Google Tries Not To Be a Black Hole of Brilliance 322
theodp writes "Google says it's declined to pursue awesome job prospects to avoid an over-concentration of brilliance at the search giant. Speaking at the Supernova conference, Google VP Bradley Horowitz said the company intentionally leaves some brainpower outside its walls: 'I recently had a discussion with an engineer at Google and I pointed out a handful of people that I thought were fruitful in the industry and I proposed that we should hire these people,' said Horowitz. 'But [the engineer] stopped me and said: "These people are actually important to have outside of Google. They're very Google people that have the right philosophies around these things, and it's important that we not hire these guys. It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry, as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google."'"
Google - Hater (Score:1, Insightful)
Sooooo arrogant, this will be their fall. Google philosophy? What does that mean, rip off merchants with adword costs?
Re:Obligatory Google is awesome thread of the week (Score:5, Insightful)
Compared to the rest of the IT industry, its not that hard to be awesome. Its just that our expectation have been lowered so much we think a company that delivers something useful and dont engage in illegal practices are freaking awesome!
The gall of not engaging in putting most work into extinguishing the competition! Making actual working products? What do they think they are? God?
Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds like by "not pursuing" top talent, Google is actively letting the top talent go wherever they want. I think if these guys applied for jobs at Google, they'd get hired.
It comes down to economics. If you say "We've got to hire John Doe" then the price you're willing to pay for John Doe to join your staff goes way up. Whereas if John Doe applies and gets hired to traditional way... he's more inclined to expect a normal market driven salary.
puhlease indeed (Score:2, Insightful)
What a self-congratulatory, onanistic piece of gloat that is!
What the engineer was really saying was "please don't hire someone to be my boss".
Re:Evidently, they do hire idiots (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason so many people have issues with Google isn't because they do things differently, it's because they do things differently and are more successful than those doing it the old way.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that's definitely a big part of it. It's also convenient for a company to be able to point out to their curent employees that there are other competent people out there who could replace them, so keep your expectations in check.
This sounds like astroturfing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Think of it this way: Would you want EA/Microsoft/Nintendo/whatever to have all of the best gaming talent?
good grief (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe... (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the uber-geek just didn't want the competition within his own group. Even geeks can be territorial.
He's right, and you know it (Score:5, Insightful)
People have accused Microsoft of stifling innovation by snapping up so many freshly minted PhD's for Microsoft Research. They get a lot of hate, some of which can be found on this Slashdot article [slashdot.org].
Google is wary of the these issues, as they are in the same position [slashdot.org].
So we have evidence of them recognizing this, and choosing to do the "not evil" thing, and yet, for all their consideration for the health of the industry, a bunch of envious whiners use it to accuse them of arrogance.
Re:Obligatory Google is awesome thread of the week (Score:5, Insightful)
google has done evil and they have lost all their 'shine' when they pull crap like this.
I was never drinking enough of the Google kool-aid to actually believe they were any different from any other for-profit corporation, but I'm not so sure that the specific case you linked proves much of anything. It was tossed out by the lower court, allowed to go through during the first appeal and has since been appealed to the California Supreme Court. If he's having that much trouble pursing his claim in California of all places then I'd question whether or not his case has any merit.
Re:Evidently, they do hire idiots (Score:3, Insightful)
So you'd fire someone for expressing an opinion with which you disagree? You use -1, Overrated a lot, don't you?
Brave New World (Score:4, Insightful)
Reminds of the experiement in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World where they put a whole bunch of Alphas together and it was a disaster. I guess every organization needs some betas and epsilons.
Re:Obligatory Google is awesome thread of the week (Score:1, Insightful)
Counter:
If your role evolves but you do not, do you feel that your company should continue to employ you?
Example 1:
Company employs machinists to perform routine repairs to aging equipment. The equipment is replaced with "off the shelf components". Do you continue to employ machinists?
Example 2:
Company employs Lotus Notes developer to manage documentation & mail portal. The company shifts to a software as a service agreement, moving mail and documentation off-site. Do you continue to employ lotus notes developers?
Some companies will work with employees to provide training or alternate responsibilities. But if the role disappears or is no longer relevant, do you continue to pay someone to do nothing?
Most companies expect that employees will manage their own careers. If an employee isn't able to adapt to new roles or responsibilities they are replaced. It's a tough world out there.
Re:Evidently, they do hire idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing to consider is that by leaving talent at software companies, the software where their products are used is improved, thus still allowing them to improve their users' experiences with Google. This philosophy of leaving talent at other technology companies is essentially a recognition by Google that they're in a symbiotic relationship with other tech companies (namely, OS creators, browser creators, programming language creators and maintainers, hardware creators....), and they're reacting accordingly by not leeching from the companies that allow them to succeed. It really doesn't matter whether Microsoft likes the fact that Google beats them at the internet advertising game, Google enhances Microsoft users' experiences too.
Another angle to look at this whole thing from is that Google doesn't want to take all the talent from other web advertising companies (Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.) because they don't want to kill off every one of their competitors. In the case of these companies, it's a defense mechanism against being caught in antitrust lawsuits and monopoly status
It's actually remarkably smart for Google to point this out, because if their supporters (the non-web companies) realize the nature of the relationship between themselves and Google, things will just become sweeter between them, and make it much easier for them both to succeed since they won't be fighting each other over resources that they help each other acquire.
not everyone lusts for g00gl3 (Score:4, Insightful)
There are lots of smart people who aren't interested in what Google is currently doing. The pay, benefits etc might be great, but for most people it's not necessarily how they want to spend their days. It can be a lot more fun being on the ground floor of a dynamic startup doing stuff you believe in with a small group of smart people than being a cog in a giant wheel. Even if it is a pretty special wheel with a much larger degree of autonomy.
I do believe overall google to date has been a driving force for useful, usually practical innovation - especially in the datacenter sphere. So while I'm not a fan boy, I think it's the best search engine to date, and google maps is quite useful. Their real struggle is to stay ahead of said startup (or hope they can buy them, which has its own difficulties).
Re:Evidently, they do hire idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Obligatory Google is awesome thread of the week (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:He's right, and you know it (Score:3, Insightful)
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Oh for fucks sake (Score:1, Insightful)
>It's better for the ecosystem to have an honest industry, as opposed to aggregating all this talent at Google.
Get over yourself. This kind of thinking will kill the company, although who cares?
If Google close tomorrow, I'll move to another search provider. Ebay or Amazon? Now, then I'd be in trouble.
Google's not the only one... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's another company that has consistently been "nice" to the industry, refusing to do evil and in general being a stand-up, wonderful bunch of guys: Red Hat. I honestly think that there isn't a more decent company around than Red Hat. They fund a significant percentage of the kernel, driver, and UI development for the entire Linux world. Some of the very best and most productive developers behind the Linux kernel, GCC, and too many other projects to mention are employed at Red Hat!
And to this day, they have yet to throw a single shenanigan around releasing source RPMs. Google's shine is bright, but has a few smudges. Red Hat, on the other hand, is squeaky clean.
PS: No, I don't work for them, I'm just a very satisfied customer!
Silly Google, /. is the blackhole of brilliance! (Score:2, Insightful)
... I mean, just look at these comments! Genius! Many of them (like this one) are far too brilliant to be sullied with naughty karma points!
I'm probably one of the few... (Score:5, Insightful)
...who have actually turned down Google's offer for a second interview. After they offered to fly me to Mountain View, I sat down and took a deep look at who I was, what I stood for, and whether my personal philosophies were compatible with Google's worldview. I decided that I could offer more to society through education than I could working for Google.
I don't regret the decision I made. As the years go by (this was about 2000 or so), I grow stronger in my conviction that it was the right choice as I watch Google's tendrils sneak into every aspect of society.
re: RedHat (Good point, I think....) (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember RedHat kind of slipping from their "glory days" as the highest profile Linux distributor out there. Many people were woo'ed away by the "latest and greatest" or "more user-friendly" features in distros like Mandrake or Ubuntu, and certainly, there was a philosophical difference where some people simply supported the Debian package manager format and were anti-RPM, too.
But that doesn't change the fact that RedHat kept plugging right along, employing deserving software developers and turning out a solid, respectable product.
You don't have to amaze people with "incredible new ideas!" all the time to be a "good company". You just need to treat your employees fairly, offer products that do what they advertise, price your products reasonably, and keep up a tradition of supporting them well.
Re:Oh great, I wasn't hired ! (Score:2, Insightful)
Face it, if a couple was happily married when they had money and the woman decides to leave when the man no longer has income, then the woman was married to the money the entire time anyways. Is the man not part of HER family? Should she not support HIM?
Honest people don't mind becoming welfare recipients, because honest people don't mind paying their taxes to support those who've lost their jobs. Honest wives don't mind when their husband loses their job, because honest wives would expect their husband to stay with them if they were to become unemployed and know that they should do the same.
Re:Obligatory Google is awesome thread of the week (Score:4, Insightful)
That's exactly why you *shouldn't* pay people based on their years of service.
Employment is only successful when both parties feel that the arrangement is beneficial. When you keep paying someone *more* to do the *same*, in time, you end up with a guy who is earning a lot more that someone else who can do the same job, just as well.
At that point, the company has no motivation to keep on the guy with 20 years of experience when a guy with 2 years can do the same job for half the wage.
Two years of experience.... (Score:3, Insightful)
My whole job is cleaning up the disasters of guys who had a whole 24 months of experience and thought that meant they knew what they were doing. Vista was coded by guys who had 24 months of experience.
Paying for experience is cheap when you compare it to paying for a disaster.
Re:What a coincidence (Score:3, Insightful)
Gmail? No better than Hot Mail, or Yahoo mail or anything else.
I laughed. Really.
Gmail has spam filters that are second to none.
Hotmail’s spam filters are laughable. I can’t say I’ve had much experience with Yahoo! mail, but I doubt theirs are much better.
Not even to mention the AJAX system that makes it run very quickly, once it loads.
Furthermore, Google Maps was the bleeding edge. MapQuest and Live Maps copied it... despite the fact that MapQuest preexisted Google Maps. Click and drag to pan, double-click zooming, adjustable routes by dragging new waypoints... MapQuest’s interface was light-years behind it.
Re:Obligatory Google is awesome thread of the week (Score:3, Insightful)
"At that point, the company has no motivation to keep on the guy with 20 years of experience "
No motivation other than human decency and compassion and desire to maintain the social fabric of kindness which keeps civilisation running smoothly, because what goes around comes around.
But those effects don't show on the balance sheet until a few generations down the track, and by then it's too late.
A corporation which doesn't give a damn about the well-being of its employees and customers is, simply stated, a psychopath. And a management philosophy which promotes psychopathology will do no good to any part of our economy, ecology or society in the long run. But it might make huge profits in the meantime. So be careful what you choose to measure and reward as a measure of economic 'rationality'.
Re:What a coincidence (Score:3, Insightful)
Google's spam filters are the Postini filters, recalibrated with Google's data. I'm in agreement with the parent that gmail is not significantly better than the competition.
The quality of their search engine results have been reduced by people gaming the system, the transparent trick of heavily weighting wikipedia results, and the rise of aggregators. Not that others are doing much better, but a lot of that "I'm feeling lucky" mojo is gone.
Maps came from Telcontar. The street view was innovative, but the maps themselves--not so much.
I'm not a Google hater, but it's important not to look at ANY company through rose-colored glasses.
Re:What a coincidence (Score:3, Insightful)
They recently stopped buying third party maps, and are now reportedly paying mobile providers to put their google maps app. on the phones (which they can only do because they aren't locked into the map provider duopoly). Which speaks to, a least, a significant amount of forward planning on their side.
But, yeh, brilliance is hard to measure. Some of the DNS tricks they just released, and more, I've wanted some Linux DNS software to do for at least 10 years ... so it's not "genius". But the number of useful things they've actual got out implies they are way above average (as a company), IMO.