."
Google buying one of the Evil Giants would certainly hurt the stock, by damaging reputation of Google. People hate AOL and at least mildly dislike eBay. Loss of capital by Google has nothing to do with it. Loss of trust does.
All the same, the lure of a big deal could prove hard to resist, particularly if Google's strategic position is threatened. For the past two months, Google has been battling Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ) at the bargaining table for a stake in Time Warner Inc.'s (TWX ) AOL unit
Whoa, Google lost such a deal to Microsoft, such a big battle, such juicy morsel...? No. Google was acting as a shill, for its own interest. Bloat the price of a mostly worthless piece of junk, make the competition offer way more than they would offer initially, and then let them have the rotten carcass for price of luxury dish.
Losing some battles gives more profit than winning them.
Young Googlers' preoccupation with these perks tend to drive mature VCs to distraction. "If I hear one more [punk] complain about his omelet, or tell me he's bored with the smoothie selection, I'm gonna, I don't know," splutters one.
What would YOU prefer to do? Make the job fun and it will be efficient. Not in terms "lines of code per day" but in terms "satisfied customers per day". Still hard to get for some.
Says the aggrieved VC: "Did it ever occur to them that this was like asking us to do their homework for them? It's the height of arrogance."
It's lots of VCs who hope to make a lot of money on that. Google just does the usual thing, and is only one. So, usual marketing rule, if the sales outweight demand, sellers must look for ways to attract the customer and the customer may afford demanding much more for the same price. I thought these guys are businessmen? You don't want to do the homework for Google? Someone else will, and they will get the candy, not you, mr Very Senior Partner.
The suits inside Google don't fare much better than the outside pros. Several current and former insiders say there's a caste system, in which business types are second-class citizens to Google's valued code jockeys.
As opposed to the caste system where the business types rule the second-class "production crew".
They argue that it could prove to be a big challenge in the future as Google seeks to maintain its growth. They deem the corporate development team as underpowered in the company, with engineers and product managers tending to carry more clout than salesmen and dealmakers.
I think they just misunderstand "corporate development". Google took this term right. Marketoids still think it means themselves.
The candidate, a Wall Street tech M&A specialist who was looking for a change of scenery and a more relaxed lifestyle, calls the experience "chaotic, bureaucratic, and very rigid." Strung out over more than nine months and numerous coast-to-coast flights, the courtship culminated in a jarring "pop quiz."
Drummond rejects the accusations that Google is anti-businesspeople. He says Google has hired many MBAs and bankers and is constantly assessing its dealmaking strategy.
Google is just anti-assholepeople. Jerks who hope to get cash from the suckers. And they get punished pretty cruelly for attempts to pick on Google.
What's more relaxing for the coders crew than to see a super-important suit, a stockmarket shark to jump through loops and sweat heavily just to get a candy they wave in front of his nose? Less bull from your side and deals with Google would become pleas
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Screwed up the link: The Venture Capital Squeeze
This is funny and confirms some of my original suspicions.
Previously my company tried to purchase and use a google search engine box. However if you try and buy the google box for your corporate searching needs you will find it impossible to deal with their sales people. They don't offer support, they won't tell you anything. Funnily enough technically if you want to make it work its a doodle.
Google needs to improve its sales drastically if its honestly going to take over the world, technology just is not enough.
Radio is the same.
I guess this explains the Clear Channel phenomenon. If you aren't aware, they're scrambling to try to figure out why their listening numbers are falling, and have been for a while. Is it because they've made all their stations the same? Is it because they run 20 minutes of ads per hour? Is it because Clear Channel is essentially an advertising agency that owns a good chunk of the available radio frequency?
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
Larry == Page, but Larry ne Page
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
People hate Microsoft for being more of a marketing than a technical company, and it is in part because techies could have better jobs elsewhere producing quality work, if it weren't for the Marketing behemoth.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Here in the west, I have heard it used as basically somebody from the east coast with money who will finance you, but will try to control the company. Beyond that, I have never once heard it associated with a particular religion. Why is this associated with jews back east?
I am sure you are right, because I have seen it happen. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was founded in 1959 by a couple of engineers. When I became aware of the company in 1963 it still had an engineering culture: the engineers ran the show, and the sales people were secondary. Somewhere around 1968, they renamed the programmers "software engineers" to give them more prestige.
As the company matured the culture changed. Even though I worked for DEC from 1975 to 1992, I cannot point to a specific event that was the watershed. The first symptom that I noticed was that the KS10 was said to be developed in secret to prevent it from being cancelled. Even if that wasn't true, the fact that engineers believed it indicates that the engineers no longer felt that they were making the decisions.
I wonder if paying commissions to the sales people was a symptom or a cause.
I don't blame the demise of Digital entirely on the shift from an engineering focus to a sales focus. There were some bad decisions made by engineering in the last few years. But I can't help wondering if those decisions might have been corrected more quickly by a younger company.
Strangely, IBM appears to be a counter-example. They are by far the oldest computer company, but they seem to have achieved some sort of dynamic equilibrium, where they are able to change direction as technology and markets change quickly enough to survive. I am sure some of that has to do with their size, but as General Motors reminds us, size is no guarantee of survival. I suppose they have internal institutions that keep them nimble.
There are some good books on Digital Equipment Corporation. See The Ultimate Entrepreneur for the story of DEC at its height, and DEC is Dead Long, Live DEC for a look back after its death.
John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)
Just last night, I was laser-tagging with a friend's relative. Turns out that he is a journalist for a rag in Colo.Spr. He now only writes a story a week and spends the rest of the time in sales. Basically, what he said was that he could earn 5x in sales what he made in writing, even though the paper preferred that he write. The paper said that sales was preferable by paying more for it.
So no, it really is not the same. Google is doing it right, and the media simply pays lip service to it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hewlett-Packard used to have an 'engineer's company' core culture. Carly helped 'correct' that. Who will rise in the ranks at Google to fill that role?
[offtopic]
I actually saw a new RPN Hewlett-Packard calculator on a blister card at WalMart yesterday. I toyed with the idea of buying it, but I'm still too frightened of being disappointed. Anybody know if the HP33S is anything special?
[/offtopic]
I worked for a long time at a small company headed by an 'Engineer founder' that was a great place to work. Then outsiders slowly moved in, the company was overtaken by sales types and we all bailed (those who werent laid off). It goes in cycles. Google is now publicly traded, aren't they??
resigned
Both extremes are short sighted.
Microsoft has ossified because engineers, creativity, and innovation don't carry enough clout.
On the side, Apple is a second rate power in the I.T. world. They could be dominating the I.T. world like Microsoft now does, if not for the poor business decision they made when they got started of pricing their computers above IBM's crappy PCs. Giving more clout to smart business men at that time could have changed things.
A successful tech company needs to both the businessmen and the engineers sufficently empowered.
It seems Google has learned its lessons from Microsoft. Lets see if they also learn Apple's. More importantly, lets see if they remember both lessons as they expand and get big.
> The executives and managers are still in control of the company's future,
> regardless of what the programmers, DB admins, and the like want to believe.
Your statement assumes some sort of line between non-engineer execs and non-exec engineers. But there *are* no non-engineer execs. Heck, as far as I can tell, there aren't even any non-engineers PMs! Know why that is?
The exec team spends a fair amount of time thinking about, "how can we lose this" / "how does this all go wrong"? One example they cite is Apple, which was great, lost it, and is only recently getting great again... and one big problem they point out is that for a while Apple had no engineers at board level! (Remember when Sally Ride was on the board of directors at Apple??)
The lesson is clear: when you have engineers everywhere, no one at the bottom or mid level can pull the wool over your eyes. The moment you start saying "A good manager doesn't have to be an engineer", you forget that a non-engineer manager can be fooled by an incompetent engineer who "manages up well", and then things start to sink.
The troika that rules Google, Sergey, Larry, Eric: they can all code. If that over stops being the case, that's probably an early signal to sell the stock!
(sig) The last bug isn't fixed until the last user is dead. (/sig)
Are you happy now!?
It sounds like the engineers and scientists at Google understand how dating works a lot better than the marketeers give them credit for. They love the chase, as soon as you make them think you're interested in return, they stop trying so hard.
Age-old "asshole" technique.
http://www.the-declaration.com/2000/02_10/features /asshole.shtml
Well, the sales types are generally looked down on by the production department (news, etc), but really, they make a ton of money and are generally promoted faster than everyone else. In television and radio, it is almost impossible to get to a management position (that has any clout) without a sales background. And the top sales guys generally are treated much better than the top DJs. Often times in small markets you'll see DJs selling, or getting sponsorships on thier own so they can make the rent, but the sales and managment types do much, much better.
You must be thinking of the top talent people in the business, with their million dollar saleries and fun filled lifestyles. For the most part, media people don't make much money, mostly because of the laws of supply and demand. And let's not forget agents and business managers for the talent. They can get upwards of 10% of all income from contracts, side deals, spokesman deals and more. And, they almost always have multiple clients.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Somehow, they misspelled the Stanford System.
Usually its always a caste based environment where elite well connected white males have meetings with their friends to decide the fate of your business or your job, while at the same time giving themselves a raise and reducing your salary.
Somehow there is a bit of irony to it. Stanford University [of Elitism, West Coast] has all but fallen in line with the Ivy League in the East Coast where the only thing new is an outright lack of Midwestern students. You'd have to:
1. Declare them a minority
2. Force universities to accept them under the most favored terms (Works for the spies and International Students who take up unrightful amounts of the class), and
3. Make sure there is no "unreasonable condition" such as maintaining a grade inconsistent with known performance given a certain instructor or non-standard courseload *cough*Harvard*cough*.
Google on the other hand is going about this in a completely different way, the idea is good, lets see how far Google can take it. On the other hand, we should not let Google be the last corporation like this, we should use the Google model in future businesses. The model seems to work, its profitable, and its not based on abusing workers. As much as Americans complain about Chinese sweatshops, lately it seems child labor and sweatshops are a good idea for the US economy, its better to have the sweatshops than the prisons.
As Google has taken their policy right from Stanford, by no means do you have a meritocracy there. Since they are a private entity, they are outright having their cake and eating it. Thankfully there are places that keep this kind of thing in check, such as France and non-globally exploited European countries(read: ones that shield heavily against offshoring) that would probably keep Google (and anyone who helped them) in the dark.
When Google starts having to look actively for putting work in the Midwest with the same advantages as now (and not as a mock effort ala the Miers nomination) and the full opening of their services. When that is done, they will have made the first steps to ridding themselves of problems found from their use of the Stanford System.
As for China, I do not see any logic to exchange one prison for another. Regardless, I'm not going to help make what kills me by helping globalization. That's given that the bullet is fired from a gun made with low-quality steel, by a government of equally low quality, with the order sent by electronics that are a hazard not to be touched. To them, I say "Cao ni ma de." - and I'd put even odds on Sam "Boss Tweed" Walton understanding that one as well.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
With googles investment in fiber combined with server farms rivaled by-no one really, maybe akami comes closest- there are any number of ways they could still "make money". They are still in the mind share growing business as well as ads. I bet if they wanted to they could pop open an itunes like experience tomorrow and make money, or start a national ISP, or offer paid serious uptime and fast hosting, etc. They do some of that stuff now for free with the ads supporting it, but they could offer a "pro" version of this or that and charge cash for "no ads" for the same thing. Heck, just offering cheap offsite data backup would be a platinum mine for them. People are already using googlemail for that on a small personal scale.
How about this one, the mythical google OS & office suite & lotsa other apps,integrated email, VOIP, and chat, offered to big box vendors as an OEM install? The big box vendors are afraid to whizz off microsoft so they have been reluctant to the max to offer anything but MS, but if it was google they might think it to be doable then just from their size and branezpowerz and trackrecord so far.
Who knows what they might do in the future but one thing is certain they got some cash and a pretty large "fan" base and some decent and motivated engineers already.
And speaking of bankers....googlepay might take off as well.
Engineers don't need more clout than salespeople, anymore than salespeople shouldn't get more clout than engineers. To have a company that really, really shines, you need the best of both.
The funny thing about mediocre sales people is that they see mediocre engineers, and don't understand what the big deal is. Meanwhile, the mediocre engineer sees the mediocre sales guy, and *also* doesn't understand the big deal.
Meanwhile, the talented engineers and sales people look at the other side and know that they couldn't do that job nearly as well as the person they are looking at.
The companies that are currently ridiculously succesful are the ones that recognize that employees are their greatest asset.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
How many companies have lost their strategic edge by placing more emphasis on "business" rather than engineering.
Intel - the king of silicon - once an engineering powerhouse, is losing its edge in the CPU business - why? By putting marketing ahead of engineering talent, it designed an architecture that would sell well based on GHz ratings. Now, the corporate market (the most profitable market for CPUs) is taking a hard look at opteron. Why? It's a better performing design with less power consumption than Intel's offerings. The day Dell starts selling 2 CPU opteron boxes is the day Intel starts regretting the GHz marketing decision.
HP - once run by engineers that flew coach instead of by private Lear jet. HP used to be the king of "technology must-haves" from medical equipment, to scientific and engineering tools. HP was the standard in many industries. Thanks to Carly and most of her management staff they decided to exit those niche (but highly profitable) markets for what???? The PC business? God - if that isn't a marketing driven decision, I don't know what is.
SGI - don't even get me started about this shell of a company. This company had some pretty impressive hardware and 3D rendering products that were way ahead of everyone else in the industry. This was another company that decided selling Windows boxes was the way to go.
You can always count on non-technical managers to screw up these types of companies. They don't understand the high-end niche technologies, so they focus on stuff they do understand - the commodity garbage you can purchase at Best Buy.
Let Engineers run tech companies - the money and success will follow.
-ted
It is interesting that, of all that TFA talks about, the poster decided to spin it towards the supposed Google caste system, which occupies that final 1/5 of the article. The other 80% of the article focuses more on how the hugimongousness of Google has altered the way of doing business in Silicon Valley: the venture capitalists, the MBAs who think they know how to capitalize on a good idea when they see one, the risk-taking technologists and start-ups, the ambitious entrepeneur who just wants to make a shitload of money selling an idea to someone larger, and the fact that Google has yet to shell out serious money to buy out a majoy company like AOL, but seem willing to acquire the long-odds small companies that have sprouted up in their wake. The focus of TFA is how Google's bucking the trend in the world of mergers and acquisition and venture capital, which has in turn ruffled the feathers of more entrenched high-tech business interests.
First, it's something for the CEO to do. Really. Acquisitions are something the CEO can actually do. If the CEO has a financial or legal background, acquisitions are something they understand. On the operational side, the CEO of a large company mostly has to just pick people and give them general direction. There are exceptions to this, but they're rare. If you can't fix the company you're running, acquisition gives the illusion you're doing something.
Second, acquisitions are highly visible events for a CEO. They get you on the cover of Business Week. You can talk to other CEOs about them. You get better golf dates. Improving manufacturing productivity by 15% doesn't do this, even though it might triple profits.
Third, acquisitions usually result in increased CEO income. The company is bigger now, so the CEO should make more. Right? Don't underestimate this. Also, acquisitions tend to increase stock volatility, and if much of your pay is in options, volatility pays off, even if, on average, the trend is neutral or even down.
Now, it can actually make sense to acquire a company for its technology or its market share. In the first case, the acquired company is usually small, and you're buying technology, not a customer base or manufacturing capability. A successful example is Google buying Keyhole. Keyhole was small, had good technical assets, and wasn't too expensive. An unsuccessful example is SGI buying Cray. Cray had a large mainframe manufacturing operation and too many people, neither of which SGI needed. (SGI comes to mind because I was in a building yesterday I'd previously visited when SGI owned it. They don't own it any more.)
Buying market share makes sense if you buy something in the same business. You're reducing competition and can raise prices. You might even get economies of scale. Blockbuster, which bought out many other video store chains, is a successful example.
On the other hand, buying companies for "diversification" or to "expand into a new business area" usually doesn't work out too well. Buying for vertical integration, where you buy your supplier or customer, used to be popular half a century ago, but is now somewhat out of favor. It made sense to buy a coal mine when you had a steel mill. It make less sense to buy an ISP when you're a phone company.
I've watched these behaviors for years. See Downside's Deathwatch for the results. (When it says "Chart not available for this symbol, it's not because there's a bug. It's because the company died.)
It is entirely bottoms-up
So much for sobriety in the workplace...
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Wow: that is really insightful. Google is media company where the media is "web-based applications." Google has pampered "creatives" just like every other media company. The creatives just happen to be engineers, because they outsource the task of creating actual data content to their end-users.
Consider my former employer, the largest heavy civil construction firm in the U.S. Warren Buffet called them "the greatest meritocracy in American business," and with good reason - the company made something like $5+ billion in revenue the last year I was with them, but there were only 1,300 or so stockholders, all current employees.
Here's how it worked: If you were in a position with profit-and-loss responsibility and were doing a good job, you'd be invited (after a few years with the company) to purchase stock. No options, no gifts - you were invited to make a purchase at the current share price and told exactly what the maximum was you could buy. Couldn't afford it? Then they'd hook you up with a bank in town that would happily loan you the money, since the stock (which had earned double-digit returns for decades) was great collateral.
What happens when everyone on the team is an actual owner, and the only way you could become an actual owner is through doing a good job? Several things:
It sounds like I'm just reminiscing, but it was a great place to work and (if you stuck around) a great place to get rich - it's a shame other companies don't follow that model.
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
"They deem the corporate development team as underpowered in the company, with engineers and product managers tending to carry more clout than salesmen and dealmakers."
Well then, maybe that's why none of their products seem to support any common goal (besides being 'cool'). It often seems like Google's left and right hands are completely unaware of each other, and that could be due to teams of gifted engineers all cranking away without ever taking the time to talk to other teams and figure out what the hell the company is doing.
Engineers are important, but alone they're not sufficient to build a viable company.
you're mainly engineers.
Its very likely that this whole thing is a marketing plot.
For this story to even make it into Business Week its likely that a PR or marketing person (the people at Google who actively engage the media)were talking to the writer and painting the picture for them about how engineers rule Google.
So obviously the marketers feel its necessary for the public perception of the company to be one that is engineering driven, and they probably want to sell the same perception internally at Google also as it makes the engineering employees feel all warm and fuzzy and empowered also.
Google will also be less criticized now by outside geeks... I mean engineers, because of this wonderful engineering driven culture and this will help the early adopters (often geeks) feel better about adopting Googles new service offering of the week.
Its a marketing win, win, win. MARKETING RULES GOOGLE!
I think Doug Edwards would agree, in Xooglers, his ex-Googlers blog.
A good salesperson never lets details like "lack of an actual product" interfere with the pitch.
Once you get enough orders, you can outsource development to India. Right?
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
..color (look at the relative earning power for white males vs. colored males, males vs. females---)
This was absolutely true at Yahoo! for a while when I worked there as an engineer. Its not a good idea though. Engineers get a big head and their productivity slows to a crawl and they start second guessing every decent business idea which involves them doing more work. They start believing their opinions and 'devils advocate' attitude are worth more than their code. This was mostly true of the older white developers though, not the younger Asian ones.
It's not that overrated if anything to say that - as if that was your purpose anyhow.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
For those who don't get out much or who don't have a breadth of experience in different businesses, here's a clue: all companies have a caste system. There is always a "chosen" class that gets promotions despite less ability, experience and competence. The examples I've personally observed:
Electronics: electrical engineers are top dogs, lessers include comp sci, etc.
Biotech: PhDs in biology are top of the food chain
Comp Sci: Comp sci majors and programmers
If a company is in their early life, this is probably how it should be. As a company ages, different skills are needed so different professions become "the chosen".
Especially when considering that M&A are what makes most of the money for investment bankers. As others have pointed out, TFA did come across as sour grapes from the "financial world".
I will say that Google is way overpriced at the moment, pretty much the same way that Sun was overpriced at its peak.
Heh, and here I thought the caste system meant they were getting ready to outsource everything to India... :)
What determined the current share price, if outsiders weren't allowed to buy or sell the stock?
Dump the corporate. Who needs it? Uses? Consumers? Disgruntled Employees? Take out management that sucks. And Yea right, it'sthe engineer who eventually engineers the product. So time to change the world. Blood sucking sales men can f**k off!
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
The parent uses the phrase "New York bankers," a common reference to Jews among anti-semites (as well as "Jew York"). Please mod down for ignorance.
"Sufferin' succotash."
What do the pundits think of the caste system? Isn't this an attack on some sacred cows?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I love the VCs bitching about Google. Waaaa, waaa, waaaaa, they treat us like cattle, waaaa waaaa waaa, they won't let us screw them on the IPO, waaa waaa waaa, they buy companies before we get to overprice them, waaa waaa waaa, they won't spend their money on dumb stuff so we can hose them later, waaaaaaaaaaa.
Here's a Free Clue for any VCs reading this: we engineers are laughing our asses off that someone has handed you your severed nuts in a plastic cup, because lots of us lost everything we worked for when you hit us with cramdowns, senior liquidation preferences, and forced empty-suit hires from your vapid coterie of "adult management". Better yet, Google shows us finance & management isn't voodoo, so if one is smart enough to deal with tough code issues, then the money stuff is Yet Another Solvable Problem and we can actually do a reasonable job running our own companies, thank you very fucking much.
I guess their is a huge difference between sales and management in a company built on Rock Solid Technology.
Sales
Which Salesman is Google looking for ?
One who can get $500 Million worth of business.
Its clear from their hiring policy that they don't want traditional sales assholes who are a pain in the butt and also make tons of money by means of commission in tradiational companies. Sorry, gentleman you can apply again after 6 months. Fuckoff now!
Management
OK. This group needs to be in command as they choose between 500-1000 internal products/projects which have a Billion Dollar market.This group balances the company. These projects are similar to NSF funding our Professors for their own Research -:) So DEC, Microsoft,Sun... all had pet projects for their Brainy employees ? NO. NO. For you all Microsoft lovers, the problem with MS is you work to execute Bills ideas. Why don't you see so many Russian/Israeli Developers as Indian and Chinese on MS campus ? Because Russians don't give a shit to Bill while Indians and Chinese lick his ass.
CEO with Sales Background Versus CEO with Dev Background
eBay's Whitman paid $4.0 Billion for a worthless piece of shit, while Dr Eric, simply shut the negotiations and got GTalk developed.
What Google wants ?
Bleeding Edge Technology. Its clear they want to BUY companies who have solid technology and the potential to deliver a COOL product minus the usual baggage(marketing,sales...)
Don't worry, noone's going to try to get you to be a salesman. You're clearly not from the US - ever heard of conjugating? Fuck man - go back to whatever turd-world country you're from. Americans don't give a fuck as to what you think when you can't express it in a sentence properly.
Non-American workers OUT! Now fuck off!
As opposed to a caste system used at Microsoft - where management and marketing people are first class, and Dev and Test are replaceable cogs?
You know, if that article has a bit of truth to it, I might consider applying for a job at Google. Not even because of stock (it's not going to quadruple again, anyway), but because of respect that their engineers have from the management.
from her song, Extra Executives: Extra Executives - Jane Siberry blowing kisses off his face like flies --- like little flies blowing like a grouper fish floating through the reefs his card says executive but it mumbles just a salesman he's not sure just who you are but you might be a good connection extra executives with a general desire extra executives with a general desire general desire general desire he took a course in sales he's never been the same a certain way to do things respect for expectations his bank gets a promotion but his brain gets a vacation he's looking over your shoulder at the party for a person who will change his life reward him somehow hey... I'm talking to you extra executives... one time... everything's an exercise for the extra executive he's not sure just who you are but you might be a good connection blowing kisses off his face like flies --- like little flies blowing like a grouper fish floating through the reefs waiting for that special deal in the sky that he never has to trade in the telephone call that never comes the letter's not in the letter box the handshake that will close the deal the telegram that will change his life extra executives with a general desire extra executives with a general desire general desire general desire he took a course in sales he's never been the same
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Part of the attraction behind being a web portal is that there really is nothing to sell. Just get people to visit your site and let the HTML do the rest. Google attracts and retains visitors with gee whiz apps and great search. It sells little ads all over the place because people know that Google is a popular site. There are no doors to bang on, no cold calls to make, not with their model. Putting innovation first suits their purposes on financial as well as philosophical levels.
Yeah, Google's cool, not like that Microsoft. Microsoft is doing the oppposite of whatever Google is doing that's cool.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't regist
I would kill you if I knew who you were and had nothing to lose. I don't care if you are black, white, alien, or of what religion. You deserve to die. You are a fucking armchair puke mother fucker and if the chips fell where I had nothing to lose and I knew who you were I would kill you.
How do you like that, you fucker? A promise to kill without regard to race religion or creed. I want to kill you because your fucking mouth which spits out lies and half truths needs to be silenced. You will not be missed as a martyr either.
Prepare for me lurking in the shadows. It could be me, or another you enrage. Your words may cost you your life. I hope you are prepared to die for your ideologies, and I suspect in this regard even Nazis are better than you, they died for National Socialism, are you prepared to die for whatever shit you speak of?
Google decided to try invention instead and to maximize value by paying top dollar for inventors rather than treat R&D as a commodity and engineers as something real businessmen buy like cans of beans and that isn't important enough to keep in-house.
Makes sense in retrospect, if one is in the business of selling technology ideas embodied in the form of tech goods and services, if one wants to maximize the number of ideas under one's control that one can make money from, buy as many as possible of the very rare people who can make these ideas and turn them into real products.
The companies that hit home runs do this not by following everyone else's "tried and true" strategies, but by doing something different and executing that "different" correctly. As google has done.
I can understand why the author of the BW piece is offended by the very idea and the ideological committment to the idea that MBAs and marketdroids and buying politicians to protect one's market are the only real source of value at high-tech companies.
But "google is ineptly managed" and google's market cap suggests that either the author is full of shit or google is. I don't see anyone trying to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the author of the BW article.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I think you mean "Engineers Rule The World."
:)
Comp0T2
Well, there you are. Coders first, managers second. All it means is that managers are there to work around the solutions the programmers provide. Coders run the business. Without them, there would be no business called Google.
A good system to be emulated. After all, it works for Google, and Google works.
Who ever invented the other way around ?
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Do bidness people actually read things like this and nod sagely? I nearly filled my pants with pop rocks and danced tee hee in the vinegar of uncontrolled glee when I first saw google's interface. It was getting away from the breadth, depth, and richness of Yahoo's portal that made google so wonderful. That and you could actually find what you are looking for without three pages of Hot Wet Sluts Get(ting) What They Deserve(d).
Now if I can just figure out why base won't take my 3 meg xml conversion of my company's parts database
Anytime, anywhere my incestuous white-trash friend. I'll be waiting.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
Google is in the business of growth and innovation. Most companies sell proven products (i.e. cell phone). In those companies engineers would likely bungle the heavy hitting business aspects. In google they have little or no competition for "new work", and to have "new work" you need an engineer to both create the product and suggest to the non-thinkers how they could possibly market it. Essentially engineers are in charge because they have to be or google wouldn't exist.
Just my take on it....
music - http://www.subatomicglue.com
OK guys - Must admit, I am really sick to death of the 'google' news appearing everyday on Slashdot.
Are the editors asleep at the terminal and feeding from Google's PR team?
C'mon pick it up and give us news on something 'new' - Surely there has to be something more newsworthy then the constant google bias.
Just my 2 cents ~
Slashgoogle.
Is like a rainshower without a rainbow.
You know you're fucking with a highly proficient pistol and rifle marksman with night vision equipment, sound supressors and tuned up optics? Go ahead, make my day - leave your name and address or some way to find you. I promise, when you die, you wont even know it.
I could poke your eye out with iron sights at 100 yds without much trouble.
The best product is rarely the most popular - the most popular is always the one with the best sales and marketing people.
While that is somewhat true, Google seems to be the exception to that rule.
Google hardly does any advertising or pushy sales - it has got where it is because of the quality of what they offer. I was a huge AltaVista fan and I moved to Google only because of how well it worked, no other reason needed.
Now what Google does very well at is marketing, which to my mind is bigger than sales. But the way they have been successful is to bake a little bit of marketing know-how into the culture which is then infused through products. It seems to be working really well so far.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Looks like someone doesn't like it when google proves them programmers can do a good job and win money at the same time. Too bad. I have no sympathy at people trying to win money through selling vaporware, then whining when someone good takes that money away from them, just because they suck at what it is they are supposed to do. Too, too bad.
People: Go get a clue about what it is you are trying to do, then whine when those who actually get it go in and take your deals away.
I don't really get it: do people who are so smart enough to manage millions can't get the fact that their customers will turn away if there is a better deal at hand? (What is a better deal? Let's see: It works and it costs next to nothing.) Or is it just that their contempt for people in general is beginning to show and they do indeed treat customers and employees alike like cattle?
No, you're getting confused. It was John Scully and Jean Louis Gassée who presided over the disastrous Apple pricing debacle - both of whom are business people not techies.
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
I don't think the implication was that Software Engineering is not a true occupation. There's no question of that.
The dispute about whether Software Engineers should really be called engineers stems from the fact that engineering is a regulated profession (in virtually every jurisdiction where it is practised), yet to my knowledge most if not all Software Engineering degrees are not true accredited degrees (this is going to change very soon in Ontario as Waterloo and McMaster Universities are accrediting their Software Engineering degrees). Thus, unless you are a licensed engineer under a governing body of professional engineers, like the PEO in Ontario, you have no legal liability for your actions as an engineer, and it is probably illegal to claim professionally to be an engineer at all (to avoid the misconception that you bring the associated legal responsibilities with your work).
You can take your responsibilities as seriously as you like, but that means squat to your clients or the court unless you are a registered, regulated professional engineer.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
rolling over laughing in her grave, I'm sure.
and I have money. You lose my hick friend.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
It's such a fundamental split that it becomes hard to imagine companies running any other way. After I left journalism, I was thinking one day about Procter & Gamble, and realized, "Hey! they don't have an analogue to an editorial department! All they do is sell soap!"
It seems a small leap for Google to set itself up this way as well -- they made it clear from their SEC filings that they have another mission in mind beyond just making money. In Google's case, it's the engineers who fulfill the mission.
Judaism is a religion, not a race. You can be anti-Jewish and a racist, but you can also be a racist and not anti-Jewish.
Everyone has money. I have money to spare. You lose you little pigfucking cunt-casket.
This is super. I work in finance, and figure that given the mess which is IT architecture and lack of development practices, we wouldn't be so huge if it wasn't for the alert and geeky traders below. I always saw it as a shame that where it matters most, the geek is suppressed until needed in a dire situation. The rest of the time it's the man in the suite with the head full of - well redundant grey matter - that manages to string lots of random 8859 letters together and place these into elementary sentences, which become policy, dictate and mind-less dogma. I think that the interviewee in the interview was just gob-smacked that he actually had to 'produce' sound, as opposed to conventional wisdom. I was refused a job at another bank, where the job was obviously mine, for being technically excellent but 'too' geeky. I LOVE the Google caste system and the second I can convince my other half ( oddly I have one ), to hop countries again, I'll be knocking on their ports.
Heh, it's fun watching a two-bit white trash member of the Hillbilly Herrenvolk steadily exposing himself for the savage he truly is. Watch out! Take your copy of the Turner Diaries, put on your Klansman's cloak and drive your pickup truck to the nearest jungle (don't forget to take your sister/wife and your mutant children with you). Dance around a flaming cross and preach the "God given supremacy of the white race" to a bunch of trees before the FBI and ATF break down your door, kill you and boast about eliminating another white supremacist on CNN wile I share a drink with my Jewish friends, point and laugh.Your guns are mine,hick, and there "ain't thing one you cin do anout it BOAH"!!!!
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
*que for all to bow and worship
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
I wonder, if it's possible just to make software replacing what the suits do.
It's already done in the stock market, so... what really those people do that can't be done by a computer?
Read financial statements? Nope. Give a team feedback about the rentability of a product line? Maybe, but the gap is closing.
In fact, a computer simulated matrix of game theory could perform better that what most of these people do.
Remember, the suits would fire everybody if they could replace programmers with machines, so why not fire them and let the smart people enjoy themselves?
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I'm a black ethopian jew. And if you read above I have no prejudice against race, creed, religion or sex. I hate you - and one day you shall be punished for your insolence.
I don't get you. If you are truly who you say who you are then you should know that I speak the truth about the virulent crimes of Caucasian Christians. They have done no better in your country, using the carrot-and-stick approach to try and convert the helpless poor in Ethiopia into Christianity, much like that cracker bitch Teresa did in mine. It is more likely that you're a redneck fibbing about your ethnic/religious origins as a ploy to gain sympathy from the general reader, in which case you are a despicable creature who perpetrates falsehoods and disrespects the suffering of Ethiopians and world Jewry in general and should be summarily silenced. Or you are some sort of Islamist radical blinded by Al-Quaeda's propaganda against Hindus, and are using canards to advance some sort of fundamentalist agenda. Your words and the tone of your posts is closer to that of uneducated poor white protestant christians south of the Mason-Dixon line in the United States. Bitter, terror-mongering , violent, inflammatory and generally uncivilised and uncooth.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
I am here by the one true God, Yahweh, he has sent me to weed out those who would enslave the Jews. You are a surreptitious evil force working to vanquish me and the rest of us black Jewry and we will defend ourselves.
Huh????? Are you crazy, or just plain high? Black Jewry is such a small minority that we don't even CARE about you. There have been more Bene Yisraelis (both in munber and in significance) in India than there have been Jews in Ethiopia. Most people don't even know you exist. Why should we want to oppress/enslave you when you are not significant enough to be opressed/enslaved in the first place? What do you have that we would want? Sand? Why would we want your slave labor when so many of your countrymen are suffering from chronic malnutrition and couldn't do any work anyway? We have plenty of people in our own country to do menial work, we don't need people who can barely eat. You need to worry about the fundamentalist Muslims who have surrounded your country and are murdering people in your neighbor Sudan. They want you all to DIE. They want Israel wiped off the map. You want to stop a REAL threat to Jewry, focus on THEM instead you idiot. Go feed your starving poor and make nice with Eritrea, it'll do you better than trolling on /.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand