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Google’s “20% time,” which brought you Gmail and AdSense, is now as good as dead

(qz.com)
581 points antr | 14 comments | 16 Aug 13 12:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.002s | source | bottom
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dekhn ◴[16 Aug 13 14:26 UTC] No.6224161[source]▶
I am a Googler. I will only speak to my personal experience, and the experience of people around me: 20% time still exists, and is encouraged as a mechanism to explore exciting new ideas without the complexity and cost of a real product.

My last three years were spent turning my 20% project into a product, and my job now is spent turning another 20% project into a product. There was never any management pressure from any of my managers to not work on 20% projects; my performance reviews were consistent with a productive Googler.

Calling 20% time 120% time is fair. Realistically it's hard to do your day job productively and also build a new project from scratch. You have to be willing to put in hours outside of your normal job to be successful.

What 20% time really means is that you- as a Google eng- have access to, and can use, Google's compute infrastructure to experiment and build new systems. The infrastructure, and the associated software tools, can be leveraged in 20% time to make an eng far more productive than they normally would be. Certainly I, and many other Googlers, are simply super-motivated and willing to use our free time to work on projects that use our infrstructure because we're intrinsically interested in using these things to make new products.

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1. VikingCoder ◴[16 Aug 13 14:31 UTC] No.6224194[source]▶
At my last job, I had to wait two weeks to get a VM created and assigned to me.

At my current job, I can't get a port opened to make an OUTBOUND connection to Amazon Web Services.

Yeah, working at Google, it's definitely easier to use big tools to try new things, huh?

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2. dekhn ◴[16 Aug 13 14:38 UTC] No.6224235[source]▶
We have a lot of perks, including great food, but ultimately it comes down to: 1) awesome coworkers I learn from daily 2) access to infrastructure and few barriers 3) a competent IT team for corporate IT

The combination of the three is rare in industry.

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3. calinet6 ◴[16 Aug 13 15:00 UTC] No.6224368[source]▶
What I'm hearing is that the dream of Google has been reduced to some characteristic bullet points and a reasonably positive conclusion.

This isn't a criticism or negativity, all things considered it seems to be a great company to work for; it just seems to be a bit more homogenized than it used to be.

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4. cenhyperion ◴[16 Aug 13 15:38 UTC] No.6224656[source]▶
How awesome is the food?
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5. dekhn ◴[16 Aug 13 15:58 UTC] No.6224800{3}[source]▶
I like it a lot. I eat about 10 meals a week there, have lost about 25 pounds, and I hate going out to restaurants because you have to pay and the food isn't as good.
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6. cbg0 ◴[16 Aug 13 17:06 UTC] No.6225282{4}[source]▶
You're probably going to crappy restaurants.
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7. jknightco ◴[16 Aug 13 17:54 UTC] No.6225613{5}[source]▶
I don't think you've eaten in a Google cafeteria then. The food here really is top-notch. An equivalent restaurant would cost you between $25 and $35 a plate, possibly more depending on the day. I've had meals that would have easily cost me more than $50 anywhere else.
8. jrockway ◴[16 Aug 13 18:00 UTC] No.6225656{3}[source]▶
I think you hear a lot of bullet points because it's hard to write a HN comment that describes everything about Google in one sentence.

Let me tell you a story from my recent experience.

My neck hurts from time to time, and as part of stopping that, I decided that one thing I needed to do was to not sit at my desk anymore. Fortunately, I already had a standing desk at work, so it was just a matter of using it. When I got it, I thought the best plan would be to gradually ramp up; 30 minutes today, 40 minutes tomorrow, until I was standing the entire day. That never happened and I think I maybe stood for an hour a day, basically bailing out as soon as my legs felt even the slightest bit uncomfortable. Last week, I decided that that was not going to work, and I mentioned this to some people that sit (well, stand) near me. They agreed to shoot me with Nerf guns if I sat down. I did, and they did, so I stopped sitting down. Now I can stand the entire day. What really did it was watching others around me stand for the entire day; if they could do this for months, why couldn't I? That's what really motivated me to endure the annoyance in getting used to something new.

So what does this have to do with Google? It boils down to: coworkers that care, coworkers that are "different", and the willingness to make expensive non-essential office furniture universally accessible and useful.

Ultimately, there are a lot of great reasons to work at Google, and HN comments can only give you a small snapshot at a time.

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9. typon ◴[16 Aug 13 18:13 UTC] No.6225755{5}[source]▶
I had an interview at Google (no job :(...), and their food really is excellent. It can easily be compared to a higher end restaurant on Yelp (think $$ or $$$).
10. dekhn ◴[16 Aug 13 18:21 UTC] No.6225801{4}[source]▶
When one of my coworkers (at Google), outside of work, crash-landed his parachute and was in the hospital for months:

1) his manager (my manager) spent the next two days with a translator contacting his family back in Iran to explain what happened 2) paid a huge amount of money to have him rehabbed. He had brain damage. They did a great job- he had access to awesome rehab people and regained a ton of brain function. 3) worked hard to get his work visa extended while he was out of work.

I use bullet points because they are a succinct way to list several orthogonal items. Please don't take my data and generalize to all of Google. All I can say is that this company is pretty incredible, and much of what get published about it isn't very accurate.

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11. jrockway ◴[16 Aug 13 18:30 UTC] No.6225855{5}[source]▶
All I can say is that this company is pretty incredible, and much of what get published about it isn't very accurate.

Couldn't agree more. Partially-truthful stories titled "Google used to be a great place to work but isn't anymore," seem to make a lot of HN commenters very happy. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, back to complaining about how I don't like the new pour-over coffees that the baristas upstairs make. Replacing Intelligentsia with Stumptown? How dare they! What a terrible place to work! :)

12. thedufer ◴[17 Aug 13 00:49 UTC] No.6227713{5}[source]▶
You haven't eaten there, have you? Their "cafeteria" is a bunch of kitchens worked by chefs. Good ones. Their food is the only reason I would consider working there.
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13. VikingCoder ◴[17 Aug 13 04:11 UTC] No.6228139{6}[source]▶
Their food is the only reason I would consider working there.

This is bald hyperbole. There are a lot of reasons you would consider working there.

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14. thedufer ◴[18 Aug 13 20:57 UTC] No.6234206{7}[source]▶
The only advantage over my current gig, I meant.