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
Eschewing the Google: Career Suicide or Ethical Savvy?
March 19, 2021
I spotted an interested quote in Wired’s “The Departure of 2 Google AI Researchers Spurs More Fallout.” Here’s the quote:
“Google has shown an astounding lack of leadership and commitment to open science, ethics, and diversity in their treatment of the Ethical AI team.”
It’s been several months since the Google engaged in Gebru-gibberish; that is, the firm’s explanations about the departure of a PhD who wrote a research paper suggesting that the Google’s methods may not be a-okay.
The Google is pressing forward with smart software, which is, the future of the company. I thought online advertising was, but what do I know.
The article also mentions that a high profile AI researcher would not attend a Google AI event. The reason? Here’s what Wired reports:
Friday morning, Kress-Gazit emailed the event’s organizers to say she would not attend because she didn’t wish to be associated with Google research in any way. “Not only is the research process and integrity of Google tainted, but it is clear, by the way these women were treated, that all the diversity talk of the company is performative,” she wrote. Kress-Gazit says she didn’t expect her action to have much effect on Google, or her own future work, but she wanted to show solidarity with Gebru and Mitchell, their team, and their research agenda.
A few years ago, professionals would covet a Google tchotchke like a mouse pad or a flashing Google LED pin. (My tarnished and went dead years ago.) Now high profile academics are unfriending Messrs. Brin and Page online ad machine.
Interesting shift in attitude toward the high school science club company in a few pulses of Internet time.
Stephen E Arnold, March 19, 2021
Facebook: The Polarization Position
March 17, 2021
I find Silicon Valley “real” news amusing. I like the publications themselves; for example, Buzzfeed. I like the stories themselves; for example, “Polarization Is Good For America, Actually, Says Facebook Executive.”
How much of the Google method has diffused into Facebook? From my point of view, a magnetic influence exists. The cited article points out:
Facebook has created a ”playbook” to help its employees rebut criticism that the company’s products fuel political polarization and social division.
The idea is that employees comprise a team. The team runs plays in order to score. The playbook also directs and informs team members on their roles.
“Trapped Priors As a Basic Problem of Rationality” explains how feedback loops lead to a reinforcement of ideas, data, and rationality otherwise not noticed.
Buzzfeed references this Facebook research document:
In the [Facebook] paper, titled “What We Know About Polarization,” Cox and Raychodhury [Facebook experts] call polarization “an albatross public narrative for the company.” “The implicit argument is that Facebook is contributing to a social problem of driving societies into contexts where they can’t trust each other, can’t share common ground, can’t have conversation about issues, and can’t share a common view on reality,” they write, adding that “the media narrative in this case is generally not supported by the research.” While denying that Facebook meaningfully contributes to polarization, Pablo Barberá, a research scientist at the company, also suggested political polarization could be a good thing during Thursday’s presentation. “If we look back at history, a lot of the major social movements and major transformations, for example, the extension of civil rights or voting rights in this country have been the result of increasing polarization,” he told employees.
The value of polarization and a game plan to make explicit a particular business method are high. The fact that the trappings of research are required to justify the game plan is interesting. But those trapped priors are going to channel Facebook’s behavior into easy-to-follow grooves.
Scrutiny, legal action, and “more of the same” will allow pot holes to form. Some will be deep. Others will be no big deal.
Stephen E Arnold, March 17, 2021
The Google: Disrupting Education in the Covid Era
March 15, 2021
I thought the Covid thing disrupted education. As a result, Google’s video conferencing system failed to seize an opportunity. Even poor, confused Microsoft put some effort into Teams. Sure, Teams is not the most secure or easy to use video conferencing service, but it has more features than Google has chat apps and ad options. Google also watched the Middle Kingdom’s favorite video service “zoom” right into a great big lead. Arguably, Google’s video conferencing tool should have hooked into the Chromebook, which is in the hands of some students. But what’s happened? Zoom, zoom, zoom.
I read this crisp headline: “Inside Google’s Plan to Disrupt the College Degree (Exclusive). Get a First Look at Google’s New Certificate Programs and a New Feature of Google Search Designed to Help Job Seekers Everywhere.”
Wow. The write up is an enthusiastic extension of Google Gibru-ish. Here’s why:
- Two candidates. One is a PhD from Princeton with a degree in computer science. The other is a minority certificate graduate. Both compete for the same job. Which candidate gets the job?
- One candidate, either Timnit Gebru or Margaret Mitchell. Both complete a Google certification program. Will these individuals get a fair shake and maybe get hired?
- Many female candidates from India. Some are funded by Google’s grant to improve opportunities for Indian females. How many will get Google jobs? [a] 80 to 99 percent, [b] 60 to 79 percent, [c] fewer than 60 percent? (I am assuming this grant and certificate thing are more than a tax deduction or hand waving.)
High school science club management decisions are fascinating to me.
Got your answers? I have mine.
For the PhD versus the certificate holder, the answer is it depends. A PhD with non Googley notions about ethical AI is likely to be driving an Uber. The certificate holder with the right mental orientation gets to play Foosball and do Googley things.
For the Gebru – Mitchell question, my answer is neither. Female, non-Googley, and already Xooglers. Find your future elsewhere is what I intuit.
And the females in India. Hard to say. The country is far away. The $20 million or so is too little. The cultural friction within the still existing castes are too strong. Maybe a couple is my guess.
In short, Google can try to disrupt education. But Covid has disrupted education. Another outfit has zoomed into chinks in the Google carapace. So marketing it is. It may work. Google is indeed Google.
Stephen E Arnold, March 15, 2021
Amazon and Personnel Wizardry?
March 11, 2021
Amazon likes to say it successfully promotes diversity and inclusion in its company, and some of the numbers it touts do represent a measure of success. However, there appears to be a lot of work left to do and not enough will to do it from the powerful “S Team.” Recode discusses “Bias, Disrespect and Demotions: Black Employees Say Amazon Has a Race Problem.” The extensive article begins with the story of former employee Chanin Kelly-Rae, a former global manager of diversity for AWS. She began the position with high hopes, but quit in dismay 10 months later. Reporter Meron Menghistab writes:
“Kelly-Rae, who is Black, is one of more than a dozen former and current Amazon corporate employees — 10 of whom are Black — who told Recode in interviews over the past few months that they felt the company has failed to create a corporate-wide environment where all Black employees feel welcomed and respected. Instead, they told Recode that, in their experience, Black employees at the company often face both direct and insidious bias that harms their careers and personal lives. All of the current and former employees, other than Kelly-Rae, spoke on condition of anonymity either because of the terms of their employment with Amazon or because they fear retribution from Amazon for speaking out about their experiences. Current and former Amazon diversity and inclusion professionals — employees whose work focuses on helping Amazon create and maintain an equitable workplace and products — told Recode that internal data shows that Amazon’s review and promotion systems have created an unlevel playing field. Black employees receive ‘least effective’ marks more often than all other colleagues and are promoted at a lower rate than non-Black peers. Recode reviewed some of this data for the Amazon Web Services division of the company, and it shows large disparities in performance review ratings between Black and white employees.”
Amazon, of course, disagrees with this characterization, but it is difficult to argue with all the points Menghistab considers: the many unsettling comments made to and about Black employees by higher-ups; the reluctance of management to embrace best practices suggested by their own diversity experts; the fact that diversity goals do not extend to top management positions; the rampant “down-leveling” of employees of color, its long-term effects on each worker, and the low chances of promotion; a hesitation to hire from historically Black colleges; and the problematic “Earns Trust” evaluation metric. We suggest interested readers navigate to the article to learn more about each of these and other factors.
Some minority employees say they have reason to hope. For one thing, the problems do not pervade the entire company—many teams happily hum along without any of these problems. The company is making a few small steps in the right direction, like requiring workers undergo diversity and inclusion training, participating in the Management Leadership of Tomorrow’s Black Equity at Work Certification, and holding a virtual career-enrichment summit for Black, Latinx, and Native American prospective employees. There will never be a quick and easy fix for the tech behemoth, but as Kelly-Rae observes:
“Amazon is really good at things it wants to be good at, and if Amazon decided it really wanted to be good at this, I have no doubt it can be.”
Time to step it up, Amazon.
Cynthia Murrell, March 11, 2021
Business Process Management: Buzzy Again
March 10, 2021
If you never heard about business process management (BPM) it means the practice of discovering and controlling an organization’s processes so they will align with business goals as the company evolves. BPM software is the next phase of business intelligence software for enterprises. CIO explains what to expect from BPM software in the article: “What Is Business Process Management? The Key To Enterprise Agility.”
BPM software maps definitions to existing processes, defines steps to carry out tasks, and tips for streamlining/improving practices. Organizations are constantly shifting to meet their goals and BPM is software is advertised as the best way to refine and control changing environments. All good BPM software should have the following: alignment of the firm’s resources, increase discipline in daily operations, and clarify on strategic direction. While most organizations want flexibility they lack it:
“A company can only be as flexible, efficient, and agile as the interaction of its business processes allow. Here’s the problem: Many companies develop business processes in isolation from other processes they interact with, or worse, they don’t “develop” business processes at all. In many cases, processes simply come into existence as “the way things have always been done,” or because software systems dictate them. As a result, many companies are hampered by their processes, and will continue to be so until those processes are optimized.”
When selecting a BPM software it should be capable of integrations, analytics, collaboration, form generation, have a business rules engine, and workflow managements.
BPM sounds like the next phase of big data, where hidden insights are uncovered in unstructured data. BPM takes these insights, then merges them with an organization’s goals. Business intelligence improves business processes, big data discovers insights, and BPM organizes all of it.
Whitney Grace, March 10, 2021
Ah, Google: Does Confusion Signal a Mental Health Issue?
March 8, 2021
Upon rising this morning, I noted this item in “The New Google Pay Repeats All the Same Mistakes of Google Allo.” The idea is that Google management has reinvented an application, changed the fee method, and named the “new” Google Pay app “Google Pay.” According to the write up:
Google is killing one perfectly fine service and replacing it with a worse, less functional service.
Slashdot’s item about this remarkable “innovation” includes this comment:
The worst part of it all is that, like the move from Google Music to YouTube Music, there is no reward at the end of this transition.
I have to admit that I don’t remember much about my college psych course, but I seem to recall something called Schizoaffective Disorder. Shrinks revel in such behaviors as sometimes strange beliefs that the person refuses to give up, even when they get the facts; problems with speech and communication, only giving partial answers to questions or giving answers that are unrelated; and problems with speech and communication, only giving partial answers to questions, or giving answers that are unrelated, and trouble at work, school, or in social settings. (Yep, I had to get some help from the ever reliable Webmd.com.)
More intriguing was the news item “Google Advised Mental Health Care When Workers Complained about Racism and Sexism.” That article asserted:
In early 2020, a Black woman attended a Google meeting about supporting women at the company where data was presented that showed the rate that underrepresented minority employees were leaving the company. When she said that Black, Latina and Native American women have vastly different experiences than their white female colleagues and advised that Google address the issue internally, her manager brusquely responded, telling her that her suggestion was not relevant, the woman said. The woman then complained to human resources, who advised her to coach the manager about her problematic response or take medical leave to tend to her own mental health, she said. The woman also spoke on the condition of anonymity because she’s still an employee and not permitted to speak to reporters.
Does this mean that the women who worked in ethical artificial intelligent were “mentally unfit” for the Google?
Stepping back, the problem may not be with the Google Pay app or the people reported as mental health concerns. The problem appears to reside in the culture and explicit and implicit “rules of the road” for Alphabet Google.
Several observations may be warranted:
- The legal attention Google is drawing should result in lower profile or significant efforts to avoid personnel related issues becoming news. Google’s behavior appears to generate significant attention and spark outrage, including increased employee annoyance.
- The financial pressures on Google should be sparking wizards to craft well conceived, highly desirable ways to monetize billions of users who make use of “free” Google services. It certainly seems that Google is taking steps which seem to be irrational to those outside Google whilst appearing to be logical to those steeped in the Google milieu. The Google culture could be a form of milieu therapy which feeds to possible Schizoaffective Disorder.
- Google’s management behaviors are interesting. On one hand, naming services underscores the problems the firm has with speech and communication. On the other hand, mashing racial, social, and ethical hot buttons seems to escalate the stakes in the personnel game.
Net net: I think these behaviors are interesting. What these actions really mean must be left to user, employees, lawyers, and probably psychiatrists. These actions are further evidence of the weaknesses of the high school science club approach to management. Here in rural Kentucky, one of my research team said, “Crazy.”
That’s quite an observation about a big, informed, powerful company.
Stephen E Arnold, March 8, 2021
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