Re:Google Pay
by stock_toaster on Monday January 08, 2018 @05:46PM
(#16101545)
I once heard that at Google advancement (and thus salary increase) is significantly pinned to shipping new things. As a result, nobody is incentivized to work on maintenance or improvement of existing things. Everybody wants to ship something new, so they can ride along with it up the corporate elevator.
Counterpoint: I've been promoted 5 times (last was to Director), and i've never shipped anything new, only worked on maintenance or improvement of existing things.
It was probably via [this Quora answer](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...).
I don't think that's entirely accurate. There are efforts to reward Product Excellence, for example, which involved UX polish, performance tuning etc.
> It was probably via [this Quora answer](http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...).
FYI, HN doesn't really have markdown, so that link doesn't work. Instead, generally we do something like this:
> It was probably via this Quora answer[1]
> I don't think that's entirely accurate. There are efforts to reward Product Excellence, for example, which involved UX polish, performance tuning etc.
>
> 1: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employees-worst-things...).
Re:Google Pay
by em3rgent0rdr on Monday January 08, 2018 @11:35PM
(#16103635)
> "Why do we have two payment solutions? Let us merge them."
Reminds me of XKCD's "How standards proliferate" https://xkcd.com/927/
Chief Googler: "We need a payments product: Google Wallet"
time passes
Android Team: "Google Wallet does not fit mobile well and the Wallet team is in another building. Let's do our own thing: Android Pay"
time passes
Chief Googler: "WTF? Why do we have two payment solutions? Let us merge them."
Android Team: "We will not give away our control to Team Google Wallet! They have no clue about mobile."
Team Google Wallet: "We will not give away our control to Team Android! They have no clue about big business."
Chief Googler: "I just created a third new greenfield project. You will both cooperate there. Let's try if it works out."
Android Team: "Ok that works for us"
Team Google Wallet: "Ok that works for us"
time passes
Team Three: "Hey this actually works fine on mobile and big business."
Chief Googler: "Great. Now let's make this public. Oh, and ... Android Team and Team Google Wallet, you are terminated."
Essentially, it was a manager hack to make two teams cooperate. Names have a lot of power when groups of people interact.
(I have no clue what actually happens inside Google)