Misunderstanding the Logic of Rank-and-Yank 2021 Style
June 7, 2021
Many years ago when I worked at a big time consulting firm, GE was a good customer. Anecdotes about Neutron Jack were frequent. After departing the estimable firm, Neutron became a management guru, an author, and an esteemed business luminary. One comment about Neutron has remained with me for more than 40 years was:
Stack and rank or the more upscale vitality curve.
My fave for this concept which the big time consulting firm enthusiastically embraced was “rank and yank.”
“Amazon’s Controversial ‘Hire to Fire’ Practice Reveals a Brutal Truth About Management” is adrift from Neutron Jack’s method. In fact, the write up is critical of Amazon’s implementation of this logical and realistic practice. Not everyone is intellectually or socially equivalent. In a profit making entity, it is necessary to cultivate an environment in which winners win. Losers — that is, who don’t perform either in terms of meeting objectives or socially in terms of making colleagues love them like a puppy — have an opportunity to find their future elsewhere.
The write up states with little awareness of the rich principles of Neutron Jack:
Amazon managers are hiring people they otherwise wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, just so they can later fire them to hit their goal. That completely defeats the point since–if the metric is based on sound business principles–there are people keeping their job who shouldn’t, at the expense of the sacrificial lamb.
The write up does not understand the dynamics of a big time, 21st century profit machines. Athletes cheat. Honest executives cheat on their taxes. Ministers in Kentucky find interaction with some congregation members the best thing ever.
The consequence of hiring to fire and Neutron’s rank-and-yank approach is to further one’s own success. Does the reader of the Inc. article think for a New York minute that an executive at a monopoly like company is into public good, doing what’s right for a fuzzy idea like ethical behavior, or being honest. Even the glittery Apple executive Tim Apple revealed that the app store 30 percent was to enrich Apple, not help the gamer.
Net net: Please, connect with reality in 2021.
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2021
Google: The High School Science Club Management Method Cracks Location Privacy
June 2, 2021
How does one keep one’s location private? Good question. “Apple Is Eating Our Lunch: Google Employees Admit in Lawsuit That the Company Made It Nearly Impossible for Users to Keep Their Location Private” explains:
Google continued collecting location data even when users turned off various location-sharing settings, made popular privacy settings harder to find, and even pressured LG and other phone makers into hiding settings precisely because users liked them, according to the documents.
The fix. Enter random locations in order to baffle the high school science club whiz kids. The write up explains:
The unsealed versions of the documents paint an even more detailed picture of how Google obscured its data collection techniques, confusing not just its users but also its own employees. Google uses a variety of avenues to collect user location data, according to the documents, including WiFi and even third-party apps not affiliated with Google, forcing users to share their data in order to use those apps or, in some cases, even connect their phones to WiFi.
Interesting. The question is, “Why?”
My hunch is that geolocation is a darned useful item of data. Do a bit of sleuthing and check out the importance of geolocation and cross correlation on policeware and intelware solutions. Marketing finds the information useful as well. Does Google have a master plan? Sure, make money. The high school science club wants to keep the data flowing for three reasons:
First, ever increasing revenues are important. Without cash flow, Google’s tough-to-control costs could bring down the company. Geolocation data are valuable and provide a kitting needle to weave other items of information into a detailed just-for-you quilt.
Second, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook pose significant threats to the Google. Amazon is, well, doing its Bezos bulldozer thing. Apple is pushing its quasi privacy campaign to give “users” control. And Facebook is unpredictable and trying to out Google Google in advertising and user engagement. These outfits may be monopolies, but monopolies have to compete so high value data become the weaponized drones of these business wars.
Third, Google’s current high school management approach is mostly unaware of how the company gathers data. The systems and methods were institutionalized years ago. What persists are the modules of code which just sort of mostly do their thing. Newbies use the components and the data collection just functions. Why fix it if it isn’t broken. That assumes that someone knows how to fiddle with legacy Google.
Net net: Confusion. What high school science club admits to not having the answers? I can’t name one, including my high school science club in 1958. Some informed methods are wonderful and lesser being should not meddle. I read the article and think, “If you don’t get it, get out.”
Stephen E Arnold, June 1, 2021
Google: More Personnel Excitement
June 1, 2021
I am not too keen on what used to be called human resources. I am not sure I liked being a “resource” like sand or lignite. I once wrote a report about “sherm”. Was I surprised. The “word” was the way personnel professionals pronounced the estimable trade association Society for Human Resource Management. SHRM became sherm to those in the know. I did the report; got paid; and decided to not think about personnel again. Until I read “Over 10,000 Women Are Suing Google over Gender Pay Disparity.” Now that’s a personnel story which is almost up to the level of the Timnit Gebru matter.
According to the write up:
Four women who worked at Google have won class-action status to proceed with their gender pay disparity lawsuit, reports Bloomberg. The latest ruling in the protracted legal battle means the suit can now apply to 10,800 women who held various positions at the tech giant since 2013. Those affected represent a broad cross-section of vocations including engineers, program managers, salespeople and at least one preschool teacher. The women, who are seeking more than $600 million in damages, allege Google violated the California Equal Pay Act by paying them less than their male counterparts, promoting them slowly and less frequently.
I have used the phrase “high school science club management methods” or HSSCMM or H2SC2M to capture the approach some Google managers take to the personnel thing. If the information in the article is accurate, it would appear that Google had institutionalized pay disparity. That’s something my high school science club would have done for sure.
My thought is that Alphabet Google may want to check out the information on the SHRM Web site. I clicked on the Compensation tab and spotted a number of articles about employee pay. There’s an entry for “Using AI in Comp Decisions? Here’s How to Build Trust.” That write up seems germane. It mentions artificial intelligence, and based on the recent Google conference, smart software is a big deal at the Google. The write up mentions “trust.” That’s important when visiting via Google’s Zoom clone with prospective female hires at big time universities.
Perhaps Google should pull up roots and relocate to a country which does not fiddle around with the equality notion? Can a high school science club just pick up and head to such a place? Sure. High school science thinkers (regardless of age) can come up with absolutely brilliant solutions that seem logical to them. Example: Buying Motorola, Orkut, solving death, etc.
It’s sherm. Remember when you sign up for an online equality in compensation course. Sherm and 657175616c697479.
Stephen E Arnold, May 28, 2021
Great Moments in Management: Rolfing and AmaZen
May 31, 2021
Happy holiday, everyone. I spotted two fascinating examples of message control and management this morning. The first is the Daily Dot “real” news about an Amazon driver getting into Rolfing. “Weekend Update: People Feel Sorry for Amazon Driver Caught Screaming from Truck” reports:
One of the TikTok videos in question features an Amazon driver screaming at the top of his lungs as he makes his way down the street in the delivery truck. His apparent distress while on the clock has sympathetic viewers calling for higher wages and better working conditions for all Amazon employees.
Yep, TikTok. Who can believe that content engine? Probably some of the deep thinkers who absorb information in 30 second chunks. I think of TikTok as a “cept ejector.” Yes, like Rolfing, “cepts” were a thing years ago. Rusty on Rolfing? Check out this link.
The second mesmerizer is described in “Introducing the “AmaZen” Booth, a Box Designed for Convenient, On-Site Worker Breakdowns.” This coffin sized object looks like a coffin. The story reports that an Amazon wizard said:
“With AmaZen, I wanted to create a space that’s quiet, that people could go and focus on their mental and emotional well-being,” Brown explains over footage of an employee entering what looks like a porta potty decorated with pamphlets, a computer, some sad little plants, and a tiny fan. She continues, calling the overgrown iron maiden a place to “recharge the internal battery” by checking out “a library of mental health and mindful practices.”
What do screaming employees and a work environment requiring a coffin sized Zen booth suggest? Many interesting things I wager.
Management excellence in action. Is this something a high school science club might set up as a prank?
Stephen E Arnold, May 31, 2021
Loon Balloon Descends from Fantastic Heights to Parking Lot
May 31, 2021
I read “Alphabet Moonshot Loon Is Jolted by Layoffs – But Employees Are Finding Jobs with Tech Titan.” The article is amusing because of the assertion that “employees are finding jobs with tech titan.” How many Loonies will be joining other units of the online advertising company? The article does not answer the question because that would reveal the functioning of the people management methods at the firm.
I noted this statement in the write up:
Mountain View-based Loon decided to wind down the company after it wasn’t able to craft a viable and sustainable business model.
Yep, the online ad firm learned that balloons floated with the wind. Bad weather? It happens, and the Loon balloons would go where Google did not want them to venture. Flight paths, military facilities, transmission lines. You get the idea.
Here’s a statement which may ring hollow with Timnit Gebru:
Loon and Alphabet intend to help the displaced workers, a Loon spokesperson said in an email to this news organization.
Help, it appears has not been defined. A member of the high school science club management team allegedly said:
If Loon employees do not find alternative roles at Alphabet, they will be eligible to receive severance pay following their end dates.
Loon balloons come down to earth, and it is possible that some Xooglers will be able to park their vans in the parking lot instead of on the street in Mountain View. Cost cutting and reality have intruded on the mom and pop online ad merchant it seems.
Stephen E Arnold, May 31, 2021
Google DeepMind: Two High School Science Clubs Arm Wrestle
May 26, 2021
Not Fortnite vs Apple, not Spartans versus some people from the east, and definitely not Wladimir Klitschko fighting Deontay Wilder. Nope this dust up is Google Mountain View (the unit uses an icon of Jeff Dean as its identifier) against Google DeepMind (this science club uses an icon of a humiliated human Go master as its shibboleth).
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Mountain View Icon |
Deep Mind Icon |
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The Murdoch real news outfit published “”Google AI Unit Fails to Gain More Autonomy.” You can chase down the dead tree edition for May 22-23, 2021 or cough up some cash and read the report at this link. I noted this passage from the write up:
Senior managers at Google artificial-intelligence unit DeepMind have been negotiating for years with the parent company for more autonomy, seeking an independent legal structure for the sensitive research they do…Google called off those talks…The end of the long-running negotiations, which hasn’t previously been reported, is the latest example of how Google and other tech giants are trying to strengthen their control over the study and advancement of artificial intelligence.
The estimable Murdoch real news outfit notes:
Google bought the London-based startup for about $500 million. DeepMind has about 1,000 staff members, most of them researchers and engineers. In 2019, DeepMind’s pretax losses widened to £477 million, equivalent to about $660 million, according to the latest documents filed with the U.K.’s Companies House registry.
What are the stakes for the high school science club teams? A trophy or a demonstration of how bright people engaged in AI (whatever that means) manifest their software vision?
Several observations:
- Money losing gives the Mountain View team an advantage
- “Winning” in the mercurial field of smart software depends on the data fed into the algorithms. Humans – particularly science club members – can be somewhat subjective, unpredictable, and – dare I say the word – illogical
- The DeepMind science club team appears to value what might be called non-commercial thoughts about smart software. (Smart software, it seems, can be trained like a pigeon to perform in interesting ways, at least according to my psychology textbook which I studied a half century ago. Yep, pigeons. A powerful metaphor too.
This David versus Goliath fight is a facet of the fantastic management acumen demonstrated in the Mountain View handling of ethical AI staff. (Google’s power may have reached the US TV show which reported about AI “issues” without mentioning the standard bearer of algorithmic bias. Does the name Dr. Timnit Gebru sound familiar? It apparently did not to the “60 Minutes” producer.
Net net: Both science club teams are likely to be losers. The victor may be dissenting staff who quit and write about the Google’s scintillating management methods. I expect some start ups to emerge from the staff departures. Venture funds like opportunities. I do like the icons for each team. Are their coffee mugs and T shirts available?
This intra AI tussle may not amount to anything, right?
Stephen E Arnold, May 26, 2021
Surprise! Prabhakar Raghavan Runs Google
May 20, 2021
The revelation that the Google boss is Prabhakar Raghavan, a former Verity executive who jumped to Yahoo and bounced into Google. The article/interview “Prabhakar Raghavan Isn’t CEO of Google—He Just Runs the Place” is an entertaining romp through search and a number of other topics. Please, read the interview. I want to highlight three statements from the article and offer a few observations.
Dr. Raghavan is quoted as saying:
Even now, with all the resources of Alphabet, if you remove one of the biggest constraints, such as competition, the problem doesn’t become easier.
My interpretation of this statement is that Dr. Raghavan has admitted that Google has no competition. Perhaps the “if” is the word that allows my conclusion to be disputed. Nevertheless, search is tough; there’s no competition; and the first page of most query results are ads and Google-ized content. “Objective” and relevant search results may appear on subsequent results pages. Hunting for the optimal result is as tedious as digging through the pages of the paper version of the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature circa 1964.
Here’s another interesting statement:
For instance, if you ask, “What’s today’s weather?” I show you a module of the weather, I don’t send you off somewhere else.
I think this means that Google engineers stickiness into its search results. Google does not want the user to click away and possibly not enjoy more Googley goodness. Over the years, the stickiness has ossified into what is a walled garden. Google caches the most clicked on content and serves it from a point close to the user. The originating site is not involved in some cases. The walled garden is replacing Wild West swinging doors with those one-way doors found in secure facilities. Easy in but no way out.
My final circled item from the article/interview was:
There is no circumstance under which I would say let’s toss that out and become a conventional company, because that is not what is going to lead us to innovate and serve humanity.
Google does not want to be conventional.
Interesting. Google seems to be evolving into an entity which has not been seen for decades: A quasi-country which operates in a way that gives it as much control over what information flows as an old-fashioned dictatorship. The list of Google prohibited words is fascinating. The banned creators on YouTube is varied and evolving. The company’s approach to innovation is “me to, me to”. The short attention span for products and services is a challenge to developers.
How will Google fare in the harsh light of more legal scrutiny? Will Google’s handling of “ethical AI” become the standard for the emerging smart software sector? Will the learnings imparted at Verity transfer to the Google environment? Will Google deliver relevant search results without the curve balls that seem to be the go-to pitch for the core service?
No answers are available for these questions. Maybe in the next round of European Union and US legal activities.
Stephen E Arnold, May 20, 2021
Be Resilient. Follow the Google Regimen
May 7, 2021
To learn the secret, navigate to “Google’s ‘Global Head of Resilience’ Says the Secret to Avoiding Burnout Is TEA.” The acronym says it all: TEA (not the street slang for cannabis). Google’s wizard in charge of resilience explains the secret:
- Thoughts. Complete these sentences to help you learn “to differentiate between helpful and unproductive thinking patterns:” “Today my mind is …” “To refocus I need to …”
- Energy. The goal of the ‘E’ section of TEA is “observing how we are feeling in the moment, and intentionally investing in activities or people that fuel positive enthusiasm and motivation.” Complete these sentences: “Today my energy is…” “To change or maintain, I need to…”
- Attention. This one helps you become more intentional about where you place your attention by asking you to complete this sentence: “To be my best today, I will focus on doing or being…”
Quite a mnemonic device.
How widely is this secret employed at Google; specifically, in the AI ethics department? The write up does not elucidate on this matter.
Resilience for one former AI ethics type the secret was landing a job at Apple.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2021
Google Caught In Digital and Sticky Ethical Web
May 3, 2021
Google is described as an employee first company. Employees are affectionately dubbed “Googlers” and are treated to great benefits, perks, and work environment. Google, however, has a dark side. While the company culture is supposedly great, misogynistic, racist attitudes run rampant. Bloomberg via Medium highlights recent ethical violations in the article, “Google Ethical AI Group’s AI Turmoil Began Long Before Public Unraveling.”
One of the biggest ethical problems Google has dealt with is the lack of diverse information in their facial recognition datasets. This has led to facial recognition AI’s inability to recognize minority populations. If ethical problems within their technology were not enough, Google had created an Ethical AI research team headed by respected scientists Margaret Mitchell and Timnit Gebru.
Google had Gebru forcefully resign from the company in December 2020, when she refused to retract a research paper that criticized Google’s AI. Mitchell was also terminated in February 2021 on the grounds she was sending Google sensitive documents to personal accounts.
During their short tenure as Google’s Ethical AI team leads, Mitchell and Gebru witnessed a sexist and racist environment. They both noticed that women with more experience held lower job titles than men with less experience. When female employees were harassed and incidents were reported nothing was done.
Head of Google AI Jeff Dean appeared to be a supporter of Gebru and Mitchell, but while he voiced supported his actions spoke louder:
“Dean struck a skeptical and cautious note about the allegations of harassment, according to people familiar with the conversation. He said he hadn’t heard the claims and would look into the matter. He also disputed the notion that women were being systematically put in lower positions than they deserved and pushed back on the idea that Mitchell’s treatment was related to her gender. Dean and the women discussed how to create a more inclusive environment, and he said he would follow up on the other topics….
About a month after Gebru and Heller reported the claims of sexual harassment and after the lunch meeting with Gebru and Mitchell, Dean announced a significant new research initiative, and put the accused individual in charge of it, according to several people familiar with the situation. That rankled the internal whistleblowers, who feared the influence their newly empowered colleague could have on women under his tutelage.”
Google had purposely created the Ethical AI research team to bring attention to disparities and poor behavior to their attention. When Gebru and Mitchell did their job, their observations were dismissed.
Google shot itself in the foot when they fired Gebru and Mitchell, because the pair were doing their job. Because the pair questioned Google’s potential problems with Google technology and fought against sexism and racism, the company treated them as disruptive liabilities. Mitchell and Gebru’ treatment point to issues of self-regulation. Companies are internally biased, because they want to make money and not make mistakes. However, this attitude creates a lackadaisical attitude towards self-regulation and responsibility. Biased technology leads to poor consequences for minorities that could potentially ruin their lives. Is it not better to be aware of these issues, accept the problem, then fix it?
Google is only going to champion itself and not racial/gender equality.
Whitney Grace, May 3, 2021
Google Bets: Chump Change
April 30, 2021
In the midst of stakeholder ebullience about Alphabet Google’s money making prowess, I spotted one interesting comment. “Alphabet Reports Q1 2021 Revenue of $55.3 Billion” included this statement:
The closely-watched “Other Bets” continues to lose money. It reported $198 million revenue primarily generated by Verily and Fiber from $135 million in Q1 of 2020. However, it lost $1.15 billion compared to $1.12 billion in the same quarter of last year.
For a company of Alphabet Google YouTube’s scale this is a modest loss. However, it does beg a couple of questions:
- Is the data analysis used to decide upon what to wager flawed?
- Is there high value information about the firm’s management of certain projects contained in these increasing and continuing losses?
Alphabet does online advertising and data vending. Innovation may be more of a reach than some expected.
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2021
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