Google: Adulting Becomes a Thing
September 8, 2022
My goodness, it has taken more than 20 years for the Backrub-inspired search and ad company to embrace adulting. This term takes a noun like adult and converts it to a verb. This English trick is one that thrills English as a Second Language students. What I am going to do is equate “adulting” with the management precepts of Peter Drucker. Now you see why figuring out what I am saying and not saying is so darned unusual.
First, however, we need some context. That estimable source of real news (Fox) published this story: “Google CEO Sundar Pichai Looking to Improve Tech Giant’s Efficiency.” The Big Dog of the Google is participating in explainers to the tech worshipers that the time is now for adulting. The idea is that the Google is under pressure from several different hypercube vectors; for example:
- The lovable and enlightened Amazon with its newfound clicks from product search and a corresponding surge in product related advertising
- That affable crowd in Cupertino who are taking steps to make sure the walled garden does not allow Googzilla too much room in which to cause mischief
- Those with-it regulators and elected officials in governments near and far who don’t understand how making money on ads as the saloon swinging door with a charge to come in and leave works for the benefit of anyone except the Google
- Wizards who find themselves orthogonal to Google’s personnel postures. Yep, Dr. Timnit Gebru et al. “Disagree and Begone” could become a new Xoogler T shirt for diversity conference attendees
- Technical debt, which — despite Google’s mostly not talking about it — continues to incur some hefty costs. One can fire people but one cannot do much more than sell data center gear on eBay or Swappa
- High school management methods. I have explained this concept in previous posts so use the search box and read the explanation, please. The new idea is that the best high school science club members will not want to work at the Google. Yikes. Regressing toward the mean maybe?
What did the Big Dog say is the future of Google?
One big point is that the 20 percent frittered away on the dorm notion of one day a week of other stuff is over. Now Googlers have to work like a person on the Ford assembly line in 1937. Punch in, do stuff that matters, and punch out. No output, no pay. Simple. I remember reading that programmers write code about 30 minutes a day. What are these wizards going to do in the other 7.5 hours? Well, Foosball, table tennis, and volleyball may be difficult when the kid toys are removed. Google is a place for real work. What is that work? Well, Google doesn’t explain too much, but I assume it is quantifiable, good for humankind, fair, equitable, and unbiased just like Snorkel automated training data.
Another point is that the new Google sets priorities. I think priorities are useful. Why have a couple dozen messaging apps and smart software that displays ads totally unrelated to either the content of a YouTube video or to the interests of a Google customer who pays for Google services? I suppose Google has given up on solving death, which, as I understood the project, was a priority.
I also noted that Google is moving more slowly. My experience suggests that what went quickly was work blessed by the senior management. Some employees are left to their own devices to learn how Google works, snag a project, and produce something that makes money. In order to set priorities, one has to do the Drucker type work. Is that type of thinking in the Google incentive plan?
To sum up: Google is in danger of having to face life as an ageing sled dog or arthritic Googzilla. Maybe some of the “solve death” research can rejuvenate the behemoth before the snow piles up and Googzilla moves even more slowly.
Stephen E Arnold, September 8, 2022
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