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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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
A Test to Determine Googliness
April 12, 2021
I read “After Working at Google, I’ll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again.” I immediately thought of the statement, “You’ll Never Work in This Town Again.” Did the icon Harvey Weinstein say this? I can’t recall.
Okay, no loving a job. The real news “opinion” piece explains a harrowing, first-person account of harassment. Did I harass Mr. Weinstein with my use of the word “icon”? Yikes.
To learn about the mom-and-pop online ad agency’s approach to personnel management, read the real news “opinion” article.
Here’s what I gleaned from the write up:
1. Be a compliant engineer who stays within the bright white lines of behavior at the Google. What if the interactions are virtual? No matter. Bright white lines, real or imagined, are the markers.
2. Don’t pick a mentor who wants to keep his / her job, bonus, stock options, and invitations to select company events. (Once some events required a ski weekend. Whoooie! Fun.) Mentors who value something other than “relationships” may provide a re-introduction to the Maslow – Google hierarchy of needs.
3. Keep quiet and avoid the human resources people management wizard. After a sales call at SHRM or something like that, I knew that modern HR was a casualty of MBA think; for example, employees are at fault. Unproductive employees are self identified. Modern organizations don’t want flawed and profit-sucking humanoids. Maybe I have the human resource function wrong, but I too can have an opinion.
4. Life at the Googleplex does not dispense “Also Participated” badges like a really trendy private middle school.
These observations lend themselves to items on my “Checklist for Being Googley”; to wit:
- Be smart enough to be compliant and “cooperative”
- Work alone when possible delivering “good enough” outputs
- Operate without official or unofficial visits to personnel professionals
- Welcome inter-personal interactions warmly, enthusiastically, and without documenting such encounters
- Do “what it takes” to join a hot team, get a promotion, and enter the private domains of the truly elite
- Eschew interviews, book deals, and opportunities to contribute to a “real news” channel.
If you can tick off each of these items, you are ready to do a run through the Google Labs Aptitude Test. Rumored to have been retired, copies of these tests of Google grade knowledge are still available. Just search Google.com. Oh, strike that. This link returns the questions, not the attractive green of the original hard copy with the really hard questions like:
What’s broken with Unix? How would you Fix it?
Beyond Search had a copy but boxer Max ate it years ago. Yes, he passed the exam.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2021
Want to Change Employee Behavior? What Not to Do
April 12, 2021
I read “The One System That Changes Employee Behavior.” Interesting but disconnected from good old reality. I assume that the breezy recommendations comprise the one system a manager with an MBA and a back ground in the disconnected world of high school science club decision making are perfect for thumbtypers.
Wrong. Behavior change in a commercial enterprise is induced by hooking compensation (tangible or intangible) to specific outcomes. Another way to think about change is to think about this statement, “Do this and you get a raise and a promotion.”
Let’s look at the four recommendations that comprise the “one system that changes employee behavior.” Here are what I call “thumbtyper” suggestions. My observations appear in italics after these bullets of high powered wisdom:
1. Define corporate values.
Okay, that’s something for a first year business class. Get those values down to a snappy phrase like “Do no evil.” One can also look to outfits like Credit Suisse. That outfit’s executives are in a tizzy because of its financial sinkhole related to the ethical paragons at Archegos. To understand corporate values, talk to the former McKinsey wizards who engineered success at a large pharmaceutical firm.
2. Define pinpointed behaviors aligned with values.
Many interesting examples of this alignment thing can be located. Examples include the fascinating tale of a Google attorney who was philandering to the Big Zuck who wanted to eat meat of animals he killed. Did he wear a PETA cap whist satisfying his culinary goals? Alignment of privacy and Facebook revenue are almost as interesting. I do like the word “pinpointed”, however. Precision is required for advertisers to buy click as well as for inducing pregnancy and killing a plump French bulldog tied to a door knob on University Avenue. As you ponder the canine metaphor, define value for attendees at a virtual venture funded entrepreneur-to-be conference.
3. Change your behaviors.
Ho, ho, ho. Try that with this senior manager at a high tech firm in the cradle of ethical behavior. The behavior requiring change is described in “Prostitute Convicted in Google Exec’s Overdose Death Charged.” Yep, intervention works great. On the other hand, step back and watch how behaviors evolve once a secret is exposed. Current examples fall readily to hand; for example, explanations about data loss from social media outfits.
4. Facilitate change in others.
This is an interesting idea. Let’s take the example of Uber. Travis Kalanick, who needed to grow up, did indeed alter others. Some of his methods are documented in the BBC article “Uber: The Scandals That Drove Travis Kalanick Out.” A more mundane example may lurk in one’s own mind. How often did someone tell you, gentle reader, do your homework? Works everytime for those under the age of 13, doesn’t it?
My thought is that these ideas do not comprise a system.
What works is incentives. Pay for specific actions. When the action is delivered in a satisfactory way, provide more payoffs. Magic. The somewhat shallow “one system” ain’t gonna do it. Cash is more reliable a motivator.
Stephen E Arnold, April 12, 2021
The Alphabet Google YouTube Thing Explains Good Old Outcome Centered Design
April 8, 2021
If you have tried to locate information on a Google Map, you know what good design is, right? What about trying to navigate the YouTube upload interface to add or delete a “channel”? Perfection, okay. What if you have discovered an AMP error email and tried to figure out how a static Web site generated by an AMP approved “partner” can be producing a single flawed Web page? Intuitive and helpful, don’t you think?
Truth is: Google Maps are almost impossible to use regardless of device. The YouTube interface is just weird and better for a 10-year-old video game player than a person over 30, and the AMP messages? Just stupid.
I read “Waymo’s 7 Principles of Outcome-Centered Design Are What Your Product Needs” and thought I stumbled upon a listicle crafted by Stephen Colbert and Jo Koy in the O’Hare Airport’s Jazz Bar.
Waymo (so named because one get way more with Alphabet Google YouTube — hereinafter, AGYT)technology — is managed by co-CEOs. It is semi famous for hiring uber engineer Anthony Levandowski. Plus the company has been beavering away to make driving down 101 semi fun since 2009. The good news is that Waymo seems to be making more headway than the Google team trying to solve death. The Wikipedia entry for Waymo documents 12 collisions, but the exact number of smart errors by the Alphabet Google YouTube software is not known even to some Googlers. Need to know, you know.
What are the rules for outcome centered design; that is, ads but no crashes I presume. The write up presents seven. Here are three and you can let your Chrome browser steer you to the full list. Don’t run into the Tesla Web site either, please.
Principle 2. Create focus by clarifying you8r purpose.
Okay, focus. Let’s see. When riding in a vehicle with no human in charge, the idea is to avoid a crash. What about filtering YouTube for okay content? Well, that only works some of the time. The Waymo crashes appear to underscore the fuzz in the statistical routines.
And Principle 4. Clue in to your customer’s context.
Yep, in a vehicle which knows one browsing history and has access to nifty profiles with probabilities allows the vehicle to just get going. Forget what the humanoid may want. Alphabet Google YouTube is ahead of the humanoid. Sometimes. The AFYT approach is to trim down what the humanoid wants to three options. Close enough for horse shoes. Waymo, like Alphabet Google YouTube, knows best. Just like a digital mistress. The humanoid, however, is going to a previously unvisited location. Another humanoid told the rider face to face about an emergency. The AGYT system cannot figure out context. Not to worry. Those AGYT interfaces will make everything really easy. One can talk to the Waymo equipped smart vehicle. Just speak clearly, slowly, and in a language which Waymo parses in an acceptable manner. Bororo won’t work.
Finally, Principle 7: Edit edit edit.
I think this means revisions. Those are a great idea. Alphabet Google YouTube does an outstanding job with dots, hamburger menus, and breezy writing in low contrast colors. Oh, content? If you don’t get it, you are not Googley. Speak up and you may be the Timnit treatment or the Congressional obfuscation rhetoric. I also like ignoring the antics of senior managers.
Yep, outcome centered. Great stuff. Were Messrs. Colbert and Koy imbibing something other than Sprite at the airport when possibly conjuring this list of really good tips? What’s the outcome? How about ads displayed to passengers in Waymo infused vehicles? Context centered, relevant, and a feature one cannot turn off.
Stephen E Arnold, April 8, 2021
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