Wednesday, May 05, 2010
San Francisco Startup Tour
I gave a talk today at LOLapps.com, which is in a lovely location in downtown San Francisco: this is clearly a startup that believes in planning ahead: the entire 7th floor was theirs, and they looked like they had enough room to double or triple while staying in the same space. Folks look excited and asked intelligent (and sometimes difficult) questions, which is great, because that's really what makes the talk (otherwise, you could just read the book)
Unfortunately, the talk wasn't recorded, so I'll just have to do it on a microphone at home one of these days and put up an audio to accompany those slides.
I didn't intend to, but afterwards I met with a friend who had just taken an offer from another startup, and then headed over to visit NextStop, which is a 6 person startup down near the Caltrain station. I was surprised by how empty their building was: the downturn seems to have decimated office space occupancy in San Francisco, but that just means it's a great time for startups, though I'm seeing signs now that the Bay Area is heating up again.
All in all, a busy day, with lots of ideas to ponder.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Engineer's Guide to Startups back in stock!
The second printing of An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups is now available. I've also updated the book's web-page to point to some of the recent blog posts that some may find interesting. If you've been holding off because you wanted a paper copy, you can now place your orders.
Thanks again to everyone who's helped make this book a success!
Thanks again to everyone who's helped make this book a success!
Monday, May 03, 2010
Leadership Training
After I was done with the Edge workshop, one of the organizers asked me if I would be interested in follow-on workshops. Hoping that it would be more practical than the usual executive team building type off-site, I agreed and decided to go.
Well, it turned out to be less of the typical executive team building offsite. For one thing, it was entirely indoors, and for another, it was focused on achieving your goals. Now, I'm the kind of person for whom achieving my goals is actually easier than defining them, but I was curious as to what value the person had to add.
It turned out to be a peer-based setup. And the group was filled with Google old-timers, each of whom would stand up and talk about their goals, many of whom weren't at all related to business objectives. For instance, Patri Friedman talked about Sea Steading.
The saddest thing I ever heard at Google, however, came out of this workshop. One of the participants stepped forward and said, "I've now been at Google for 7 years now, and I have all the money I ever need to never work a day job again for the rest of my life. I would like to quit and work on *charity redacted* full time, but I'm too afraid to to do this. You see, I've leaned on having engineers around to help with my projects my entire career at Google, which was my first job out of school, and I don't know how to get things done without them."
I was first stunned by the honesty and humility behind this statement. Most businessmen, sales people, and non-engineers cannot admit that without the ability of engineers to create products and maintain them, any business simply will not exist. In the console universe, you ship products built to a fixed platform (though on PS3 games, you frequently get loads of patches as well), you might be able to dismantle the engineering team behind the product after shipping. But in the new Software As A Service model? No freaking way. No engineer, no product.
The saddest thing about this is that this person could not conceive that with all the resources at his/her disposal, (s)he might be able to just learn how to think like an engineer and apply that to the problem that (s)he would like to solve. The thought just filled me with sadness.
I recently read John T Reed's Self Publishing, and he pointed out that most of his books were just about applying the engineering mind-set to the subjects at hand:
It's like the astronomer who wows aborigines by accurately predicting an eclipse. It's easy to do if you have an almanac. But the aborigines not only have no almanac, they did not know there was such a thing as an almanac... By taking my engineering training to various lands of the blind, like real estate, I become king--or at least a successful how-to writer.
I think very few engineers realize how rare this mentality and capability is, and how valuable it is (by the way, Google does realize how rare it is, and does hand out million dollar bonuses for that rare ability). And I guess that's a good thing. Otherwise, corporations would have to pay real engineers as though they were worth as much as the "financial engineers" on wall street. After all, a war for talent should be prevented.
Well, it turned out to be less of the typical executive team building offsite. For one thing, it was entirely indoors, and for another, it was focused on achieving your goals. Now, I'm the kind of person for whom achieving my goals is actually easier than defining them, but I was curious as to what value the person had to add.
It turned out to be a peer-based setup. And the group was filled with Google old-timers, each of whom would stand up and talk about their goals, many of whom weren't at all related to business objectives. For instance, Patri Friedman talked about Sea Steading.
The saddest thing I ever heard at Google, however, came out of this workshop. One of the participants stepped forward and said, "I've now been at Google for 7 years now, and I have all the money I ever need to never work a day job again for the rest of my life. I would like to quit and work on *charity redacted* full time, but I'm too afraid to to do this. You see, I've leaned on having engineers around to help with my projects my entire career at Google, which was my first job out of school, and I don't know how to get things done without them."
I was first stunned by the honesty and humility behind this statement. Most businessmen, sales people, and non-engineers cannot admit that without the ability of engineers to create products and maintain them, any business simply will not exist. In the console universe, you ship products built to a fixed platform (though on PS3 games, you frequently get loads of patches as well), you might be able to dismantle the engineering team behind the product after shipping. But in the new Software As A Service model? No freaking way. No engineer, no product.
The saddest thing about this is that this person could not conceive that with all the resources at his/her disposal, (s)he might be able to just learn how to think like an engineer and apply that to the problem that (s)he would like to solve. The thought just filled me with sadness.
I recently read John T Reed's Self Publishing, and he pointed out that most of his books were just about applying the engineering mind-set to the subjects at hand:
It's like the astronomer who wows aborigines by accurately predicting an eclipse. It's easy to do if you have an almanac. But the aborigines not only have no almanac, they did not know there was such a thing as an almanac... By taking my engineering training to various lands of the blind, like real estate, I become king--or at least a successful how-to writer.
I think very few engineers realize how rare this mentality and capability is, and how valuable it is (by the way, Google does realize how rare it is, and does hand out million dollar bonuses for that rare ability). And I guess that's a good thing. Otherwise, corporations would have to pay real engineers as though they were worth as much as the "financial engineers" on wall street. After all, a war for talent should be prevented.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Review: Predictably Irrational
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
is Dan Ariely's book about his adventures with behavioral economics. It's a compelling read, but has also woven itself so much into popular culture that you may already be familiar with most of it.
The book covers many human foibles, with a chapter devoted to each one. These are:
is Dan Ariely's book about his adventures with behavioral economics. It's a compelling read, but has also woven itself so much into popular culture that you may already be familiar with most of it.The book covers many human foibles, with a chapter devoted to each one. These are:
- Comparison Failures: We judge objects and people by comparison, rather than by absolute worth, so we get anchored to the comparables rather than to true value.
- Anchoring: We get locked to the first number we see, even if it's utterly random. That's why Steve Jobs hawks the iPad by saying, how much would you pay for the device? $1000? $800? How about $499. So the $499 price looks like a bargain in comparison to the $1000 price.
- Free almost overpoweringly over-rides everything else. Even if it is a worse value than a non-free product. The experiment here was great. He offered people a $8 coupon or a $20 coupon for $10. Even though the $20 coupon was a better deal, most people took the $8 coupon.
- Social norms versus market norms. Basically, when you do a favor for a friend, an offer to pay is an insult. That's why companies try to motivate employees by trying to lock employees into social norm, so you feel bad for saying no to working on weekends (after all, you wouldn't say no to visiting your mom on a weekend). The problem comes when employers make business decisions and then cause the employee to feel betrayed (your mom wouldn't lay you off!).
- Decisions made in the heat of the moment. It turns out that we under-estimate our lack of judgement when we are in emotionally heated situations. That's why major decisions are best made after sleeping on them, or better yet, if there's a time delay between when you feel the emotion and when you make the decision.
- Overvaluing what we own. This one is all over popular culture. Once you own something, you feel much worse about giving it up than if you had never tried it in the first place. That's why free trials work.
- Analysis Paralysis. I see this all the time, when people try to keep so many options open that they fail to see that they would have been better off committing to one in the first place. My favorite example in this book was of the woman who still kept trying to keep her old boyfriend even though she liked her new one better. She felt bad losing the option to her old boyfriend, even though it was irrational to do so.
- The Placebo Effect. This one is so well known I was surprised he bothered to spend so much time on it in the book.
- Cheating. It turns out that we cheat less if we are reminded of the usual high minded values before being exposed to temptation, and we cheat more if the cheating is one-step removed from tangibles. In other words, it's way easier to steal credit card numbers than it is to steal cash, and it's even easier to sell CDOs and bad mortgages than to actively bilk you of your money.
Loyalty is a two way street
I was recently getting together with a friend/former colleague from a previous startup. We were discussing engineers who had spent a long time at the startup (which never went anywhere). It brought back to me Mark Suster's article about job-hoppers. It reminded me that loyalty has to be a two way street. Yet companies and employers lay-off long-time employees all the time as business decisions.
You can't have it both ways. You can't claim that the company is a family and that you owe it to a company to be loyal when someone else comes by with a 30% raise, and then turn around and layoff employees when business gets rough. If a family member did that to you, you'd feel incredibly betrayed, and the typical rank-and-file worker has been continually betrayed in this fashion for the last 30 years or so. An investor or venture capitalist can invest in 20 startups at once, and if 19 of them fail and the 20th turns out to be the next Google, the investors still win. An employee/entrepreneur can work in only one startup at a time. If after 3-4 years, there's no exit in sight, and you're not being granted new options, a hefty title, or some other compensation, then I would start looking for a new job! Note that many startups don't have an active retention program in the form of refresh options for employees (even high performers), and I think that's a major mistake. Obviously, a startup founder can't just leave, since if he leaves that's a signal of major disaster.
In retrospect, the time when every one of us employees should have exited was when we saw the Chief Architect leave. He had all the incentives to make the startup successful, but if he was leaving, then what reason did the rest of us had to stay? Incidentally, he eventually ended up at Google, where he got handsomely rewarded, so his departure was well-timed. I discuss other reasons to leave in An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups. By the way, the print copy is current sold out, but digital editions are still available, and I expect the second printing to be available next week.
You can't have it both ways. You can't claim that the company is a family and that you owe it to a company to be loyal when someone else comes by with a 30% raise, and then turn around and layoff employees when business gets rough. If a family member did that to you, you'd feel incredibly betrayed, and the typical rank-and-file worker has been continually betrayed in this fashion for the last 30 years or so. An investor or venture capitalist can invest in 20 startups at once, and if 19 of them fail and the 20th turns out to be the next Google, the investors still win. An employee/entrepreneur can work in only one startup at a time. If after 3-4 years, there's no exit in sight, and you're not being granted new options, a hefty title, or some other compensation, then I would start looking for a new job! Note that many startups don't have an active retention program in the form of refresh options for employees (even high performers), and I think that's a major mistake. Obviously, a startup founder can't just leave, since if he leaves that's a signal of major disaster.
In retrospect, the time when every one of us employees should have exited was when we saw the Chief Architect leave. He had all the incentives to make the startup successful, but if he was leaving, then what reason did the rest of us had to stay? Incidentally, he eventually ended up at Google, where he got handsomely rewarded, so his departure was well-timed. I discuss other reasons to leave in An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups. By the way, the print copy is current sold out, but digital editions are still available, and I expect the second printing to be available next week.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
WM2016 Followup
Our LG WM2016 somehow became unleveled, so I called the GeekSquad and had them come over. The technician first showed me how to level the machine myself, and then told me about several issues:
- Don't use bleach for cleaning the tub. Use dishwasher fluid instead. That gets rid of oil, which bleach doesn't do. Run the machine in "Hot Wash"/Cotton mode. You only have to do it every 2-3 months.
- Hair tends to accumulate at the bottom of the glass door. You must clean off the hair, or it will eventually cause a door leak.
- When using detergent, use half of the "1" line on the Tide cup. The machine is a small machine, and using too much detergent would eventually destroy the machine. A 96 load version of the Tide bottle will last 1-2 years.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Diet and exercise don't work?
In the Atlantic, Marc Ambinder wrote:Stigma might be more bearable—an unpleasant way station on the path to a thinner, healthier life—if diet and exercise, the most prescribed solutions to obesity, worked. But they don’t. Qualification: if you eat less and exercise more, you’ll lose weight. But the chances that you’ll stick with that regimen are slim, and the chances that you’ll regain the weight, and then some, are quite high. A systematic review of weight-loss programs, by Thomas A. Wadden and Adam Gilden Tsai of the University of Pennsylvania, found that the evidence that commercial and self-help weight-loss programs work is “suboptimal.” People who diet often regain more weight than they lose.
I can think of two counter examples. A friend of mine at work was diagnosed with a heart problem. It was exacerbated by a sedentary lifestyle, and his doctor wanted to immediately put him on drugs. He said, "Wait, wait. Can I solve this with a lifestyle change? Change my diet and exercise?" His doctor replied, "That doesn't work. Statistically, nobody sticks with such regiments." My friend wasn't willing to give up, however, and told the doctor, "Let me try it for a month. If that doesn't work you can put me on drugs." This guy went from zero exercise to biking to work 4-5 days a week, hiking and running with his kids on weekends, and started cutting his portion sizes and eating more greens. A month later, his doctor pronounced him completely fit, and at little risk from his cardiovascular disease. Six months later, he was still going strong, and still biking to work nearly every day. Note that if this same man had lived outside California, he probably wouldn't be able to bike through the entire winter. If he had even lived in San Francisco, his bike probably would have gotten stolen within that time period.
Example two: In 2005, I was diagnosed with osteopenia. My doctor immediately put me on a regiment of calcium and vitamin D supplements, and I embarked on a program of hiking and weight lifting, that I continue to this day (it's been 5 years). My bones are back to normal, even though doctors and others were incredulous at the improvement.
The lesson, perhaps, is that if you're a Google engineer, all these rules of thumb about lifestyle changes not working? They're probably inapplicable to you. The question in my mind is: Is there an easy way to predict what kind of persons do well with this kind of diet/exercise regime, and what kinds of persons don't?
I can think of two counter examples. A friend of mine at work was diagnosed with a heart problem. It was exacerbated by a sedentary lifestyle, and his doctor wanted to immediately put him on drugs. He said, "Wait, wait. Can I solve this with a lifestyle change? Change my diet and exercise?" His doctor replied, "That doesn't work. Statistically, nobody sticks with such regiments." My friend wasn't willing to give up, however, and told the doctor, "Let me try it for a month. If that doesn't work you can put me on drugs." This guy went from zero exercise to biking to work 4-5 days a week, hiking and running with his kids on weekends, and started cutting his portion sizes and eating more greens. A month later, his doctor pronounced him completely fit, and at little risk from his cardiovascular disease. Six months later, he was still going strong, and still biking to work nearly every day. Note that if this same man had lived outside California, he probably wouldn't be able to bike through the entire winter. If he had even lived in San Francisco, his bike probably would have gotten stolen within that time period.
Example two: In 2005, I was diagnosed with osteopenia. My doctor immediately put me on a regiment of calcium and vitamin D supplements, and I embarked on a program of hiking and weight lifting, that I continue to this day (it's been 5 years). My bones are back to normal, even though doctors and others were incredulous at the improvement.
The lesson, perhaps, is that if you're a Google engineer, all these rules of thumb about lifestyle changes not working? They're probably inapplicable to you. The question in my mind is: Is there an easy way to predict what kind of persons do well with this kind of diet/exercise regime, and what kinds of persons don't?
Review: Up in the Air
Ok, so this review is actually a bait and switch. Last night, Lisa wanted to watch a movie. I had neglected to sign up for Netflix, but then remembered that the PS3 had on-line movie rentals through the Playstation Store, so I fired up the game machine and looked through the store looking for something to watch.
It wasn't hard to find something to watch, since Up in the Air [Blu-ray]
was a movie that everyone on our St. Vincent Trip talked about. It felt odd not to have the Amazon reviews available while browsing, but I got over that since we wanted to watch the movie.
Purchasing is a bit of a snag, since you can only buy Playstation Store dollars in units of $5 at a time, but I could see myself making regular use of this feature, so there wasn't a lot of resistance on my part. Once the download started, I could see that my WiFi connection while good, wasn't going to instantaneously download the movie for me to watch right away. However, once the PS3 had downloaded about 5% of the movie, an option appeared to watch the movie while downloading. It took no more than 3 minutes to get to this point, but getting Lisa ready to watch the movie took at least 10 minutes, so it was no big deal.
The nice thing about watching the movie this way, as opposed to say, Redbox is that there are no ads. You click play, and the movie immediately starts. No trailers, no menu, nothing. Just what all online rental experiences should be like. The picture quality is absolutely amazing. As mentioned before, the PS3 upscaling works smoothly and magically, and Up in the Air wasn't the kind of movie that needed HD anyway.
Twice, however, the playback stopped when the playback went faster than the download could handle. Each time, we'd stop and do other stuff for a bit so that we wouldn't get stuttering. I think if I had about 30 minutes of buffer time before watching the movie, I don't think we would have even gotten a pause. I would certainly do this kind of rental again, as opposed to renting from Redbox or paying a monthly fee to Netflix (though as a cheapskate, I would of course get a free trial from Netflix first). For HD movies, however, there's some planning needed since it would take quite a while to download the entire movie to disk. That's probably better done through a regular Blu-Ray rental or Netflix.
As for the movie itself: I liked it. Unlike Hollywood movies, there's a plot twist that doesn't end happily for the protagonist, which I thought was unusual. Worth the rental, but I don't think we needed to see it in the theater.
It wasn't hard to find something to watch, since Up in the Air [Blu-ray]
was a movie that everyone on our St. Vincent Trip talked about. It felt odd not to have the Amazon reviews available while browsing, but I got over that since we wanted to watch the movie.Purchasing is a bit of a snag, since you can only buy Playstation Store dollars in units of $5 at a time, but I could see myself making regular use of this feature, so there wasn't a lot of resistance on my part. Once the download started, I could see that my WiFi connection while good, wasn't going to instantaneously download the movie for me to watch right away. However, once the PS3 had downloaded about 5% of the movie, an option appeared to watch the movie while downloading. It took no more than 3 minutes to get to this point, but getting Lisa ready to watch the movie took at least 10 minutes, so it was no big deal.
The nice thing about watching the movie this way, as opposed to say, Redbox is that there are no ads. You click play, and the movie immediately starts. No trailers, no menu, nothing. Just what all online rental experiences should be like. The picture quality is absolutely amazing. As mentioned before, the PS3 upscaling works smoothly and magically, and Up in the Air wasn't the kind of movie that needed HD anyway.
Twice, however, the playback stopped when the playback went faster than the download could handle. Each time, we'd stop and do other stuff for a bit so that we wouldn't get stuttering. I think if I had about 30 minutes of buffer time before watching the movie, I don't think we would have even gotten a pause. I would certainly do this kind of rental again, as opposed to renting from Redbox or paying a monthly fee to Netflix (though as a cheapskate, I would of course get a free trial from Netflix first). For HD movies, however, there's some planning needed since it would take quite a while to download the entire movie to disk. That's probably better done through a regular Blu-Ray rental or Netflix.
As for the movie itself: I liked it. Unlike Hollywood movies, there's a plot twist that doesn't end happily for the protagonist, which I thought was unusual. Worth the rental, but I don't think we needed to see it in the theater.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Guide to Startups Visits San Francisco
LOLapps, a startup in San Francisco, has invited me to give a talk there on May 5th. It will be on-site, and the talk will be open to all comers, including non-employees and walk-ins. (I'll post contact info for the talk later) I certainly didn't expect to give a talk at a San Francisco startup before one in Silicon Valley, but "Silicon Valley" has really come to include the greater Bay Area in recent years. The Berkeley area, for instance, has always had a fair number of startups that became successful, including Inktomi, Ingres, Sybase, and Perforce (Perforce was mentioned in my book).
I'm expecting to keep the talk short (30 minutes or less) so as to have time for questions. If you're in the neighborhood and read the book (or haven't read the book, but want to find out more), please show up and ask questions.
The location is:
116 New Montgomery
Suite 700
San Francisco, CA 94105
The cross street is Mission, and it's 1 block away from Montgomery Street station
I'm down to a little more than a handful of print copies of An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups left. I've placed an order for a second printing, but it usually takes a week or so for it to show up. Thanks to all of you for helping make this book a success!
I'm expecting to keep the talk short (30 minutes or less) so as to have time for questions. If you're in the neighborhood and read the book (or haven't read the book, but want to find out more), please show up and ask questions.
The location is:
Suite 700
San Francisco, CA 94105
The cross street is Mission, and it's 1 block away from Montgomery Street station
I'm down to a little more than a handful of print copies of An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups left. I've placed an order for a second printing, but it usually takes a week or so for it to show up. Thanks to all of you for helping make this book a success!
Friday, April 23, 2010
Review: Perfect Rigor
Perfect Rigor
is Masha Gessen's book about Grisha Perelman, the mathematician who proved the Poincaré Conjecture. It's a short book and a compelling read: I got it home from the library at 5pm yesterday, and finished it at 11pm, with a couple of hours off for cooking, eating, and mowing the lawn.
Perelman doesn't do interviews, and hates talking to people, so Gessen was forced to go about writing this book by interviewing his friends, teachers, and associates. Perelman's childhood was filled with mathematics, having been enrolled by his math tutor into a math club, where Perelman did very well. The book does a great job at describing what it was like growing up in the Soviet system for mathematicians during the 80s, with widespread anti-Semetic sentiments. Perelman was brilliant, however, and was lucky in having great mentors who nurtured and developed him as a problem solver. This first part of the book makes for great reading.
After Perelman leaves the Soviet Union, however, the book flounders a bit. First of all, Gessen had to describe that Poincaré Conjecture to laymen. This is not easy to do with text only: there are no diagrams throughout the book. I feel that this is the weakest part of the book, and Gessen made a hash out of it. Fortunately, the Wikipedia entry is thorough and does a good job of explanation.
Because Gessen did not have access to Perelman, we never understand Perelman's view of the whole thing. Why did he decline the Clark medal? We are led to believe that Perelman felt that he did not get the recognition that he deserved. Gessen also implies that Perelman might have Asperger syndrome, or was so idealistic that when the politics (again, really sociology) inside Mathematics came into play with regards to his solution of the problem, he decided to resign from Mathematics rather than put up with the problem. Perelman also declined the Millenium Prize.
Given that even his former mentors and teachers don't really have access to Perelman, we'll never know the complete story behind this.
20 years ago, when Fermat's Last Theorem was declared proven, I remember sitting down at dinner with one of my CS instructors. He told me about the result, and I said, "OK, so does this prove P=NP or anything interesting like that?" "No," came the reply. "Well then, I don't see why it's news." "You have no soul, Piaw!"
Unfortunately, I still feel like that. I don't think Gessen explains why the Poincaré Conjecture was important or interesting, and unfortunately neither this book nor Wikipedia does a good job of explaining the motivation behind the drive to solve this problem, which even after Perelman's publication, took teams of mathematicians nearly two years to fully explain. Nevertheless, a fun read, and worth the 3 hours of your time to read for a good understanding of the sociology behind Mathematics. Not that I could perform at the level these guys regularly do.
is Masha Gessen's book about Grisha Perelman, the mathematician who proved the Poincaré Conjecture. It's a short book and a compelling read: I got it home from the library at 5pm yesterday, and finished it at 11pm, with a couple of hours off for cooking, eating, and mowing the lawn.Perelman doesn't do interviews, and hates talking to people, so Gessen was forced to go about writing this book by interviewing his friends, teachers, and associates. Perelman's childhood was filled with mathematics, having been enrolled by his math tutor into a math club, where Perelman did very well. The book does a great job at describing what it was like growing up in the Soviet system for mathematicians during the 80s, with widespread anti-Semetic sentiments. Perelman was brilliant, however, and was lucky in having great mentors who nurtured and developed him as a problem solver. This first part of the book makes for great reading.
After Perelman leaves the Soviet Union, however, the book flounders a bit. First of all, Gessen had to describe that Poincaré Conjecture to laymen. This is not easy to do with text only: there are no diagrams throughout the book. I feel that this is the weakest part of the book, and Gessen made a hash out of it. Fortunately, the Wikipedia entry is thorough and does a good job of explanation.
Because Gessen did not have access to Perelman, we never understand Perelman's view of the whole thing. Why did he decline the Clark medal? We are led to believe that Perelman felt that he did not get the recognition that he deserved. Gessen also implies that Perelman might have Asperger syndrome, or was so idealistic that when the politics (again, really sociology) inside Mathematics came into play with regards to his solution of the problem, he decided to resign from Mathematics rather than put up with the problem. Perelman also declined the Millenium Prize.
Given that even his former mentors and teachers don't really have access to Perelman, we'll never know the complete story behind this.
20 years ago, when Fermat's Last Theorem was declared proven, I remember sitting down at dinner with one of my CS instructors. He told me about the result, and I said, "OK, so does this prove P=NP or anything interesting like that?" "No," came the reply. "Well then, I don't see why it's news." "You have no soul, Piaw!"
Unfortunately, I still feel like that. I don't think Gessen explains why the Poincaré Conjecture was important or interesting, and unfortunately neither this book nor Wikipedia does a good job of explaining the motivation behind the drive to solve this problem, which even after Perelman's publication, took teams of mathematicians nearly two years to fully explain. Nevertheless, a fun read, and worth the 3 hours of your time to read for a good understanding of the sociology behind Mathematics. Not that I could perform at the level these guys regularly do.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Review: YOU: The Owner's Manual
YOU: The Owner's Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition: An Insider's Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger was on sale in the Kindle store for $2, and I read the excerpt and liked it, so I bought it and devoured it over the course of a week. It's miles better than the previous health book I read.
The book considers the various pieces in your body that are vital to on-going health. Much likethe Nintendo game Brain Age, the book takes the view that you have a RealAge, which may or may not correspond to your calendar age. Everyone knows that a car that receives routine maintenance and oil changes will last much longer than a car that's been abused and not been maintained.
A lot of emphasis is on things that you can do. For instance, the authors explain why your stool is brown, and then tell you what's going on if your stool is of a different color, as well as what happens if there's blood in your stool. There's even an FAQ at the end of the book, covering questions readers have sent in for the earlier edition of the book.
Now, nearly every health book covers diet and exercise, but this book really does the right things. For instance, it recommends 3 sessions of 10 minutes of weight lifting a week, since that's apparently enough to provide good health. The book discourages you from running a marathon, since that's bad for your joints. In fact, exercising too much is considered bad as well, because of the increased in oxidation. This is in fact documented, but of course, some of us like traveling too much to give it up.
The book also covers diet, and even goes as far as to provide a comprehensive diet plan, complete with recipes, how to choose how much to eat, right down to how you snack and when you snack. This is very impressive: the entire book is a one-stop shop. If you can't be bothered to read any other book on health, this will do you very nicely. All the latest research is in this book as well, including the studies on aerobic exercise improving intelligence.
The only criticism I have on this book is that sometimes, the writing tries to be too clever by half. The analogies and references to popular culture, celebrities, and so forth feel a bit forced, as though the geek doctor in them was trying to be cool. Similarly, the chapters all start with a series of myths that the doctors then debunk. The problem is, by the end of the chapter, most people will remember the myths, rather than remembering the debunking.
Nevertheless, these criticisms are minor compared to how good the book is. Highly recommended. This is a book actually worth owning and referring to, rather than just checking out from the library.
The book considers the various pieces in your body that are vital to on-going health. Much likethe Nintendo game Brain Age, the book takes the view that you have a RealAge, which may or may not correspond to your calendar age. Everyone knows that a car that receives routine maintenance and oil changes will last much longer than a car that's been abused and not been maintained.
A lot of emphasis is on things that you can do. For instance, the authors explain why your stool is brown, and then tell you what's going on if your stool is of a different color, as well as what happens if there's blood in your stool. There's even an FAQ at the end of the book, covering questions readers have sent in for the earlier edition of the book.
Now, nearly every health book covers diet and exercise, but this book really does the right things. For instance, it recommends 3 sessions of 10 minutes of weight lifting a week, since that's apparently enough to provide good health. The book discourages you from running a marathon, since that's bad for your joints. In fact, exercising too much is considered bad as well, because of the increased in oxidation. This is in fact documented, but of course, some of us like traveling too much to give it up.
The book also covers diet, and even goes as far as to provide a comprehensive diet plan, complete with recipes, how to choose how much to eat, right down to how you snack and when you snack. This is very impressive: the entire book is a one-stop shop. If you can't be bothered to read any other book on health, this will do you very nicely. All the latest research is in this book as well, including the studies on aerobic exercise improving intelligence.
The only criticism I have on this book is that sometimes, the writing tries to be too clever by half. The analogies and references to popular culture, celebrities, and so forth feel a bit forced, as though the geek doctor in them was trying to be cool. Similarly, the chapters all start with a series of myths that the doctors then debunk. The problem is, by the end of the chapter, most people will remember the myths, rather than remembering the debunking.
Nevertheless, these criticisms are minor compared to how good the book is. Highly recommended. This is a book actually worth owning and referring to, rather than just checking out from the library.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Xianhang Zhang Returns!
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| Xianhang Cooks |
After his last visit, I was very lucky to have more and longer conversations with Xianhang, including a long hike on Saturday, and he agreed to cook for us once more. This time, it's for the crew that's coming along for this year's Tour of the German-speaking Alps.
My kitchen was sadly under-equipped, even though the stove and oven was brand new. So we first started off the cooking expedition with a visit to the Restaurant Supply store to pick up pots, a frying pan, and various other utensils. I was so glad that someone with real expertise was helping me pick out stuff. I would have just gone down to Safeway and picked up stuff off the rack. Now I have a full set of mixing bowls, baking pans, etc.
Then it was off to Ranch 99 and then Whole Foods to pick up groceries, and upon returning home Xianhang basically started cooking up a Swiss-themed dinner in anticipation of the alps trip. We started off with sausage and polenta, followed by potato salad, then soup, and finally desert was a baked Alaska: a meringue topping off rocky road ice cream, which was on top of sponge cake, all baked in the oven (the first time we ever baked anything in my oven), followed with a sprinkle of strawberry sauce. All very yummy. Cynthia and Kekoa brought wine and plates (when I say under-equipped I mean it), Phil brought more wine, and we all had a great time.
Thanks, Xianhang!
Monday, April 19, 2010
Review: Planet Earth
Planet Earth is the BBC HD documentary series covering all the various landscapes and wildlife of the planet. It also seems to be the Blu-Ray used to show off people who've bought new entertainment systems.
The cinematography is just amazing. I can't watch even half an episode without thinking to myself that the cinematographers must have spent weeks sitting in blinds trying to capture the images and shots in the series. The sound is perfect, and the narration by David Attenborough brings back days of sitting in classrooms getting to watch a documentary instead of listening to another boring lecture.
I do have complaints, and it's that the series as a whole seem shallow. In nearly every episode, the narration raises more questions than it answers, and you wish it occasionally would stop to explain something rather than just barrel along to the next wonder of nature. Of course, you could watch the series with a laptop so you can Google questions as they come up, but to take your eyes off screen after screen of beautiful shots would be silly.
If you own a Blu-Ray player and a home entertainment system capable of showing it off, buy Baraka. After you're done watching that, then get a copy of Planet Earth (there're so many floating around, I'm sure you could just borrow it from someone) and view it. Don't take my word for it, Amazon's released Episode 1: Pole to Pole in HD for free. So go watch it already.
The cinematography is just amazing. I can't watch even half an episode without thinking to myself that the cinematographers must have spent weeks sitting in blinds trying to capture the images and shots in the series. The sound is perfect, and the narration by David Attenborough brings back days of sitting in classrooms getting to watch a documentary instead of listening to another boring lecture.
I do have complaints, and it's that the series as a whole seem shallow. In nearly every episode, the narration raises more questions than it answers, and you wish it occasionally would stop to explain something rather than just barrel along to the next wonder of nature. Of course, you could watch the series with a laptop so you can Google questions as they come up, but to take your eyes off screen after screen of beautiful shots would be silly.
If you own a Blu-Ray player and a home entertainment system capable of showing it off, buy Baraka. After you're done watching that, then get a copy of Planet Earth (there're so many floating around, I'm sure you could just borrow it from someone) and view it. Don't take my word for it, Amazon's released Episode 1: Pole to Pole in HD for free. So go watch it already.
Tips for Tech Leads
One of the unending sources of frustrations of being an experienced engineer in a company full of fresh graduates is having to deal with new tech leads---many engineers fresh out of school are great designers and engineers, but couldn't lead a team out of a paper bag. It didn't help that Google's internal leadership training was derived from team-building exercises for experienced executives, rather than leadership 101 that would have been appropriate in this situation.
My favorite remedy for this is the Peopleware, which I also mentioned in An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups. However, that book seems to beout of print available only direct from the publisher, so I'll do my best to summarize my tips for new tech leads:
(I now have a book full of useful tips like these: Startup Engineering Management)
My favorite remedy for this is the Peopleware, which I also mentioned in An Engineer's Guide to Silicon Valley Startups. However, that book seems to be
- Have lunch with your team at least once a week. If you learn nothing else about leadership, learn to eat with your team. (If you're an industry veteran, I know this sounds basic, but I assure you that I ran into multiple tech leads at Google who did not do this, because no one told them that this is necessary and essential) If necessary, put it on the calendar. Communal eating is such a major bonding ritual since the dawn of humanity that not to do this marks you as an idiot tech lead or manager. One of the best tech leads I know at Google, Arup Mukherjee does this not just once a week, but nearly every day. In Peopleware, Demarco and Lister describe a situation where a crafty tech lead turned making dinner into a team-building exercise. That's the way tech leads should be: even when they're leading, it's not obvious. When a great leader is finished, the team says, "We did it all by ourselves without a leader!"
- Schedule 1-on-1s with every team member, at least once every two weeks. This ensures that your team member has time to catch up with you and tell you about problems that are important but not urgent. Many people have a fear of speaking in public, and private meetings ensures that little nagging things that could blow up don't blind side you. You can also use this time to provide feedback. Most people crave feedback, and being able to provide useful feedback regularly distinguishes a great leader from the rest.
- Make sure that members of your team don't hear from you only when things go wrong. Many tech leads only talk to team members only if something went wrong. Do this enough times, and your team mates will start avoiding you out of repeated Pavlovian training. If this means you have to find ways to praise them every other time you see them, so be it. In Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Game, the protagonist instinctively knows something that many executives do not: bad news should come from the top level, and good news should come from line management. This is something that every executive should learn and do.
- Make a big deal out of milestones. Celebrate every milestone. Reed Hastings was a great cheer-leader for every person in his company. When I applied that to small teams of 3 or 4, it was just as motivating. Most technical leaders err too much on the side of not providing sufficient positive feedback to encourage teams.
- Try to give team members whatever they need in order to get things done. Your role is to support them. Avoid grabbing the glory by taking all the interesting jobs and treating them as minions to do work you don't want to do. Note: if you work at Google, this might not apply to you. It's more important to get promoted early at Google so your evaluations of your team-mates matter more so they can get promotions --- this is another way incentives get mixed up in big companies in a way that don't at startups.
- You're spending well over $100k a year per engineer. There's no reason to skimp on $5,000-$10,000 worth of hardware sitting at his workstation so that he's more productive. Yes, it's nice to be frugal, but one big sign for me that a company has gone too far is when I'm tempted to bring my home machine to work so that I can have a faster machine at work. And no, I don't consider upgrades every 18 months a waste of money if your business depends on the productivity of engineers, but many companies do. I just don't understand it.
(I now have a book full of useful tips like these: Startup Engineering Management)
Friday, April 16, 2010
Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand Trip Pictures
I took a vacation for two weeks in Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia with my girlfriend and my parents. My parents mostly because they knew the area well, thereby ensured that I was eating mostly the best of the best that Singapore and Malaysia had to offer, and secondly, Malaysia is still enough of a podunk country that simply speaking English wouldn't have been enough. My dad speaks fluent Malay. =)
Anyhow, pictures and video! Pictures are in chronological order, the videos, not so much. I ended up with about 500 pictures culling from 1000, so not too bad. =)
Videos are uploaded on youtube because picasa doesn't support 720p yet. To see the difference between 480p and 720p, simply do full screen and the difference will be obvious.
Enjoy!
Promotion Systems
When doing research for my book, I interviewed several Googler old-timers. What surprised me was that two ex-Googlers said the same thing pretty consistently: they felt that the Engineering Ladder was a very bad idea. At the time, I disagreed. I believed that in general, incentives systems worked and it was a good idea to spur everyone along with carrots. Since then, I've come around to agreeing with these two very smart people.
What changed my mind? The first was my reading of the book Drive. To a large extent, software engineering is a field full of ambiguity and complexity, and that makes compensation hard. So incentives tend to fail or backfire. Then I tried to invert the problem. What if I tried to design a promotion system to piss off as many employees as possible? What characteristics would it have?
Ultimately, having to have an engineering ladder at all is why I consider startups better places to work. If you've negotiated substantial stock compensation, then it doesn't matter whether or not you're a misfit or superstar under the promotion system. If the company does well, you're going to do very well. If the company does badly, even the superstars aren't going to be adequately compensated. That makes doing the right thing much easier for everyone, and explains why startups tend to have much less office politics than bigger companies.
[Update: Follow up Post]
What changed my mind? The first was my reading of the book Drive. To a large extent, software engineering is a field full of ambiguity and complexity, and that makes compensation hard. So incentives tend to fail or backfire. Then I tried to invert the problem. What if I tried to design a promotion system to piss off as many employees as possible? What characteristics would it have?
- No pleasant surprises. In other words, you can only be disappointed if you didn't get a promotion, you can't be pleasantly surprised by a promotion.
- Create unhappiness by dependence on scarce resources. In other words, gate promotions based on scarce resources so that even people who would otherwise be qualified could become disgruntled through no fault of their own.
- Eliminate accountability from people who make the promotion decisions (e.g., through a committee). That way, promotion decisions can seem arbitrary.
- Ensure that promotions are competitive races between all qualified candidates. This ensures that people who manipulate that packet in such a way as to have the best looking packets will win over people who are trying to get feedback and improve, which is supposedly the point behind all these feedback systems.
- You have to select good managers anyway. Even in a peer based system, a bad manager can still sink good engineers by selecting bad goals, or blatantly playing favorites.
- Managers are typically incentivized through business goals. If they deliberately promote poor engineers, good engineers tend to leave their teams and the business goals will be much harder to achieve. In general, most companies do a very good job of properly aligning managers with the corporate objectives. It's much harder to do so for rank and file employees.
- A manager can be held accountable for her promotion decisions. It's much harder to hold a faceless committee accountable.
Ultimately, having to have an engineering ladder at all is why I consider startups better places to work. If you've negotiated substantial stock compensation, then it doesn't matter whether or not you're a misfit or superstar under the promotion system. If the company does well, you're going to do very well. If the company does badly, even the superstars aren't going to be adequately compensated. That makes doing the right thing much easier for everyone, and explains why startups tend to have much less office politics than bigger companies.
[Update: Follow up Post]
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Selling Stock Post-IPO
Google was unusual in that it had 3 lock up periods: a 30 day lockup, a 90 day lockup, and the 180 day lockup. The idea was to let pre-IPO stock (and option) holders sell 5% of their holdings after 30 days, an additional 10% after 90 days and any amount after 180 days. The other company I heard of which got an exemption from the usual 180 day lockup rule was Netscape. In my book I discussed some of the pitfalls behind early selling, but here I want to talk a bit about selling strategy.
The first thing I observed was that the float at the time was tiny. This meant that it was conceivable for Google employees who are divesting to move the stock. I also observed that employees (especially employees with large stock holdings) were mostly housed in Mountain View. Many of the large stock holders were engineers, and were Owls, rather than Larks. Since I was effectively locked out of the 30 day lockup due to my vesting date, I got to observe market movements.
Indeed, what I saw was that the highest prices of the day tended to come before 10am PST, and the stock would take a consistent drop after that and stay low for the rest of the day, before another morning spike the next day. I saw this repeated day after day, week after week, and that convinced me that my theory was right.
Obviously, for me to take advantage of the idea, I had to ensure that I was the only person who would execute on it. Otherwise, everyone else would pile on and I would lost my chance to capture the morning spikes. So I deliberately unsubscribed myself from the internal financial-planning discussion mailing lists, and deliberately kept myself from blogging during that period, internally or externally. And yes, I did capture the morning spike when I finally did sell (I'm a lark by nature, so getting up at 6:30am PDT/PST to trade wasn't a problem).
Note that this only occurred at the 30 day and 60 day lockups. At the 180 day lockup periods, institutional investors/venture fund holders could sell, and those guys could move huge chunks of stock in a day, and employee movement would be lost in that noise.
In late 2007, I did the inverse. I took an informal poll of relatively naive employees, and asked if they were going to sell at the all-time high of $700+/share. When everyone else told me that they were holding on for more capital gains, I remembered Warren Buffett's adage: "Be fearful when everyone else is being greedy, and be greedy when everyone else is fearful", and sold until my hands shook from pushing the "sell" button. It was one of the hardest things I ever did, but was also incredibly lucrative. My only regret was not selling even more than I did.
I am not normally a market timer: those of you who've read my financial posts over the years have probably noticed that I have no faith in anybody's ability to time the markets, including my own, and I follow a rough asset-allocation model. But as William Bernstein said during his visit to Google on one of my birthdays: Just because you believe in the efficient market does not absolve you of the responsibility to do the math and look at what makes sense.
An investor always has the responsibility to check current conditions against common sense. As the above two examples illustrate, common sense means that when you know the market is wrong, acting on your beliefs quickly and decisive.
The first thing I observed was that the float at the time was tiny. This meant that it was conceivable for Google employees who are divesting to move the stock. I also observed that employees (especially employees with large stock holdings) were mostly housed in Mountain View. Many of the large stock holders were engineers, and were Owls, rather than Larks. Since I was effectively locked out of the 30 day lockup due to my vesting date, I got to observe market movements.
Indeed, what I saw was that the highest prices of the day tended to come before 10am PST, and the stock would take a consistent drop after that and stay low for the rest of the day, before another morning spike the next day. I saw this repeated day after day, week after week, and that convinced me that my theory was right.
Obviously, for me to take advantage of the idea, I had to ensure that I was the only person who would execute on it. Otherwise, everyone else would pile on and I would lost my chance to capture the morning spikes. So I deliberately unsubscribed myself from the internal financial-planning discussion mailing lists, and deliberately kept myself from blogging during that period, internally or externally. And yes, I did capture the morning spike when I finally did sell (I'm a lark by nature, so getting up at 6:30am PDT/PST to trade wasn't a problem).
Note that this only occurred at the 30 day and 60 day lockups. At the 180 day lockup periods, institutional investors/venture fund holders could sell, and those guys could move huge chunks of stock in a day, and employee movement would be lost in that noise.
In late 2007, I did the inverse. I took an informal poll of relatively naive employees, and asked if they were going to sell at the all-time high of $700+/share. When everyone else told me that they were holding on for more capital gains, I remembered Warren Buffett's adage: "Be fearful when everyone else is being greedy, and be greedy when everyone else is fearful", and sold until my hands shook from pushing the "sell" button. It was one of the hardest things I ever did, but was also incredibly lucrative. My only regret was not selling even more than I did.
I am not normally a market timer: those of you who've read my financial posts over the years have probably noticed that I have no faith in anybody's ability to time the markets, including my own, and I follow a rough asset-allocation model. But as William Bernstein said during his visit to Google on one of my birthdays: Just because you believe in the efficient market does not absolve you of the responsibility to do the math and look at what makes sense.
An investor always has the responsibility to check current conditions against common sense. As the above two examples illustrate, common sense means that when you know the market is wrong, acting on your beliefs quickly and decisive.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Review: Dollhouse
Dollhouse is Eliza Dushku's vehicle for showing off her versatility (lead actress and producer), and it's Joss Whedon's world for exploring the nature of identity.
The show is superficially a science fiction show, but there's very little science. The premise of the show is that you've got an outfit that can imprint personalities into people (called Dolls), and then use those people to fulfill fantasies, or perform more sinister roles. The obvious uses are touched upon, but the show really hits its strides when the Dollhouse's sinister past and secrets come back to revisit it.
The acting is generally good, with Olivia Williams stealing every scene she's in, and lending what would otherwise be a very dull character a surprisingly sympathetic life. The writing is intelligent, and with none of the teen buffyisms you almost come to expect out of a Joss Whedon show. With extremely strong female leads, however, it is very clear that this show plays to his strengths.
The technology, however, requires massive suspension of disbelief, not just of the basic tech piece of "imprinting", but from the giant ass plot-holes in the show. For instance, we're supposed to believe that the brilliant people who build all this amazing technology have never heard off-site backups (despite the Dollhouse being a widely distributed operation). There are basic security issues that are never addressed, and of course, many episodes leave you wondering why the equivalent of the New York Times in this universe hasn't already exploded the story.
All that aside, however, I enjoyed the themes that are explored, and definitely enjoyed the plot twists: they were both surprising and believable at the same time. Ultimately, however, I agree with Grant McCracken (I'd provide a link, but his blog seems to be down) as to why the show failed to connect with a broader audience:
Ours is a transformational world, and to that extent Dollhouse should speak to us.
But there are two kinds of transformation: involuntary and voluntary. We hate the former. We love the latter even more.
Which transformation is Dollhouse about? It's about a woman (Eliza Dushku, pictured) trapped in an endless series of involuntary transformations. A mysterious corporation wipes her soul, inserts a new persona, and hires her out. This is the stuff of our worst realities and dreams.
The trouble is not that we can not identify with "Echo." The problem is we can identify too well. We too have been the captives of forced transformations, and it gives us no comfort to see someone else endure this horrible condition.
All in all, it's a short Season (13 episodes), and I don't think it was a waste of time at all. It's not on par with the best Buffy season, but I consider it a show that's at least as good as Firefly.
I look forward to checking out Season 2 from the library.
The show is superficially a science fiction show, but there's very little science. The premise of the show is that you've got an outfit that can imprint personalities into people (called Dolls), and then use those people to fulfill fantasies, or perform more sinister roles. The obvious uses are touched upon, but the show really hits its strides when the Dollhouse's sinister past and secrets come back to revisit it.
The acting is generally good, with Olivia Williams stealing every scene she's in, and lending what would otherwise be a very dull character a surprisingly sympathetic life. The writing is intelligent, and with none of the teen buffyisms you almost come to expect out of a Joss Whedon show. With extremely strong female leads, however, it is very clear that this show plays to his strengths.
The technology, however, requires massive suspension of disbelief, not just of the basic tech piece of "imprinting", but from the giant ass plot-holes in the show. For instance, we're supposed to believe that the brilliant people who build all this amazing technology have never heard off-site backups (despite the Dollhouse being a widely distributed operation). There are basic security issues that are never addressed, and of course, many episodes leave you wondering why the equivalent of the New York Times in this universe hasn't already exploded the story.
All that aside, however, I enjoyed the themes that are explored, and definitely enjoyed the plot twists: they were both surprising and believable at the same time. Ultimately, however, I agree with Grant McCracken (I'd provide a link, but his blog seems to be down) as to why the show failed to connect with a broader audience:
Ours is a transformational world, and to that extent Dollhouse should speak to us.
But there are two kinds of transformation: involuntary and voluntary. We hate the former. We love the latter even more.
Which transformation is Dollhouse about? It's about a woman (Eliza Dushku, pictured) trapped in an endless series of involuntary transformations. A mysterious corporation wipes her soul, inserts a new persona, and hires her out. This is the stuff of our worst realities and dreams.
The trouble is not that we can not identify with "Echo." The problem is we can identify too well. We too have been the captives of forced transformations, and it gives us no comfort to see someone else endure this horrible condition.
All in all, it's a short Season (13 episodes), and I don't think it was a waste of time at all. It's not on par with the best Buffy season, but I consider it a show that's at least as good as Firefly.
I look forward to checking out Season 2 from the library.
Facebook is stealing Adsense Revenue
Just before I left Google, I heard rumors that if you told your manager that you were leaving to join Facebook, you would be escorted out of the building right away. What's interesting to me about this rumor is that it was quite believable, and also despite all that publicity about the Apple-Google rivalry, there was no such rumor circulating about that happening if you were to leave Google to join Apple.
Now, first of all, I will state my anti-Apple bias: I think that Apple would be a horrible place to work if you're a Googler. It is in every sense the anti-Google in outlook. I have friends who worked there (and one who still does), and I know for one thing it would drive me crazy. People tell me that there's so much secrecy that when you have to debug something, getting enough information to even do your work if the bug spans up or down one level of abstraction would be a challenge. And obviously, there's a lot more secrecy than there is at Google, even for internal employees.
On the other hand, while Apple might be able to start establishing ads on mobile devices, Facebook is already stealing ad revenue out of adsense. How? Take this blog for instance. I run Adsense Ads on the side and bottom (unobtrusive, but valuable if Google does a good job of monetization). The blog, however gets syndicated to various places: Buzz, Friendfeed and Facebook. The first is controlled by Google, the second doesn't try to monetize, and in fact helps drive traffic to the blog. The last, however, strips out all Google ads, and replaces it with Facebook ads!
Not only does Facebook see all the revenue that Google otherwise would see, it also grabs all the revenue that I would otherwise see, since Google shares Adsense revenue with the content provider (in this case, me). You can imagine a world in which all content thus gets syndicated through Facebook and Google's content ads network goes to zero.
So if the rumors are true, then indeed Google is terrified of Facebook, and has every reason to be. The potential for disruption to its content ads network is huge. The caveat, of course, is that the high traffic sites which have lots of traffic clearly have a disincentive to syndicate their content through Facebook, so it's only low traffic sites like mine that are affected by this. My guess though, is that Facebook will eventually provide some sort of revenue sharing arrangements with the high traffic sites, at which point it would really start chipping into Google's content ads network.
Then of course, there's that other insidious threat: Facebook is currently in the position Google was 6.5 years ago, being able to offer hot pre-IPO stock to potential employees. This is a cycle in Silicon Valley, however, and the correct response is to properly compensate your employees rather than threaten to escort them out of the buildings when they give notice. I doubt if upper-management at Google is unaware of that, given how recently the shoe was on the other foot.
Now, first of all, I will state my anti-Apple bias: I think that Apple would be a horrible place to work if you're a Googler. It is in every sense the anti-Google in outlook. I have friends who worked there (and one who still does), and I know for one thing it would drive me crazy. People tell me that there's so much secrecy that when you have to debug something, getting enough information to even do your work if the bug spans up or down one level of abstraction would be a challenge. And obviously, there's a lot more secrecy than there is at Google, even for internal employees.
On the other hand, while Apple might be able to start establishing ads on mobile devices, Facebook is already stealing ad revenue out of adsense. How? Take this blog for instance. I run Adsense Ads on the side and bottom (unobtrusive, but valuable if Google does a good job of monetization). The blog, however gets syndicated to various places: Buzz, Friendfeed and Facebook. The first is controlled by Google, the second doesn't try to monetize, and in fact helps drive traffic to the blog. The last, however, strips out all Google ads, and replaces it with Facebook ads!
Not only does Facebook see all the revenue that Google otherwise would see, it also grabs all the revenue that I would otherwise see, since Google shares Adsense revenue with the content provider (in this case, me). You can imagine a world in which all content thus gets syndicated through Facebook and Google's content ads network goes to zero.
So if the rumors are true, then indeed Google is terrified of Facebook, and has every reason to be. The potential for disruption to its content ads network is huge. The caveat, of course, is that the high traffic sites which have lots of traffic clearly have a disincentive to syndicate their content through Facebook, so it's only low traffic sites like mine that are affected by this. My guess though, is that Facebook will eventually provide some sort of revenue sharing arrangements with the high traffic sites, at which point it would really start chipping into Google's content ads network.
Then of course, there's that other insidious threat: Facebook is currently in the position Google was 6.5 years ago, being able to offer hot pre-IPO stock to potential employees. This is a cycle in Silicon Valley, however, and the correct response is to properly compensate your employees rather than threaten to escort them out of the buildings when they give notice. I doubt if upper-management at Google is unaware of that, given how recently the shoe was on the other foot.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Laundry
Google has an unusual perk: on-site laundry machines. When I first joined, it was just one laundry machine sitting in building 0. By the time I left, there were no less than 4 laundry rooms with entire banks of washers and dryers. When I first joined, I didn't think much of the perk: one laundry machine that operated at European speeds meant that it was never available when you needed it.
When the first laundry room with a bank of machines showed up, I started using them, because it was more work to dig up quarters for the laundry machines at my apartment building than to just dump the laundry onto my trailer and tow it to work on my bicycle. In California, you can do this most of the year and not even need a waterproof bag for the laundry. I also started keeping a week's worth of clothes at work and then never even bringing those home: this let me do a bike commute sans saddlebag, if I so chose to.
As mentioned in my book, Google had an unusual number of fresh graduates. This led to the kind of "accidents" you would expect in a college dorm. One day, I came in to the laundry room to find one of our administrative assistants in a huff. "Darn Engineers with PhDs shouldn't be allowed to do laundry," she muttered under her breath. I asked her what happened, and she said, "Some idiot PhD went and stuck washing powder into the dryer. Now the whole thing's jammed up and there's powder all over the place." She went out, grabbed a marker and a sheet of paper, and taped up the dryer with an "Out of Order" sign. Then she had a better idea. She went out, grabbed a ton of paper and tape, and wrote on them: "Washing machine. Use detergent here. Do not put dryer sheets here.", and "Dryer. DO NOT using detergent. Use dryer sheets here!" And proceeded to label every machine in the laundry room.
Since then, we have not had a repeat of the "detergent in drying machine" incident. So at least we know that even engineers with PhDs can read.
When the first laundry room with a bank of machines showed up, I started using them, because it was more work to dig up quarters for the laundry machines at my apartment building than to just dump the laundry onto my trailer and tow it to work on my bicycle. In California, you can do this most of the year and not even need a waterproof bag for the laundry. I also started keeping a week's worth of clothes at work and then never even bringing those home: this let me do a bike commute sans saddlebag, if I so chose to.
As mentioned in my book, Google had an unusual number of fresh graduates. This led to the kind of "accidents" you would expect in a college dorm. One day, I came in to the laundry room to find one of our administrative assistants in a huff. "Darn Engineers with PhDs shouldn't be allowed to do laundry," she muttered under her breath. I asked her what happened, and she said, "Some idiot PhD went and stuck washing powder into the dryer. Now the whole thing's jammed up and there's powder all over the place." She went out, grabbed a marker and a sheet of paper, and taped up the dryer with an "Out of Order" sign. Then she had a better idea. She went out, grabbed a ton of paper and tape, and wrote on them: "Washing machine. Use detergent here. Do not put dryer sheets here.", and "Dryer. DO NOT using detergent. Use dryer sheets here!" And proceeded to label every machine in the laundry room.
Since then, we have not had a repeat of the "detergent in drying machine" incident. So at least we know that even engineers with PhDs can read.
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