Meaningless executive speak. How should employees move faster exactly? Unless you are sharing exact guidelines, cutting down pointless projects and reducing work load, removing red tape etc. how do you expect everyone to magically ship quicker?
If startups are beating you at your game with a tiny fraction of the employees, funding and resources, it should be obvious that the number of hours put into the job isn't the problem here. Yet no corporate executive is ever going to go up on stage and admit that their strategy and execution were the cause of the mess. It's always those lazy employees. "Just let me crack the whip a few times to light a fire under them. That'll fix the problem".
Exactly. My experience at Google over the past two years has been that "we need to be nimble and move faster" has led to increased scrutiny on ongoing projects but few actual changes in ongoing projects. So there's more docs and slides presented to VPs justifying work (taking up time) but VPs aren't willing to say "this isn't a priority - go help with this key project over here." There's minimal vision from above, so the net effect of all of this is that people move slower.
Google is still, IMO, a good place to work. But it has degraded considerably over the last several years and I've lost pretty much all faith in leadership above the Director level.
This reminds me of the time at my work when the CTO gathered all the devs together, and told us "We have to innovate more". With no real further instructions. He even showed us a graph (without any numbers) that had Profit on the Y axis and Innovation on the X axis, with line line going up to the right.
When asked when we were supposed to work on this innovation, he told us it was important to still work on our current projects, but do it more innovatively. When pressed about what this actually meant, he just showed us the graph again.
We don't know what will succeed next so you all better move faster throwing things against the wall so we can find what sticks. Oh, and this is all so that we continue to make 10s of millions a year while you miss your child's birthday.
In fairness, he seems to effectively have CNBC reporters sitting in with the crowd at the company all-hands. He would probably come off the worse if he started saying things of substance. In his position I'd cancel the all-hands.
> If startups are beating you at your game with a tiny fraction of the employees, funding and resource
If you're a huge corporation like Google, you're not even playing the same game as any startup in the first place, and trying to compete with them as if you were is likely to end in tears.
The same is true the other way around. If you're a small company, you're unlikely to beat a major corporation by playing the game that major corporations play.
Being a small company gives strengths and weaknesses that large companies don't have -- and vice versa. Smart companies of any size play to their own strengths rather than trying to play to the competition's strengths.
Having worked at Google, this is entirely self-inflicted. This once internal now leaked video [1] summed it up pretty well. There is so much process you have to go through to do anything. A lot of it makes sense but it comes at the expense of speed.
More than a decade ago OKR (Objectives and Key Results) culture set in where once you just worked on things until they were ready. OKRs are really insidious because what qualifies as an acceptable goal depends on how much you're liked and the political muscle your org has. It also means the smallest unit of time because a quarter and if you had to approach another team for help, the soonest they would help you was the following quarter and that's only if you had the muscle to get onto those OKRs.
At a more macro level, Google is insanely profitable. I'm not sure what the current employee count but the per-employee profit is probably sitting at or above $500,000 per year. That's after all expenses. Yet the relentless pursuit of profits (which shrink over time) means further exploitation of surplus labor value.
“If there’s a clear and present market reality, we need to twitch faster, like the athletes twitch faster,” he said.
“There is something to be learned from that faster-twitch, shorter wavelength execution,” he said.
Raghavan urged employees to “meet this moment” and “act with urgency based on market conditions.”
After that he goes to praise the teams working 120 hours a week, that's basically 17 hours a day.
Early in my career I'd have been angry, surprised or in denial at hearing this sort of rancid garbage. Now I see this in so many organizations, this is just a symptom of the deeper rot and top-down dysfunction.
I've worked 100 hours a week for a few months to finish my thesis on time. It felt like the upper limit of mental work you can sustain for more than a single-digit number of weeks when you are 100% motivated and deeply care about the work.
But 120 hours? Do they even shower? RTO must be fun for their colleagues.
This level of human depravity is just sick. And for what?
Its really just the effect of empire building. Too much money allowing non operative people to flourish and new administrative layers to be added that then have to justify themselves by making operative employees report thing they can quantify to show their bosses in the hope to climb the ladder.
Its just a symptom of all big organizations in the west these days be it private or public.
>
“People come to us because we are trusted,” Raghavan said. “They may have a new gizmo out there that people like to play with but they still come to Google to verify what they see there because it is the trusted source and it becomes more critical in this era of generative AI.”
Seriously, in which reality-distortion bubble does Prabhakar Raghavan live?
Google deserves to burn at this point. They had the rest of the field lapped, they were set up for a victory prance into one of the most lucrative markets of all time, and Sundar has just burned all of it. Dude has zero long term strategic vision, he's a MBA bot set to "plunder light" and he's getting embarrassingly outplayed by Satya Nadella.
I actually think he’s right. Us Hacker News types don’t trust Google at all but for the average person it’s where they go to find information, and we’ve seen time and time again that the majority either don’t understand or don’t care about many privacy concerns.
All this stuff is a little handwavey but a 2023 report:
Has a specific breakout about Google. Interestingly the subbrands (Google Maps particularly) are more trusted than Google as a whole, but it’s still relatively well trusted as a company.
I thought you must be misrepresenting the article, but no, its almost as bad as you said:
> He praised the teams working on Gemini, the company’s main group of AI models. He said they’ve stepped up from working 100 hours a week to 120 hours to correct Google’s image recognition tool in a timely manner. That helped the team fix roughly 80% of the issues in just 10 days, he said.
"He praised the teams working on Gemini, the company’s main group of AI models. He said they’ve stepped up from working 100 hours a week to 120 hours to correct Google’s image recognition tool in a timely manner."
So, assuming they work 7 days a week, that's 17 hours a day. Leaving 7 hours for commuting, sleep and life. And it feels like he's offering that up as an example of "move faster".
I find this hilariously ironic considering Gemini was supposed to be all about equity and inclusion and that. This is a perfect example of an inclusive policy that supports 40 year single mothers and other people with different needs /s
What a clown. Should have thought about 10 minutes into the future before he hobbled the company by laying off staff and sending everyone rushing to the competition. When you're publicly admitting that the competition is eating your lunch, you need to use your $100B cash hoard to invest in catching up, paying people to take the risk on you instead of working for the winners.
Executives need to realize that startups move faster not because they work more hours. They move faster because there is less red tape, less bureaucracy and less process than large companies. Individual employees have more freedom to make their own choices, instead of being restrained by top down OKRs.
> "He said they’ve stepped up from working 100 hours a week to 120 hours to correct Google’s image recognition tool in a timely manner"
Either Prabhakar Raghavan is abusing his employees or spewing bullshit. Given that working 120 hours in a week is working 17 hours a day, I'm calling bullshit.
But even if it's not, the idea that a multi-billion company like Google wants their employees to "step up" and work 17 hour days 7 days a week is actually disgusting. That he would praise such an idea shows a moral rot within Google that almost certainly goes beyond Prabhakar. No matter how much they're making, these are people being exploited by Google and Google is holding them up as an example to the rest of their employees.
"Look at these drones sacrificing their health, life, and families to squeeze another few cents out of my stock compensation package. You should be more like them."
Prabhakar has been enabled by Sundar at every step. The two are in alignment. If you are disgusted by Prabhakar, you should be disgusted by Sundar too, he has just as much contempt for the workers, he just hides his cards better.
My dad likes to tell the story of him working at a post office as a teenager. He was very motivated and worked fast, so his colleagues urged him to slow down, otherwise they would get more work.
I really cannot express how much I dislike these midlevel management figures that do nothing but talk and engage in LinkedIn style virtue signaling.
They don't touch code, they don't touch any technologies (not even making prototypes so they they have a grounded understanding). They just regurgitate the socio-business zeitgeist. "Oh we must get more lean. Oh these workers must be lazy. AI AI AI".
And yet their multi million dollar pay packages MUST be equitable compensation for their in-the-box unoriginal business thinking. They went to HBS or SBS... they must be thought leaders, right?
Instead of sacking the people who dig ditches, what if half the talking heads left? I'm sure THAT would actually clear the air.
The notion that startups are more efficient at creating great products is a massive case of survivorship bias, a subclass of selection bias. A full facepalm duh!
Either he does not understand that, and that's bad, or he is trying to put one over on some very smart employees who do understand that, and that won't work.
You can make a big company less inefficient, but everyone who thinks startup efficiency is simply a culture you can recreate inside a big company is going to be disappointed.
paxys|1 year ago
If startups are beating you at your game with a tiny fraction of the employees, funding and resources, it should be obvious that the number of hours put into the job isn't the problem here. Yet no corporate executive is ever going to go up on stage and admit that their strategy and execution were the cause of the mess. It's always those lazy employees. "Just let me crack the whip a few times to light a fire under them. That'll fix the problem".
UncleMeat|1 year ago
Google is still, IMO, a good place to work. But it has degraded considerably over the last several years and I've lost pretty much all faith in leadership above the Director level.
khendron|1 year ago
When asked when we were supposed to work on this innovation, he told us it was important to still work on our current projects, but do it more innovatively. When pressed about what this actually meant, he just showed us the graph again.
I resigned shortly after.
nine_zeros|1 year ago
We don't know what will succeed next so you all better move faster throwing things against the wall so we can find what sticks. Oh, and this is all so that we continue to make 10s of millions a year while you miss your child's birthday.
roenxi|1 year ago
angry_moose|1 year ago
“Ok, are you going to remove the mountains of red tape, reviews, and documentation that make a 2 week project take 16 weeks?”
“Well, we can’t do that. Here’s a motivational story about boats”
JohnFen|1 year ago
If you're a huge corporation like Google, you're not even playing the same game as any startup in the first place, and trying to compete with them as if you were is likely to end in tears.
The same is true the other way around. If you're a small company, you're unlikely to beat a major corporation by playing the game that major corporations play.
Being a small company gives strengths and weaknesses that large companies don't have -- and vice versa. Smart companies of any size play to their own strengths rather than trying to play to the competition's strengths.
belter|1 year ago
cletus|1 year ago
More than a decade ago OKR (Objectives and Key Results) culture set in where once you just worked on things until they were ready. OKRs are really insidious because what qualifies as an acceptable goal depends on how much you're liked and the political muscle your org has. It also means the smallest unit of time because a quarter and if you had to approach another team for help, the soonest they would help you was the following quarter and that's only if you had the muscle to get onto those OKRs.
At a more macro level, Google is insanely profitable. I'm not sure what the current employee count but the per-employee profit is probably sitting at or above $500,000 per year. That's after all expenses. Yet the relentless pursuit of profits (which shrink over time) means further exploitation of surplus labor value.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t6L-FlfeaI
onlyrealcuzzo|1 year ago
Even if you group in half of gsuite for Gmail and all of Android (for the default search app) - that's still not even half of the company.
The profit per employee there is probably close to $1.5M - and that's after average compensation above $500k.
korginator|1 year ago
“There is something to be learned from that faster-twitch, shorter wavelength execution,” he said.
Raghavan urged employees to “meet this moment” and “act with urgency based on market conditions.”
After that he goes to praise the teams working 120 hours a week, that's basically 17 hours a day.
Early in my career I'd have been angry, surprised or in denial at hearing this sort of rancid garbage. Now I see this in so many organizations, this is just a symptom of the deeper rot and top-down dysfunction.
0x000xca0xfe|1 year ago
But 120 hours? Do they even shower? RTO must be fun for their colleagues.
This level of human depravity is just sick. And for what?
christkv|1 year ago
Its just a symptom of all big organizations in the west these days be it private or public.
aleph_minus_one|1 year ago
Seriously, in which reality-distortion bubble does Prabhakar Raghavan live?
CuriouslyC|1 year ago
Rinzler89|1 year ago
Same last words from the Nokia and Blackberry CEOs when that new gizmo from Apple came out in 2007.
>Seriously, in which reality-distortion bubble does Prabhakar Raghavan live?
The Gavin Belson one.
afavour|1 year ago
All this stuff is a little handwavey but a 2023 report:
https://pro-assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2023/05/Mos...
Has a specific breakout about Google. Interestingly the subbrands (Google Maps particularly) are more trusted than Google as a whole, but it’s still relatively well trusted as a company.
leosanchez|1 year ago
sgt101|1 year ago
letmeinhere|1 year ago
> He praised the teams working on Gemini, the company’s main group of AI models. He said they’ve stepped up from working 100 hours a week to 120 hours to correct Google’s image recognition tool in a timely manner. That helped the team fix roughly 80% of the issues in just 10 days, he said.
psychotic
tyingq|1 year ago
So, assuming they work 7 days a week, that's 17 hours a day. Leaving 7 hours for commuting, sleep and life. And it feels like he's offering that up as an example of "move faster".
Just wow.
goalieca|1 year ago
lupire|1 year ago
jinushaun|1 year ago
dwb|1 year ago
ryandrake|1 year ago
frob|1 year ago
Either Prabhakar Raghavan is abusing his employees or spewing bullshit. Given that working 120 hours in a week is working 17 hours a day, I'm calling bullshit.
But even if it's not, the idea that a multi-billion company like Google wants their employees to "step up" and work 17 hour days 7 days a week is actually disgusting. That he would praise such an idea shows a moral rot within Google that almost certainly goes beyond Prabhakar. No matter how much they're making, these are people being exploited by Google and Google is holding them up as an example to the rest of their employees.
"Look at these drones sacrificing their health, life, and families to squeeze another few cents out of my stock compensation package. You should be more like them."
philk10|1 year ago
hawkice|1 year ago
CuriouslyC|1 year ago
fidotron|1 year ago
Google have their serious problems, but they extend far further than just this guy.
MiscIdeaMaker99|1 year ago
aleph_minus_one|1 year ago
Companies don't formulate it this way, but in practice, by
- having lots of meetings
- introducing more and more red tape
- introducing more and more layers of management
- introducing more and more reporting requirements
- ...
they actually practice it.
Traubenfuchs|1 year ago
markild|1 year ago
John23832|1 year ago
They don't touch code, they don't touch any technologies (not even making prototypes so they they have a grounded understanding). They just regurgitate the socio-business zeitgeist. "Oh we must get more lean. Oh these workers must be lazy. AI AI AI".
And yet their multi million dollar pay packages MUST be equitable compensation for their in-the-box unoriginal business thinking. They went to HBS or SBS... they must be thought leaders, right?
Instead of sacking the people who dig ditches, what if half the talking heads left? I'm sure THAT would actually clear the air.
hi-v-rocknroll|1 year ago
However, I have the billion dollar solution in 4 easy steps:
0. LLM completer plugins for editors
1. Get everyone escooters that go 60 mph / 96 kph (They exist)
2. We need to cut coffee for cost reasons, so why not issue caffeine-methylphenidate pills
3. Because RTO is still too inefficient, make everyone live at work
Bonus: If you want employees to move faster, encourage them to have kids. Busy people GSD.
rdtsc|1 year ago
> “I want to be clear, this wasn’t some case of somebody slacking off and dropping the ball,” he said.
So what is he saying then? Is he indicating they were sabotaged on purpose or that stuff just happened randomly - “an algorithm error”?
aikinai|1 year ago
paxys|1 year ago
Makes perfect sense.
xkbarkar|1 year ago
renegade-otter|1 year ago
First it was one sponsored link - now it's SEVEN. At some point even the masses catch on to the grift.
This is a desperate "something DO something" plea.
Zigurd|1 year ago
Either he does not understand that, and that's bad, or he is trying to put one over on some very smart employees who do understand that, and that won't work.
You can make a big company less inefficient, but everyone who thinks startup efficiency is simply a culture you can recreate inside a big company is going to be disappointed.
intexpress|1 year ago
thedonkeycometh|1 year ago
[deleted]