Former Google CIO Suggests 'Do Dumb Things'

Hah! by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 11:50 · Score: 0

Well, I feel vindicated at any rate. I've made a life and a career out of doing dumb things.

Re:Hah! by Sadsfae · 2011-07-25 11:56 · Score: 4, Informative

"the more project management you do the less likely your project is to succeed."
There is quite a lot of truth to this statement.

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Have a squat over at the hobo house.
Re:Hah! by modmans2ndcoming · 2011-07-25 12:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

Project management is an inverted parabola. Too little and you will fail due to lack of direction and budget, too much and you will smother it.
Re:Hah! by NuShrike · 2011-07-25 12:59 · Score: 1

Isn't this also a statement about the Google+ "real name" kerfuffle?
Re:Hah! by Dunbal · 2011-07-25 13:07 · Score: 1

aka paralysis by analysis.

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Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Re:Hah! by Tom · 2011-07-26 00:56 · Score: 1

Actually, it isn't that simple.
Very little or even no project management can still mean the project succeeds. Think about practically any project done in the hobby environment. You don't need MS Project to go on a camping trip with your buddies. You assort tasks, everyone does his share, and whatever problems come up will be solved when they come up.
It works because people care about the project and will do more than just what has been specified for them. In fact, there is quite a bit of evidence that in environments where people are truly motivated, planning and management is detrimental to the end result.
However, there are two conditions under which project management becomes required:
a) If people don't give a fuck and won't do a thing unless you tell them explicitly what they need to do.
b) The project reaches a complexity where individual members lose sight of the overal goal and state.

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Re:Hah! by kbolino · 2011-07-26 02:08 · Score: 1

An inverted parabola is a (complex) square root. I think you mean a concave parabola, but honestly any strictly concave function would match your definition.
Re:Hah! by tg123 · 2011-07-26 03:05 · Score: 1

Project management is an inverted parabola. Too little and you will fail due to lack of direction and budget, too much and you will smother it.
Project management in I.T. is a different animal to Project management in other industries. To give an analogy ...
You have to be careful when moving train tracks to a different location because you may have to build a whole new train station.
Re:Hah! by Quirkz · 2011-07-26 05:11 · Score: 1

Isn't "assorting tasks" a sort of project management? It may be decisions reached amongst peers without any real leader, but it's still managing something. Unless your camping trip is "everyone provide for themselves," most of the time you do want to spend at least a little time figuring out who's bringing what, cooking which meals, etc. Often that's really easy, and as you note if the individuals involved are interested and engaged it's generally trivial, but if you don't plan at all and wait until you're out in the woods to ask "now who brought the tent?" you're asking for trouble. Maybe there's a semantic divide here where I'd call that management and you're calling that something else like cooperation that you don't consider management?

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The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Re:Hah! by BoberFett · 2011-07-26 05:12 · Score: 1

However, there are two conditions under which project management becomes required:
a) If people don't give a fuck and won't do a thing unless you tell them explicitly what they need to do.
b) The project reaches a complexity where individual members lose sight of the overal goal and state.
In other words, most projects at your average company.
Re:Hah! by Tom · 2011-07-26 10:21 · Score: 1

Only in part. My work experience says that most projects really aren't that complicated - until the managers or the lawyers show up. Or in other words: The risk-averse types. Who don't really avert any risks - I've worked closely with the corporate risk manager for a while. Managers don't reduce risks, they manage them. In other words: They write them down and file them, so that when the shit hits the fan, they can hide behind the paperwork.
That is part of what makes many projects unnecessarily complicated. The actual project is often fairly simple. But doing it in a way that management understands is what makes it complicated.
In settings - even corporate environments - where people are allowed to make mistakes, and risk is part of doing business, projects are generally a lot simpler. Because at the point where you have to say "and if X happens, we're fucked" you do actual risk management - you check what the risk is, and if it's a risk you're willing to take, you take it. And that's that. Your risk assessment documentation basically is "we know that if X happens, we're fucked. we're taking that chance". You don't need 20 people signing off on 100 pages detailling everything to manage risk. You only need that if all of those 20 people are insisting on covering their asses.

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Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Re:Hah! by modmans2ndcoming · 2011-07-26 15:12 · Score: 1

and how is building a large software product, or installing a new piece of software for use in the enterprise not the same animal?
Re:Hah! by modmans2ndcoming · 2011-07-26 15:13 · Score: 1

you are correct.

In what way did it change the game by bugs2squash · 2011-07-25 11:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

is he saying that if the hardware he made was, say, 20% more power hungry and 10% more expensive it would have rendered Google's business idea unworkable. I'm not sure I buy it. Maybe it allowed him to scale up with less capital, but I think a 20% slower google would still have won hearts and minds during the period it was being created.

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Nullius in verba

Re:In what way did it change the game by wisnoskij · 2011-07-25 12:54 · Score: 1

I don't know, seems reasonable to me. Profit margins can be pretty slim and it does not take much to go from making a cent per user to losing a cent per user and no business is built on losing money.

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:In what way did it change the game by guspasho · 2011-07-25 12:59 · Score: 1

No business is built on losing money AND no business grows as large and as quickly as Google has by running a slim profit margin.
Re:In what way did it change the game by wisnoskij · 2011-07-25 13:19 · Score: 3, Informative

Many huge businesses run on tiny profit margins. if you do enough business then it compensates and google does a ton of business.
And thus are huge percentage increases. 20% more cost to operate the hardware and 10% more to build? That would of turned a healthy profit margin into a non existent one (don't forget we are talking about the beginning of Google so I doubt that they had so many employees to make hardware cost insignificant).

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Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Re:In what way did it change the game by YojimboJango · 2011-07-25 14:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you're not buying that how about buying reading lessons.
He's saying that getting cheap crappy hardware that failed all the time forced them to write software with a high tolerance for failure. A little between the lines and he's saying that if they didn't go through the hardship of failing hardware they would've never written something that could fail over to other machines. I can imagine that a system that fails over to a new server quickly would also be highly scalable with a little tweaking.
That 'dumb decision' to not invest in reliable hardware indirectly helped them build a highly scalable search system that became their whole companies foundation. Over management and strict adherence to known process would have produced a Google search that would've required a massive rewrite to their (at the time only) product right when they were getting off the ground.
TLDR: If you're big enough to hire a consultant that tells you to, "Think outside the box", you're probably too big to think outside the box.
Re:In what way did it change the game by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 15:33 · Score: 0

is he saying that if the hardware he made was, say, 20% more power hungry and 10% more expensive it would have rendered Google's business idea unworkable. I'm not sure I buy it. Maybe it allowed him to scale up with less capital, but I think a 20% slower google would still have won hearts and minds during the period it was being created.
Or maybe it set the status quo which dictated that they need be as efficient and resourceful as possible. I would think the overall mindset and atmosphere of the company may be one of the most realistic motivators you could have, and seeing that the company you're working for being that mindful of their spending and limited resources would actually be quite humbling in favor of a focus on the business' livelihood.
Re:In what way did it change the game by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 22:00 · Score: 0

To make it short, the price difference between professional servers and cheap hardware is a lot more than 10%. More like a factor of 10
Re:In what way did it change the game by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 02:14 · Score: 0

If you're not buying that how about buying reading lessons.
He's saying that getting cheap crappy hardware that failed all the time forced them to write software with a high tolerance for failure..........
I think you miss the point. He is using Business "jargon" against itself to change people's thinking.
What he is saying "reading between the lines"is that by Not outsourcing the hardware Google had full control over the product.
In Business today it is considered dumb to produce the whole product yourself when another company can produce a piece of your product
for a much cheaper price. Your company then just assembles the end product and the costs saved equal more profit.
Here because they "found" the hardware in the trash they had to develop a software product that would work on it and they ended up
working out how to get the most out of the hardware.
Their competitors were unable to do that because the knowledge of the hardware was with another company / companies.
Re:In what way did it change the game by tg123 · 2011-07-26 02:22 · Score: 1

If you're not buying that how about buying reading lessons.
He's saying that getting cheap crappy hardware that failed all the time forced them to write software with a high tolerance for failure..........
I think you miss the point. He is using Business "jargon" against itself to change people's thinking.
What he is saying "reading between the lines"is that by Not outsourcing the hardware Google had full control over the product.
In Business today it is considered dumb to produce the whole product yourself when another company can produce a piece of your product
for a much cheaper price. Your company then just assembles the end product and the costs saved equal more profit.
Here because they "found" the hardware in the trash they had to develop a software product that would work on it and they ended up
working out how to get the most out of the hardware.
Their competitors were unable to do that because the knowledge of the hardware was with another company / companies.
Re:In what way did it change the game by tg123 · 2011-07-26 02:24 · Score: 1

sorry about the double post
Re:In what way did it change the game by inviolet · 2011-07-26 03:37 · Score: 1

I don't know, seems reasonable to me. Profit margins can be pretty slim and it does not take much to go from making a cent per user to losing a cent per user and no business is built on losing money.
Groupon, anyone?
Unfortunately people are mistaken about which business is being built under that name. They assume, quite wrongly, that Groupon is building a business uniting groups of consumers with willing retailers via special bulk coupon offers. Groupon's actual business is farming IPO money. Just look at how much effort they've spent on product development. :)

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FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
Re:In what way did it change the game by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-27 11:50 · Score: 0

Please remember that these are all wrong, always:
would of
could of
should of
Always, always wrong.

Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 11:53 · Score: 0, Troll

*you* go do dumb things. We don't like competition. Always be wary of free advice from rich people, they like the view from the top, *alone*.

Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 13:34 · Score: 0

Insightful is -1 now?

Yea, right by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 11:55 · Score: 0

Tell that to the Project Managers when their boss asks them 'So, what did you do this month to earn your check?' Software development is broken, almost by definition.

Project management by br00tus · 2011-07-25 11:56 · Score: 2

I think most project managers are a waste as well. In a small company it is unneeded. I'm more circumspect to say whether or not they're needed in a big company, but they certainly seem less needed in small, closely connected groups. If you have a big, long project, with people from different divisions doing different things, then yes, a project manager can be helpful. On a small project, with a few people, who work closely already on a variety of things, project managers just tend to get in the way. I don't know how many projects I've been brought into at the last minute because someone quit or whatever, and the PM points to my place on the timeline - I'm already two weeks late in finishing whatever is supposed to be done on the day I'm brought into the project. It's just completely pointless aside from those large collaborations that cross across many people in many different groups at a company.

Re:Project management by modmans2ndcoming · 2011-07-25 12:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

BAD project management gets in the way... a project manager is suppose to get obstacles out of the way of the talent and provide resources where needed... not crack the whip because they are idiots.
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:18 · Score: 1

My pm is most valuable in the budget forecasting stage. A good pm helps me manage expectations for cost and time. Good pms are not just micromanagers. They can help you give an educated guess to your funders of how much a project will cost.
Re:Project management by Guido+von+Guido · 2011-07-25 12:20 · Score: 1

BAD project management gets in the way... a project manager is suppose to get obstacles out of the way of the talent and provide resources where needed... not crack the whip because they are idiots.
Another thing that kills project is bad management. A good project manager can't be effective if bad management gets in the way.
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

rubbish...
Sorry someone will end up doing the job of the project manager. Seen it happen dozens of times.
Get a real one and you see what was missing...
Get a myopic dick and they can grind things to a halt.
Re:Project management by c0lo · 2011-07-25 12:29 · Score: 1

I think most project managers are a waste as well. In a small company it is unneeded. I'm more circumspect to say whether or not they're needed in a big company, but they certainly seem less needed in small, closely connected groups.
I argue that you need project management all the time, only the amount of it varies in depending the size of the project. I tend to agree, however, that if you do project management in excess of what's needed, almost all the time is a failure guarantee.
In short, when doing it the proper way, project management is related with the "cost of prevention", thus:
a. you may skip the prevention and, if lucky enough, you may succeed; but...
b. ... if you are excessively cautious, nobody is going to get you back the time and effort you spend in being prepared.
Of course, if you do PM in a wrong way, then the effort is wasted from the very beginning; no matter how small is the impact, it's still a waste.

--
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Re:Project management by Vanderhoth · 2011-07-25 12:29 · Score: 1

If that's the case, then I've never met a GOOD project manager. Generally the project managers I've worked with seem to think their jobs are to slow me down. I had one tell me it was because when I completed my work too soon it would make the project estimates look bad. Then he proceeded to load me down with process, Quality Assurance and configuration management reports. All of which were turfed when the project managers were rotated because one took a "promotion".

I agree some management in the planning stage is good. Too much in the development and testing phases just puts the fire out and kills the project.
Re:Project management by alvinrod · 2011-07-25 12:30 · Score: 1

It really depends on what amount of management needs to be done and wether or not developers will use sane project management practices themselves. In smaller groups, things will generally work well assuming that group of developers in that group is well disciplined and are able to identify what needs to be done. Once the group size increases, so does the communication overhead, while the contribution of any one person decreases. At that point you need someone looking at the big picture and providing some guidance.

Project management is only a tool, and like most tools it can misused and produce horrible results. In my own opinion, anyone who's been put into the position of project management should be able to jump in and provide help in area that they're overseeing. If they're not capable of doing it themselves, they'll only have a flawed conception of the problem, diminishing their ability to make good management decisions.
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:31 · Score: 0

Sorry someone will end up doing the job of the project manager.
Who's the project manager for the Linux kernel? Linus Torvalds, who is also the technical lead and chief architect, and who (not incidentally) founded the project and wrote most of the early code.
Who's the project manager for evolution of C++ as a programming language? Bjarne Stroustrup.
Who's the project manager for Product X at Big Software Co.? Somebody who doesn't know dick about programming, but took a course in SQL once. What they do is remind everyone, every day, that everything they do has to be organized within the efforts of an organization of a hundred or more people, just on the front side (pre-release). So whatever agility the organization used to have, is gone as these bossy PM's love to spell out why the rules and schedule have to be inflexible as they are. They'll throw the 0's in your face... 9 figures revenue recognition depends on this project shipping on that date, etc.
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think most project managers are a waste as well. In a small company it is unneeded.
My job is a fucking endless nightmare because of people who think like you. :(
Still, in all fairness, I would (and do :/) take no project management at all over bad project management. Bad PM isn't just catastrophic, it's an extinction-level dinosaur-killing asteroid of fail.
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:49 · Score: 1

Dude, you way overestimate the PMs ability at a large company. At IBM most of the PMs I deal with don't know the difference between Firefox and IE, cannot figure out how to use tabs in a browser and get confused if given details of work being done. But hey, they got certified and trained on MS Project.
Re:Project management by jellomizer · 2011-07-25 13:15 · Score: 1

Often the problem is when these plans are made, time lines are too optimistic to get it under budget. Then the timelines are used as a whip to judge people success or failure.
They work better if you can have blanks. And the project managers job is about keeping the project going and all the requirements are met.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 13:24 · Score: 0

Project Management:
"We need you to give us a timeframe for our GANTT chart so we can set start and end dates for the project."
Um, ok, what exactly is the project? Do we actually have a definition of what we're trying to accomplish?
"No, but we need to tell us how long it'll take you to write this thing we haven't even defined what we want yet."
Re:Project management by Savantissimo · 2011-07-25 14:42 · Score: 1

Oh, yeah - nothing makes you look more incompetent than having your project be ahead of schedule.

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"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Re:Project management by jd2112 · 2011-07-25 15:04 · Score: 1

Oh, yeah - nothing makes you look more incompetent than having your project be ahead of schedule.
I take it you've never worked in the Government sector? On time/under budget is the last thing you want because next year's budget will be cut.

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Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Re:Project management by jd2112 · 2011-07-25 15:06 · Score: 1

you may skip the prevention and, if lucky enough, you may succeed;
That sure worked out well for BP

--
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Re:Project management by sirnobicus · 2011-07-25 15:13 · Score: 1

A good PM is invaluable. A bad PM just adds needless overheads. I have had both. Even on little projects, PMs can be a great resource. Their main task is to keep the project on track, and stop all the crap getting to the people who are actually doing the work.
Re:Project management by djdanlib · 2011-07-25 16:21 · Score: 1

You and the parent poster have some very true points. Your project manager could be the most effective PM ever, but management could say "We want to meet about this [inconsequential thing] before proceeding [for the sake of our monthly justification to upper management that our employment is not pointless]. Oh, by the way, some of us are going to be on vacation until next month, so we need to wait until next month." Happens all the time.
Re:Project management by rtb61 · 2011-07-25 18:17 · Score: 1

There are two types of project managers, professional project managers and of course professional in the project being done who can project manage. These two produce greatly different results, one who only concerned in generating personal income for generating as much project management paperwork as possible and being able to blame everyone else for their failures. The other of course has skills and understanding of the work at hand, a produces the correct amount of project management to produce a result, this amount being limited by the time the person can make available to the project management task.
University is largely to blame for delusion that generic project managers can project manage any type of product effectively, all based upon parroting a few textbooks, oddly they don't even bother to teach time motion studies, one of the most essential understandings for effective project management.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:Project management by Javaman59 · 2011-07-25 19:06 · Score: 1

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2007-12-09/

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I'm a software visionary. I don't code.
Re:Project management by Pieroxy · 2011-07-25 19:47 · Score: 1

you may skip the prevention and, if lucky enough, you may succeed;
That sure worked out well for BP
Because BP is all about software.
*context*, it's all about context ! People are talking about software here.

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Write boring code, not shiny code!
Re:Project management by Lonewolf666 · 2011-07-25 19:54 · Score: 1

I actually know a project manager who worked like this. The guy was laid off about two years ago, and while I don't know management's actual reasons for firing him, it was the best decision they made in a loooong time :-)

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C - the footgun of programming languages
Re:Project management by Neil+Boekend · 2011-07-25 21:06 · Score: 1

you could use the spare money to buy a new Airhockey table for the programmers. That'll solve the spare money and time!

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Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 21:38 · Score: 0

talent? Hahahah talent. Hahahahaha
Is that what they call factory workers now? talent?
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 22:30 · Score: 0

If that's the case, then I've never met a GOOD project manager.
It's not unlikely. Project management is pretty hard and unless the project manager has done some substantial work in the field he/she will spend much of the workforces time just to get an idea of what is going on. (Yes, if you don't have eperience in the particular field you will not know what questions to ask and when project management is the least intrusive.)
If you ever meet a good project manager you will notice this when he/she notices that a project is behind schedule and informs the management, argues AGAINST adding more people to the project and suggests cutting out useless features to meet a specific deadline. (Preferably those added by marketing after the project was planned.)
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 23:03 · Score: 0

Project Management roles in a smaller company: They are a GREAT place to park toxic personalities that you cannot fire due to (whatever political force).
They only do as much damage as you are willing to allow them to do. They can *say* anything they like of course, which is a little hard on real staffers from time to time.
Re:Project management by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 01:38 · Score: 0

In other news, sheep find the border collie to be annoying and unnecessary.
Re:Project management by jd2112 · 2011-07-26 14:12 · Score: 1

you may skip the prevention and, if lucky enough, you may succeed;
That sure worked out well for BP
Because BP is all about software. *context*, it's all about context ! People are talking about software here.
Really, is there any difference between writing code and building an oil rig? When you have the capacity to Royally F*$& things up you had better not cut corners.

--
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Re:Project management by modmans2ndcoming · 2011-07-26 15:17 · Score: 1

That would be BAD project management. In fact, I would have to say, if that was ever a conversation I would have to wonder if they actually had a client or a PMO that had documentation requirements because a Statement of Work would have explained most of the questions presented....
A good PM will get in a room with his most experienced developers and work through the project requirements to come up with a time line by using the experience of the developers to say how long working through the story points will take.
Re:Project management by modmans2ndcoming · 2011-07-26 15:25 · Score: 1

It will depend on the project... if the SOW was for a contracted project, then it is a legally binding contract that will need to be renegotiated with the customer. It is sometimes more effective to add time or resources to the project to get back on track.. but that will only shorten the time frame by about 25% max, no matter how many resources you add. The key is to watch your metrics closely and fix problems immediately.
Re:Project management by Pieroxy · 2011-07-26 16:05 · Score: 1

you may skip the prevention and, if lucky enough, you may succeed;
That sure worked out well for BP
Because BP is all about software.
*context*, it's all about context ! People are talking about software here.
Really, is there any difference between writing code and building an oil rig? When you have the capacity to Royally F*$& things up you had better not cut corners.
Yes there is. Plenty actually.

--
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Re:Project management by jd2112 · 2011-07-27 13:47 · Score: 1

you may skip the prevention and, if lucky enough, you may succeed;
That sure worked out well for BP
Because BP is all about software. *context*, it's all about context ! People are talking about software here.
Really, is there any difference between writing code and building an oil rig? When you have the capacity to Royally F*$& things up you had better not cut corners.
Yes there is. Plenty actually.
Remind me not to hire you for any software project. At least not for anything important.

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Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.

Sorry, but Google is no role model by Opportunist · 2011-07-25 11:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

Google succeeded because it was at the right time at the right place. Nothing else. Yes, there were other search engines before it, but Google set a standard and ran with it. Try the same approach in the same field of business today and you will fail. Invariably. Likewise with the next EBay, the next Amazon, the next Facebook. No, they were not the first. But they were amongst the first and they were there and "the best" at just the right time when the service they offered suddenly got popular.

That's all that is to their success. Nothing more, nothing less. Just pure luck. You might also say good timing, but I kinda doubt anyone can actually predict so accurately when which service hits the sweet spot. If he could, most of these services would be in one hand. Why? Because that person/organization would have hit the sweet spots more often than anyone else. Duh.

I wouldn't take any advice from any of those "successful" companies. They didn't do anything right where everyone else was too stupid. They were just lucky to be the one that were lucky enough to be the one being at the right place at the right time with the right product.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by TafBang · 2011-07-25 11:59 · Score: 0

How can you say it was the right time. Google's so innovative and the most popular thing on the web today. Google made life more efficient and knowledge easier to obtain. You're too stupid.... There was and is no wrong time for a service like Google.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
- Seneca
Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician (5 BC - 65 AD)
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Opportunist · 2011-07-25 12:09 · Score: 2

Create a search engine now and make it popular enough to have a two digit percentage share of the market. Hell, even MS with its position to cram Bing down every throat is struggling with it.
Did we need a good search engine? Sure we did. And Google is about the best engine there is, at least in my opinion. It certainly wasn't when it started. And if you started a search service today with the quality Google had in 98, you'd be laughed off and forgotten before you're done launching the product. This is what I mean with a "wrong time". It's over. Doing as Google did when it started will not be successful. That's what I mean with learning from them being not really a smart idea. What they did worked. Then. It probably won't work today anymore, at least in this business. It could work of course. If you just happen to be the company that hits the Next Big Thing at just the right time.
And that's what I mean with luck. If Google launched a year earlier or later, they would not have succeeded most likely. Not because or despite their strategy, but because their strategy doesn't matter as much as they (and it seems not only them) think. Having the right product at the right time matters. And that's something I seriously doubt that it could be predicted. Else, as stated, we'd see a lot more of the "key services" on the internet that are cash cows, from auction houses to internet phone to retail, would be in that one hand of that person or group who can predict the market well enough to launch their products at those "right" times.
I mean, why deliberately go and launch at the wrong time? Too early and nobody will care for it while you waste your money and energy. Too late and someone will already be there to gobble up users with you struggling to convince them that your service is better. You have to hit when that critical moment is upon us.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Attila+Dimedici · 2011-07-25 12:09 · Score: 2

Google succeeded because it was at the right time at the right place. Nothing else.
No, it was not "Nothing else." Google got it right (or close enough to right). Taking advice from Google would be a mistake because they are already dominant in the industry where there advice is most applicable. However, listening to how they chose to go against the "received wisdom" of business might help you to see how it might pay you to go against the "received wisdom" in your industry and be more successful.
Treating the pronouncements from a successful businessman from a different industry (probably even from the same industry) as "from on high", is foolish. Unfortunately, all too many people do so anyway. On the other hand if one looks at what they say about why they succeeded carefully can reveal insights that can lead to success.
Ultimately, I agree with you that many people give the statements by the guys from Google, or Jeff Bezos from Amazon, or many others too much credence. On the other hand, your post goes too far the other way in dismissing the wisdom to be gleaned from what these guys say (the key being the word glean:to gather slowly and laboriously, bit by bit.).

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The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by JordanL · 2011-07-25 12:15 · Score: 1

And this is a great example of why you are not a multi-billionaire or successful CIO suggesting people do dumb things: successful business people are at the right place at the right time because they decide to make that time NOW. Facebook, Google, eBay, Amazon... for them it was the right time because they put a lot of effort into making it the right time.

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FanFictionRecs.net
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:19 · Score: 0

Sorry, no, there were plenty of search companies before Google. AltaVista was my favorite, but Yahoo's search wasn't bad. Then I tried Google, and it blew them all away with the simplicity and cleanliness of the interface and the quality of their search results.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by dkleinsc · 2011-07-25 12:25 · Score: 1

No, Google succeeded because they did search with a far better algorithm than anything else out there at the time. It came into being several years after the first search engines, and was up against several established players, such as Yahoo. They also made one very smart marketing move, which is still with them today: The front page of Google was a simple search box, whereas the front page of their competitors was loaded with widgets and paid ads. In the days of 56k modems, that meant you could load Google faster and search faster.
Facebook, too, also was up against an established competitor in MySpace. They won out by providing a service that was (at the time) less bloated, more private, and less ad-driven than MySpace (and then proceeded to make it more bloated, less private, and more ad-driven, but that's another story).
Plenty of other companies have succeeded in marketplaces with established competitors - Ben and Jerry's, for instance, built up from practically nothing in a highly competitive market.
Luck makes a difference, no doubt: I was talking with another CS grad from my alma mater who had turned down a chance to be Google employee #5 because he was heading to a good job in computer graphics and didn't want to risk it all on some crazy start-up. He's done just fine for himself at Pixar, but one coin flip the other way and he might well have had a fortune.

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I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by maxwell+demon · 2011-07-25 12:35 · Score: 1

And if you started a search service today with the quality Google had in 98, you'd be laughed off and forgotten before you're done launching the product.
Really? I'd prefer the quality of search results it had back then ...

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by The+Dawn+Of+Time · 2011-07-25 12:58 · Score: 1

Yeah exactly success is nothing but luck. Is that maybe your reason why you deserve the fruits without putting in the labor? I've certainly read that cute little hypothesis here often enough.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by AaronW · 2011-07-25 13:04 · Score: 1

Back when Google first came out it gained popularity due to the quality of its results compared with Alta Vista and others. The others couldn't hold a candle to Google with their page rank algorithm.
The other thing that made Google so popular was that the other search engines were completely cluttered with animated ads all over the place whereas Google just had a simple clean interface.

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This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 13:04 · Score: 0

Facebook: Zuckerburg stole everything Facebook is from another site. As a very early user of both, his site was inferior. He got lucky, but also had an advantage because he had no morals and was willing to lie, cheat, and take advantage of people.
Google: Google was the first in a new generation of search engines. It was basically a PhD paper that launched a billion-dollar enterprise. Everything they've done since then, with the arguable exception of adwords, has been mediocre -- much like Microsoft with Windows/Office, it's a huge business riding on one innovation followed by market capture.
I don't know the history of the other two as well, but I recall reading an article about a study a while back that analyzed hugely successful people. The one thing they all had in spades? Fantastic luck. If I had to guess, I'm betting second place is lack of morals bordering on sociopathy.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Dahamma · 2011-07-25 13:05 · Score: 1

Google succeeded because it was at the right time at the right place. Nothing else.
Except that there were a dozen search engines at the SAME "right" time and place, and none of them had the same success as Google. They won out in search because their search result quality and simplicity at the time blew away everyone else's, and they have continued to be the best in their class.
And they are making massive profits now not because they have "good search", but because they put large *effort* into making their advertising network and tools the best in class, as well.
Luck is usually what other people call success when someone succeeds where they haven't (aka "sour grapes"). Doesn't matter if there was a huge amount of planning and effort put in. Anyone can scale a global network globally to of millions of servers, translate into almost every modern language, have the best email client, mapping software, and other services, etc, if they get lucky..
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by turbidostato · 2011-07-25 13:06 · Score: 1

"Yeah exactly success is nothing but luck"
No. What he says is that luck is what makes the difference. A lot of people come with good ideas, hard word and even enough capital but only a few success. What's the difference between the ones and the others?
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by jakartus · 2011-07-25 13:28 · Score: 1

"No one is better at anything than anyone (especially me). They were just lucky and in the right place at the right time. Anyone could have done it, really." Soon to be followed by the reasoning "It isn't fair, we should all have what they do, just luck I say, let us form a committee to redistribute the wealth"
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Aydsman · 2011-07-25 15:01 · Score: 2

And if you started a search service today with the quality Google had in 98, you'd be laughed off and forgotten before you're done launching the product.
Really? I'd prefer the quality of search results it had back then ...
You'd prefer the quality of results from back then, however if a new service was built with a similar quality algorithm as Google's from 1998 you'd not get those results. This is what I think Opportunist was meaning.
Since Google launched they've had to constantly tweak their service as websites change (either intentionally gaming the system or simply for new trends). Anyone building a new search engine would need to build to the current standard at least with all those tweaks and changes in order to get the same quality.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by AmberBlackCat · 2011-07-25 15:07 · Score: 1

Some people have a lot of opportunities and chances to eventually be prepared for one of them. Other people have spent their whole lives preparing and never had an opportunity.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 15:41 · Score: 0

You can't be "the best" by "Just pure luck" at *any* time. Period. Let alone "just the right time".
Osho
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by steelfood · 2011-07-25 16:11 · Score: 1

"Glean" doesn't require gathering slowly or laboriously. It only requires insight, which depending on the person and subject matter, comes after a variable amount of time. Take a story, abstract it to the relevant bits, and apply it elsewhere as necessary. The key is to know which bits to take, and when to apply it.
In this particular case, he's saying to think out of the box, and to not be restricted by preconceptions. That certain methods do not produce the optimal results in the short term should not necessarily be a hindrance, and that it can produce even better results in the long term.

--
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by sunspot42 · 2011-07-25 16:33 · Score: 1

much like Microsoft with Windows/Office, it's a huge business riding on one innovation followed by market capture.
This nails it. Google is a fantastically successful advertising agency which started out as a search business. They were better than Alta Vista but not THAT much better. They were, however, less cluttered. Yahoo! took the opposite approach when it came to clutter, and look where that got 'em.
Which brings up another point - Google was lucky to have stupid competitors. Yahoo! has been run by idiots for years, and Alta Vista had the misfortune of being run by DEC. Microsoft was late to the game, as they've been late to pretty much every game, and their OS monopoly didn't prove as useful as they probably thought it would.
As with MS, where the OS (and their Office monopoly) funds pretty much everything else (like the $30 billion they blew getting into the videogame business), Google's torrent of ad revenues funds all of their unprofitable excursions into unrelated markets (YouTube, Android, Google+, etc.).
The only company in the IT space which truly impresses me is Apple. They've been way too successful in way too many markets for way too long for it to have been an accident. Steve Jobs is an asshole, but he's also a genius. I think he'll go down as one of the two or three greatest businessmen in American history.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Javaman59 · 2011-07-25 19:25 · Score: 1

...It's over. Doing as Google did when it started will not be successful. That's what I mean with learning from them being not really a smart idea. What they did worked. Then. It probably won't work today anymore, at least in this business. It could work of course. If you just happen to be the company that hits the Next Big Thing at just the right time.
I am reminded of a site called PlanetAll which I joined in 1997. It was quite like facebook was in 2007, but cleaner and more useful. The basic idea was that you used your real name, and connected with real people who you knew from high school, college, etc. It was a very nice, and it even worked for myself and a few contacts. The site did very well and were purchased by Amazaon in 1998, but Amazon shut them down. However, if they had started in 2003, rather than 1997, they could well be synonymous with social networking. It must hurt to be them. Curiously, they were a group of Harvard graduates.

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I'm a software visionary. I don't code.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by GameboyRMH · 2011-07-26 00:22 · Score: 1

Mod parent Insightful!
The same is true for many pieces of software and gadgets - Windows and Skype being two very strong examples.
Apple on the other hand is an example of a company that knows when to hit sweet spots. Their dominance of the mobile device market was built on them knowing exactly when to make granny-friendly toy versions of existing gadgets.

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by red+crab · 2011-07-26 01:02 · Score: 1

Going by your analogy, as stupid competitors made Google successful, Apple has been made successful by its equally stupid users.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by V+for+Vendetta · 2011-07-26 04:24 · Score: 1

Did we need a good search engine? Sure we did. And Google is about the best engine there is, at least in my opinion. It certainly wasn't when it started. [...] If Google launched a year earlier or later, they would not have succeeded most likely. Not because or despite their strategy, but because their strategy doesn't matter as much as they (and it seems not only them) think.

What?
I've searched the web before Google with Yahoo, Altavista, Hotbot, Webcrawler and a dozen other "search engines" which names I've long have forgotten. And I still remember my disbelief when trying Google for the first time and almost every hit one the first page was relevenat for the stuff I searched for. "How do they do that?", I wondered, "Everybody else mostly returns crap (compared to Google)."
It wasn't the right time. It was the right idea: not just crawling the web for keywords, but weighting in the number of times that page is linked from other pages (PageRank). That's what made Google the company it is now within a short amount of time. Everyone who used Google for the first time didn't bother to go back to use his old search engine, because Google's results were so much better. Had Google been around a couple of years earlier, Yahoo for example would have never become the gorilla it was at that time.
You're right that for some products/companies the time matters very much. But choosing Google as an example wasn't a good choice, IMHO.
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by Quirkz · 2011-07-26 05:26 · Score: 1

Try the same approach in the same field of business today and you will fail. Invariably. Likewise with the next EBay, the next Amazon, the next Facebook. No, they were not the first. But they were amongst the first and they were there and "the best" at just the right time when the service they offered suddenly got popular.
This reminds me of some time I spent helping code a framework for a site billed as "the eBay of South America." Definitely designed as a me-too, and several years after eBay really took off. I've since checked and see that the site name now redirects to eBay, so it's been absorbed. What I'm really curious is if the site went out of business and got picked up (just another copycat failure) or if it was purchased by eBay for a tidy sum, which might be reason enough to justify trying to get into a market dominated by giants, if you can still cash in. Certainly Microsoft buys out little companies all the time if they've got something related to a Microsoft business but with a key niche feature.

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The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
Re:Sorry, but Google is no role model by TafBang · 2011-08-08 01:03 · Score: 0

I like how I have 0 points and the idiot who tried to say google was stupid got 2 points and insightful.... That retard must be a mod

Misleading summary by 101010_or_0x2A · 2011-07-25 11:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

Does anyone here even read the summary together with the article itself and see if it makes sense? He did *not* say "do dumb things". That statement implies that you know its a dumb thing to do and it will not work, yet you do it anyway. In this case you *are* dumb and should be fired. He said "don't be afraid to do dumb things", which has a totally different meaning. It means that you should try approaches that may be non-obvious, but at least you are attempting to solve whatever the problem at hand is in an ingenious way. Sometimes it does not work and you look foolish, but you often get innovative solutions to tough problems.

Re:Misleading summary by syousef · 2011-07-25 12:28 · Score: 1

Does anyone here even read the summary together with the article itself and see if it makes sense? He did *not* say "do dumb things". That statement implies that you know its a dumb thing to do and it will not work, yet you do it anyway. In this case you *are* dumb and should be fired. He said "don't be afraid to do dumb things", which has a totally different meaning.

Actually if you read what you just wrote, it logically implies that you should expect to be fired and not be afraid of it. I don't think you should be giving anyone subtle lessons in logic.

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These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Re:Misleading summary by c0lo · 2011-07-25 12:42 · Score: 1

Seriously, guys, read TFA. Here's another example of "dumb" but insightful:

On funding good people, Merrill recommends always "over hiring" and diversity matters.
"Diversity yields better outcomes. Hire someone who annoys you as they are more likely to be diverse and diverse practices are better," he said.
Any MBA graduate will tell you this is dumb, because you aren't trying to minimize the cost and create yourself the pains of constant frictions. Very few will recall that the profit has two components, and the "income" part of it is actually favored by diversification.

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Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Re:Misleading summary by martin-boundary · 2011-07-25 12:58 · Score: 1

The problem with these kinds of soundbytes is that you can make them say anything you like.
"Diversity yields better outcomes." WTF does that even mean? Without a definition of "better outcomes", it can be right or wrong. Do you really want an engineering department full of firemen, truckers, painters, sportspeople etc? No, you want an engineering department full of engineers.
"Hire someone who annoys you" Seriously? Do you want to spend the whole day having arguments and being stressed out about stupid shit? Is that really a better way to build products?
There's no insight here, just soundbytes that everyone interprets differently.
Re:Misleading summary by jakartus · 2011-07-25 13:39 · Score: 1

Well thankfully, Google wasn't run by MBA graduates
Re:Misleading summary by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 15:32 · Score: 0

The other way I understand his statement is, "don't be afraid to give a non-textbook answer". I had a business partner who came from the corporate world and learned to operate a certain way. The problem was that he couldn't adapt to the small business world where "doing things the right way" and "working with what we've got" don't always coincide.
Re:Misleading summary by c0lo · 2011-07-25 19:27 · Score: 1

"Hire someone who annoys you" Seriously? Do you want to spend the whole day having arguments and being stressed out about stupid shit? Is that really a better way to build products?
Personally, I favor a diversity of ideas in the inception stage, I found that leads to better products.

There's no insight here, just soundbytes that everyone interprets differently.
And you too are right: each one will pick what they want to hear. Does it make it less valuable? (are you in the search for "the silver bullet solution"?)

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Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Re:Misleading summary by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 20:38 · Score: 0

"Hire someone who annoys you" Seriously? Do you want to spend the whole day having arguments and being stressed out about stupid shit? Is that really a better way to build products?

Yeah! Yes Men make everything better!
Boss, you want to attach a heater to the computer for the cold winter nights? No problem! You want to create a security monitor with a 1 degree viewing angle! Sure thing! Hey boss! You want me to code the entire thing in half the time despite how COMPLETELY impossible it is and then you'll complain bitterly about how I'm lazy? No worries, I'll do it with a smile!
I don't think he means people that whistle when they breathe, complain about how the pencils aren't just the right length, argue strongly about the best Star Trek (TNG, hands down) or have a habit of turning all clocks at JUST the right angle so they can view it well. (Stop judging me, if the angle is wrong it feels uncomfortable) I think he means, don't immediately not hire or fire someone just because you're irritated that they had the gall to disagree with you.
Whenever people disagree with you, it becomes annoying. But sometimes you need that annoying bastard to keep picking at the flaws in the design to make a better product.
Re:Misleading summary by martin-boundary · 2011-07-25 20:39 · Score: 1

No, I'm saying these quotes have no intrinsic value. All the value that derives from them is what readers put in. So they shouldn't be viewed as distilled wisdom to be understood, but rather as nonsense to use as a conversation starter. They're basically like fortune cookie quotes.
Re:Misleading summary by Aceticon · 2011-07-25 23:51 · Score: 1

Doing things in ways others find dumb is the way to create a truly successful business.
Almost by definition, the only way to do things which is not tagged as dumb is the proven way, the way things are done by almost everybody and (lo-and-behold) the way countless well estabilished businesses do things now.
If you're starting a company that does things like everybody else, all you're going to be is a tiny player, with no real distinctive value offer (after all, you do it like everybody else), surrounded by large and well established competitors.
So the most successful business ideas that go from a glimer in somebody's eye to a full blown multi-million dollar business in less that a decade are the ones that involve doing "dumb" things. Things like providing for a customer need that everybody else though was not there or not worth the trouble (think Apple and iPhones), or approaching how to do something in a completely different way (thing how Google catalogs the web versus how Yahoo did it back then) or throwing out the assumptions that underpin an established business (look at the rise of free newspapers or how Apple sells technology as others sell fashion).
Re:Misleading summary by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 23:59 · Score: 0

I think the real message is "don't be afraid to do things others, or the 'prevailing wisdom' think are dumb". Dumpster dived components sound like a bad idea, but most of them are reasonably capable, just old.
I ran a nice little side business selling a commercial application that, if you wanted it that way, would be hosted on an old Pentium II running Linux. My $250 cost for the server looked awful good to small businesses who were used to hearing $5000 for hardware, and since I'd put a new hard drive in, the risks were minimal. Some customers understood some of the risks and went for backup units at that price.
Another common place to do dumb things is in the area of outsourcing. It may look cheaper to outsource the work, but if you take the time to have someone in-house learn how to do simple tasks, you're not beholden to the idea of having to get funding.
Re:Misleading summary by GameboyRMH · 2011-07-26 00:32 · Score: 1

I think what he meant was "try things that are considered dumb from a business/administrative perspective." Building your own servers, from a technical perspective, may be a brilliant thing to do, but would be considered dumb from a business/administrative perspective. From a business perspective, the smart thing to do is to follow the "Nobody Ever Got Fired For Buying IBM" mentality. To go with a nice packaged solution from one of the biggest, best-established companies with good brand-name recognition, technical details be damned.
In short, I think when he says "do dumb things" he means "run your tech company like a techie, not a PHB."

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:Misleading summary by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 01:28 · Score: 0

Um, the summary does indeed use the phrase 'Don't be afraid to do dumb things.' It's the bit that's highlighted as a link. I'm not sure how you could read the article without also seeing that.
Re:Misleading summary by Shifty0x88 · 2011-07-26 04:40 · Score: 1

"Hire someone who annoys you" Seriously? Do you want to spend the whole day having arguments and being stressed out about stupid shit? Is that really a better way to build products?
There's no insight here, just soundbytes that everyone interprets differently.
I believe what he meant by this, and don't take my word for it, but I believe what he was saying is that someone who may annoy you, is probably someone who will challenge your decisions and ideas, and that will make a better product because he may point out something that you did not think about.
At least, that is what I got out of that statement

Re:Google should know by yincrash · 2011-07-25 12:00 · Score: 1

This is not racist. It is culturally insensitive or culturally ignorant, but it has nothing to do with 'race'.

The is the wrong lesson all C*Os learn by Sarusa · 2011-07-25 12:04 · Score: 1

Don't do dumb things. Do calculatedly different things that break the conventional wisdom for good reasons. You can do risky things that you think have a good chance of failing but might have huge rewards as long as you know why you're doing it.

But the executive level takeaway seems to be "Hey, I didn't understand why that last thing worked, so why not just do whatever I want with impunity?" See anything Eric Schmidt has ever said, for example. Or Kaz Hirai.

Re:The is the wrong lesson all C*Os learn by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:46 · Score: 1

Well, in the macro view if there are lots of companies doing randomly dumb things, something might work and seem brilliant in retrospect.

Re:Google should know by lgarner · 2011-07-25 12:06 · Score: 1

Hehe, AC never fails to amuse. Anything about "Be Racist" in the posts you linked to? Nope, that's your not-too-bright interpretation. Nothing either about being rich, or white, or both. Just made-up inferences.

Nothing at all about Google+ is significant until it's released from testing to production, even if that time never comes. Even then, it's a private service offered by a private company. It may turn out to be a "dumb thing" to require real names as policy, and no doubt will be a "dumb thing" if they can't handle names that are 3-words (or hyphenated, or anything else), but the "dumbest thing" of all is for those who're concerned about this to use the service at all. They can continue using the current offerings.

Excellent advice! by dkleinsc · 2011-07-25 12:09 · Score: 2

Every single major corporation does dumb things all the time! Incompetence is rampant! That means, logically, if you want to create a major corporation, you need to cultivate a culture of incompetence and stupidity.

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I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/

I can't hear you! ... Okay, I can hear you now... by Tetsujin · 2011-07-25 12:10 · Score: 5, Funny

Continuing this line of thought, Merrill said, "Put all your eggs in one basket; Count your chickens before they hatch. Serve some wine before its time, find yourself an itch to scratch."

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Bow-ties are cool.

Re:Google should know by JordanL · 2011-07-25 12:12 · Score: 1

Racist? Uh... I guess... if you're into hyperbole.

Was that guy really trying to say that Google should let him list his REAL name as "CopyLion" because a larger number of people know him by that "nickname" and thus it is his actual name to most people?

Seems.. silly to me, but I guess it's more culturally acceptable in Hong Kong to be a virtual person? What are the ideas behind "virtual people" anyway? Can Google show that such people are actually people and not groups, amalgamations, fronts or scripts?

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FanFictionRecs.net

Re:I can't hear you! ... Okay, I can hear you now. by Tamran · 2011-07-25 12:27 · Score: 1

Continuing this line of thought, Merrill said, "Put all your eggs in one basket; Count your chickens before they hatch. Serve some wine before its time, find yourself an itch to scratch."

Citation Needed

Re:Google should know by maxwell+demon · 2011-07-25 12:29 · Score: 1

It may turn out to be a "dumb thing" to require real names as policy, and no doubt will be a "dumb thing" if they can't handle names that are 3-words (or hyphenated, or anything else), but the "dumbest thing" of all is for those who're concerned about this to use the service at all. They can continue using the current offerings.

But isn't the point of this story that you are supposed to do dumb things?

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

Project Managament by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:37 · Score: 1

"the more project management you do the less likely your project is to succeed.". I know someone that takes that philosophy to the extreme: ie zero project management. And it fails every time.

Re:Project Managament by Savantissimo · 2011-07-25 14:55 · Score: 1

The point is to be flexible - if you are open to learning, to experimenting, then as you work on a project you will discover better goals than the one you originally set out to reach. If you see a better goal along the way than the one you set out to reach, then change the goal. Changing the goal will mean throwing out all your schedules and project planning. But continuing on to the wrong goal just because you have invested a lot of time in a detailed plan for how to get there is dumb.

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"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
Re:Project Managament by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 22:02 · Score: 0

If you are working in a company where the original goal is completion of a project, the last thing you want is change the goal. Sometimes, one has to, @ the behest of a customer, or management. But it's a lot better both on reputation and on morale to successfully complete the original goals, have it noted, and then set off on new goals.
If a project has been mis-defined, or needs re-definition, change it, but then, it's not so much changing the goals as changing the project itself. But otherwise, anything that looks like a delay doesn't look good for the project team members. Having a good reason why one project had to be changed, or replaced by another, resulting in new schedules makes a lot more sense.

ah but by mevets · 2011-07-25 12:46 · Score: 2

if you do too little, you won't know that you failed.

Re:ah but by Jesus_666 · 2011-07-25 17:11 · Score: 1

Oh, I do. At my company we just had a talk with the boss about lack of management and its effects on us. Essentially we have him (who has no technical expertise and runs us as a side business), his second-in-command (who mostly handles customer relations) and two developers. Since nobody is there to translate between us the requirements often come across mangled and we were all surprised when it turned out that the developers interpreted silence as "nothing happened, I'm still working" while the others interpreted silence as "all work is done".

One of the effects of these communication issues is that most code I have written since joining the company needs a major overhaul despite not being that bad. It just either solves the wrong problem or solves the right problem in the wrong way.

We won't get a dedicated project manager but at least we talked the boss into getting a bit of process into the company. And I learned how useful it can be to have someone who speaks both developerese and nontechnicalese.

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USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Re:ah but by constpointertoconst · 2011-07-25 17:49 · Score: 1

I think the key term there is "translate".
It seems to me that translation is one of, if not the main role of management:
(not an exhaustive list)
* Translate requirements from users to developers
* Translate developer feedback to users
* Translate developer needs to reasonable budgetary possibilities
* Translate across departments
* Translate developers to each other (avoid and resolve internal communication problems)
Communication breakdown is oft cited as one of the main reasons for failure. By facilitating effective communication, you add a strong layer of protection against failure.
Do this well and leave it the developers to translate the requirements to working solutions.
Re:ah but by thaig · 2011-07-25 18:43 · Score: 2

I have never found that translation helps. Being able to speak directly to people who wanted things was the greatest luxury and saved huge effort as we ended up not doing a lot of things that "translators" had mistakenly thought was necessary and did other things that were *actually* vital.

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This is all just my personal opinion.
Re:ah but by constpointertoconst · 2011-07-25 19:09 · Score: 1

In a situation where things are simple enough to be handled ad hoc practically, that's fine and preferred, but some situations are too complex where you don't necessarily want your developers spending their time trying to sort through politics to figure out what they need to implement.
Re:ah but by mcvos · 2011-07-25 23:26 · Score: 1

if you do too little, you won't know that you failed.
And if you do too much, the failure couldn't possibly have been your fault, can it?
Re:ah but by BoberFett · 2011-07-26 05:11 · Score: 1

Ooooh, oooh! As long as we get to talk to the developers directly, can I request that the main screen of the program has a picture of a cat on it? I like cats.
One of my top priorities as a software development manager is to keep people away from my developers so they can do their jobs.

Re:Google should know by victorhooi · 2011-07-25 12:50 · Score: 2

heya,

Well, I started reading the top and it sounded reasonable (terrible English aside)...lol....

But then I got to the gist of it. The guy wants Google (and Google Plus) to list his real name as "CopyLion". Like, seriously?

Ok, I know HK's have zany names (one of my best friend's is called "Alpha"), but really? *shakes heads*.

I mean, my name is "Victor" - that's an anglicisation we picked up. My Chinese name is "XiaoKang", which is rendered as my middle name in English. Whenever anybody asks for my name, I give it the same as it's written on my birth certificate, or passport. I'm not going to try and inject something weird like Victor "THE AWESOMENESS" Hooi is my real name...

All of these whiney HK people have real names, jeez. Just render them as PinYin, as I did, and put that as your real name.

This CopyLion dude even gives us an example himeself (or herself) - CHAN, Tai Man . There you go - his name is "Tai Man Chan". Problem solved.

It's funny how they're trying to fly the OH NOES YOUR RACIST!!! flag to try to sneak in using nicknames, and get around rules...lol.

Cheers,
Victor

Thowing mud at walls by scottbomb · 2011-07-25 12:53 · Score: 1

Google is king of search because they do it better than everyone else. Back in the day, when all search engines seemed to do the same thing, Google came along and did it better. Google became famous for providing more relevant results (and they still do) want results. If someone comes along with a better search engine, Google is finished. Therefore, it seems logical that they invest in other ideas to avoid having all their eggs in one basket.

They produced an office suite but it never really caught on. People still like to have software that actually resides on the hard disk.

They bought out a company called Android and made Steve Job sweat. Yet they give it away for free (while Microsoft profits on it!) . I'd like to see how that ROI looks on paper.

Ditto their browser.

They practically put the map-makers out of business with awesome mapping software but like everything else they do, they give it away. Who wouldn't have paid $5 or $10 for Google Maps?

Eventually, they might find some mud that sticks to the walls and who knows, maybe they'll even ask a few bucks for it. Until then, they'll stay plenty busy playing with investors' money (bidding the value of pi, etc.).

I'm a little bit confused... by mevets · 2011-07-25 12:53 · Score: 1

Are you saying you have Linus representing the Good; Bjarne representing the Bad; and a faceless dud in the middle?

I get what your saying about C++, but it seems a bit harsh to Bjarne; he had lots of help making that mess.

Re:I'm a little bit confused... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 13:00 · Score: 0

Bjarne has the same relation to C++ as Linus does to Linux. Founder, chief architect, technical lead, project manager. I decided not to repeat the whole refrain.
Stroustrup's dedication and skill as project manager is a big reason that C++ has maintained relevance and market share for over two decades. By contrast, Objective C waned and almost disappeared, had it not been for Apple.
Re:I'm a little bit confused... by mevets · 2011-07-25 14:13 · Score: 1

Do you ever get the feeling that an airplane passed just over your head, but no matter where you look, its not there?

Ignorance by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 12:56 · Score: 0

I call this functioning with the benefit of ignorance. Sometimes the reason why something cant or shouldn't be done is either wrong or no longer true. If you are ignorant of all those pesky reasons you can often do that which cant or shouldn't be done.

Wealthy advice by nurb432 · 2011-07-25 13:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

its funny how the uber wealthy have advice like 'its not about the money', 'take risks' ' you can always start over' 'the economy isn't that bad' etc etc.

Sure, they made it and we didn't, but it does taint their objectiveness to towards the real world.

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----

Re:Wealthy advice by JK_the_Slacker · 2011-07-25 13:12 · Score: 1

Or maybe they did some things differently, and that's how they got to BE the uber wealthy? But no, cause and effect can't possibly have any bearing on reality. That would be silly.

--
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
Re:Wealthy advice by bloodhawk · 2011-07-25 14:27 · Score: 1

For every person that does stuff differently and suceeds there are dozens if not hundreds of others that did things differently and lost there shirt, having a good idea even if implemented well is no guarentee of financial success, those that suceeded first attempt like google quite often lack the objectiveness of how difficult the business world can be even with a good idea.
Re:Wealthy advice by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 21:15 · Score: 0

You've got that back to front. Many uber wealthy are uber wealthy because they're not in thrall to their money.
Re:Wealthy advice by Dhalka226 · 2011-07-25 21:37 · Score: 1

Well that's true, but the underlying problem is that many people can't accept that certain things are not for everybody. This is America, damn it! We're all supposed to have an equal chance of becoming rich tomorrow!
Unfortunately that's just not true. If you have a wife and kids or a sick mother or huge student loans or something, and you lack a deep savings to fall back on, then this advice is not for you. Not everybody can take risks and that's fine.
But at the same time, very few people (who aren't born into it) become uber wealthy without taking those risks. Some people can handle that risk and others can't. It doesn't mean it's bad advice; if you want to become uber-successful it may be great advice. It's just not a guarantee of success, and it's not for everybody. People have to be smart to determine whether it's for them and whether or not they can afford to fail.
Re:Wealthy advice by GameboyRMH · 2011-07-26 00:41 · Score: 1

The best example is the guy in England who started his own green energy company and built the Nemesis EV demonstrator car. He's been in the news over the last couple of days.
He was basically a hippy who built his own windmill in his backyard and said that it "became the blueprint for his company," that he thought there should be more windmills, and figured he should set them up, so he "just did it."
Well WHERE DID THE FUCKING MONEY TO START A WIND POWER COMPANY COME FROM!?!? He never explains this. I'm betting he was a trust fund baby with millions lying around.

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:Wealthy advice by sycorob · 2011-07-26 03:53 · Score: 1

Do you mean Dale Vince?
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article5438441.ece
Assuming the article is correct, Mr. Vince built his first windmill himself like you said, and then borrowed money from a bank to build more, and now solely owns Ecotricity, worth 10M GBP. He seems like a neat guy, talking about how he absorbs good stuff from other company cultures "like the Borg." His favorite movie is Aliens 2.

A funny thing happened on the way to the IPO. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 13:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

From TFA:

"Don't be afraid to do dumb things. Larry and Sergey developed a search product called 'Backrub' - don't ask me how they got that - and shortly after that launched Google as part of the Stanford domain. Most of the early Google hardware was stolen from trash and as the stuff they stole broke all the time they built a reliable software system."

So this brings back one of my fondest IT memories. One week in the late 90s, I went down to the bay area for some very expensive naptime my employers referred to as "training." While I was down there I got to visit with a lot of old friends, including one brilliant network engineer who shall remain nameless. He took the lot of us on a tour of the colocation cages of his employer's datacenter, which featured a number of dotcom era luminaries. After oohing and aahing over the very shiny, very expensive servers of Angelfire, eBay, Lycos and others, we came to the end of a long hallway. To our right was a small cage with a single 19" rack in it. It was the ugliest rack you could hope to imagine. Naked motherboards were slotted in every inch, and a massive rat's nest of CAT-5 cables spilling out the front like it had puked up a lunch of yellow spaghetti. You could even see hard loose hard drives sitting on some of the motherboards, using swatches of gray foam as "mounting hardware." It was awesomely horrible. We had to know who was responsible for this monolith of kludge, and of course this was the moment he was waiting for.

"Oh. That's Google."

And with that our tour was over.

Another Google example by sunderland56 · 2011-07-25 13:07 · Score: 1

Talking about Google encouraging people to "Do Dumb Things": their senior VP of engineering condones driving while distracted on a Mercedes advert.

Translation: it's okay to drive like a moron, we have software that will save your ass.

Re:Another Google example by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 22:17 · Score: 0

He is not condoning it at all, if you watch the full version he says he looked away for a moment and during that moment he wasn't paying attention the traffic ahead of him stopped and his car automatically stopped itself to avoid a collision. He at no point says it is okay to be doing other things while driving. If you want to place an endorsement of "driving while distracted" from anyone by that video, then it would be Mercedes doing the endorsing. Really just about anyone can be distracted for a moment while driving and although I consider myself a good driver I too also get distracted and if you don't you are a rare person indeed. Although one of the key aspects of my driving that improves my safety is leaving excessive space between myself and the driver in front, whereas I was taught to always leave at least 2 seconds gap between me and the car in front (it seems at least 80% of other drivers don't even do this most of the time), I tend to opt for 3-4 seconds, and in the instance of the traffic in front unexpectedly stopping this gives me an extra second or two stopping time in which I can afford to be distracted. Although having said what I just said does not mean I think it is okay for me to be distracted because something else may happen which does require my immediate attention.

Selection bias by michaelmalak · 2011-07-25 13:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is like asking a 110-year-old man how he got to live to be so old, him answering that he ate Ho-Hos every day, and then you adding Ho-Hos to your daily diet. Forget correlation != causality. There's not even any correlation here.

Re:Selection bias by 517714 · 2011-07-25 14:52 · Score: 1

The 110 year old man would be lying about Ho-Hos since he could only have eaten them for 40% of his life. Likewise you may wish to ignore the advise of someone who believes that the CCD was invented by Kodak or in 1990. CCD was invented by Bell Labs in 1969 and Kodak did use CCDs in a digital camera in 1975 and nobody (as far as I have been able to determine) said either was a bad idea.
I believe that ignoring the conventional wisdom of this ex-CIO is apt advise in this case.

--
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Re:Selection bias by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 18:52 · Score: 0

Real-life example: Winston Churchill got to live well into his 90s, towards the end of his life, an interviewer asked him what the secret of his longevity was (he smoked a lot). His reply was "No sport".
Re:Selection bias by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 21:27 · Score: 0

Correlation does not imply causality...but it is highly correlated.

here's the relevant word: pragmatism by nevurthls · 2011-07-25 13:13 · Score: 2

pragmatism, that's what it was. Look up the definition. Although saying 'be pragmatic' is not as quotable as saying be dumb' and meaning be pragmatic.

--
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.

Game Changer Here by stms · 2011-07-25 13:15 · Score: 2

I'm trying to change the game by making this dumb post. Now mod me +5 Insightful.

Re:Game Changer Here by rubypossum · 2011-07-25 13:30 · Score: 1

If I had mod points I'd do it. Someone get this dear poster a book deal.

--
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson

i like the second point by shadowrat · 2011-07-25 13:17 · Score: 1

I don't know if pulling hardware out of the trash is the only reason to build reliable systems. You could also just make building something that's redundant and reliable your main goal. Of course, I do see how it would be hard to pull that off if you get overbearing project managers just looking to cram one more feature in. So I think his second point is spot on.

Statute of Limitations by Culture20 · 2011-07-25 13:46 · Score: 2

So what's the statute of limitations regarding stealing from the trash? Anyone know?

Re:Statute of Limitations by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 19:44 · Score: 0

I think the statute of limitations is ten years. But, clearly Google oodling doodle didn't bother anyone.
Re:Statute of Limitations by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 00:15 · Score: 0

Items in the trash are abandoned property, that's why the cops can go through your garbage without a warrant.
Re:Statute of Limitations by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 01:13 · Score: 0

Anything thrown in the trash is fair game by law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster_diving#Legal_status
Re:Statute of Limitations by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 03:18 · Score: 0

Taking stuff from the trash isn't stealing. Worst-case, it might be trespassing.

In the Vaguard Again by PopeRatzo · 2011-07-25 13:48 · Score: 2

Google CIO:

'Don't be afraid to do dumb things.'

I believe that this yet another area in which I am well ahead of the curve.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.

Other words of wisdom I was given... by LynnwoodRooster · 2011-07-25 13:54 · Score: 2

Early on in my engineering career, my first principal engineer I worked for, a Russian scientist who fled the USSR in 1974, told me something that's stuck with me ever since:

.
You never learn from your success, only from your failure. If you succeed, you cannot be sure it wasn't just dumb luck; when you fail, you know there is only one person to blame.

--
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!

Re:Other words of wisdom I was given... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 14:27 · Score: 0

A very Russian attitude with some truth to it. Cultivated perhaps by the Tsars to help keep the little people in their place.
Re:Other words of wisdom I was given... by Goboxer · 2011-07-26 01:22 · Score: 1

I was in a math class with a friend who was a bit lazy when it came to homework. One day we got tests back and he scored lower than me, and explained it away by saying "I prefer to fail so that I can learn from what I did wrong." I said to him "I prefer to practice, that way my failures are private and my victories are more meaningful."
I would say failing is valuable, but mostly when you are practicing.
Re:Other words of wisdom I was given... by Hillgiant · 2011-07-26 04:55 · Score: 1

I'd rather be good than lucky. But I will take luck where I find it.

--
-

Not the copycat you think they were by dbIII · 2011-07-25 14:01 · Score: 1

Not luck, a different approach that was far better than the competition. Google's ranking wasn't an entirely new idea - it was very similar to what the science citation index did - but no other search engine at the time even attempted such an approach. They made their own "timing" because search engines had been around for a few years previously and the technology was all there but nobody else had made such a step.

Were you the one... by publiclurker · 2011-07-25 14:02 · Score: 1

that made the initial time estimates? If so then you were making the estimates (yours in particular) look bad and unreliable. If it was someone else making the estimates for you work then that is about as big of a WTF as you can get. I've been at places where the engineers are given estimates created by someone else. It never works out.

Re:Were you the one... by Knuckles · 2011-07-25 18:06 · Score: 2

Still stupid even if it was the GP's own estimate. A good PM would have sat down with him to see how to improve the estimate for next time. There are good methods for that.

--
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns

Disagree by DaMattster · 2011-07-25 14:19 · Score: 1

Another pearl of wisdom from Merrill: 'the more project management you do the less likely your project is to succeed.'"

This is very poor advice. More often than not, I have seen poorly managed projects meet with less success. A properly planned project means that you have the cooperation of your customers and all departments involved. A properly planned project is one in which you have the trust and confidence from your customer.

Re:Disagree by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 15:04 · Score: 0

Agree 100% - the value of project management, generally speaking, describes a bell curve. I work in a shop where there is no formal project planning for IT and it's a total crapshoot whether or not a project succeeds. The most significant failures I can name are all identifiably due to lack of planning or rigor in implementation.
Come to think of it, that bell curve probably skews to the right; I'm sure there's a dropoff point beyond which the process becomes overkill (probably more of an issue at larger places) but I would certainly love to get some of that bureaucracy, knowing the alternative as I do.
Re:Disagree by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 18:40 · Score: 0

Pffft. If your people are experienced, they already know what to do. Nearly every project manager I've worked with was a colossal waste of space.

It meant that the hardware by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 14:21 · Score: 0

was shitty and had to design their software around it, and the software is what made them successful today. If they had bought reliable hardware, they wouldn't have had to implement what they did, and the rest is history

Dumb Things: by Hartree · 2011-07-25 14:31 · Score: 1

Paul Kelly's song is an anthem to most people's lives.

If I don't do several dumb things before I get my morning coffee, it's an unusual day.

Naive by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 14:32 · Score: 0

Taking extraordinary risks is fine when the stakes are low. If some foolish choice in 1999 had doomed Google to failure the world would not have noticed. Other enterprises can't tolerate this indifference to risk, so lets not pretend it's somehow wrong not to play fast and lose with water supplies, food safety, air traffic, warheads, etc. There are plenty of places where 'dumb things' are not appreciated.

An engineer and a scientist walk into a bar... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 14:41 · Score: 1

If you succeed, you cannot be sure it wasn't just dumb luck

... and that's the difference between an engineer and a scientist.

Or, as a famous computer scientist is quoted as saying, "I can't promise this program works; I have only proven it correct."

Re:An engineer and a scientist walk into a bar... by dkleinsc · 2011-07-26 00:36 · Score: 1

The quote you're alluding to is by Donald Knuth, creator of the Holy Book of The Art of Computer Programming, as well as the Tex typesetter. His exact words were:
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it."

--
I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/

I put my finger in a lightsocket and didn't hurt by retroworks · 2011-07-25 14:54 · Score: 2

Therefore, my advice is, put your finger into a light socket. The fact I did dumb things precedes my luck, so now I can give dumb advice from experience.

--
Gently reply

regression to the mean by NotQuiteReal · 2011-07-25 16:11 · Score: 1

Successful companies grow... and hire more people... and add a layer of management... and the managers are hired last... thus the meanest.

--
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.

Re:Google should know by flimflammer · 2011-07-25 17:10 · Score: 1

You sound like a real jerkoff.

In my experience... by dakameleon · 2011-07-25 17:23 · Score: 1

... it's the other way around. Planning stages that are bogged down in process never seem to get off the ground; good, effective project management in development & testing phases keeps everyone corralled and on track.

That said, it sounds like your project manager was (a) incompetent, and (b) had little experience of the software development process himself.

--
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.

Re:In my experience... by modmans2ndcoming · 2011-07-26 15:22 · Score: 1

Planning is the MOST important phase. anyone who is rated at CMMI level 3 and above would know that finding an error in the planning phase will cost almost nothing to fix and then if you find one during testing, you are racking up the costs... and don't even get started on fixed during/after install.

deep pockets of P. T. Barnum by epine · 2011-07-25 17:25 · Score: 2

This is a case where I wish I hadn't RTFA. None of these glib aphorisms turn full circle. It scares me that he's willing to throw out dangerous sound-bites with no guard rails for the unwary.

I think he also has a bad case of bafflegab envy: where your investors decide your company is worth twice as much because everything you say runs against common sense. We've had a few investment cycles where all the money was chasing after anti-gravity machines.

No doubt you can dress funny on the road to success if you're funded to twice the level that any rational person would pony into. This is the "Confederacy of Dunces" business model. Works great if you can pull it off.

Re:deep pockets of P. T. Barnum by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 23:52 · Score: 0

This is the "Confederacy of Dunces" business model.
Welcome to the USA.
Re:deep pockets of P. T. Barnum by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 01:20 · Score: 0

He's only trying to encourage potential competition to do dumb things so they will stay out of his way. But you gotta think outside the box to realize this.
Re:deep pockets of P. T. Barnum by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 01:49 · Score: 0

Reminds me of the "nickel or dime" joke. If this guy doesn't say crazy things, he doesn't get coverage. He's maintaining his brand.

Re:Google should know by spacehunt · 2011-07-25 17:27 · Score: 1

You really don't get the point do you. "CopyLion" might sound weird to you, but who's to judge? But that's beside the point. As a Hong Konger I'm lucky enough to have my English name added to my HK ID card. A lot of others don't -- my wife's for example. Everybody knows her by her English name. Most don't know her Chinese name, yet that's the only name on her identification papers. What Google is saying is beyond what their TOS required of people. Do you see the problem?

Re:I can't hear you! ... Okay, I can hear you now. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 17:47 · Score: 0

Burma Shave!

What an Ass by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 18:20 · Score: 1

A really smart guy. A genius, in fact. But not the best manager I've worked for. Not even close. A substantial ego, a pathological need to surround himself with sycophants, and often childish and nasty is his dealings with subordinates - especially non "groupies". Oh, and loves to hear himself talk and throw out "cool" quotes that make little sense, essentially.

Most toxic environment I've ever worked in.

Worst. Management. Ever.

If it wasn't for the substantial equity, I would have quit the first week. In hindsight, I probably should have. It just wasn't worth it. Money can't buy back your time and sanity. :)

Anyway, keep in mind that he was in charge of internal IT, not the google.com public stuff. Through a weird quirk of departmentalization, it included the billing system.

His earlier quote: "we need to fail faster" is much better. When you're using "evolutionary" processes, you need the invisible scythe of Darwin to mow down the cruft, quickly.

Google did plenty of dumb things. However, when you're making money hand over fist, it's hard to convince anyone that it's dumb. Doing dumb things is a luxury of wealthy. But it's not a path to wealth. It only works when you're so far ahead of everyone else you can be that inefficient and get away with it.

Google+ is an indication of no longer being able to be "dumb". It's also an example of top down control. At a certain point, management by committee and just hoping that what everyone does will come together in a huge integrated system is laughable. Such were "buzz", "orkut", "wave", etc.

This is revolutionary. Revolution is an intelligent response. It works well well you understand what's needed. Otherwise, do lots of stuff and hope for the best. But don't expect that to be a long term strategy. Just ask all the extinct animals how that went.

Sigh, is it that hard to read? by SmallFurryCreature · 2011-07-25 18:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

You have to remember that this was during the last bubble and Google is rather famous for going against the flow. "Everyone" was using the investment money to buy Sun hardware with Oracle databases and those expensive chairs. Google went dumpster diving and because that ZERO cost hardware failed all the time came up with software that could deal with unreliable hardware meaning that google never had to buy 5 nine hardware at insane prices.

This was repeated by Facebook. You will find endless experts claiming you could never scale either PHP or MySql to be a serious site, yet one of the largest sites in the world runs on those two. Same as google proved linux was far more capable then just being a hobby OS for nerds. And proved it again with Android.

Google could afford to offer gmail with insane storage space because they had a very cheap hardware infrastructure. Had they build it with "proper" hardware and software the costs would have been astronomical.

But hey, you know better then Google because you run what mega-corp?

--

MMO Quests are like orgasms:

You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

Re:Sigh, is it that hard to read? by drinkypoo · 2011-07-25 21:50 · Score: 1

You will find endless experts claiming you could never scale either PHP or MySql to be a serious site, yet one of the largest sites in the world runs on those two.
To be fair, Facebook had to customize both PHP and MySQL to get "serious" throughput out of them... naturally this is an example of the OSS model triumphing, but it does suggest that there was some truth to the idea.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Sigh, is it that hard to read? by Needlzor · 2011-07-25 23:49 · Score: 1

"This was repeated by Facebook. You will find endless experts claiming you could never scale either PHP or MySql to be a serious site, yet one of the largest sites in the world runs on those two." Except that Facebook: - compiles its PHP to C, so in the end it really has nothing to do with PHP anymore apart from the syntax they code in. So the "endless experts" were right: PHP is an unscalable turd. - runs like a piece of shit anyway. Numerous problems of disappearing messages, posts that can't be seen for hours after they were supposed to. The only reason it isn't a real problem is because nobody does real work with Facebook, it is used only for leisure so nobody gives a shit if a message appears right now or in a dozen of hours. So... Once again, the "endless experts" were right.
Re:Sigh, is it that hard to read? by sphealey · 2011-07-26 00:19 · Score: 1

> To be fair, Facebook had to customize both PHP and MySQL to get
> "serious" throughput out of them... naturally this is an example of the
> OSS model triumphing, but it does suggest that there was some truth to the idea.
Also to be fair, Facebook's business model does not require transactional integrity and a 95% or so success rate in committing updates is acceptable to them, so with that model the advantages of an Oracle or DB2 are not necessary. If Facebook guaranteed commits to its customers the situation would be different.
sPh

Still not getting it by SmallFurryCreature · 2011-07-25 19:16 · Score: 1

Android is NOT about making Google money directly, it is about breaking up the market. With Android and Chrome Google can set the pace of development. Remember IE6? Dead and burried because first Firefox and then Chrome refused to let it drag them down. Gone are the days you can get away with an IE only website, even MS itself now has to design its own sites work with other browsers.

It might not be obvious to the simple minded just how vital it is to Googles core business that MS or Apple or Nokia can control a market anymore. Android isn't a success for Google because Samsung has gotten big with it, it is a success because HTC and others can use it as well. Keep the market moving forwards and we will see where it ends up.

Like how suddenly Tom Tom is hurting because FREE mapping software on mobile phones obliterated their market. Google maps anyone?

Google competitors have tried in stale markets they utterly dominated. Google throws a stick of dynamite and sees what happens. Considering their income, it seems a successful strategy. Best selling phone from NOWWHERE. At least Apple had some experience with computers, hardware even handhelds. Google did it from nothing and blasted right past Apple and everyone else.

And every android user has a google account. A million activations a day. And you wonder about the ROI on Android...

--

MMO Quests are like orgasms:

You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

Let me reverse that for you by SmallFurryCreature · 2011-07-25 19:22 · Score: 1

its funny how the poor have advice like 'its about the money', 'play it safe' ' you can't start over' 'the economy is that bad' etc etc.

Sure, they didn't make it and we did, but it does taint their objectiveness to towards the real world.

---

See what I did there? It is actually rather insightful because this is pretty much how it works. If you do something and it hurts, you won't do it again. But if you do something and it doesn't hurt, you will do it again. Success is positive reinforcement, failure a negative one. Well duh, but it does mean that a person who succeeded at X can't understand the experience of someone who failed at X and vice versa.

The rich are right, in that strategy Y worked for them. They are wrong because it doesn't work for everyone. Often for no other reason than that there is only so much room at the top. If everyone was a millionaire, everyone would be equally poor.

--

MMO Quests are like orgasms:

You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

Old News by khakipuce · 2011-07-25 19:34 · Score: 1

I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said something like:

The wise man adapts himself to the world but the fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the fool.

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Art is the mathematics of emotion

Re:Google should know by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-25 19:55 · Score: 0

Quit making sense!

Re:Google should know by tehcyder · 2011-07-26 00:02 · Score: 1

But isn't the point of this story that you are supposed to do dumb things?

I think it's more that you should not be afraid of doing things that seem dumb. Actively doing palpably dumb things (e.g. untying someone's rubber band before they do a bungee jump or shouting "I've got a bomb, none of you motherfuckers move" as a joke at an airport) is not really going to work out too well.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Re:Google should know by maxwell+demon · 2011-07-26 00:15 · Score: 1

Does it also say you should not be afraid of a Whoosh?

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

Teamwork by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 00:39 · Score: 0

None of us is as dumb as all of us.

Re:I can't hear you! ... Okay, I can hear you now. by Goboxer · 2011-07-26 01:08 · Score: 1

Nice.

Former Google CIO: 'Do Dumb Things' by forgot_my_username · 2011-07-26 01:50 · Score: 1

Former Google CIO: 'Do Dumb Things'

I Should be a trillionare by now!

Former AltaVista exec: by Compaqt · 2011-07-26 02:15 · Score: 1

"Don't do dumb things."

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I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog

Incompetence is the problem. by MaWeiTao · 2011-07-26 02:50 · Score: 1

The problem isn't project management per se. It's the project managers myself. The majority of project managers I've dealt with over the years are dolts who barely understand what they're managing and don't care to learn. But even worse than that, the majority of them had flexible schedules. This means either working odd hours or enjoying a couple of days off every week. So what inevitably happens is that when the manager is in the office their time is occupied just trying to catch up. By the time they're aware of everything that's going on it's time to leave. They're not available on demand to address needs, both from staff or clients. So no decisions are rarely made and the team is never responsive like it needs to be. And too often bad decisions get the rubber stamp.

These project managers in effect, render themselves as irrelevant. I'm not sure why companies continue wasting good money on these people. Either expect more of them, or just fire them.

Paralysis by analysis by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 02:54 · Score: 0

is another business fuck up. Many high ranked comments here are doing just that. Be it a grudge agenda or whatever, micromanage and manipulate the data and you may draw your own [WRONG] conclusions.

Much wisdom is gained by doing dumb things. Keep fucking learning or die.

Re:I can't hear you! ... Okay, I can hear you now. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-07-26 03:15 · Score: 0

It's like spitting on a fish.

Business 101 by SmallFurryCreature · 2011-07-26 06:45 · Score: 1

Be a big business, you must first be a small business.

What you and another poster below fail to grasp is that PHP as it was without modification suited facebook fine while it was growing. As it grew the demands grew but also the resources. Had they gone straight away for say a Oracle database with all the right software the software would never have been finished on time and on budget and they would quickly have run out of money. like all the dot com's that failed so hard.

Start small and cheap, then spend a portion of the income on improving.

Most of the Oracle and Java dweebs would spend millions of VC capital to build an application that can handle the entire world and then be surprised the plug is pulled before it is finished because there never was any income and the money just ran dry.

Really, this is the lesson from the bubble and so many just have not learned it.

--

MMO Quests are like orgasms:

You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

Re:Business 101 by drinkypoo · 2011-07-26 11:46 · Score: 1

No, I fully understand the lesson here. I've been an Open Source user as long as it's been a thing with that name, and then some, and reaping the benefits. Heck, I even change stuff in code myself now and again. But what I'm saying is that when Facebook started using these packages it didn't do these things... so at the time, it was true. It was also true that anyone with the initiative could potentially make it do those things, and now it does. Er, they do. Whatever.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"

Re: Different Animal by tg123 · 2011-07-26 23:27 · Score: 1

and how is building a large software product, or installing a new piece of software for use in the enterprise not the same animal?

It's a different animal to other project management because software is complex and always changing. When you start the project and make the plans you have to take into account that things will change like for example in the previous analogy I used "If you move the railway tracks too much you may have build a whole new train station." - It is not realising that by changing something that you may have to "build a new train station" that is the real killer.

In other projects you may do step 1 , step 2, step 3 then you come back and change a few things at but each step generally follows the other in I.T. you may do step 1, step 2, step 3 then find the client now wants step 1 changed and that means step 2 and step 3 will change with it. Software is totally changeable and a very complex beast. One change may mean a 100 hours of re-work.

It is very easy to make mistakes and if these mistakes are not caught early expensive to fix. There have been some incredibly expensive mistakes made with multi-million dollar projects having to be abandoned.

http://www.objectwatch.com/whitepapers/ITComplexityWhitePaper.pdf

Re: Different Animal by modmans2ndcoming · 2011-07-27 10:15 · Score: 1

Yes, I know that software projects change more readily and rapidly than construction project, but your train track analogy did not do a very good job of expressing that. Why not simply say "requirements can change every time you meet with the customer"? I mean... you talk about project management in other industries being different, and then utilize a project management scenario in a different industry to analogize why IT Project Management is different?

Do dumb things, be promoted to Africa by junk · 2011-07-28 10:46 · Score: 1

As someone who knew this pompous windbag personally, I'm in no way surprised that he promotes "do[ing] dumb things." Most of the crap that came out of his mouth was dumb. He was a power hungry egomaniac who got by on his edginess and good looks. Few, if any, smart ideas came from him. The smart ideas that flourished within his organizations were almost always started as somewhat subversive projects for fear that morons that be would step in a dumb them up. When Google finally came to realize his uselessness, he was "promoted" to the East Africa office or some place thereabouts. We celebrated his "promotion" and his departure even more.

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Former Google CIO Suggests 'Do Dumb Things'

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