I heard that Facebook and Google collect engineers and let them do whatever because its better than them being productive at a competitor.

One of the most senior engineers here (someone with his name on many research and whitepapers from his tenures at Amazon, Microsoft et al), left Google for precisely this reason. He was bored of working on stuff that would never reach the light of day. It happened multiple times to him in his time there.

any pointers of who you might be referring to?

Textbook anti competitive behavior. Google needs to be broken up.

Yeah, let´s break Google into a bunch of smaller companies, all managed by Alphabet.

When people say this, what exactly does this mean? If you break Google up into Gmail, Search, Calendar, etc... what stops those from within, who have intimate knowledge of the innerworkings and HR related matters within Alphabet as a whole, from simply secretly colluding and sharing resources off the books?

I’ve asked this question an bunch of times and never got a serious reply. There’s no strong anti-trust angle or end game to these things, it’s purely vindictive because it’s trendy to hate on SV.

Sometimes companies are shitty but it doesn’t justify such a strong hammer. If anything their search products or mobile products would themselves need to be broken up, (or FBs network and Instagram) not the whole company... but even then it’s not like they will go away.

So I don't necessarily support it, and I agree a lot of technical people just hate SV and have no idea what it'd mean, but as a developer I can see some benefits.

Here's an example from Apple:

Only Apple Maps can show you maps on a locked screen.

Until iOS 13 Siri tightly integrated with Apple Music ways no other app could.

Apple Pay is the only payment method that can work with a locked phone.

Only Apple's app store can install apps.

Only Apple's messaging apps can create new contacts.

All built-in apps only call other Apple apps for supporting functionality, for example Reminders will only open Apple Maps, Siri smart suggestions for ETA only work with Apple Maps as well.

All Apple apps get an immense head start of integrating with new APIs and OS features.

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So if you create a competitor to one of those Apple apps, from day 1 you're at a disadvantage.

If they were broken up, all competitors would be on a much more even playing field with Apple's apps.

And Apple is just an easy example, Android is much more open than iOS, but Google Play Services is still a guillotine over anyone who dares to go against Google's wishes.

Imagine if Google services were separate companies so a claimed misdeed on one couldn't end what is the core of billions of people's online existence...

> it’s trendy to hate on SV.

Perhaps, but the vast majority of the hate lands on those companies that are actively screwing over their users, so... I'm happy with vindictive against a billion dollar monolith that I have no hope of ever controlling.

The idea is that breaking up a company will reduce both their resources available to behave badly (cash, infrastructure, people etc.) as well as getting the people in the newly independent organizations to start thinking competitively with each other as well as other companies in the market. If done right, the newly formed entities wouldn't be viewed as the 'same old people under a new name' but rather an entity no longer working toward the same goals if not an outright competitor. (that's in a perfect world... it rarely is perfect) What would keep them from colluding would typically be government/regulatory oversight for some period of time after the breakup with civil and/or criminal penalties being the stick for doing what you describe.

You mean other than the laws that were used to break them up?

Generally, just because someone may find a way around a law is not a justified reason for not having the law.

Simply, that's an extremely difficult criminal enterprise to pull of especially on an ongoing basis and for what gains? I would only see to do so for spite and active defiance of the law. Is that worth hefty fines, investigations, possible charges and jail time?

A break up usually means many of these people are laid off or move on. Every separate company would have its own books that would either need to be public if they remain public entities or have audited financials that match expenses to revenue and investments. Not an easy thing to hide QTR over QTR. Furthermore, depending on how the companies are broken up, they will be acquired by other companies or PE rather than be stand-alone enterprises. Lastly, whistleblowers.

TL;DR It's not worth it for spite and any significant gains or advantages that are imagined, are probably significant enough to be noticed by the government or some enterprising analyst.

Doesn't seem like they do "whatever", but rather "whatever they're told" - otherwise they'd be free to maintain passion projects (like our beloved Reader.)

I got my first promotion in Google for preventing a half-forgotten system from imploding.

That's actually a bad sign, as it shows how notable it is at Google when something like this is prevented... ️

Preventing Products from failing should be SOP.

It's bad that there are half forgotten systems but almost every sizable business that has been around for many years will have this. On mobile, but there's a famous story of a server that had been drywalled over and had been running just fine, unnoticed and unattended, for years.

It's good to see that maintenance is rewarded at Google at least occasionally. I only ever hear that it is only new products that are rewarded. And I notice new people piling on to issues in their product trackers that I've been following for years.

> On mobile, but there's a famous story of a server that had been drywalled over and had been running just fine, unnoticed and unattended, for years.

This one?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_serv...

But consider incentives. If nobody gets promoted for doing it, nobody does it. Promotion for maintenance isn't a bad sign if your corporate culture is "hire the smartest people in the room and let them build great products;" you're going to have to incentivize maintenance somehow, and "maintain it or you're fired" is counter to your cultural goals.

Promoting people who notice impending implosions should also be SOP.

Leading to a black market in manufactured implosion-causing problems!

It’s not at all a bad sign. Any large and complex system will have parts rot from lack of maintenance, and giving awards to people who identify and correct this ahead of disasters is a good thing.

So... people shouldn't be promoted for keeping existing services running, but they should keep those services running as SOP? Sounds like a recipe for misaligned incentives to me.

Nobody cares about maintenance at most places.